They Killed Cable!
You can suffer the noise your suitemates create and ignore that strange one your roommate makes when
you re trying to sleep, but this is the final straw. You’re in South Park withdrawal. A semester without
Comedy Central is one adjustment you can’t make.
You sorry bastard.
South Park s popularity has been sustained on the mitial wave of shock value and the low production values
which make the characters voices incredibly easy to imitate. How else can I explain the show’s appeal
without calling you stupid? It’s not brilliantly funny. The show rarely takes a joke beyond its basic concept:
Planetariums suck, talking poop is gross. Very Special Episodes are lame. These may be inherently fiinny
themes, but themes don’t carry an episode. Friends takes greater intellectual leaps to provide less predictable
attempts at humor than South Park ever considers.
For once, I don’t see what there is to complain about. You can catch Sifl & Oily for quality wackiness. The
Simpsons offers less grating quotes for use in casual conversation. The subtle (bordering on obscure) satire of
Sam &Max is more biting. You can watch all these without having to bear the infinite Daily Show
advertisements that plague the comedy channel. In addition, our college cable provider is saving you the pain
of accidentally flipping on another Friday night "Movies That Killed Careers" marathon.
Do you realize the horrors that this show has wrought? Surely everyone knows someone with PTCD,
Post-Traumatic Cartman Syndrome. (As simple as it is to do, you still don’t sound like him!) Then there’s the
undeniable urge everyone has to make "They killed Kenny!" jokes, a social disease which even I have been
diagnosed with. There are other effects of the fallout you may never see, but exist nonetheless in dark
corners, waiting for you to wander onto the wrong website. Babylon Park, anyone?
So I don’t care about South Park. That’s OK, because you don’t care about my programs either. I’ve had to
survive two years of college WiXhovXMystery Science Theater 3000. My sophomore year I was deprived of
Millennium by its very creator, who decided to hand it over to two guys who couldn’t even keep their own
series alive. I panic every time the cable company hides Fox from me and I’m very bitter about our
conciliatory access to the Sci-Fuzz channel.
We share a problem and I think we can feel each other’s pain. In recognition of our similar predicaments, I
offer you my personal coping mechanism.
When I was a child, Muppet Babies taught me that when the TV isn’t working, you make your own shows.
All you need is some imagination and a cardboard box, and the former is optional. This is how I got through
elementary school after they canceled ALF.
More recently, I brought to St. Andrews. My freshman year, my friends and I would get together
Tuesday nights and heckle UPN’s w&xm&-he X-Files line up. Thanks to the dreadful material, we were never
at a loss for something to comment on. For once, everything went horribly right.. until Kevin got a girlfriend
and we didn’t have the resources for a cast change.
It’s easy to create aM5T atmosphere, but what about South Park? Having successfully created a substitute for
Millennium deprivation last year, I can assure you that the ambiance of any series is easily replicated.
Simply reinterpret your St. Andrews experiences into the appropriate episodic format.