A street “prank war” ended hilariously yesterday when workers at one Manhattan company defeated another firm in an epic Battle of Bozos — by deploying a bigger platoon of the inflatable clowns in their windows.
Maneuvers involving the “bop” bags ended when Betsy Todd, director of marketing and licensing for VideoHelper, a production music library for television, leaned out a window of the firm’s seventh-floor office at 18 W. 21st St. and waved a white flag.
“We would like to have a truce party and have some drinks with them,” said a victorious Michael McSwain, assistant account executive at Harrison & Star, a health-care advertising and communications firm across the street, at 16 W. 22nd St., whose rear windows face 21st Street.
Staffers at the two companies have never met.
McSwain said it all began with one Bozo inflatable punching bag that was a gag gift at his office’s Christmas party.
In January, staffers passed the Bozo from one office to another “until we got sick of it,” he said.
“We put it in the window of an office and left it there.
“A few weeks later, another Bozo popped up [in a window] across the street,” McSwain said. “So we put a sign on ours saying, ‘Hey, beefcake.’ ”
By last week, staffers at VideoHelper had escalated their forces, stationing four Bozos in its windows.
“So I spent the whole weekend thinking about this,” said McSwain. “I even dreamt I was going to war. They wouldn’t know what hit them with our shock and awe.”
At 10:02 yesterday morning, staffers at Harrison & Star placed 15 Bozos, one inflatable palm tree and an inflatable Strawberry Shortcake doll bop bag in their seventh-, eighth- and ninth-floor windows. Todd graciously acknowledged defeat five minutes later.
“I’m the general of this army and when I say we surrender, we surrender,” she joked.