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MIRTH
IN YOUR MAILBOX! |
Is it worse to be ignorant or apathetic? I don't know and I don't care.
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From
the tear-off calendar on my desk,
which is always a week or more
behind the actual date, I can
tell that October is fast
approaching, or may already be
here. Or perhaps has even passed
already, I don't know. But still,
you know what October means:
People donning funny costumes,
telling stale jokes and generally
making asses out of themselves.
And that's just CBS. Don't even
get me started on the other
networks. Yes,
the new TV season has
finally started, to the
glee of millions of
school-age children
everywhere. After all,
thanks to the backwoods
inbreeders on our
nation's school boards,
they aren't getting sex
education at school, so
the responsibility has
been shifted to
"Friends." Or, if
they're lucky, they have
a friend whose father
subscribes to Cinemax
and forgot to put the
child block
on. But
there's more to the new
TV season than just sex
jokes. And once I find
out what it is, I'll get
back to you. "Now
and Again": An insurance salesman
is hit by a subway train and is
transplanted into the impossibly
good-looking body of a
twenty-something superhuman by
the government, finally answering
once and for all what happens to
your tax dollars, as well as
exactly what the insurance lobby
has been up to all this
time. "Once
and Again": Two impossibly
good-looking divorcees fall in
love and act like teenagers,
while their impossibly
good-looking and well-behaved
teenage children exhibit the
kinds of behaviors and symptoms
that inevitably lead to "very
special" episodes. "Time
and Again": Jane Pauley, the only
person to be named Pauley in show
business to still have a career,
introduces rehashed clips of
interviews with impossibly
good-looking, soon-to-be-divorced
people like Madonna and
Cher. But
why stop there? Viewers are
already confused. And confusion
means ratings. I think. Or maybe
not. But it's worth a shot. And
so, in a gesture to the networks,
I would like to offer these
pitches for new shows to the
networks. (If you execs decide to
use one of them, all I ask is a
million dollars and a condo. And
a monkey.) "Again
and Again": Scenes from
the same episode of
"Suddenly Susan" --
starring the impossibly
good-looking and
recently divorced Brooke
Shields -- are recut and
reordered week after
week, which inexplicably
fails to change the
storyline or
differentiate it from
every other episode of
the show.
"Never
Again": A dramatization
of Anne Heche's
life. "Over
and Over Again": Not really a new
show, but more just a catch-all
name for those Fox reality shows
("When Sean Penn Attacks,"
"Japan's Most Inept Nuclear
Technicians," etc.), where they
manage to extract an hour's worth
of show out of five minutes of
grainy surveillance camera
videotape, which is magnified and
replayed until it no longer has
any meaning to the visual centers
of your brain. "Agin
and Begin" - Former Congressman
Dan Agin and former Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin
(deceased) team up to fight crime
on the streets of San Francisco.
You haven't lived until you've
seen a Nobel Peace Prize-winner
beat up a pimp. I've
noticed other trends in this
year's schedule, too. First,
people seem to enjoy seeing men
who don't bruise or bleed hit
each other. Wrestling now makes
up 50 percent of programming on
networks with the initial "U" in
them, displacing "Silk Stalkings"
and dead air from the top spots.
No shock there: My generation was
raised on cartoons like "G.I.
Joe," where literally a gazillion
bullets were fired and yet not
one single person was ever
wounded. (Talk about a mixed
message... Were they hoping that
kids who imitated the gunplay on
their shows would just be
horrible marksmen?) But
still making up the bread and
butter of network prime time is
the holy trinity of network
programming: doctors, lawyers and
cops. These three occupations are
so ubiquitous that the main
character on every television
show is either a doctor, lawyer
or cop, or recently divorced from
one. It
won't be long before
someone seizes upon the
idea of putting all
three into one show:
Every week the cop will
shoot someone that will
go on to be stitched up
by the doctor, while the
lawyer files a lawsuit
against both of them on
the guy's behalf, and
sues himself for good
measure. If
you think I'm kidding, I
should probably remind
you that "Law and Order"
is two-thirds of the way
there, and they've just
added a second show,
"Law and Order: Special
Victims Unit," which I'm
told has nothing to do
with 'tards. Patrick
Keller hasn't been the same since
"Life Goes On" was canceled. This
article is © 1999 Patrick
Keller, Gern Blansten
Productions. You may redistribute
this piece, provided the text is
unaltered and it contains this
notice. As always, if you know
someone sick and twisted who
might like this stuff, let me
know. Blah blah blah e-mail me at
blansten@iname.com
blah blah blah
Also
featured in the not-so
latest: All
contents of this web site -- even the
periods -- are TM & © Patrick
Keller, Gern Blansten Productions, so
don't try to steal 'em. Any unlawful
distribution, copying or non-educational
use is highly frowned upon, and will be
prosecuted when I get enough money to hire
a lawyer. Violators will be spanked.
Shoplifters will be persecuted.
Prosecutors will be violated. |
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