How to Save Your Favorite TV Show from Cancellation

It’s the topic for many a drunken barroom conversation. Ask someone about theirs, and you liable to get a very emotional response. It’s your favorite TV show that was canceled prematurely.

Many people will say "Arrested Development" takes the prize. Those that were teenagers in the 1990s will claim "My So-Called Life" or "Freaks and Geeks." Personally, I’m partial to the recently canceled "Better off Ted" and "Party Down."

When good shows get canceled, fans try everything to prevent the shows from ending, starting internet petitions and forming protest groups on Facebook. These efforts are fruitless. Networks are interested in ratings, and no matter how angry devout fans are, they can do little to make ratings sustainable.

But what if you could change the model? What if your favorite endangered show rather than bending over backwards for ratings tried to make itself more profitable? In the past, shows have tried product placement, but these attempts appear conspicuous and hackneyed.

I recommend a different approach – one that has nearly limitless potential to make money. It’s negative product placement. The producers of the show bribe companies to give them money or they will include the product in their show in a negative light. Here are some examples.

• “Did you catch the child molester?” “Yes Barbara, we did. He was eating Nabisco Cheese Nips at the time. He said they get him in the mood.”
• “What happened to all that money I won at the track? Well, I invested it in a Met Life annuity. Now it’s all gone.”
• “What’s up Bill? That’s your third trip to the bathroom this morning.” “I know. It’s the damn Nestle Crunch I had this morning. It always gives me the runs. Strangely, this never happens when I eat a Hershey’s Crackle.”

My Job

In many ways, I have the best job in the world. Granted, the pay is poor, but I work as a barista in a coffee shop that also sells comic books. When business is slow, I get to read all of the comic books that I want. I know comic books are usually the purview of boys, but I love comic books. The gallantry of heroes, the darkness, the silliness, the drawing, I adore all of it. To me, it’s much nicer having a discussion about how “The Authority” changed comic book superheroes forever than my last job, where I got to discuss the proper industrial tubing width with customers.

I’d say I’m attractive. I’m not the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model type. I don’t have flowing blonde hair, and my breast cannot be used as a flotation device in case of an airplane water landing. I’m short but perky with cool glasses and a few tasteful tattoos. Men inside and outside of the shop compliment me on how I look.

Here’s where I have a problem with my job. To certain comic book store customers, a non-traditionally cute, perky barista in their favorite store that actually reads comic books is the ideal woman. I’m constantly fending off invitations to dinner, flowers, and expensive action hero gifts. Just because I like comic books doesn’t mean that I want to be with a man that does. I’m a woman. I prefer my men to be bad assed – tattooed, motorcycle riding, and with a list of sins that would require the crucifixion of seven Jesuses to atone for. Poorly dressed, meek comic book fans don’t do it for me, no matter how polite, nice, and generous they are.

Is it too much to ask to treat a woman like a person?

TV Commercial Transcript

Opening a bottle of wine is a hassle. Traditional corkscrews require a lot of pulling to get the cork out, resulting in messy spills and strained muscles. Winged corkscrews break the cork, getting cork fragments in your delicious glass of wine. Who wants that?

If only there was a better way to open a bottle of wine, one that didn’t require pulling or breaking the cork. Well now there is! Introducing Corky – the world’s finest electric wine bottle opener. With Corky, there’s no mess, no strain, and no broken corks. It’s now simple, easy, and fun for you to open your favorite bottle of wine.

Corky is fully rechargeable, so there are no cords to get in the way. If you buy Corky you also get a foil cutter to remove the outer foil from the bottle. Then put Corky over the top of the bottle and press the button. It’s that simple! Corky removes the cork perfectly every time without piercing the bottom. It’s great for dinner parties, camping trips, formal events, wherever you want to enjoy a delicious bottle of wine. And Corky makes the perfect gift.

But wait. If you act now, in addition to Corky and the foil cutter, as a special gift you’ll get the Passages Malibu book “The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure.” With a 90% success rate in curing alcohol and drug addiction, “The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure” has been used successfully by thousands of people all over the world to cure pesky addictions once and for all. The book can also be used as a handy bottle coaster, eliminating those annoying wine bottle rings on countertops.

Call today, and you can enjoy Corky, the foil cutter, and “The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure,” all for just $29.95. Operators are standing by. Call now.

A Modest Proposal for Porn

You work in one of the most exciting and talked about industries. People all over the world view and admire your work. You get to make some of the most desirable people in the world do and say whatever comes into your head. And yet, you do a really poor job.

I’m talking of course about pornography screenwriters. Granted, these people have to work under some limitations. Usually, their budgets are rather small, so the special effects budget is more like TV’s “Land of the Lost” than the movie “Avatar.” Also, the volume of porn being made dictates that the scripts are written quickly. It can be difficult to come up with new and unique reasons for two (or three or more) people to have sex. Regardless, this is no excuse for lazy scriptwriting.

• “Bill told us that we should stay here and wait. What should we do while we’re waiting?” “I have an idea.” [Sex ensues.] Really, is this the best you can do?
• [Someone walks in while two people are fucking.] “What are you two doing?” “Come join us.” Has this ever happened to anyone ever outside of a swingers’ party?
• I also have a hard time thinking that bored, attractive housewives spend all day waiting for the plumber/pool guy/pizza deliveryman to come by so they can screw. The concept has become a tiered cliché.

Look, I’m not asking for David Mamet, but is it too much to ask for something new and fresh to fill in the gaps between naked people sucking on things and sticking body parts into other body parts?

What the hell am I saying? As long as attractive people are having sex, I don’t care what they say.

Found in My Spam Folder XI

Hello. My name is Arnold Goldman. I’m a world-renowned author, famous for his book “The One Word” which is a simple and effective method that has taught millions how to get other people to conform to their wills. People come to me at book signings and telling me how much my book has changed their lives for the better. So what can I do for an encore? I’ve written my second book, which is a simple and effective way to pass on information and have the listener believe it.

Let’s say you overslept but told your boss you were late for some other reason. My new book “Three Little Words” may be what you need. “Three Little Words,” is effective if you spend the night hanging out with your boys or banging the mistress but tell your wife you were working late. It also works on people at the customer service desk when you’re returning damaged merchandise. If you’re an awkward teenage boy that scratched up dad’s car while drag racing to impress a girl, “Three Little Words” may be all you need to keep you from being grounded for a month.

Many times when we tell misinformation, the listener replies with disbelief. “Three Little Words” will show you how to respond by simply repeating your explanation while prefacing it with the phrase “I’m telling you.” The book will show you how saying, “I’m telling you there was an accident on the on ramp,” or “I’m telling you I had to work late,” or “I’m telling you the camera was nicked when I bought it,” or “I’m telling you someone backed into me in the library parking lot,” will enable you to get away with your deceit.

Buy “Three Little Words” today. You’ll never know when you need it.

The Other Stuff in the WikiLeaks Documents

The world is abuzz with the avalanche of classified information contained in the latest WikiLeaks document dump. Over 250,000 cables have been made public, and the press is busy devouring them to give us the juiciest bits. Of course, 250,000 documents is a lot to read and digest. Some of the contents are mundane or don’t do much to further our understanding of the US and its relations to the world. My crack team and I have spent hours combing the documents to bring you the highlights (or dimlights) of the least important leaked documents from WikiLeaks.

• Osama Bin Laden is a big fan of Martha Stewart. His cave is filled with paper mache ornaments and decorative gourds.
• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev claims to know a lot about Sarah Palin, since he’s flown over her state many times.
• The Saudi Royal Family is really, really rich.
• French President Nicolas Sarkozy is so vain that he thinks Carly Simon wrote a whole song just about him.
• The Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper is considered by American diplomats to be pleasant and polite. It’s also believed that he has a speech impediment, as he has trouble pronouncing the word “about” and frequently ends sentences with “eh.”
• Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych thinks that Gem is truly outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous.
• According to comments overheard by US diplomats, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has a very small penis. Later, it was determined that someone in the other room was watching a rerun or South Park.
• George W. Bush liked to play with green plastic army men in the Oval Office and was particularly adept at making the “phew phew” sound whenever someone used a laser.

Bring Back Literacy Tests

In the US, a “literacy test” was used in the Jim Crowe era to disenfranchise black voters in some southern states. Essentially, white poll workers could ask voters questions to determine if they had a sufficient level of literacy to vote. In practice, this meant questions that were nearly impossible to answer for most black voters while white voters got softball questions. In 1965, the Civil Rights Act outlawed literacy tests. This is unfortunate, because literacy test could really improve elections in America.

No, I am not advocating a return to the Jim Crowe system. What we should do is have a bipartisan commission come up with a list of hundreds of multiple choice questions and have each voter receive ten of them at random. If the voter is unable to get seven of the ten correct, that person’s vote won’t count.

Imagine how this would change elections. Cable news channels, instead of focusing on how the horse race will end, will offer program after program trying to educate voters to pass the literacy test. Dishonest attack ads will be replaced with ads targeting likely voters for a candidate and try to ensure that they can answer seven of ten questions. Candidates for office, instead of trying to mislead the public, would be well served trying to educate voters. Talk around the water cooler, instead of passing the latest bullshit propagated on cable news and campaign ads, would be about new factual discoveries about the state of politics and the empirical affects of recent legislation.

And the electorate would vote for candidates based on how they actually performed in office instead of how their PR people and financial backers framed the debate.