On New Year’s Day, Nikki and I watched a movie called Idiocracy. If you’ve seen it, bear with me. If you’ve not, let me explain. Idiocracy is a Mike Judge (Office Space, “King of the Hill”) film about an average guy who wakes up 500 years into America’s future. This future he finds, isn’t so bright. In fact, it’s very dumb. The premise at work here is that in the reproductive race to populate the planet from now until 2505, humanity’s best and brightest failed to keep up with humanity’s decidedly less-than-gifted. The President is a former American Gladiator with “Mountain Dew” for a middle name. Water has been replaced with a sports drink. And the most popular show on television is called “Ow! My Balls!”
As you might expect, the episodic plot of “Ow! My Balls!” centers on the star of the show falling, tripping or otherwise bouncing in such a way as to always punish his junk. A recurring joke of the film is that whenever the show’s star makes a public appearance, random citizens will rush over to kick him square in the [insert your favorite hilarious term for male genitalia here]. What channel does this show come on? The Violence Channel, of course.
As with most of Mike Judge’s work, Idiocracy is smarter than it looks. Just as the humor in Office Space has a resonance because of its foundation in corporate truth, it’s not too much of a stretch to see Idiocracy as a cautionary tale. All in all, given that 2008 is going to be a pivotal year for this country, we movie we watched on the January 1 was just about perfect.
Fast-forward to this week.
Nikki and I like “CSI” quite a lot, so it is mighty convenient that Spike TV sees fit to provide hot-and-cold running “CSI” just about every weeknight. Gil Grissom on tap. But this week, during a commercial break, we see something that looks familiar, though we can’t say why. It’s a promo for a new Friday night line-up on Spike. Neither of us say anything, so we let it pass. A couple of commercial breaks later, it dawns on us just what we’re seeing. I’m not sure who said it first, but we both came to the same realization:
“Oh, my God … it’s Ow! My Balls!”
“You’re right … and Spike TV is the Violence Channel!”
A whole evening of nothing but videotaped reality featuring tumbling helicopters, exploding apartment balconies, dudes slipping and falling on their face, another guy failing to jump a puddle on a dirt bike and so on and so forth. I would compare it to MTV’s Jackass, except Johnny Knoxville and company were being paid specifically to come up with imaginative ways to harm themselves for an audience’s amusement. Instead, this is just straight up Schadenfreude for your evening’s enjoyment. And here’s the kicker …
Friday night’s programming is called:
Now, anytime the promo comes on, we do a fake panic. “Aaaagh! Ow! My Balls! is on! Don’t watch! Where’s the remote?!?” It’s good for a laugh and makes the cats think we’re even less sane than we are. But I have to admit something. Underneath the feigned terror is a sizable amount of apprehension.
The future. Getting closer and scarier by the day.
