Small Time Crooks Page #4

for half an hour for a single cookie?

- That you've had to ration sales?

- Yeah, it happened like once.

But what're you making

all the fuss about?

Tell us. Where did you learn

the rare secret of your baking?

Well, I don't know.

It's the only thing I can cook.

That and linguini

with turkey meatballs.

Sir, how would you describe

your cookie?

Oh, I don't know.

It's baked with nutmeg or something.

- I just know it's great.

- And I just want to say that we're expanding.

- There are men in the back now tunneling...

- No, no, May! Get back...

I can't take this, Frenchy.

We don't want this kind of attention.

Don't look at me! I didn't hire

a publicity agent. They just showed up!

I know, but it's really

putting us in the toilet.

I can't concentrate. There's people

up there demanding cookies every day.

And today Denny got bit by a rat.

We had to give him rabies shots.

- Who, the rat?

- Very funny. You should be on TV.

I am! Open your eyes!

- Frenchy, I don't like this.

- Come on! You've been digging for weeks!

When you gonna get some where?

How much longer is it gonna take?

It's complicated!

We keep getting lost.

The other day I was deep

in the tunnel, my hat went out.

- That stupid coal miner's hat?

- That's right.

It's a lifesaver, that hat.

That bulb.

We'd have done better just with

a cookie store. We're making good dough.

"Making good dough." It's

a cookie store, but we're making dough.

That's very... It's a cookie store.

We're making dough...

I get it, I get it.

I knew we were going

the wrong way. I knew it!

- What the hell we doin' in a dress shop?

- Your fault, you got the maps.

At least it's a Sunday. We can

patch this up and get out of here.

- How we gonna patch it up?

- We tile it and we get out.

- Hello! I'm not a tiler.

- We don't have any tiles.

Where do you get cement

in the middle of a dress shop?

Besides, Brain, how are we going

to close the hole and tile it?

We're inside the store.

How do we get out?

Well, you tile... He's got a point.

You can't tile this from the other side.

- No kidding.

- No, you can't.

This is very discouraging, guys.

- I'm ready to pack this in.

- Everybody freeze!

Hey, Ray, your wife's cousin

talks too much.

Sorry to spoil

your expansion plans, fellas.

Officer, listen to me.

We didn't do anything yet. Yes,

it's true, we were gonna rob the bank.

But we screwed up everything,

except for the cookie shop.

The cookie shop's doing great

for some reason. You like the cookies.

Let us forget everything we were gonna

do and concentrate on the cookie store.

Look, I'm not here trying to ruin

anybody's life, okay?

Then give us a break.

Think I could get

a little piece of the action?

Yeah. I'm not opposed

to paying off the cops.

It's a standard

business expense.

That's the thing. I don't want you

to think of it as a payoff.

I think I'm qualified

to make what I believe...

...is a major contribution

to this enterprise.

My brother-in-law

majored in business.

Let us hear this contribution,

all right?

- One word.

- Yeah? And that word is?

Franchise.

We got about 600 trucks.

And, you know,

we're all over the country, and Canada.

We make a lot of different cookies. Whatever

you want. We got pistachio, pretzels.

We make chicken chip cookies,

tuna mint.

Virtually overnight, the Winklers

and their associates...

...have gone from a small, modest

mom and pop cookie shop...

...to something approaching

a baking empire.

This is where

we package everything.

And what we do is...

The cookies have

a wonderful smell, a fresh smell.

And that's all put on with

a chemical spray. We do that over here.

There's no denying that he's

refreshingly down to Earth...

...for a corporate executive.

So offbeat, in fact,

that Sunset Farms...

...has captured the imagination

of the public and the industry.

We wanted to find out

what the competition thinks.

So we went to Paul Milton

of American Cookies.

The bottom line is,

they make a really great product.

You have what the public wants, and

everything else takes care of itself.

- This is your office?

- This is pretty much where I operate.

Frenchy decorated this place.

You can tell.

She's got, uh,

all her stuff here.

This is an antique,

you know.

She says it's, like,

Louis XIV or Louis XV.

It's, uh... I don't know how high

the Louises go, actually.

But it's a top Louis.

It's one of the...

Frenchy stuck a TV in it,

you know, because she's got a creative...

- She's a creative decorator.

- It's very original.

- Um, how much are you worth?

- Oh, plenty, plenty.

- I mean, how much? Just between you and me.

- A lot.

We're worth a lot of dough.

What ever you see is antiques.

This thing here.

This if from...

I don't remember exactly. It think it's the

Renaissance or the Magna Carta or something.

But that's where it's from.

Why did you decide to go

into baking so late in life?

Well, Frenchy, we found out,

can make cookies.

The Frenchy they're talking about...

...and reigning culinary genius

of Sunset... - Hello.

...is Frances Fox, who happens

to be the wife of the C.E.O.

So you made cookies

your whole life...

...and everybody told you

how delicious they were.

- Yeah. I thought they were "B.S. ing"

me, you know? -Really?

Yeah. Somebody gives you something

they cooked, you always say you enjoyed it...

...even if it makes you throw up

after wards, so, you know...

In a day and age where everyone seems

to have public relations handlers...

...it's hard to imagine

a corporate brain trust...

...that is more direct and less image

conscious than the group here at Sunset Farms.

In fact, each person we met seemed

to be more eccentric than the last.

Like Tommy Walker,

the chairman of the board.

Frenchy makes the best cookies in the

world. We're very proud of her cookies.

What are your duties

as chairman of the board?

The board meets once or twice a week,

and we take up important issues.

- Issues?

- Yeah. Facts, problems.

Things like that.

Normal stuff.

What kind of problems does an overnight

success like Sunset Farms face?

What kind of problems? Last week the

toilet on the fourth floor wouldn't flush.

It flushed, but the water

kept coming to the top.

So the board voted

on getting a plumber.

One of the architects of Sunset Farms's

unorthodox marketing strategy...

...is the head of advertising, Denny

Doyle, a former truck driver.

Was it you who came up with

the idea to advertise baked goods...

...in Playboy, Penthouse

and Hustler Magazine?

I figured if a guy's staring

at a naked piece of tail...

...and he sees the breasts and legs,

he's gonna start to salivate.

It's human nature.

So if he's salivating...

...he turns the page and

comes across a picture of, say,

...our pistachio cream cookies.

He thinks maybe that's why

he's drooling. You understand?

It's psychology.

It's science.

It's like Pablo's Theory, you know,

with the dog when he feeds him?

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