Next on ABC - Media Watch Death Cult Love-Fest!

In wondering at that timeless question, What would I do if I were the producer of the ABC's Media Watch?, I decided that I would turn it into a panel show. And in true Tarantino pastiche style, I'd make it the best damn panel show ever. Thus, it would be a bit of everything: The Daily Show, The Chaser, Spicks and Specks, The Gruen Transfer, hell, we'll even throw My Word into the mix. Bugger it, let's get hell-bent and dig up the corpse of Frank Muir - even dead he'll beat the pants off just about anyone.


Apologies to foreigners who've never seen the above-mentioned programmes. Just take it as read that I'm talking about one of those whacky panel shows peopled with clever trousers trying to crack each other up. And in this case, we focus on certain unremarked-upon strands within the media and how they manifest themselves, and how they don't, and what it all means. Or doesn't mean.

And all in adulatory terms! Bravo the death cult! We think they're tops. Here at the Love-Fest, we say a tuppence for the death cult's shy modesty. If anyone in the world deserved celebrity status, it's the god-kings of the new world order. So here we'll give them the full treatment - graphics, footage, animation, sound effects, canned laughter - the full tilterama. [note to Sal - delete - It would be great if we could get some Chinese Opera in there somehow. No reason, I just like Chinese Opera. Do you know anyone?]

Don't worry if you don't understand a given gag. You don't want to understand it. Hell, I don't want to understand it. And often as not I don't. And that's half the fun. It's like the Pixies - knowing what all their songs mean precisely, would be a mistake. I call it the joy of not understanding. Black Francis gets it, I'm sure. Anyway, this is like that. Or at least, 'the vibe is in mind'. Thus, here's my sure-fire outline for a winner show, which is to say, the kind of show I want to watch. Each of the sketches could be weekly regulars or they may be one-offs. Nothing is rigid. The only rule is to get laughs and attack from sideways.

Good News from the Good War


We start the show with a somewhat solemn segment. The panel discusses the rightness of whatever war it is we're in and backs up the latest reason given for it. "At least it's all for a good cause" etc. Mind you, we don't want this to be too po-faced, so perhaps we break the ice a little (and keep things within traditional military bounds) by treating the week's TV montage of Good War News as one of those checklist drinking games.

- Skol (drink/down/chug/whatever) one drink for any depiction of Western soldiers as Good Samaritans who are only there to help people. Skol two for any soldier wondering why the locals aren't more appreciative of the help they're being given. Skol three for any soldiers guarding poppy fields.
- Skol one for every instance of locals who love the Americans and want them to stay. Skol two for local kids who've been blown up, taken to America, and think America is great. Skol three for any Muslim woman who fell in love with an American boy, rejected Islam, got married, emigrated, and now has a top-selling line of sexy lingerie exercise videos. (I just made that up - is it too silly? Probably not).
- Skol one for any Western Soldiers who've been blown up and are now 'helping to change people's lives by serving as an inspiration'. Skol two if they appear with the Prime Minister or President. And skol three if either of the latter get the bloke's name wrong.
- Skol one for the phrase 'moving forward'. Skol two for anyone explaining how we need to be there 'until the mission/job is completed/finished' whilst failing to mention what the mission/job is, or how we'd complete/finish it. Skol three for any use of the phrase, ironic or otherwise, 'there's light at the end of the tunnel'.

Optional Oblivion-Here-We-Come Speed Version
- Skol one for any Jewish talking head. Skol two for any Jewish talking head interviewing another Jewish talking head. Skol three for any report in which every talking head is Jewish. Double up if the topic is Muslim wickedness.

And so it goes with the show barely ten minutes in and the entire panel completely rat-arse drunk already.

The Reserve Bank Snark Hunt


Sobering quickly now, the panel searches for any sight of the Reserve Bank Snark. Not that anyone knows what the Snark is exactly since no one will say, but the panel does its best. Each week they trawl the media for any mention of it to see if we might add an ear, hoof, or tail to our sketchy picture. Included would be: sightings, habits, and behaviour of component board members; backwards engineering wherein we analyse the behaviour of politicians etc. who come into contact with the Snark, to see what clues that provides; a look at Snarks through history (with dead celebrity reporter-in-effigy Andrew Jackson); a look at the latest blurry viewer photos and videos of possible snarks; interviews with psychics, baristas, prostitutes etc. [Hey Sal - delete - Ideas for accompanying music: what's that music they play whenever there's a horse race? You know what I mean? Yeah, well... that]

Manny Goldstein's Fantasy Villain League


Here celebrity reporter Manny Goldstein takes the panel through the week's action and answers the perennial (and rather proper) question, 'At whom should we be shaking our collective fist this week?' Panel members (along with viewers) can swap and trade players in their fantasy villain league with Manny providing the latest tips - precise details of foreign corruption, foreign wickedness, foreign mistreatment of women, execution by swords, stones, and other means of death that Westerners don't use, mass graves, mass starvation, as well as a quick summary of villains' bad hair, clothes, shoes, etc.

And we can all play safe in the knowledge that none of it has anything to do with us and they've only themselves to blame. Each week the prize will snowball until one lucky viewer hits the jackpot when we find out which of our villains was so evil that we had no choice but to steal his nation's shit and turn what was left into a radioactive wasteland. It's lots of fun and completely harmless. NB. Apart from the jackpot prize (which could be as much as a hundred dollars), the top player is also guaranteed a starting place in the CFR-Trilateral-Bilderberger Pro-Am Circuit.

Conspiracy Nutbar Crunchfest


Wherein the media's best derisory use of the phrase 'conspiracy theory' provides an opportunity for the panel to pile in and kick the shit out of the mad idea, as well as the tin-foil hat wearing loony who uttered it. This can be presented as a point scoring buzzer game with the panel given a list of set responses ('That's just crazy', 'He'll be talking about UFO's next', 'Anti-Semitism!', 'They would never do it', 'That's just crazy', etc), then upon hearing various 'facts' put forward by the loony, the panel members hit their buzzer to be first with the right set response (extra points for eye-rolling, head-shaking, and 'snorting'). The segment ends with the Forget-Me-Hot-List which is an easy to remember list of things one should forget. This, so as to more correctly view the week's particular crazy conspiracy theory, ie. for flight 93:

-There was no wreckage at the Shanksville site, nothing, not a sausage.
-The 'scar' in the earth was always there and was unconnected to the crash.
-Sundry non-spook witnesses describe an entirely separate and different event taking place miles away.

All of the footage would be accompanied by a laugh track featuring audience jeers, catcalls, and cries of 'That's just crazy!'

Three Cheers For Israel


This segment always begins with the traditional cry of "Three Cheers For Israel! Hip, Hip..." which is always always met with the traditional embarassed silence and slight cough from the back of the audience [note to Sal *please delete* - when we're in audio, perhaps we could sneak in a quietly muttered 'yeah, get fucked', so quiet that only we know it's there, you know what I mean? no harm in trying]. This segment has two parts - Kowtow of the Week and The Mark Regev Fan Club.

Kowtow of the Week


In which the panel picks the week's best kowtow to Israel, whether from a politician, interviewer, or news report. In the same way that The Gruen Transfer extols the virtues of selling the indefensible, The Death Cult Love-Fest ever seeks to more fulsomely laud the fulsome lauding of the world's shittiest country. The various brilliant means of doing this are discussed and praised. Of course in order to bring a sense of 'balance' the panel will occasionally offer critical tips as to how a kowtower might improve their performance and otherwise be more effective. The running-joke catch-cry: Know No Shame!

Mark Regev Fan Club


A special place for all the Mark Regev fans out there. There's no one quite like him is there? The panel variously: waxes rhapsodic about Mark's latest media appearance; admires his hair, clothes, and shoes; judges the best stories and art work sent in by the viewers; screens the latest episode of our regular FANimation™ The Adventures of Lego Mark Regev in which we see Mark have various fan-imagined Lego adventures with the fan doing their best Mark voice-over impersonation - which of course will explain the rightness of whatever our little Lego Mark is doing. Other ideas: The 'Cook Mark a Meal' Recipe Club wherein fans send in recipes that Mark might like and the panel cooks them and discusses how 'Mark' they are; Video Karaoke Singalong - send your favourite love song to Mark whilst watching the burning of Gaza and Lebanon; and various hot discussions from the website forum, If Mark Regev were Doc Ock, would he beat Spider-Man?, and the hugely popular Funny Vid! Dude lights fart while Mark Regev is on TV, and Captain_boinging is a FUCKTARD - I happen TO KNOW THat MARK REGEV bought THRILLER and LIKED IT!!!!!!!! MICHAEL JACKSON is GREAT!!!!!!!!!!! etc. etc. Honestly, the possibilities are endless. We just put his fat head on the screen weekly, rip the living shit out of him, make him an object of complete ridicule, and all without ever quite giving him anything to sue us over. Easy.

Give Us A Wink, Rupes!


Here the panel contributes what they consider to be the best media racist wink of the week. The winner is whichever story maxes out the audience's famous Something-From-Nothing-Clap-O-Meter, as adjusted by the Duckworth-Lewis value S/N (where S = something, ie. racist mileage, and N = nothing, ie. How the most common name in the world Li/Lee is also the most common name topping university entrance scores. Wow, that just goes to show doesn't it? Anyway, you multiply that by the number you first thought of and you get a funny score). Three cheers! Speaking of scores, our guest celebrity Ezra Pound is currently in the lead with 17 points in spite of not having uttered a single word. As you can see, Ezra is there to balance Frank Muir and is, like Frank, 'no longer quick'. So, what with him lacking Frank Muir's sound-bite library, we came up with the idea of cutting up The Cantos into single sentences, putting them all in a hat, and then picking one out randomly in answer to each question. Spookily enough he absolutely nailed it every time. A big hand for Ezra! Yay!

King of the Death Cult Crawly Bum Lick


What with the panel being a pack of smart-arses who'd like to make a lot of money without working very hard, there isn't one of them who wouldn't love some kind of semi-permanent celebrity spot with the death cult. It's all very well being in at the bloody ABC but the money is dead ordinary and there's no hookers, no drugs, no nothing. Anyway, in honour of their own desire for money (and drug-fueled mad rooting) each week the members of the panel do their best to win the coveted title King of the Death Cult Crawly Bum Lick. In this competition, panel members take their weekly turn to make a pitch to the death cult outlining the genius plan they've come up with for installing them as god-kings of the new world order complete with hot and cold running sex slaves (hallowed be their names) (the god-kings, not the sex slaves). You can see why a fellow would want to dig up Frank Muir, couldn't you? He'd have made the perfect first King of the Death Cult Crawly Bum Lick.

End of Year Special


This is our annual end of the year lollapalooza drone-fest special. As a way of doing the obligatory that-was-the-year-that-was round-up thingy, we go with the obvious awards gag. The awards will come in two categories: funny ones we just made up to match the funny footage; and proper annual awards that we actually have to think of winners for. The latter categories might include - Best Arse, Best Fathead, Best Transparently Obvious Lie, Best Give-The-Game-Away, Biggest Shut-The-Fuck-Up, Best Slut, Best Insult To Our Intelligence, Best Mind Control Zombie, Best Bragging, Best Blame The Victim, and finally the top award, the hallowed Best And Biggest Big Lie.

This last award goes to the person in the world least afraid of irony, hypocrisy, or shame, with more chutzpah than God, a bold person who's prepared to embrace the perversity of taking a leaf out of Adolf Hitler's Big Lie playbook, and who, in testimony to their own brilliance, goes Hitler one better and doesn't idiotically explain how the Big Lie works before they do it - pauses, looks to camera - Instead they 'Just Do It', and they don't even have to pay Nike for the privilege. And sure enough, in fine who-was-that-masked-man style, they slip off into obscurity hoping that nobody noticed. Ever self-effacing, the Death Cult.

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Self-effacing gentlemen and scholars! Rare geniuses and saints! Well, it just so happens that nobody did notice: they noticed, they took inspiration, and may I say that I hope the death cult funding board grabs this opportunity to pick up this sure-fire TV comedy hit, safe in the knowledge that with the proper monetary backing it can be burned in effigy, thrown into the ocean from a helicopter, or just left here on this blog (whichever gets the least attention). Honestly Death Cult, this thing sells itself! You'd be mad not to pay the very low price!

Cue audience applause! Yay!