Letter from the Desk of Nickelodeon's Marc Summers Circa 2001

Dear [Agent Who Formerly Represented Summers]**,

As I write this I am just now recovering from an OCD episode I had several weeks ago. It occurred while I was on the National Live Tour promoting Double Dare 2000. One of the pies got all over my brown suede shoe while at the same time gak squirted into my eye. I couldn’t eat or sleep for two days. I wouldn’t expect you to know this as you haven’t contacted me in over a year and a half. I believe the last time we spoke was when I signed on as an executive producer for the first Double Dare of the new millenium.

You’re a shitty agent. I guess I should have seen it coming from a mile away but I was naive. I was a doe-eyed lad eager for superstardom in the field of children’s reality television programming and was going to stop at nothing to
attain it. Even if that meant taking on roles which I knew would cause me immense heartache and endless hours in the bathroom washing my hands.

But couldn’t you have at least tried to steer me towards something a little less…messy? For chrissake, every potential project that crossed your desk involved some form of slime, gook, pie, mud, dirt, gak, or putty. I need to know, did you hate me? Did you want to see me suffer as that unknowing guest chose to go to the Pie Pod rather than do what it said on the card? Did you enjoy it? I wish you could have gotten inside my head during those moments of despair on the set of “What Would You Do” when all I could wish for was, “Please pick the hidden talent, please pick the hidden talent.”

All that said, I respectfully decline your warm and generous offer to sign me up as the host of this upcoming TV Show called “Fear Factor.” I just can’t see myself participating in a show where the object is to consume as many roaches as possible in two minutes. You know what? Actually, I don’t respectfully decline at all. I decline with a vengeance. I will take you down! I will make sure you never live another day without…oh my god…is that Mustard on the carpet…(indecipherable writing).


**Name left out for confidentiality