What is this year’s best parody from the CBS Follies? “Cold Call Nightmare” may have the most popular appeal
Some advice for the next dean of Columbia Business School: You’d better be able to take a joke.
Heaven knows, you’re going to be the butt of plenty of CBS Follies skits.
Glenn Hubbard, the school’s outgoing dean, has certainly been a good sport over the years. In White House Dream, you’ll find Dean Hubbard lamenting days lost to meetings and nights devoted to fund-raising. His response? Groveling for a job – any job – in the Mitt Romney administration, where he dreams of slashing budgets and watering down regulations. This spring, his Slim Shady acolytes riffed on him in The Real Glenn Hubbard, taking veiled shots on everything from Hubbard finishing second for the Fed Chair job to his crusade to turn CBS’ ranking “from a nine into a six.”
THE OUTGOING DEAN GOES JOB HUNTING
Portrayed as a man as out of touch as he is ambitious, Hubbard seemingly takes the CBS Follies in stride. A rarity – seeing an actual Republican in New York is as common as witnessing a snow leopard in the Himalayas – Hubbard is hardly the man who’ll don a MAGA hat and tweet storm about how unfair students can be. That includes this year, where his Uris urchins strike close to home in their “Dean For Hire” skit.
In a send-off that’d strike fear into any job hunter, Hubby – Hubbard’s nickname – decides to transition into a career in ‘fin-nance.” A modern day Cyrano de Bergerac, he lures a student with flex dollars to play him in a job search. That’s when everything goes awry. The ‘dean’ delivers his elevator pitch by reading off his Wikipedia page. Warren Buffet hangs up on him when he calls for career advice. To add insult to injury, he can’t even land a first round interview with Bain & Company. Turns out, Dean Hubbard isn’t all that marketable…except as a Columbia Business School professor, of course. The reason is all too heartbreaking.
“It seems the Follies really damaged your reputation,” explains his stand-in.
A CHANCE TO MAKE A STATEMENT…AND EVEN SCORES
The CBS Follies have long been a net gain for the business school. A student-run comedy troupe, CBS Follies holds variety shows before the end of fall and spring semesters. Thanks to the digital age, the club has moved their skits and dance routines to their YouTube channel, which now houses nearly 400 videos stretching back to 2009. While not slick and cash-flush by Hollywood standards, these sketches are good for dozens of laughs. For students and alumni, they’re filled with inside jokes galore.
Lasting four to eight minutes on average, you could say the follies are about sparking conversations. Take the infamous Bitch in Business, a feminist call to arms featuring bottle-popping heroines enjoying the good life as their pleather-totting boy-toys wash their cars and vacuum their floors. Turns out, it became a cross-over hit, generating 3.3 million page views…and counting. Follies skits also lampoon, with anthropological precision, the issues that students wrestle with every day. These include classics like MBA (Married But Available), which spoofs the temptations inherent to rugby players and operations professors. If you can’t snag an MBA degree, there is always an MRS. A dance riff on Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies,” the parody brings a critical point to life: Marry a rich banker who can buy you s**t or be relegated to a life of dive bars, Häagen-Dazs, and cats.
Alas, the CBS Follies are also about evening scores. Traditionally, the biggest target for their jabs has been Uris Hall, a humorless cement husk that could seemingly double for a high school in a John Hughes movie. Not a year goes by, it seems, without the Follies poking fun at their rankings-obsessed administrators, whose devotion to breaking into the Top Five may stem more from a nascent Napoleon Complex than a healthy competitive drive. In other words, the skits offer an intimate, inside glimpse at life inside Columbia Business School, warts and all. For MBA applicants, there must be something very special about a program that isn’t afraid to air its dirty laundry for all to see.
TOO COOL FOR CLASS
What is this year’s best parody? That’s hard to say, though “Cold Call Nightmare” may have the most popular appeal. Dredged up from their parents’ (or grandparents’) cassette tapes, the skit accomplishes the near impossible: making Madonna relevant again. Sung to “Like a Prayer,” the song is a homage to MBA students everywhere who are terrified of public speaking – or are too busy drinking beer towers at rugby happy hour to read their cases.
The secret to this video? Well, the choreography could use some polishing. The lyrics, however, shine like no other. Just look at the opening:
“Class is a mystery,
Didn’t read last night’s case.
Professor calls my name,
And my brain just froze.”
Yes, the song is about the complex dynamic between adult MBA candidates and faculty. The former believe they are on the fast track to millions. The latter? Well, they have to babysit their occasionally puerile patrons while racing to meet their “publish or perish” tenure requirements. Sure enough, the lyrics feature plenty of digs on their differing stations in life.
“Professor judging me,
But I make more money.”
“When I’m a billionaire,
I might donate to your bus fare.”
And then there’s the ultimate insult:
“My hand’s not in the air,
So shove your question you know where.”
So much for the myth that b-school faculty are pampered and overpaid, huh?
“YOUR ABUSE GIVES ME PLEASURE”
Think MBAs are gluttons for punishment? Meet the students who produced “Spreadsheets & Meetings,” a take on Rihanna’s “S&M.” Sure enough, the whips-and-chains theme of the original is ever present in this roast. Here, students long to be cuffed-to-their laptops, submissives in a consulting firm. In this world, they are titillated by (ahem) large decks and assets. As consultants, they place their lives on hold for late night calls, 110% travel (“different city, every week”), missed meals, and abusive bosses… all to get staffed for a project serving Kim Jong Un.
“Honestly, I’ve always wanted to not sleep,” jokes one student.
A toxic life, no doubt, but the skit is also a tongue-in-cheek warning against the “I’ll subject myself to anything” and “be at your command” ethos that can be summed up by one character’s declaration:
“F**k work-life balance, got my eye on that pile of cash.”
RIDDING URIS HALL…OF HORCRUXES
Considering the Millennial milieu that is business school, you have to expect at least one Harry Potter parody. Sure enough, CBS Follies delivers with “Harry Potter and the Half-Gone Dean”. Not surprisingly, Glenn Hubbard is back as the perfunctory punching bag. Yes, J.K. Rowling’s gang – Harry, Hermione and a spot-on Ron – engage in a great quest: the search for four pieces of the dean’s soul in Uris Hall.
Off the bat, the premise jumps the shark– business school deans have no souls. However, the students commit to their roles and race across the building to rid each horcrux. They find them in the library (a place where the internet has replaced books…even if the router rarely works); Lehman Lounge (where the free coffee is “only slightly subpar”); EMBA catering (which is never shared with full-time MBAs), and “The Curl” (just for being “hideous,” I guess). However, the parody leaves room for a sequel, as the trio discover there are actually a fifth horcrux – Uris Hall – a legacy that may outlive them since they predict it may take “forever” to finish the new building.
Stay tuned…
Columbia Business School. Courtesy photo
A DINING EXPERIENCE FIT FOR A DEAN
Another gem? How about “Chef’s Table: Uris Deli”? This mockumentary compares the Uris Deli to the greatest dining establishments in New York City: Keens Steakhouse, Peter Luger, Tavern on the Green, Junior’s (OK, just kidding on the last one). Think of it as a living case study of how this culinary hot spot has been able to achieve something that has eluded the great Manhattan restaurants: offering the same exact food and service while increasing the price by 100 times.
Meet Chef Toni – a true visionary who has brought together a team of lost souls (and a Stern grad) to create category-defining dining fare like the peanut butter and jelly sandwich or the deli’s signature dish…the $8 tin foil wrapped burger. “Food isn’t about taste and texture,” says the faux Toni. “For me, Uris Deli is not about taking something average and transforming it into something great. No! No, No, No. It is about taking the deli and preserving its glorious mediocrity.”
Yes, the Uris Deli carries a certain old world charm, replete with plastic table cloths, TV dinner grade platters, and tables on their last legs (literally). Perhaps that’s why one satisfied patron called it, “An experience unlike any other.” In fact, the school is in the process of changing the deli’s name to “Ooris Deleye,” a nod to its growing prestige. Most telling, the maître d’ describes the deli as “a place fit for a dean.”
Such acclaim may also explain why CBS has yet to reel in a replacement for Dean Hubbard.
SLACK IS WHACK
That first email is glorious – an acceptance into the school of your dreams. The next few are welcome introductions to the coming two years. The career center and student affairs follow ups are perfunctory, necessary even. Come Octoer, most first-years just want the email to stop.
Yes, everyone is looking to connect in business school, until their inboxes get inundated. That’s the subject of “Back to Slack”, a take on Drake’s “Back to Back.” In days filled with phone pings, our erstwhile students are now receiving more spam from classmates and administrators “than the recruiting team up at Bain.” Wow! That’s saying something.
No, this isn’t your mother’s business school. Now, technology makes it easy to get tangled up in various threads and channels. In an always-on world where constituencies are trading elbows and “clamoring for attention” – “Back to Slack” is a plea to return to a simpler time…or at least dump GroupMe.
“Who am I kidding, I’m an addict to Slack.
Don’t get a thumbs up or a heart, I’ll have a panic attack.
Dopamine through the screen, man Slack is crack.
Two iPads and a Mac stacked back to back.”
“HUBBY” GOES OFF ON THE NAYSAYERS
“If you’re not first, you’re last.”
That nugget of wisdom, courtesy of Talladega Nights’ Ricky Bobby, is the mantra for every business school dean. Unless you’re #1, your alumni thinks you should be better. Just ask Dean Hubbard – the MBA answer to a piñata (or a Rorschach).
In “The Bad Rank”, Hubby again takes one for the team. Here, he shares his true feelings about being #9 – and falling behind Michigan Ross in U.S. News, no less. Set to “The Bad Touch” – think “You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals” – Hubbard sets to rectify this miscarriage of justice, all while maintaining the worst comb-over…ever.
His solution, of course, is the usual academic prescriptions: assembling a task force and conducting another round of surveys. Alas, the student responses – “Make Uris less gross” and “More free s**t and no undergrads” aren’t particularly helpful. Worse yet, more applicants are choosing the GRE, further diluting another of the school’s traditional advantages.
So what’s left? Venting, of course. Few do it with more flair than this incarnation of Dean Hubbard. Look no further than his refrain:
“U.S. News raters ain’t nothin’ but haters,
With methodology created by some grumpy dictators.
U.S. News raters ain’t nothin’ but haters,
They’re less competent than most Democratic legislators.
U.S. News raters ain’t nothin’ but haters,
They weigh their findings based on 19th century indicators.
U.S. News raters ain’t nothin’ but haters,
I’m gonna take us to the top, say ‘kiss my a** to naysayers.”
MEET THE NEW DEAN…ELON MUSK
CBS is famous for its tagline, “At the very center of business.” What if the program could be “At the very center of the solar system”?
Meet the new dean…Elon Musk
Forget the new Manhattenville campus. Musk has more ambitious plans: “Moonhattanville” – a kitschy take on low budget sci-fi that’s normally relegated to late, late night television. The premise: Fresh off toking a joint, Dean Musk launches an MBA program on the moon for his Adderall-addicted students.
Think of it as a lunar promised land. Here, Spacebook recruits technicians for their “Moonlo Park” campus – unless your space VISA has expired, of course. Alas, Musk’s moon is much like Footloose’s Bormont, where the powers-that-be tuck away the forbidden fruit. Struggling to develop technical skills, a group of Moonhattanvilel students – arts majors all – stumble upon a gig too good to be true. It is a job requiring only soft skills, where you simply need to “make suggestions to the least innovative companies in the world.”
That’s right, these students have discovered (gasp!) management consulting. On that day, the resistance was born on Moonhattanville.
“I found out that there’s this thing MBAs would do when they couldn’t think of anything else to do,” explains one student. ‘It was called con-sul-ting. It’s basically when you put a bunch of pictures in a computer slideshow and then charge millions of dollars for it.”
Ah, if it were only that easy.
DATING MADE CLINICAL
Dating isn’t easy in business school. Who has the time? The energy? The money? Well, Columbia Business School offers a solution – in the most antiseptic way possible.
Introducing “Module 7: Dating”. Admitting that many MBA candidates have “neglected their romantic lives for the better part of [their] adulthood,” CBS administration has introduced a module to bring students up to speed. One feature: students can petition the Office of Student Affiars to boost “their credit limit to two [partners]…with three possible in extreme circumstances.”
Sound a lot like the process for picking classes? Strangely, the module includes an add/drop period, where students are encouraged to sit in on prospective dates; mid-term reviews where students can deliver “actionable feedback” to partners; and even a cross-registry, giving students the flexibility to find dates (for credit, I assume) outside the business school. The DMC (Dating Management Center) even provides resources ranging from dinner date and coffee chat preparation to executives-in-residence.
No wonder CBS’ trademark is now, “At the very center of dating.”
DON’T MISS: CBS FOLLIES RETURN WITH BEST MBA PARODIES YET OR AMERICA’S FUNNIEST MBA VIDEOS
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