Mediacrity!

by William Ham

Refutations of the Cathode Id or Me No Like Picture Box: This being the last Mediacrity! of 1995, it makes pluperfect sense that I wrap the entire televisual annum up with the usual colorful, hyperverbose bow – a Best Of list, maybe, with categories like Best TV-Movie With The Word “Deadly” In the Title or Best Use of Atrocity Footage In a Music Video. There’s only one small fault with that noble undertaking: TV has finally plunged facefirst into the suckpit for good this past year.

Which is okay for you – you can always just lock the overrated piece of furniture firmly in the “off” position, throw a lead apron over it, and back slowly away before tumors that resemble Dennis Franz’ ass start developing on your skin. But nooo, Mr. Monkey-With-A-Laptop over here has to fancy himself a mass-media maven, a complicitous observer of the bulldozing of our once-lofty communication landscape, and all for the sake of a few dozen sneering, disposable words every month. Well, check it out, Cyclops – I’m looking out for you for real this time. I’ve had it up to my twitching brow with your exploitations of real human misery, your wholesale destruction of ethics, values and wit, your brain-stem-throttling inanity. And as the Neilsens are my witness, I now resolve to lay waste to all the mindlessness that you survey. The bloody, ill-fitting gloves have come off. You’re going down.

I will grant, however, that that Baywatch Nights show is pretty radical. No wonder the Germans dig that guy.