The Story of Binder Clippy

Who (or What) is Binder Clippy?

What would a fun, exciting, online competition be without an emcee, or at least a cute and fuzzy mascot? It would really be missing something, wouldn’t it? So, we thought, who better to guide us through an Office-related competition than our old pal Clippy the Paperclip?

As it turns out, though, Clippy isn’t quite as cute and fuzzy as he appears. (You don’t think he appears fuzzy? Must be a problem with your monitor.) We tried to reach Clippy to see if he’d help out, but we were told we had to speak to his agent. That was a problem: it turns out that his agent is even less cute and fuzzy than Clippy. In fact, the agent insisted Clippy is permanently retired and wouldn't come out of retirement for any reason, least of all for something called “OfficePalooza.” Admittedly, after a little begging and pleading, we were told Clippy could probably be coaxed out of retirement; however, the terms were going to be a little more extravagant that we could manage. (A private jet? Bodyguards? Medical coverage? For a paperclip?!? “Paper cuts, you know.” We decided we'd have to take a pass on Clippy; even Beyonce was willing to cut us a better deal that Clippy.  But we couldn't afford her, either.)

So here we were with this great competition ready to go and no mascot. We were about to give up hope and cancel the whole thing when we received a mysterious text message: clippy got a cuzin.

Clippy got -- er, Clippy has a cousin?

We did a little research (which wasn’t too difficult seeing as how we had the phone number from the text message) and found out that yes, indeed, Clippy got a cousin: Binder Clippy. (Don't feel bad: we had never heard of Binder Clippy, either. But, then again, we hadn't heard of Beyonce until she called looking for work.)

As it turns out, Binder Clippy has always looked up to his famous cousin and has been trying to break into the mascot business himself. But when Microsoft got out of the animated Office character business Binder Clippy started to take odd jobs, jobs like filing, photocopying, and walking hamsters. (What, you think a binder clip can walk a dog? Of course, now that we think about it, we're not sure how  a binder clip could walk a hamster, either.)

And then one fateful day, Binder Clippy was at a family gathering when he overheard his famous cousin laughing about some pay scale offer he received to do some Office contest (or something like that). Needless to say, Binder Clippy was a little desperate, so he contacted Clippy’s agent and got our phone number.

After a short negotiation, which we simply had to promise never to contact Clippy ever again, and to keep any hamsters away from the Web site (apparently the hamster walking didn’t go so well), Binder Clippy agreed to be our mascot. Welcome aboard, B.C.!