As we all know — every single one of us, on earth — Zendaya is Meechee. Last week, you might have found out that Zendaya is Meechee from a friend or loved one. Maybe the town crier ran down your street to let you know that Zendaya is, in fact, Meechee. She (Zendaya) is not not Meechee.
More likely, however, you found out that Zendaya is Meechee from a helpful video by web comedian Gabriel Gundacker, who created a little ditty that has somehow been stuck in my head for days.
To drop the bit for a second: Gundacker’s song highlights the baffling advertising campaign for the upcoming movie Smallfoot (the premise of which, from what I remember from one trailer, is, “What if Yetis discover humans?”), which presents the names of various actors and their respective characters. Such as: “ZENDAYA is MEECHEE.”
Which means: Zendaya, the mononymous actress, is Meechee, the character. Over the phone this week, Gundacker said, “I thought those three words together were this really abstract idea that … the poster was clearly insinuating that we were supposed to gather something from it.”
Danny DeVito is Dorgle, Lebron James is Gwangi, Gina Rodriguez is Kolka, and, of course, last but not least, Common is Stonekeeper. Our favorites. Deciding which characters to include was a simple process: “I’d walked by it the night before, and I didn’t want to walk the extra mile to figure out which names were on it, so I just tried to remember. That’s why I ended up saying ‘Zendaya is Meechee’ so many times. I couldn’t remember any of the other names.”
He added, “It’s just actually the pure joy of celebrating something that really is meaningless — a promotional poster for a movie you haven’t heard of.” He stressed that the video is not an ad, although it is the best exposure Smallfoot has received prerelease, despite being stacked with a cast of celebrities.
Even Zendaya (pronounced like “day,” not “die”) got in on the joke.
Gundacker declined to rank Meechee, Dorgle, Gwangi, Kolka, and Stonekeeper from best to worst. “I’m hesitant to rank them,” he said. “I feel like it’s more of a disciple situation. Zendaya is Meechee and then … the many disciples, of course, Stonekeeper … I can’t remember any of the other ones.”
