'Bred Crumbs

With the frelniks at SciFi already starting to dance on Farscape's grave with four episodes still to go, it's nice to be able to congratulate a TV network for doing something good for a change. Huzzahs aplenty to the Cartoon Network, which announced new episodes of most of its "Adult Swim" comedies – best of all, 13 new shots of Sealab 2021 later this year. "It's like a koala bear crapped a rainbow in my brain!"

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I know what I want to be when I grow up: a marketing executive for Fox.

Imagine your week.

MONDAY

Junior Programming Executive: The ratings for Honeymoon Humvee are through the roof. We're looking for some way to stretch out the series.

You, The Marketing Executive: But you're already down to the last two contestants, right?

JPE: Precisely.

YTME: Gimme a minute. [Thinks for a second] OK, I've got it. A clip show.

JPE: Um, but it's only a four-week series.

YTME: You said ratings through the roof? How are the devotographics?

JPE: Off the scale. People are buying water coolers for their houses so they can gather around themselves to talk about the show during commercials. Demos are sweet, too. We're huge in 12-to-13-and-and-half females and womb-to-two males.

YTME: Then, sure, clip show! Hell, make it a three-hour clip show! Just show some of the clips twice, but in black and white and flipped the second time, like Behind the Music. We'll run ads every 10 minutes for a week announcing, "Brock makes his ultimate choice!"

JPE: But if we reveal his choice now, what do we do in the finale?

YTME: [Laughing derisively] Idiot, we don't actually reveal his choice. It's a clip show! Jeez, did you just fall off the cable truck yesterday?

JPE: But won't viewers get pissed off if we lie about what the episode is?

YTME: Look at your numbers again. How are the VCFs?

JPE: VCFs?

YTME: Jesus P. Eisner, the VCFs. Viewer Crap Filters.

JPE: [Scanning his papers] Oh, here they are. Wow, below zero. Viewers can't even hear their consciences anymore.

YTME: Great. Schedule it for a repeat the next night.

JPE: Tuesday? But we'll have to pre-empt 24, and then we won't be able to wrap up the story in May sweeps.

YTME: No problem. Drop an episode.

JPE: But ... but then there'll only be 23 episodes.

YTME: So? It's not like we're changing the title, for Murdoch's sake. Here, we'll toss the fans a bone. Start promoting next week's episode as "the shocking 100th episode."

JPE: Um, we've only shown eight.

YTME: [Mocking] "We've only shown eight." Christ and a blowjob, where the hell am I suddenly, a Star Trek convention? I bet you've memorized the number of times Donald Sutherland drives a fucking Ford in each episode.

JPE: It's Kiefer.

YTME: [Thinking] In the ads for the next episode, we'll say he's Donald. Special Guest Appearance. Stunt casting. People will watch anyone we tell them should be famous. Damn, shame his name's not Corey. Hell, let's say there's a Corey in it, too. Feldman, Haim, whatever. Just have one of the characters watching The Lost Boys and we're set. We do own that, right? Wait, that'll make it a reunion show! God, I'm a genius.

JPE: [Clutching his chest] Ow.

YTME: Whatsa matter?

JPE: I think my soul just died.

YTME: About time. [Rifling through desk, retrieving a bottle of pills] Here, few of these will do you right up. [Hands him pills and a flask of tequila] Make sure to wash 'em down.

JPE: [Turning to leave] Yes, sir.

YTME: Hey, by the way, what's the big finish of Humvee?

JPE: Brock picks Alyshiqua, the kindergarten-teacher-slash-elbow-model. Then we give them the Humvee.

YTME: OK, here's the tagline for the finale: "With a surprise ending so shocking your entrails will rend your abdominal cavity and spill out onto the floor."

JPE: But people already know— [His face suddenly contorts, as if something painful is churning inside him; then he smiles broadly] And we can say, "If you miss this, you deserve to be shunned by all and stoned to death naked in the street."

YTME: Beautiful. Welcome to the jungle, kid.

TUESDAY

[Takes the rest of the week off for tennis and teenage hookers in San Diego and token appearance at kitten-processing factory for new part-owned mall food-court chain]

Perhaps it's too much to reach for. I should probably work my way up to it, aim for a slightly more respectable job first. Weekly World News editor, that sort of thing.

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