TV is one of my best friends. It’s sad, I know, but the programs that I watch and the people on it just kind of get me, you know? Like when they have a beer, I go and get a beer. When they smoke, do drugs or get hooker drag queens, I do the same. But lately my friend has been letting me down. How many times can I watch Vanna turn a letter or Donald fire some hapless C-list celebrity? It’s like having a friend that always tells the same joke but switches up the subject so instead of a Jew, it’s a Pollock or a black guy. Still funny? I guess, but not really.
My attention has been wandering, leaving me to flip through channels and vaguely wonder what’s happening outside. Scary. I’ve been drifting out into other channels, even the cable channels where I swore I would never go. What I find on these channels are people having litters of children, midgets rescuing pit bulls that weigh more than they do, and groups of women called housewives that no one in their right mind would break if they wandered out in front of their car…let alone marry them. I have officially wandered.
If NBC wanted to get my attention back, they’d make a game show based on combining Wheel Of Fortune and the Saw movie series. There’s no surprise as to how this would work: one little peg on the wheel would be labeled “Bloody, creative death mini-game” where the contestant has to do something to stay alive. Something really creative and twisted and mechanical. Even though there’s only a 1/72 chance of this happening on any given night, I would be on the edge of my seat waiting for that to go down.
Vanna and Pat would, of course, be the ringleaders and operators of the deadly machinery. The games would include such trials as saving yourself completely and letting four other people die or cutting off an appendage with a rusty hack saw to save each one. Completely sick and demented? Of course. Who can even think of that shit? But people would watch.
You might wonder who would watch this type of show. My answer: 76% of Americans age 6-57. Based on the survey that I made up for this blog post, 19 out of 25 of you would like to see extreme violence or some sort of musical water event. About 47% of you would like to see them at the same time. We are a country of sickos, but everything in water or on ice seems better, softer, more…you know…acceptable. When in doubt, put it over trout. (Get it? Trout live in water?) (Sorry, couldn’t think of anything better.)
So there’s my open request to you, NBC. Let’s bring the numbers back to your network with blood, fear, and violence.