Cockroaches, supermodels, and gay men – flip on the television this fall and you’re bound to come across at least two of the three within any given hour. And not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing – anyone who doesn’t find the harsh critiquing of the Fab Five even minutely amusing obviously has a few screws loose – but I don’t think I’m alone when I cry out that Hollywood really needs to lay off with all of this reality TV nonsense before one of us finally loses it and goes Survivor on their asses…

Now before I get too far into this, it should already be widely known that I’m a fan of reality TV, or at least I used to be! I’ve watched every single episode of every single season of Survivor (with the exception of the first season), like most other guys, I get a huge kick out of watching women freak out around rodents and large insects, and I’m even really digging what this whole Queer Eye for the Straight Guy-deal is bringing to the screen – for the first time, the mainstream is getting to see that the gays (as they like to be called!) aren’t all diseased and scary, and can actually be quite entertaining when given the opportunity! That having been said, just as there’s such a thing as too much chocolate (Welcome to Zit City!) or too much sex (Ok, maybe not with this one…), too much reality television is definitely a big problem these days and something needs to be done soon before the entire schedule is cast out of people just like you and me!

Reality TV was a brilliant and unique form of programming several years ago because it was presenting something that, other than with MTV’s Real World & Road Rules, had never been seen before. These were shows that existed without a script, without a cast that had any previous experience whatsoever, and yet they worked out for the best and were actually quite successful…so what happens when one guy starts cranking out gold and is caught by the rest being very successful? Suddenly overkill isn’t even a harsh enough word to apply anymore and every Tom, Dick, and Harry within a mailbox’s reach of Hollywood has their own suggestions for a new hit show, and sadly enough, many of them are actually getting airplay to this very day! I was watching a special on this the other night and heard that the networks receive something like 25,000 submissions every day – do you have any idea just how much crap that adds up to?!

And the truly scary thing is that what we’re seeing on TV every night is the very best of what these people received! That’s right, sleazy men and women who are more than happy to manipulate each other for a million bucks, housemates that are willing to stab each other in the back for a million bucks, college students that are willing to eat their way out of a vat of lord-knows-what for a million bucks – these were the good ideas! Apparently for a million bucks, your average American Joe is willing to do just about anything, on live television even, with little to no shame, and that fact alone has got me scared silly about what we might be seeing here shortly in the future…

Sensation Station – Contestants identify various sounds and smells in New York City’s Grand Central Station while blindfolded; whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins the chance to navigate a Double-Dare-style maze throughout the station for cool prizes!

Sumo! – Office professionals, secretaries, and other high-rise-bound individuals are pitted against champion Japanese sumo wrestlers for a chance at cash & prizes.

Buried Alive – Players from all walks of life compete to find out who is willing to be buried in the most bizarre of substances, with the winner having the opportunity to be buried in an actual grave, casket and all, for one million dollars.

Who Wants to Write a Reality TV Show? – Writers pen up their own ideas for upcoming programs, the best of which are bought off for only a fraction of what the networks will actually profit from them.

Hey, That’s My Baby! – It’s the classic game of roulette modernized for the working mother, as parents are challenged to identify their own children from a pool of similar babies. The winners walk away with a combination of cash and savings bonds for the child, while the losers are immediately whisked away by Child Services until foster parents can be arranged.

And all of those ideas took me, like, fifteen minutes to come up with! It’s a sad world when folks like me are actually considering exercise as an alternative evening activity, but until either some drastic changes are made to that programming schedule or I actually end up earning a million dollars myself, then I’ve got no choice but to buckle down and find something else to occupy my free time!

Hey, did you know that there are already a lot of other people going outside at night? Maybe somebody should make a show about that…

We haven’t been faced with the very worst of them yet, but as even the previews begin airing for the fall television schedules that we have to look forward to, one distinct idea has become very apparent to me – Hollywood is getting horrendously cheap! Just the other night, I watched probably eight or ten promotional spots for new and upcoming shows within about two hours and I’ll tell you right now that if this is what they’ve got in mind for “entertainment” this fall, I might just have to find myself another hobby to pass the time after all! Maybe I’ll have to take up tennis or something…

If you somehow haven’t noticed, it seems that somebody near the top of the television food chain came to the stunning conclusion a year or two ago that it’s ridiculously cheaper to challenge insane people to do really stupid stunts for cash than to actually write and produce a decent sitcom these days! Do the math – at a million dollars per star for each episode of Friends along a series of approximately twenty-two episodes, that’s…a lot of money! So even after giving away a million or two at the end of the season and dropping a healthy chunk of change on production costs, dung beetles, and Jeff Probst’s wardrobes, there’s still gotta be an easy fifty or sixty million leftover to help re-tile the executive washroom back at CBS headquarters…

(Don’t get me wrong – Survivor is the one reality program that I actually like!)

Now I’ve tolerated this reality-based monstrosity just like everyone else has for the past several years, but after seeing this year’s fall schedule and realizing that there could be no end to this beast unless somebody stands up and takes action, I’ve opted to take this opportunity to use my creative writing abilities for good instead of evil to bring down the horror that can only come from sixteen horny women competing for cash and romance (…but mostly cash…) once and for all! The last few minutes have been spent feverishly hunched over a hot laptop, brainstorming for ideas that could very well become the next Seinfeld, or perhaps warrant a twelve-episode mini-series on the WB at the very least, so consider yourself fortunate to be one of the very first to witness the beginning of my very own television producing debut…

Everybody Loves Cheese-Nips®

A light-hearted comedy based around everyone’s favorite cheese-flavored snack-food, the pilot episode deals with Bill Whitley (played by Harry Anderson) as he suddenly learns that his wife (Catherine O’Hara, or Shelley Long if she’s not available) has always favored Chex Mix® as opposed to Cheese-Nips®.

Spike!

Although it has absolutely nothing to do with Spike Lee or his over-inflated ego, I’m sure that this appropriately titled sitcom starring a young terrier named Spike will have viewers 14-39 glued to their sets with anticipation! His family may always be dragging him to the most boring events around the state, but somehow Spike always seems to find an interesting aspect of any situation!

Back to the Basics

David and Cynthia Allen (played by David Spade and Brooke Shields) are quite possibly the last two people you would expect to see together, but their clashing personalities and everlasting sarcastic take on those around them make for the hilarious new comedy that will return Spade to his throne as the court jester of primetime! Pilot episode features guest appearances by Amy Yasbeck and Norm MacDonald as the couple argues about each others’ previous relationships.

Frog Legs

Just a group of neighborhood kids hanging around the small pond at the end of their block – what trouble could possibly come from such an innocent scene, right?! Three lucky young children will begin their Hollywood careers starring in this new comedy for families as parents are finally provided with a bit of insight as to what their children are actually up to when they go out to play! An hour-long pilot jump-starts the series as Tommy, Jimmy, and Suzie play a joke on their parents by slipping some of their slimy friends into various dishes at the neighborhood block party, sending several friends to the hospital…

Jack Says…

Jack Nicholas stars as God in this fresh new comedy that takes a look at what life on Earth is like when this supreme being stops being polite and starts being real! The pilot episode targets such social issues as homelessness, obesity, and people who talk to loudly on their cell phones in public.

A Special Note to Any Television Executives Who Just Happen to be Reading This:

Any or even all of the concepts above can be yours for a very affordable price – no reasonable offers will be refused! I’m available to fly out to L.A. and start shooting these babies as soon as right now, so get on the phone and let’s get these people laughing during primetime again – did you really think that those slutty shows about money and marriage were going to hold them off forever?! Have your people call, well, me, and we’ll do lunch…

Just don’t go taking my ideas and replacing any of my above characters with cheaper, third-rate actors, because the end product would be really disappointing! Besides, I already thought of that one and it just would never work, anyways – Paul Reubens as God?! I don’t think so!

Can you believe it’s been almost a month and a half since I wrote you guys last? What can I say, island life can get a little crazy out here and sometimes we all just sorta lose track of time. A lot has happened here in the world of Humor Columnist Survivor over the last six weeks – four or five more people were voted out of the office, of which the math is still confusing me a bit…6 weeks, one voting period per week, 5 survivors left? Then again, Greg is a writer – no one ever accused him of being any good at math…

So anyways, I thought I’d take a minute and roughly 800 words here to describe all of the neat and interesting things that have been happening around this place lately…but after some careful outlining, I noticed that it would be much easier to just vent and talk about all of the crap that these people have been doing to drive me crazy instead! I know, I started off saying that I’d try my best to keep cool and be the nice guy throughout the game, but I figure that since I’ve already made it this far, I’m owed a little time to vent!

First of all, and maybe some of you voters out there have already realized this – what happened to all of the chicks in this game?!?!? It wasn’t made easy for us guys in the beginning anyways, with a 2:1 ratio coming into the office, but now there are TWO of them and FIVE of us, and even that’s being lenient – I haven’t seen Layton around this place for ages, yet she’s still alive and kicking with the voters…maybe she’s locked herself in the bathroom again or something. Granted, other than in the executive steam room, there really aren’t many places around here for us to ogle their bosoms with authority gasp in awe at their breathtaking beauty, charm and everlasting grace, but come on – throw us a bone already…

I’ve also got an issue with some missing office supplies, which I know I can’t technically hold anybody accountable for because I stole them first, but it’s still rough when you’d like to jot down a funny idea and you can’t seem to find your lucky pen anywhere! Just between you and me, though, I’m starting to wonder if there might be vermin of some sort running around this place…it would explain how Greg was able to rent the entire building for months on end…and what’s been happening to our leftovers from dinner that somehow don’t happen to be leftover the next morning – maybe we’ll have to let Gertie off the hook on that one after all! Wait, what was that?!?!? Did you see that? Either somebody’s grown a tail, or we’ve got a bigger problem here than we thought…

And then there’s the fax machine… Now it would be one thing if someone were to jam the fax machine, as this has undoubtedly happened to the best of us, but we’re not lucky enough for something like that to have happened. No, I seem to be stuck in an office with somebody who has managed to lose the fax machine – yeah, that big, bulky, seconds as a printer/copier/industrial-size-paperweight/doorstop/anything-else-that-you-might-need-something-that-friggin’-huge-for thing. I like to consider myself a guy that’s fairly easy to get along with, but when I can’t fax nude-y pictures to my buddies or get my latest inspiration from the Soufflé of the Month Club, I become a less-than-happy islander if you catch my drift! I mean, go ahead and lose the stapler or the three-hole punch or even the Evian guy – I’ll somehow manage to get by, but now we’re treading on thin ice, baby…

I suppose, though, despite all of the hardships that we’re having to endure on a daily basis, I think I could still manage to stick around to be the winner of this thing, if that’s ok with all of you! Erik and I have switched sports and now have a wicked tournament of paper football going on – the loser has to write the winner’s columns for a month, so that oughta be interesting…I sometimes can’t even get my own done on time, let alone somebody else’s. Even that’s getting a little fishy, though, as I think that somehow steroids were involved in his latest victory…alliance my ass!

So to end today’s report, for the most part, all is still well on the island. Apparently nobody ever told the caterers that our numbers have decreased from 19 down to 7, but I’m certainly not complaining…you can never have too many barbecued shrimp…

Until next time, keep your stick on the ice and my name off your ballots! Good day.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already been on this “island” for eight weeks! Above that, I think it’s even harder to believe that I’ve lasted this long without writing a column about all of my wacky and zany adventures that have gotten me to this point, but luckily I was fresh out of material this week anyways, so this is what we like to call perfect timing…

For those of you living out of the loop, far from the know or simply a normal life, I’m speaking of the critically-acclaimed, reality smash-hit of the year, Humor Columnist Survivor! Hosted by Greg Gagliardi of Progressive Revelations fame, myself and eighteen other writers were invited to the island where, by the end of eighteen long weeks, the title of The Ultimate Survivor will be awarded to the last writer standing. Oddly enough, though, unlike in the original Survivor, we don’t technically get to vote each other off – instead, the votes are cast by all of our readers, assuming we actually have them, so basically our fate is determined by the size of our audience and how many of them can manage to figure out Greg’s voting process, which surprisingly has worked out quite well for me so far! Now we’re just nearing the halfway point, so I thought that it was only appropriate for me to give you all a little glimpse of the island itself…

Ok, now I’m probably not supposed to do this, but right off the bat I should tell you that there is no actual island, hence the term proverbial (read: fake, as in proverbial election or proverbial entertainment). Nope, instead of getting air-dropped onto some remote island in a far-off land, Greg has arranged for all of us to setup camp in an old office building in the heart of Manhattan. Of course, all of our necessities – catered meals, bottled water and Internet access, have been provided, and we even get our own offices for “privacy” concerns. We’ve got all the time we could ever want to work on our material, search for dirty pictures on the ‘net and generally be as anti-social with each other as possible, so it’s actually pretty close to life back home…arguably maybe even a little better!

I’ve been getting a lot of e-mail regarding my strategy, so I thought that this would be a great time to blow the entire contest and announce it to the world right now! Yeah, that’s going to happen…honestly, I don’t have a real strategy, per se, but in an attempt to add length (and maybe even a little funny) to this piece, here are a few items I have been trying to focus on:

• Don’t be a pain in the ass – This one is kinda tough for me, but I’m thinkin’ that if I’ve gotta spend almost twenty weeks in a confined space with the rest of these people, I’ll do whatever it takes to not be that guy who keeps sticking his gum underneath the conference room table.
• Never be the guy to take the last bottle of water – Sure, the hunky water guy is only a phone call away, but I’m not going to be the one who gets blamed for an hour and a half while he tries to find our building! Besides, I can always dip from the stash of bottles I hid away in my mini-fridge during the first couple of weeks if need be…
• Stay out of everybody’s way – I don’t gossip. I don’t rebel and pick fights. I don’t make pathetic attempts to have sex with the rest of my fellow castaways. I’m thinking that if they forget that I’m even around, they can’t instruct their own readers to vote me off.

Maybe I’ll get more complex and draw out diagrams and graphs, outlining diabolical schemes to ensure my victory later on in the game, or maybe I’ve already done these things and I’m just not telling you! Didn’t think about that, did you? Well, I’m guessing that I won’t be able to secure a sure-win position as the next Elisabeth or Neleh (even though neither of them actually won, now did they?), so only the future knows exactly what I’ll be willing to do to take this thing to the bank! Speaking of the bank – hey Greg, exactly what is the prize for winning this creation of yours, anyways???

Well, that sound means that the caterers should be coming through the door with our dinner anytime now, so I’ll bring this edition to a close for now. (Man, I hope it’s not shrimp and caviar again…there’s only so much even I can take!) I should say, though, that this has been a great experience so far and I’m taking a lot away from my time here: I’m getting much better at wastepaper basketball, thanks to daily tournaments with Jason and Erik. I’ve also seen some great traffic jams out the conference room window which I just don’t normally get to see back home in Northern Michigan, so it’s definitely an experience that I won’t soon forget. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing…well, you be the judge!

Those barbecue shrimp are callin’ my name, so if you’ll excuse me…

Unfortunately, I just don’t have the hips for it, or the breasts for that matter!  I do have a stunning personality and a sense of humor to die for, but we all know that these contests are all alike.  I could have finesse and etiquette collectively coming out of my ass and dancing circles around the room, but without the looks of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model, I simply don’t stand a chance…

Confused yet?  Well, I got your attention, didn’t I?  They say that once you’ve got their attention, you can easily consider them hooked for the next few minutes, or hour-and-a-half if you’re broadcasting on national television.  My inspiration this time around: Who Wants to be a Princess? from everyone’s favorite network for plot-less programming, FOX Broadcasting.  Yes, these are the same people who brought us Temptation Island, Boot Camp and countless other Survivor knockoffs.

Let us not forget one other very special show that FOX hit us with a little over a year ago entitled Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? Apparently the writers behind our latest Princess tale must’ve been on another planet around that time because there really isn’t any other excuse for making this mistake twice.  About the only thing missing from this episode was a hormone-driven Rick Rockwell, and boy, I’d be willing to bet that they were very careful to keep this one quiet until after the initial video was shot!  I can just hear Rick now, “Technically I’m sure I can be considered a Prince by someone…”

I would almost consider actually giving the writers credit for this one, actually, except for the fact that it basically looked like the show had been edited by a fifteen year-old copy boy.  You can tell that a lot of planning went into the script:

• Night before presentation to executive board – dig out old copy of Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? script
• Substitute the following phrases:
  • Prince for Multi-Millionaire
  • Marriage for Blind Date
  • Sloppy Tongue-Kiss for Friendly, Platonic Handshake
• Emphasize waiver section of model contracts
• Finalize advance payments to off-shore bank account
• Take one long, last chuckle about the absolutely insane number of entries submitted for contestants in this meat parade

Normally I could think of 800,000 better and more important things to do than sit around and watch TV, but somehow my lazy gene always wins the coin toss and I find myself sitting in front of the tube for hours on end; this night would be no different.  The show began much like we have seen the Miss America pageant open in the past, with each girl showing herself off to the audience and then proceeding to give her name, home state and estimated bra size.  This is not surprisingly sometimes the most difficult part of the competition for these girls as several have been known to strike out early by answering two or more of the questions wrong.

The show pauses for a brief commercial break and soon returns to what I had hoped would be the best part of the competition – the swimsuits!  What can we say?  If a chick doesn’t look like a knockout in a bikini, is royalty really the best route for her anyways?  What Prince in his right mind would show up at the beach with anything less than a Perfect 10???

I regretfully report, however, that what I saw that moment was enough to make a man cry like a woman whose mare has cut the ribbon to red town: these girls were not, pardon my French, pretty!  They were, in fact, the direct opposite of those who should be competing for the prize in any beauty pageant.  It was a disgrace to all those who have ever uttered the phrase, “Maybe it’s Maybeline…” and actually meant it.  I’d be willing to bet that Marilyn Monroe just rolled over in her grave…

I think the implication of the contest was just too confusing for these girls to comprehend.  When the creators of this program specified Princess, they weren’t actually talking about our modern day Princesses, who recline on sofas all day in their castles over in Europe while their slaves pick the lint from between their toes.  They meant the classic storybook Princess, who is very quiet and reserved and generally looks hot, or at least as hot as Disney’s artists are able to animate them.  See what communication problems can lead to???

They actually lead directly to the question and answer portion of our competition, which always seems to peak my attention after my expectations have been driven into the ground by the first half of the show.  Not that a fashion model isn’t generally an astute public speaker simply due to the fact that she’s a woman, but let’s face it – most of these ladies have the vocabulary of a kindergartener whose mother chain-smoked crack cocaine during the delivery.  This evening’s program was particularly interesting because one of the questions presented asked each of the girls to describe their experience in the pageant and what they had to offer to the Prince if selected.  The speeches took nearly an hour to listen to, but luckily I can sum them all up in three short sentences with lots of small words: “This pageant was the most amazing experience I have ever had in my entire life.  I look forward to spending a long, smiley date with the Prince, during which I would like to learn more about his culture, his family, and his money.  Please reconsider my breasts as you cast your votes.”

I remember a day when beauty pageants were worth watching, both for the amazing talents asserted by America’s fine young women and for the insightful ponderings carefully portrayed during the interviews.  Ok, so the swimsuit portion of the night might have had something to do with it, too, but back then, the hosts chose only the hottest and most-endowed ladies to permit on stage, requiring that the ‘other candidates’ wait near the buffet table for their time to appear on stage.  Besides, channel 99 was always scrambled and the best we were ever able to get were some faint outlines and what sounded like a 60-year-old woman exercising, so it was the best we had at the time!  MTV’s Spring Break beach house specials wouldn’t be born for several more years, so we enjoyed what was available and we loved it!

Nevertheless I’m always a glutton for punishment and ended up sitting through the whole thing, although I did get up to find the Sears catalog so I’d have something decent to ogle at one point!  The Prince turned out to be some pasty-faced rich boy from Europe who apparently didn’t realize that the friendship which he actually desired, as indicated by his royal staff, could be obtained much easier and cheaper by means of a quick run down Sunset Blvd.  Oh well, as long as that girl’s dream of dating a real Prince came true, there’s still a happy ending!

Don’t worry about me: I just got the Sears Christmas catalog in the mail today and if I stand on my head and squint really hard, I can almost make out a breast on channel 99.  Or is that an orange with a nipple?  Either way, it should prove to be another interesting day!  I’ll be just fine…

Along with the rest of the country, I’ve been caught up in the media trap that is NBC’s Fear Factor.  Yes, it’s a gigantic waste of time and there are probably better things that I could be doing, but until the next season of Survivor begins, this is all I’ve got!

If somehow you haven’t seen the show, basically it pits six people who’ve recently graduated college and have lots of loans to pay off against each other to determine who is the most likely to end up in an institution in the future.  The prize: $50,000.  All that’s required is that you jump off of a fourteen-story building, take a bath with a thousand rats, and eat two buffalo testicles.  And no, I’m not making this up…

Actually, these events didn’t all come from the same episode, but this gives you a taste of what contestants on Fear Factor can expect.  A typical show consists of three segments.  The first being a really insane stunt, such as this week’s episode where the contestants were strapped into a car which was then lowered into a lake.  They were then expected to save the child in the back seat as water rushed into the car and swim to shore without drowning!  Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

The middle portion of the hour-long program is usually filled with an event where all of the girls get really grossed out because they’re going to have to eat.  Ok, there’s a little more to it than that: they’re going to have to eat something that only a caveman would eat, such as a beetle, worm, etc…  Come on, tribes of thousands of people all around the world survive on these types of creatures every single day, but for some reason the women on this show just can’t seem to handle a nice, crunchy cockroach, or five!  It’s great watching the guys during this segment because we’re all used to doing disgusting things like eating bugs and swimming in worms and all sorts of other stupid guy things.  Considering that most of these contestants are coming straight from college (and fraternities…), I’d guess that those weren’t the first buffalo testicles these guys had actually eaten…

The last segment of the show is typically pretty lame because by this point there are only two people left.  The writers know that their audience is a bunch of suckers and by this point we’re all hooked anyways, so they can come up with pretty much anything to fill in the rest of the time slot.  The show that featured the human targets in the junkyard was my pick for the all-time lamest event – it reminded me of a lot of the challenges from Survivor 2!  (Wow, they’re really going to have to step things up a notch now, aren’t they?)  Anyways, to win at this point, you basically just have to do two things:

1. Show up.
2. Prove that you’re not a complete idiot by listening to the instructions and not getting disqualified.

Last night’s prize was awarded because the other guy escaped from the flooding car through the wrong window, of all things!  He must have fun getting to sleep at night…

I’ll admit it: I like this show, but I still don’t consider myself a fan of reality TV.  I hated Weakest Link with a passion (although I did watch their latest comedian edition – Kathy Griffin and Rob Schneider were great!), and I forced myself to sit through one episode of Spy TV, which didn’t impress me either.  Temptation Island was alright, although it didn’t take me long to figure out that Cinemax was just as entertaining and lacked commercials!  Boot Camp, Big Brother, The Mole, even Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? – none of these shows did a thing for me, so that basically just leaves Fear Factor and Survivor.

What do I look for in a good television show nowadays?  Well, as long as bugs are being eaten, I’m tuning in…