In November, four days after the presidential election, a humble Pennsylvania landscaping company gained national prominence after serving as the venue for a bizarre press conference, led by Rudy Guliani, to make baseless allegations of electoral fraud. Now Four Seasons Total Landscaping – which was also the location of a Super Bowl commercial for the freelance Fiverr market – is having its own documentary, it was announced on Monday.
According to the press release, “Four Seasons Total Documentary” is an apolitical and pleasant first-hand account of the roller coaster journey that a well-intentioned small Philadelphia company went through when it agreed to host a political press conference amid most disputed American election in recent history. ”
The documentary, which has yet to be distributed, is by director Christopher Stoudt, who is teaming up with producers Glen Zipper and Sean Stuart. Chris Paonessa and Kevin Lincoln are also producers.
“It is an honor and privilege to be able to help tell a story that the world has been waiting for months to hear,” said Stoudt in a statement. “After such a difficult year, everyone needed a moment to laugh. Little did we know it would come from a press conference that took place across the street from a crematorium (on the same street as a sex shop).”
The Four Seasons disaster started with a tweet from former President Donald Trump – before he was banned from Twitter – which wrote: “Four Seasons lawyers’ news conference, Philadelphia. 11:00”
Then came Trump’s clarification: “Big press conference today in Philadelphia at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. 11:30 am!” This was followed by a tweet from the hotel bill. “To clarify, President Trump’s press conference will NOT be held at the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia. It will be held at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping,” he said. “No relation to the hotel.”
There were several immediate questions that arose out of a collective sense of cheerful schadenfreude: Did the Trump team actually try to book the Four Seasons Hotel originally and were they denied? Was this the cover-up attempt? If not, why would you choose this business – located between a crematorium and a sex shop – as the venue for a legal press conference?
The strangeness did not stop after the press conference ended. A man featured at the press conference was a convicted sex offender, the Politico reported the next day, while The New York Times later found that the error “was not in the reservation, but in a messy phone game”. Trump’s legal team reportedly told the president that he had booked the landscaping firm, but he heard the name and assumed it was at the luxury hotel.
The disaster earned the landscaping company immediate meme status as people took external photos to use as backgrounds for Zoom and Google Hangout and eagerly bought the company’s “Make America Rake Again” stickers.
So, as the Huffington Post reported, some Facebook users found posts shared by the son of the owner of Four Seasons Total Landscaping that counted votes, referred to Hillary Clinton as “Killary” and defied Robert Mueller’s investigation in Russia. In turn, artist and cartoonist Shing Yin Khor started selling T-shirts to benefit Democratic candidates in the January special election in Georgia.
But a meme’s lifespan is fleeting. People moved on to other scandals – such as when former Republic representative Dean Browning posted a tweet claiming to be a gay black man who disapproved of Obama – and other memes, like the now loved, though tired, Bernie Mittens meme.
It was only this weekend that people started talking about Four Seasons Total Landscaping again, after the deal appeared as the location for a Super Bowl commercial for Fiverr, an online marketplace for freelance talent.
The commercial opens with the owner of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, Marie Siravo, shouting: “It looks good, guys!” like a banner that says “& Press Center!” is added to the company sign. The essence of the commercial is that “with the right talent, you can build anything – even a parking lot for a press conference”.
The ad for “The Four Seasons Total Documentary” is based in part on the buzz surrounding this commercial. Although no release information is available yet, Stoudt indicated that the film will feature interviews with Siravo and the company’s sales director, Sean Middleton, who would explain the decision-making that led to the infamous press conference – all with a sense of humor.
“This film is a chance to clean the slate, not just for Four Seasons Total Landscaping, but for the entire country,” said Stoudt.