An Imagined Conversation Between Lou Bega and the People Behind the Party City ‘A Little Bit of Shamrock’ Commercial

INT. Party City Headquarters

Lou Bega is meeting with some execs from Party City, America's number one source for novelty balloons and those glasses shaped like a number that everyone wears on New Year's Eve.

Party City Exec: So, Lou, we're big fans. But we have to ask -- did you ever actually have "a little bit of Monica" in your life? Ha ha!

Lou Bega: Right, like the song. That's good. Haven't heard that one before. Anyway, you were saying something about using 'Mambo No. 5' in a commercial?

Party City Exec: Right, right. But we want to make a few changes to the lyrics. How about --

Lou Bega: I'll stop you right there. Are you paying me in U.S. currency?

Party City Exec: Uh, yes?

Lou Bega: Then say no more. It's a deal.

Party City Exec: But we're going to change the lyrics to make them about clover-shaped headbands and shamrock beads and other St. Patrick's Day themed accessories.

Lou Bega: (looking at his phone) Great! Do you guys know if you can gold plate a dog collar? And if so, would it be considered animal cruelty to make my dog, Ruffbo No. 5, wear one?

Party City Exec: Uh, we're not sure. Lou, we just want to make sure that you're okay with us changing the words to your beloved hit song. We wouldn't want to dilute its impact.

Lou Bega: Let me give you a hypothetical. Let's say there's this musician. We'll call him "Stew Mega." And let's say "Stew" had a hit in the late '90s with a song that he stole, er, borrowed, from the Cuban recording artist Perez Prado. And let's also say that when he followed up his first record, 1999's 'A Little Bit of Mambo,' two years later with the album 'Ladies and Gentlemen' that the public wasn't exactly buying what "Stew" was selling. And let's also say that in those heady years of 1999 to 2001 that "Stew" developed a taste for omelets made from endangered condor eggs and also for "super cocaine," a particularly potent strain of narcotic secretly developed by the U.S. government in the 1970s that can only be procured from Bolivian drug cartels. Taking all this into account, wouldn't "Stew Mega" want to license his one hit to pretty much anyone who agrees to wire funds to his offshore account in the Cayman Islands?

Party City Exec: I'm sorry, did you say you eat condor eggs?

Lou Bega: I think we're done here. Now if you'll excuse me gentlemen, the Macon, Georgia county fair isn't going to headline itself.

THE END.