A Fool's Utopia 04.15.07: No One Wants This MTV

Posted by Ron Martin on 04.15.2007

On this weeks guest list: MTV's relevancy, Rose McGowan's leg gun, Tango in New York and what really happens when you finally beat Rampage.

-- Hold on for a second while I put on my bifocals, create bad posture by arching my back and work the words "sonny" and "whippersnapper" into my vocabulary because I am going to sound like a grumpy old man.
Does anyone understand the media's fascination with MTV? The channel stopped being pertinent around 1996. Yet, advertisers are convinced that the channel somehow has cornered the coveted teenage market. Only I don't know any teenagers who watch it. The mediocre to poor ratings that all MTV programming receives would suggest that no one else knows too many teenagers that watch it either. Professional wrestling receives ratings greater than four times that of top MTV programming.

Here's where the old man stuff comes into play. I can remember when my friends and I would watch MTV for hours on end. At the very least, it was on in the background while we worked out overly complicated schemes to try and get girls to make out with us. Turns out that most of the time, the plans were too complicated to work, but that's a story for another time. Now, I don't even know what channel MTV is on my digital cable.

Okay, I just went and checked. It's channel 24. It's worse than I could have ever imagined. Instead of cheesy, ridiculous MTV shows of content that matters to exactly no one, the channel is airing about five straight episodes of a reality show ripoff. Does this knockoff reality show get such good ratings from 1 to 5 in the morning that you couldn't replace it with oh, I don't know – let me think. MUSIC?!!! Is that what the ‘M' even stands for anymore?

MTV used to create musical superstars and influence elections. MTV used to be cutting edge and pertinent to youth society. It is now a parody of what it once was. Not only is it completely ignored in mainstream media, but it is also ignored in underground media. While my running crowd may be a bit older than the MTV target audience, I do know a lot of teenagers and it's been well over a decade since I heard "Did you see MTV last night?"

-- So the guy (Tango) who was chosen on the I Love New York show proposed to New York on the season finale. After doing her best impression of a Jim Carrey comedy, New York accepted and the two lived happily ever after.

Except he had a girlfriend the whole time and was just using the show as a kicker to his rap career. Is it all the surprising that the guy didn't really want to marry a chick who was willing to make out with five or six guys in a row per episode (who knows what happened off camera)? Or a girl who though the blowhole on a dolphin was a mouth? Was he ever the last guy in one of those make out strings? Maybe this was his revenge.
One good thing came out of the whole situation. Now they have a premise for I Love New York 2!
Wait a minute; did I just spend a whole part of this column talking about a ripoff reality show? Damn you MTV!! I have dropped IQ points just mentioning you in the first part of this column.

-- I wish life were like wrestling. During my latest bowling league, it came down to the anchor bowler on my team to decide who was going to get the coveted win. I wanted nothing more than to smash him in the back of the head with a steel chair while he was going for the winning strike. This shocking turn out of nowhere would lead me to celebrate with the opposing team as my former teammates huddled around the injured anchor bowler. Man, I wish life was like wrestling!

-- I guess I don't understand what Tarantino and Rodriguez were trying to do with Grindhouse. I mean I get it, but I don't quite understand it. In true pulp genre style the two offer a double feature of goodness meant to emulate the exploitation films of their youths. This comes complete with projector impurities built in (like spots on the screen and the actors voices being a tiny bit off form the actors mouths) as well as some hilarious previews for "upcoming projects." Not to mention Rose McGowan killing zombies with a gun for a leg. It was great. Like I said, I get it.

What I don't understand is this; did they really think the American public was going to get it? Asking the guy who was pissed because he never saw a witch in the The Blair Witch Project sit for three hours in a movie theater and appreciate this minutiae is being little overoptimistic. Sure I can enjoy it, but I am willing to bet that I don't agree with most of America on most things cinematic. This concept, I hate to say, was too inside and too smart for the average person. Well except Rose McGowan with a gun for a leg. Everyone can appreciate that, right?

-- Ice Cube beat out Grindhouse for the top spot last weekend with his family comedy Are We Done Yet? In related news, the former controversial rap star has signed on to play Big Pussy in the movie version of The Sopranos. No, wait. I misread that. That just what he's become.

-- Has any term from a movie caught on in the pop culture lexicon like the word MILF? Although it may have origins before the movie, I am pretty sure it's a term born through American Pie. Now, it's so universal, I have 58-year-old women telling me they are MILFs. The only other one that is popping in my head right now is the "Not!" from Wayne's World. I guess better that term catching on than actually inseminating a pie.


-- This shouldn't go without at least mentioning, as it seems to be the biggest news story of the week. I am, of course talking about, Don Imus being canned because of his "nappy-headed hos" comment. I realize the show has a past history of this sort of thing, but wow did this thing get blown up. While I certainly can't condone an ignorant comment like the one that was made, I also can't understand why this was grounds to fire him. As far as tolerance goes, we are further behind than we have ever been.


-- Rumor has it that former porn star Jenna Jameson is working on a biopic of her career. She has already chosen an actress to play her: Scarlett Johannsen.



I'm okay with that.


--- Three reviews of three random DVDs in my collection.

Mystery Men - This Ben Stiller spoof of the superhero genre is an excellent example of fun without having to think about it. From the ridiculous superpowers the team has (Stiller's superpower is he gets angry – really angry), to the mocking of superhero and villains over the top gimmicks, this movie sends up the super hero genre while still maintaining an identity of its own. With a supporting cast the likes of William H Macy, Hank Azaria, Geoffrey Rush (the brilliantly names Casanova Frankenstein) and Paul Reubens, I can even overlook the casting of Janeane Garofalo. 3/5

Wild Things - This movie is mostly going to be remembered for Neve Campbell and Denise Richards making out. Well that and Kevin Bacon naked. On top of that though this is a nicely structured story with twists galore. This movie surprised me a number of times until the end, which I thought was kind of predictable if you followed the pattern of the movie. Sometimes, though, predictable isn't a bad thing. With that being said, any movie with Bill Murray in any capacity gets an automatic .25 added to their score. 3.25/5

Ghost Hunters, Season 1 - For those of you who have not seen this show, it's one of the best shows on TV right now. Especially if you like ghost hunting. Unfortunately the crew from TAPS are never going to be able to prove anything on TV because the medium lends itself to criticism. However, the suspense of each episode is enough in itself to be entertaining even if you believe it was "TV magic" that moved that chair and not a ghost. The special features on this thing are pretty good with deleted scenes from each episode. 4/5


-- When did Adult Swim become unwatchable? From the programming that brought us The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021 and Home Movies and resurrected Family Guy we now have a bunch of underfed goat crap. It's almost as if some inane corporate executive popped his head out of his backside long enough to just say "We got to get rid of these shows and put on all new shows that only a brain-dead spider monkey would enjoy." Has anyone watched this programming? Aside from the occasional episode of Robot Chicken the rest of it makes me want to drown myself in my toilet bowl its so depressingly bad. We got an Aqua Teen movie coming out so let's take it off the air and just air one ten minutes show a week at the most unwatchable time imaginable. Got make room for the vomit inducing Tom Goes to the Mayor you know. It's as if whenever one of their shows hit big, they do everything they can to sabotage it.

-- Pull out your vinyls, break out the one silver glove and slip on your jellies because it's time to get RETRO up in here. Put on some bad dance music, dim the light and shake your computers monitor for the full effect of RETROVISION.

I saw an arcade version of Rampage the other day. I had that game on the NES when I was younger. There was no ability to save back then boys and girls. When you turned the game off, it erased everything. I sat at that game for four hours or so one long gone Friday night just to destroy every city in the United States. I was hyped for the ending. Would I get to now destroy Russia, as one of my classmates had told me? The screen went black and the word CONGRATULATIONS appeared in the middle of it. Then the game started from the beginning. That was it. To this day, I have never played that game again.

I hear Rubik's Cubes are making a comeback due to their role in the Will Smith movie In the Pursuit of Happyness. Good? I don't know. I was never very good at this thing. The ultimate icon of the 80s managed to stump every time until I got fed up with it and just ripped the stickers off and put the same colors all on one side making the poor toy useless for the remainder of its life.

Caught an episode of Tom and Jerry on Boomerang. I hadn't seen this cartoon in years. It still holds up and is twice the show most of the Adult Swim lineup. I always liked Tom better. Jerry had some bad karma going. I bet he paid for all his mayhem once the series was over. Or Tom had a really satisfying dinner one night.

As mentioned before, I live in a college town. I noticed some of the guys running around with the collars of their shirts up. Please tell me this isn't coming back in style and these guys are just douche bags. Please?

-- Maybe they should have made Grindhouse into the ultimate drive-in movie experience. Release them only in drive-ins and it would have been perfect. It could have resuscitated life back into the lost culture of the drive-in. These movies, previews and all, would have been perfect for that. Maybe Tarantino should have directed a dancing hot dog imploring us to go to the snackbar because it was just three minutes til showtime!

-- Something everyone should do: go to an all day concert. Summer is around the corner. With it comes the all day festival concerts. Whether it be college music, 80s music, metal music or whatever, you'll have many an opportunity to see one of these shows. I fear this kind of tour is coming to an end soon so this may be one of your last chances. Sure it will be hot, there will be a ton of morons there and you're likely to starve to death rather than eat any of the gruel offered at the various concession stands. But where else are you going to be endanger of being hit with large flying pieces of sod while a rain soaked girl pulls her pants down and pees on the lawn right in front of you because your buddy happens to be tall and can block the view from behind? That and you are very likely to see boobs. Boobs are good. Within the next few years these super concerts are going to go the way of the lemmings so do it now!

Now I must leave you.

I leave you with this thought. Find something you like. Get off your couch and participate in life! Unless the thing you like, of course, is actually just sitting on your couch. In which case, um….okay.