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Surviving Survivor



What does it say about our culture when the most escapist form of entertainment is called "reality television"? In the past, most networks dabbled delicately in the arena of reality TV, but lately, they've been going for it like a hungry mutt for an a**-flavored Milk Bone. One of the longest-running reality shows is Cops, every episode of which poses the burning question why is that morbidly obese man not wearing a shirt? At least digitally scramble his man-tits ok?



Then there's The Real World, based on the premise that living rent-free in a fabulous house on the beach with a bunch of attractive young people while being videotaped by an ever-present camera crew is in any way, shape, or form, real. However, The Real World does provide us with the valuable insight that, like, when you buy, like, orange juice, you know, and somebody else, like, drinks it without, you know, like asking, that's, like, a personal violation? You know?



Survivor is the gold standard of reality programming. If I were a contestant on Survivor, I would probably be one of the first to be voted off-if not for my tendency to openly hate other people, then for the visual and emotional assault that is I in bicycle pants, crying all the time. My plan would be simple. As soon as the votes were tallied and Jeff Probst gave me the bad news, saying, "The tribe has spoken," I'd say, "Oh yeah? Well, ******** the tribe. I'm a 'Survivor'!" and I'd bolt into the jungle, only to emerge every night to pick the other contestants off one by one with poison darts. Then I'd start in on the crew.



Now they've started double-layering the reality shows. They've had everything from Dateline stories on Big Brother to the Survivor cast on The Weakest Link. I'm not sure they've taken it far enough. I wouldn't mind seeing that frigid dwarf chick from The Weakest Link, caught in nothing but her chain-mail corset and size-2 jackboot, running down an alley, being chased by an immigration officer, on Fox special called When Untalented Foreigners Get Hired.



But while I've got bones to pick with it, I do think reality television has a place in the roster of our nightly entertainment. In fact, I have several ideas for new shows. The first is called You Gotta Be Shittin' Me- it involves simply mounting a video camera atop gasoline pumps at stations throughout Southern California. I'm also pitching an alternative to When Good Pets Go Bad called Put the Goddamn Video Camera Down, Edna, and Yank This Mongoose Off My Nutsack.



The key thing to remember about this evolutionary stage in the medium is that TV tends to eat its own. In a classic example of plagiaristic television logic, the geniuses at NBC noticed that every successful reality show sparked its own catchphrase- "Voted Off the Island," "Is That Your Final Answer?" , so they decided that all they needed to make a hit out of The Weakest Link was to plaster the phrase "You Are the Weakest Link" over so many billboards and bus stops that it is now permanently burned into my brain like that time when I walked into that public restroom at the zoo. But you know what? You cannot build an entire show around a single, easily remembered catchphrase, and assume that just because repeat it week after week, people will ultimately attach some sort of profundity or wit to it and clap like trained seals whenever they hear it. People are not that stupid. They're not going to fall for it.