Making the Bland

or MT-TV

 

Beware, everyone; MTV is on its way to infiltrating regular TV as we know it.

Most of us are old enough to remember back when MTV was "Music Television," you know, actually showing music videos and stuff. Then along came The Real World, along with a plethora of stupid game shows, "award shows" that no one really gives a rat's ass about, and commercial breaks that are longer than the shows themselves. Because of this, I've decided to rename MTV to "Media Television," or as an episode of Pinky and the Brain so eloquently put it, "MT-TV." And for the last few years it's been okay, since you can just say "MTV blows" and change the channel to Cartoon Network, but now, they're bringing their line of crap to network TV. That's right; MTV is so full with crappy "reality shows" and reruns of crappy "reality shows" that they are selling their trash to ABC and who knows where else.

In case you are somehow unfamiliar with the term "reality show" as defined by MTV, here it is:

reality show <crap>: n: The "true story" of X emotionally disturbed freaks picked to live in a $10 million house none of them would ever have a chance of getting themselves, and having their lives taped, then cut and pasted by the execs to form an exciting plot under the guise of a "documentary"... so we can find out what happens when spoiled kids stop being snotty... and start getting over-dramatic.

Now don't get me wrong, some reality shows are good stuff. Take "Blind Date" for instance, which would be the Best TV Show Ever if it wasn't for "The Price Is Right" and that ever-lovable Plinko. Most of the time, however, it's just a pile of garbage that can last anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes.

Anyway, I discovered MTV's evil scheme when I was flipping through the channels one night, and I came across this stupid show called "Making the Band." This awful love child of television execs and horse crap is an MTV-produced show which has been dumped on ABC. It follows the exploits and whining (mostly whining) of 8 boys who are (surprise!) picked to live in a ridiculously furnished house, 5 of which will eventually form a boy band. And you know how much we love boy bands, right? Let's get serious here, now. Do you mean to tell me that some guy at MTV was sitting in his office, puffing away on his favorite bong, and suddenly the clouds opened in his tripped out mind, and he said to himself, "You know what the world needs more of? Boy Bands. Hey, who the hell cares if they all suck and sound exactly the same... that's what the people want! It's what the people need!" Although we all know by now that "Total Request Live" is completely rigged, you know that Armageddon's near when the top 3 songs are from N'Sync, the Backdoor- er, Backstreet Boys, and Hanson. Hanson! Does anyone truly listen to+ this crap? It used to be that the bands that were made up of kids were actually talented. In the 70's, it was the Jackson Five. In the 80's, it was New Edition, which was fundamentally a Jackson Five clone, but they were still talented enough. So, I ask you, where did we go wrong after that?

But I digress, as usual. Back to this damn show. If you've seen "The Real World", you're familiar with the formula. Bunch of kids, spoiled, can't stand each other, if they can stand each other, their sentences are cut and pasted so it seems otherwise, yadda-yadda-yadda. Anyone familiar with the formula will also recognize the "diversity" aspect of the show, in which the "cast" (some reality, huh?) must contain at least one (1) black person or person of similar ethnic origin, and one (1) gay person, male or female. They meet the diversity requirement by including a bald black guy, an Asian guy that looks like Sulu off Star Trek, and an Indian-looking guy, although he probably technically counts as another white guy. I guess MTV figured that bringing a gay guy in on this one would cause a few problems somewhere down the line, and make them the butt of a few more jokes.

And I suppose that these people were supposed to be more talented than the however-many thousands of people that signed up. But I could be wrong, because I regularly flush better talent than these freaks. The episode I unwittingly stumbled across featured the "cast" butchering The Searchers' "Love Potion Number Nine" and I will wager that I can train my dogs to sing a better rendition. I'd also think that MTV just wanted to toss together a few "pretty boys" to parade around, but that can't be true either, because these guys are some ugly SOB's. At least I was right about one thing; that when the final cut was made, all the "diversity requirements" were going right out the door. Black guy? See ya. Asian guy? Don't make me laugh. There's no place for you here, and you should be smacked around, just like the rest of these retards, for even thinking of pushing the world closer to the brink of destruction by making more crappy me-too music. Now that I think of it, this show should be called "Manufacturing the Band" instead.

The most amusing part of the show is the fact that they actually show the cast members being screwed by the record company... just like in real life! I guess MTV felt a bit guilty showing us all this crap under the guise of reality for so long, and wanted to give us all a glimpse, however small, of what it's "really" like. It's laughable that the record company wants to sign these losers up for a 10 year contract, much longer than this fad will last, and no doubt at a ridiculously small commission rate. It's even more laughable that they damn near signed the contracts without a second thought. "I just want to get this started and become a star, man!" is a paraphrase of what one of them said. I don't remember exactly; I only paid attention to the especially stupid parts.

You want to know what real talent is? Click right on here!