Melding several topics (cinematic and cultural literacy, worst inventions, etc.), what cable channels would the collective demented minds create?
After the televised-brouhaha OJ and Mendendez trials, CourtTV popped up. ER and med dramas spawned channels featuring surgical procedures.
Television has aptly been called a vast wasteland, but the assembled minds here are suitably vast and wasted to meet the challenge. What cable channel would you predict/start?
Starter examples:
The Funeral Channel: started by the Princess Diana services, but encompassing any dead celebrity.
The Disaster Channel: plane crashes featured, but all mourners solicited.
Hobbies Channel: Beanie Baby addicts, thimble collectors, support groups, etc.
I thoroughly believe that there should be a Natural Disaster channel where they could show tornado footage, earthquake aftermath, and amazing flood rescues 24/7. All those people who go crazy over those weather specials on the Discovery Channel would love it! (Not to mention all those people obsessed with the Weather Channel!)
I have a hobby. I have the world’s largest collection of seashells. I keep it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you’ve seen some of it.
There should be a parenting channel. NOT 24 hours of empty-headed Chicken Soup for the Soul/A Baby Story/Lifetime crap. Sure, it should have pediatricians and child psychologists and all that, but I’m thinking more along the lines of REAL families being interviewed…y’know the kind: their houses aren’t perfectly decorated and spotlessly clean and baby-proofed by professionals. The moms are usually pushing stray chunks of hair away from their faces as they stand in the kitchen making PB&J for lunch. The dads can be found sucked into the Internet, the kids run around in just diapers, socks and T-shirts, with some sort of something sticking a few strands of hair together and the same sort of something seemingly permanently attached to their faces. The dog’s barking his fool head off, the Teletubbies are spouting gobbledy-gook at nearly full blast in the background, and the phone won’t stop ringing.
After the kids go to bed, they’ll play movies like French Kiss or The Ref…basically anything that provides a few laughs and is easy to watch without having to exert a whole lot of mental energy…because we’re tired, dammit, and we just want to sit down and watch something that doesn’t have anything to do with purple dinosaurs, big comfy couches or leaping lemurs.
I think it’d be pretty neat to have a cable channel that plays music and has shows related to it. There used to be one of those, but something must have happened, because everytime I turn where it used to be, there’s these shows called “Road Rules” and “The Real World” on. Don’t get me wrong, I like whiny 19-year olds as much as the next guy, but I really wonder what happened to MTV. :rolleyes:
“I’ll tell you a secret, baby - maybe you can’t do better - gotta settle for second best” - the Judybats
That hobbies channel already exists in two forms. QVC, and the Home Shopping Network. My mother is currently enrolled in a twelve-step program to get that monkey off her back, but unfortunately, the UPS guy keeps showing up with her packages.
I think there should be a channel devoted entirely to cheese. Cheese production, cheese eating, sitcoms about cheese starring cheese, first run cheese movies. Can y’all see the posibilities?
There should be a minor road accident channel, not showing the accident, but showing the vehicles involved, waiting around for the poilce/tow trucks to arrive.
You could watch the highlights of the drivers exchanging insurance no.s, telephone numbers, and even cut live to possible fights that might break out. you could have about 5 crews monitoring every large city, waiting for accidents to happen, ready to catch the developments.
Also, you could have the people walking into doors or low signs, or just bumping their knees off coffee tables. 24/7 all day, every day. I’d watch.
J
I’m a maniac, a maa-ianac thats for sure,
ANd Im dancin’ like I never did be-foor"
Groundskeeper Willy
A gameshow channel where the contestants can actually say what they think! (Gee Regis, that’s hard. The capital of France… umm Franceville?)
Or where they have gameshow with no other purpose than to make the contestants look stupid. They can make “Who wants to marry a millionaire?” and then the millionaire turns out to be Mr. Burns. (Excellent, Smithers.)
I have a friend (I’ll give you one guess as to the gender of said friend…) who thinks the Two Chicks Kissing channel is the most brilliant thing he ever came up with. 24 hours a day of two chicks kissing. The frightening thing is I REALLY think he could make an ass-load of cash on it… :rolleyes:
The line up would be as follows (not necessarily in this order):
Sitcoms:
Mary Tyler Moore Show
Lou Grant Show
Robin of Loxlea
All the Star Treks save the original
The Young Ones
Cadfael
Highlander the Series
Xena: Warrior Princess
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Gummi Bears (Disney)
Smurfs (all the seasons not the Snorks)
Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon (I liked it as a kid)
Twin Peaks the series
The Simpsons
South Park
NON-Sitcoms
Live from Lincoln Center (or any other symphonic shows)
Televised Operas focusing on specific periods per week
Nude professional/nonprofessional wrestling (just for fun)
Chamber Music peformance (a show I made up)
Cult movie Friday night
Plus any other thing that I want shown.
It’s either that or an all Small Wonders TV channel. (That would be the channel of Evil.)
The All Subliminal Pay Per View Network. You chose the subliminal message and the movie/show, we play them simultaneously at whatever time you choose. All for only $19.95 per viewing! Some sample orders:
9 1/2 Weeks & subliminal “Time for sex!” Iron Chef & subliminal “Fix my dinner!” This Old House & subliminal “Must work on the honey-do list” Liar, Liar & subliminal “Are you hiding something from your spouse/SO/parents?”
The possibilities are endless! Yep, I’m gonna be a rich man.
The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik
My best friend grew up with a girl whose imagination was a little too vivid. The girl had a tv channel, and she was the star. She played Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, and it was called The Dorothy Channel. All her cartoon pals would drop by, like the gang from Scooby Doo, and they’d just hang out with Dorothy. Every now and then, she’d have an episode where Dorothy was dying, and everyone would come to the show where she was on her deathbed and cry and beg her to get well soon.
I always thought something like, “The Physics Channel” would be cool.
Other possibilities:
The Shit Channel - Showing animals taking dumps.
The Fishtank Channel - Not about, just of.
The Pimp/Crack Dealer Channel - Checking out guys with purple velvet hats wheelin’ and dealin’.
What I tell you three times is true. The Hunting of the Snark.
Lewis Carroll