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 October 10, 2005 |
Los Angeles, CA Courtesy Fox Either a promotional shot from Desperate Alien Prison Escape or more of that leftover Kate Moss party footage
“We don’t understand it,” lamented stunned network executive Roger Bacon. “This show capitalized on every hot trend currently on TV. We even had swearing. It should have been the biggest hit of all time. Fuck.”
Fox’s latest ratings hopeful follows the travails of Juk, a member of a secret alien invasion conspiracy who intentionally gets arrested for sleeping with a bored suburban housewife in order to help his cousin escape from jail, using a detailed map he had tattooed on his scrotum, which due to his alien anatomy is located where a human being’s eyelids would be...
he new television season barely underway, Fox executives are already lamenting the low ratings for their most calculated new show of the season, Desperate Alien Prison Escape.
“We don’t understand it,” lamented stunned network executive Roger Bacon. “This show capitalized on every hot trend currently on TV. We even had swearing. It should have been the biggest hit of all time. Fuck.”
Fox’s latest ratings hopeful follows the travails of Juk, a member of a secret alien invasion conspiracy who intentionally gets arrested for sleeping with a bored suburban housewife in order to help his cousin escape from jail, using a detailed map he had tattooed on his scrotum, which due to his alien anatomy is located where a human being’s eyelids would be.
The series premier drew a 3.0 rating, which translates to 3 million households either watching the show or having the TV set to that station so they can play their X-box. The second episode of the season, however, was quickly down to a 0.1 rating, which at the time tied the record for the lowest-rated program previously set by the 1972 broadcast of the British Cooking Championships. The show’s most recent episode drew a disappointing -1 rating, which means it wasn’t even watched by the camera operators while filming. Industry insiders believe this fact explains the show’s avant-garde cinematography, with the camera often focused on the corner of a room’s ceiling while the scene’s principals are heard talking off-screen. That’s what industry insiders hear, anyway, not that any of them watched the show.
Few of Fox’s new shows have fared any better, including The Crew Chief, where Gary, Indiana McDonald’s employee Tyler Buick thrills viewers with this cutthroat fast food management style. The show’s limited appeal was clearly illustrated in this exchange between Buick and underperforming drive-thru cashier Gladys Phillips in the series’ pilot.
“You’re toast. Asta la pasta, dirtbag.”
“You don’t have the authority to fire me; you’re just the crew chief.”
“Sayonara, won’t see ya tomorra!”
“Get out of my face.”
“Thanks for playing. Don’t let the automatic sliding doors close on your ass now!”
Analysts believe the poor showing of Fox’s latest derivative programs may be a sign that viewers aren’t watching television any more, likely instead spending their time viewing pornography, playing video games, surfing the internet and freebasing cocaine.
Other analysts consider this analysis to be far-fetched, preferring to go the music industry route of blaming new technology for the public’s lack of interest in a low-grade product.
“This is all TiVo’s fault,” groaned Fox executive Nigel Thomas. “When you can watch things whenever you want, on your own schedule, I don’t know. That’s bad for some reason.”
Other Fox employees remain optimistic, suggesting that viewers are likely just too busy joining terrorist organizations to tune in to Fox’s fantastic new fall shows. the commune news admits we haven’t watched Desperate Alien Prison Escape yet either, but we swear it’s only because it’s on opposite Cat Pants, which we once vowed never to miss. During her visit to Fox headquarters, commune reporter Ivana Folger-Balzac was propositioned with several offers for her own reality show, with titles ranging from “Hey Hotlegs” and “The Ballbuster” to “That Bitch Just Poked Out My Left Eye!”
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Ring tones changed again on personal Cruise cell phone
MasterCard issued to Donald Trump in hopes of spurring economy
Red Sox outcurse Yankees to win World Series
 Congress Lobbied for More Material to Complete Brando Memorial |
British Nearly Affected by London Terror Attacks ith their famously stoic façade put to the ultimate test, Londoners came through with flying colors this week, failing to register the slightest emotion in the face of stunning terror attacks on the city’s mass transit system that left 50 dead and over 700 wounded. “Oh yes, it was quite a mess,” explained commuter Harold Alburn, who was aboard one of the bombed subway trains and only survived due to being caked in a human cocoon formed by the flaming remains of his fellow passengers. “That rail line’s going to be down for weeks, you have to assume.” Jackson Prosecution Produces Bloody Glove he Michael Jackson trial escalated to the seventh level of hooplah Friday as prosecutors introduced into evidence a bloody sequined gloved that had not been previously revealed publicly. The defense requested a recess, to which the witty judge replied that no one had been good enough to deserve recess, but they would take a brief break. It gave the Jackson defense, led by attorney and Warhol knock-off Thomas Mesereau, a chance to recover from the five-fingered blow. New .eu Domains Popular Among Gross-Out, Childbirth Video Websites Sharon Still in Coma, Phyllis Still Total Slutbag |
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 April 15, 2002
Jojo the ImpIn the Valley of Sali, beneath a beautiful bridge, lived an Imp named Jojo who dreamed of one day being a construction worker. His daydreams were filled with visions of hardhats and bolt-throwers and rivets shining in the noontime sun. It was a stupid dream, but nobody had the heart to tell Jojo this, since he was the fragile sort and cried at the slightest provocation. Seriously, like when it rained and the ground got all muddy or when the sun came out and the water evaporated. Anything, really. One time he cried for two days because there were an odd number of blades of grass growing under the bridge. Thank God a caterpillar came along and ate one of them, or else Jojo might never have recovered.
One day Jojo woke up and the valley was buzzing with excitement. Really, it was making this sound like a refrigerator with a bad freon coil. There was some kind of problem with the trees being out of compliance, technical stuff. But besides that, everyone was excited. An exciting stranger had come to town, and even better: he was wearing a gigantic Mexican-style hat. Few things excited the people of Sali more than a genuine Mexican-style hat.
The stranger's name was Senior Sombrero ("Touché!" Jojo thought to himself wittily) and he promised the people of Sali (and by "people" I really mean all sorts of magical creatures and different-sized folks, not the boring kinds of people you see every day) many magical wonders if they would only allow him to take...
º Last Column: The Hat Thief
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In the Valley of Sali, beneath a beautiful bridge, lived an Imp named Jojo who dreamed of one day being a construction worker. His daydreams were filled with visions of hardhats and bolt-throwers and rivets shining in the noontime sun. It was a stupid dream, but nobody had the heart to tell Jojo this, since he was the fragile sort and cried at the slightest provocation. Seriously, like when it rained and the ground got all muddy or when the sun came out and the water evaporated. Anything, really. One time he cried for two days because there were an odd number of blades of grass growing under the bridge. Thank God a caterpillar came along and ate one of them, or else Jojo might never have recovered.
One day Jojo woke up and the valley was buzzing with excitement. Really, it was making this sound like a refrigerator with a bad freon coil. There was some kind of problem with the trees being out of compliance, technical stuff. But besides that, everyone was excited. An exciting stranger had come to town, and even better: he was wearing a gigantic Mexican-style hat. Few things excited the people of Sali more than a genuine Mexican-style hat.
The stranger's name was Senior Sombrero ("Touché!" Jojo thought to himself wittily) and he promised the people of Sali (and by "people" I really mean all sorts of magical creatures and different-sized folks, not the boring kinds of people you see every day) many magical wonders if they would only allow him to take off his hat. And the people of Sali were practically starved for excitement, since though they lived in a magical enchanted land, people are people and they were bored with it. So of course they said yes, by all means beautiful stranger, take off your gigantic authentic Mexican-style hat!
In retrospect that was a stupid call, but few of the people had read ahead in the story so they didn't know that as soon as Senior Sombrero took off his hat and set it on the ground, all manner of different-sized and colored snakes would come pouring out of it, flooding the land with snakes extraordinaire. Senior Sombrero laughed a relieved laugh, as he'd been trying for weeks to get rid of all of those snakes in his hat and this was really starting to look like his day. He ducked into a doorway carved into an otherwise-ordinary tree and left his snake-erupting hat and the people of Sali behind. They would never see Senior Sombrero again, except for one time at the mall but that could have just been some guy who looked like Senior Sombrero, nobody was completely sure.
For ten days and ten nights snakes poured forth from the gigantic authentic Mexican-style hat, and the valley of Sali was filled to the brim with snakes. Everywhere you turned, there were snakes. Coming up out of the sinks, raining down out of airplanes, curled up inside the basketballs, they were absolutely everywhere. It was nearly impossible to find a place to sit down and there were major problems because all of the toilets were clogged up with snakes and when it was hot you couldn't turn on a fan unless you wanted to turn your house into a snake-themed Jackson Pollack painting.
All the people of Sali lamented and wondered aloud what they could do to get rid of all of the snakes. Wasn't there some meek little creature who could rise above his fears and save them all, proving everyone wrong who had always said he was good for nothing, and lending a touching conclusion to this dark tale? They often wondered this very aloud while walking past Jojo's bridge, and they sent him faxes musing the same. And they were right. Only Jojo could save them from this dastardly predicament.
Too bad he'd ditched out of town the second all of those snakes started pouring out of the giant Mexican-style hat. Good Lord was Jojo afraid of snakes! And that's the story of the town you know as Snakehampton. º Last Column: The Hat Thiefº more columns
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|  September 16, 2011
A Day That Will Live in FamyEmil's Note: You won't believe your luck and mine, Rok readers! Did you know that, after the initial Sept. 11 attacks on American soil, nerves-of-steel columnist Rok Finger wrote his thoughts about the event for commune publication? For some reason known only to the Red almighty, it never ran. Maybe too controversial for its "barely coherent handwriting" and with uncommon levels of coffee staining, but it's been a decade, the standards have changed, even drastically lowered, and I'm willing to run what Señor Bagel did not. So here to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the commune's Oct. 1st return to regular publishing, enjoy this nose nugget from a time gone by…
Good people, there are no words to describe what I am feeling today. Though "fuckdammit" and "cuntballs" are pretty close.
Here it is, Wednesday morning, and I have endured, with the rest of America, watching those glorious towers fall yesterday in New York City. Some bad shit also happened in the nation's capital, but I was getting a sandwich when they covered that. To hit the World Trade Center, all of those casualties, all that property damage done, it's the greatest tragedy of our lifetimes, or it would be, if all those people who were around during Pearl Harbor would hurry up and die off. Myself excluded, of course.
We must not rush to conclusions on this. No matter the anger that we all feel, it's more important than ever to remember the tenets of...
º Last Column: Thank God For Osama Ben Laden
º more columns
Emil's Note: You won't believe your luck and mine, Rok readers! Did you know that, after the initial Sept. 11 attacks on American soil, nerves-of-steel columnist Rok Finger wrote his thoughts about the event for commune publication? For some reason known only to the Red almighty, it never ran. Maybe too controversial for its "barely coherent handwriting" and with uncommon levels of coffee staining, but it's been a decade, the standards have changed, even drastically lowered, and I'm willing to run what Señor Bagel did not. So here to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the commune's Oct. 1st return to regular publishing, enjoy this nose nugget from a time gone by…
Good people, there are no words to describe what I am feeling today. Though "fuckdammit" and "cuntballs" are pretty close.
Here it is, Wednesday morning, and I have endured, with the rest of America, watching those glorious towers fall yesterday in New York City. Some bad shit also happened in the nation's capital, but I was getting a sandwich when they covered that. To hit the World Trade Center, all of those casualties, all that property damage done, it's the greatest tragedy of our lifetimes, or it would be, if all those people who were around during Pearl Harbor would hurry up and die off. Myself excluded, of course.
We must not rush to conclusions on this. No matter the anger that we all feel, it's more important than ever to remember the tenets of our judicial system. I trust as soon as the president comes out of hiding he will remind us that it's not enough to assume who did it, to round up every suspect and throw them away in prison for the rest of their lives without giving themselves a chance to prove their innocence at trials. No matter how it might seem, we need to investigate this great tragedy, find those responsible, wherever they are. Even if we already know who did it.
That's right: Mall developers. It was bound to happen, all of that beautiful expensive real estate taken up by those shining silver towers jutting up from the ground like twin robot erections, not a Sbarro or Spencer's Gifts among them. The best designers in the world couldn't make escalators that go up that high, and we knew it the whole time, we knew we were asking for foreign mall developers to come and give us the business. I keep hearing that the casualties might have been worse in the afternoon, after all the teenagers had gotten out of school, but I still wish it had been earlier in the morning, when only the old people were walking the towers.
Nor should we go out into the streets of our own country, like a mob, and take out our frustrations on people just because they're part of the same group. I've known many mall developers in this country, and no matter how scummy they are, some of them are good people. Why, here in Flatbush we have one of the world's most beautiful malls, not built as a beacon of commerce but as a town center, complete with a garden and library. True, the garden is mostly made up of Chinese food and goes by the name Mandarin Garden, and the library charges preposterous prices for every book you check out, but this is the town center of the 21st century. Mall developers have brought us that, good mall developers, not the monsters who knocked down our big buildings.
Some people have been quick to ask that the military involve themselves in this conflict, but I ask, what could the military do? The damage has been done here. The injuries we've suffered as a nation doesn't give us the right to go stomping around the rest of the world, throwing out weight around, exacting vengeance like a pissed-off Mel Gibson—not unless we get Mel Gibson himself to do it. Man, that guy's star will never fade. No, I say the military has no place in this. We must ask our brother nations and sister nation (I'm winking slyly at you, France) to join us in ending mall developer terrorism, forming a coalition of peace to arrest mall developer terrorists and dismantle their organizations. It's the wisest and most constitutional course of action, but I don't have to tell our president about doing the right moral thing. I look to you, Mr. President!
One final thought: Let this horrible scar in our modern history be a reminder, not a wasted opportunity. This closeness we all feel today should not be lost or forgotten. When I first got news of the tragedy, I saw a hot dog vendor hugging a Rocky Horror Picture Show fan—that's right, mortal enemies locked in an embrace, right out in the open. Just this morning I looked out my window and saw a child savaging my lawn with a flaming roll of toilet paper and I didn't have the heart to interrupt his fun. Things are getting back to normal, however slowly, but we will never be the same, and if we are all quick to remember we're more alike than unalike, we can be better from this.
As for the responsible party (cough, cough, mall developers, cough), don't worry. They will be brought to justice, even if it takes us another ten years. But not one single year longer than that, do you hear me? Not one. º Last Column: Thank God For Osama Ben Ladenº more columns
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Quote of the Day“To dream the impossible dream… to really step on my own bottom lip while being smacked on the ass by Gary Busey riding a unicycle. Yes, this is quite impossible.”
-Don Key HoytFortune 500 CookieRead a book today: It's like bran for your head. Hate music? Buy J-Lo's new album and really feed that feeling. You'll finally get over that hump this Wednesday; that dog's never coming back to you anyway. You finally get your proof you're an American institution when six inmates escape from your ass. Lucky numbers are all square roots of –1.
Try again later.Top Reader Requests| 1. | A place to crash tonight | | 2. | The head of Red Bagel | | 3. | Head from Lil Duncan | | 4. | Sweet validation | | 5. | A prompt refund of what? | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Roland McShyster 11/29/2004 Well fancy that, America. If I've ever seen anything fancier, I failed to be adequately impressed and eventually forgot that I saw it. Maybe I have a problem. But there's no time for that right now, Hollywood's been cranking out the skank while we were chatting it up, and if we're not careful they're going to squeeze some of that beef on by, unreviewed. Not on my watch, America.
In Theaters Now:
Alexander
Finally, the controversial story of Alexander Hamilton is coming to the big screen. Did you know he wasn't even a president, yet he still got on our money? Crazy shit. Turns out he was banging the printer's daughter and managed to get his face printed on some test money as a joke, only the money got out and people started spending it, so the...
Well fancy that, America. If I've ever seen anything fancier, I failed to be adequately impressed and eventually forgot that I saw it. Maybe I have a problem. But there's no time for that right now, Hollywood's been cranking out the skank while we were chatting it up, and if we're not careful they're going to squeeze some of that beef on by, unreviewed. Not on my watch, America.
In Theaters Now:
Alexander
Finally, the controversial story of Alexander Hamilton is coming to the big screen. Did you know he wasn't even a president, yet he still got on our money? Crazy shit. Turns out he was banging the printer's daughter and managed to get his face printed on some test money as a joke, only the money got out and people started spending it, so the government had to leave it that way.
The movie does a great job telling Hamilton's tale, and portraying the disbelief among his friends when they go to spend a $10 and see the face of their shiftless, no-account buddy grinning back up at them. And try to tell me that CGI hasn't made movies better after you see Hamilton's half-brother Jake drive an entire horse carriage into a lake from surprise when he gets the news. In the past, we had to just imagine what a scene like that would have looked like, since in reality horses dissolve upon contact with water. But not anymore. I'd comment on the acting in the film, but since I wasn't around 200 years ago to say what these people were really like, I have no idea if the actors did a good job or not. They could be way off for all I know. But I will say that Colin Farrell looks like about ten bucks, so I'm pretty sure he did a good job as Hamilton.
Christmas with the Crack
Tim Allen shocks us again with another bold choice, this time a weird turn as a crack-addicted dad who sells his family Christmas, and his family, in exchange for some sweet, sweet rock. Though the trailer made the movie seem more like Home Improvement by way of Requiem for a Dream, the only really funny scene is when Allen burns his face on a hot crack pipe and has to fake like he hasn't been horribly disfigured. So be warned that while the slapstick plays funny in the trailer, it's actually kind of sad in the context of Allen's self-destructive downward spiral in the film. Except when he's trying to smoke a loaf of crack out of the chimney and he falls off the roof, that shit is funny in any context.
National Treasure
Is anybody else getting sick of these goddamned Olsen twins? I don't even think they look that much alike. If I were buying the pair, I'd ask for a discount on the one on the left. She looks like she's been around the block a few times. But whether you think they're the worst thing to come out of Hollywood since the Asian restaurant bird flu, or just a Nazi plot, all would have to agree it's going a little far to call these two robo-skanks a National Treasure. That's the kind of bullshit treasure you throw back before checking to make sure you weren't holding the map upside down. This movie's got no stars, and I'm not about to give it any.
The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie
Forgive me for being out of the political loop lately, I have to admit I stopped paying attention after Ronald Reagan won Idaho in 1980, and ever since then I've kept abreast of politics solely through the text on the back of boxes of children's breakfast cereal. So I may be the last person on earth to realize there's been a hit cartoon parody of Bob Dole (a Fruit Loops man, by the way) running for years, which has finally Doled its way onto the big screen.
SpongeBob Squarepants hits the former Senator hard where he lives, slamming Dole's love of taking a bath, his proudly uncool nature, and his trademark nasally voice to equally devastating effect. Some might consider the political commentary too harsh, portraying current Vice President Dick Cheney as a bumbling, overweight starfish, and former President George H.W. Bush as a weird hooked-nosed underwater Gonzo-type thing. But I've always preferred my political potshots hard and straight, like a Republican in a titty bar or a shot of whiskey on ice cubes made from whiskey. Can they do that? I mean, does whiskey freeze? I can't believe nobody's ever thought of that before. I'll be right back.
That's the end, America. Get out if you don't like it. And if you do like it, but still want to stick around for some reason, tough tits. I'm not running a youth hostel here. But one of you should stick around to hold the fire extinguisher; I'm not going to be able to sleep until I find out if frozen whiskey can still catch on fire.   |
