ABC to Launch New TV Spinoff “Dancing With the Jews”

By Laura DeCamille

HOLLYWOOD- ABC programming executives announced this week that they would double down on the success of their hit television show Dancing With the Stars with a new spinoff series called Dancing With the Jews. Rather than the washed-up C-listers on the comeback trail that populate the parent show’s cast, DWTJ will feature their bosses: entertainment executives, high-powered bankers and lawyers, and the occasional doctor.

Diehard fans of the show, while excited about the prospect of more ballroom glitz and glam, were understandably skeptical of the new format. “I know that DWTS is not just about dancing,” said longtime fan Susan McDermott of Cedar Falls, Iowa, “but it seems like they should be able to dance at least a little bit. I saw Buzz Aldrin stumble around on his fake knees in season six, but I’d say he was quite a bit better than the upright seizures that most of the Jew-dancers on the show’s debut.”

ABC executives were more optimistic about the success of the show. Paul Lee, Chairman of the ABC Entertainment Group said that the show, “captures the drama and the heartache that made DWTS such a big hit. Plus, we’ll still have the two gay English guys telling the dancers to smile more and ranting about body lines or some stupid shit like that. We think it will have most of the important elements of the original show.”

[RIGHT- An advance clip of the new cast's advanced training techniques.]

Lee went on to say that DWTJ would have some added benefits over the original show. “On DWTS, there were always one or two competitors on the cast who were basically professional dancers before the came on the show. Kristie Yamaguchi was a figure skater, Nicole Scherzinger was a member of the Pussycat Dolls, Shawn Johnson was a gymnast- all of them had an unfair advantage going up against comedians who think that footwork consists of not tripping over a mic cord. At least on DWTJ, there will be some real drama, because nobody will be able to dance at all. It’s more of a fair playing field when everyone on the cast has the body rhythm of Sigmund Freud. And I mean Freud now, not when he was alive.”

Another side effect of the added programming for ABC is that it will help keep the brand viable without stretching DWTS too thin. Currently, DWTS airs for two hours, three nights each week. That programming includes two hours of new competition on Monday, a two-hour results show on Tuesday, and a two-hour reaction to the results show on Wednesday that does not include any actual dancing. More DWTS franchises would help alleviate the strain on ABC programming created by its post-writer strike lineup of shows that included Dirty Sexy Money, Pushing Daisies, and Samantha Who as its flagship shows. ABC also knows how to exploit a popular franchise to its benefit: recall that this network was able to stretch Who Wants to Be A Millionaire into a 10-night-a-week show during the height of Regis Philbin’s popularity.

ABC, of course, is owned by the Disney Corporation, a fact that influences the tone and tenor of much of the network’s programming. Some entertainment experts have wondered what the parent company would think of ABC cozying up to the Friends of Abraham. Disney famously ousted former CEO Michael Eisner several years ago for a combination of hurting the business and being Jewish. Founder Walt Disney was himself a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semite who included anti-Semitic messages in several of his films (such as a cloud of dust that formed a swastika in Cinderella) and collaborated with Leni Riefenstahl on several of her early Nazi propaganda films. Company figurehead Mickey Mouse also had a famous meltdown on the set of Fantasia where he hurled an expletive-laden tantrum at a lighting operator who he called a “Jew bitch.” Company executives say that DWTJ is in line with the parent company’s principles because it is designed to humiliate Jews and profit from their failure, which were two of the company’s founding maxims.

[LEFT- A wartime photograph shows Mickey's true allegiance to Hitler.]

The new show will occupy the 9:30 to 10:30 timeslot, filling the timeslot vacated by the immediately canceled Jimmy Smits project “Outlaw,” where he played a conservative Supreme Court Justice who had a coming-to-God moment and left the bench to represent the poor and underrepresented members of society. If that’s the standard that ABC expects DWTJ to meet, then maybe the show will not be such a failure. It will also bump the first half-hour of Jimmy Kimmel Live, which comes as terrible news to the 8 employees of the show and both of its fans.

Nation Turns on Bush Five Years Too Late

By Roland Arbuckle

WASHINGTON- Over half of a decade after inflicting the worst of his damage on the United States and more than two years after fading from the public eye, America’s institutions have finally taken formal action to punish Bush. Stuck with dire economic conditions, two costly yet unnecessary wars, and a poisoned political climate, officials have finally struck against the corrupted greed of former President George W… Excuse me, I’m being corrected. Apparently Americans have not taken action against George W. Bush, they have turned on former USC running back Reggie Bush.

Apparently, the country has decided that it is more important for Reggie Bush to give back the Heisman Trophy that he won during his final season at USC rather than holding politicians accountable for the disastrous effects of their tainted legacies. There are parallels between the Bushes, to be sure. Both of them reached the pinnacle of individual success in the early to mid-aughts as George led America head first into an amorphous War on Terror while Reggie Bush helped lead the Trojans to the 2004 NCAA championship, then won the Heisman trophy the next year while bringing his team back to the championship game.

[RIGHT- Reggie Bush receives a possibly improper head pat from a corrupt USC assistant.]

In the end, each man fell prey to arrogance, greed, and an inability of those around him to say no. George pushed too far into Iraq at the urging of oil companies and private contractors who wanted a piece of rebuilding the country. Had he maintained his commitment to spreading democracy and planning a true nation-building excursion, he may have had enough discretion to put the Iraq war off, or avoid it altogether. Back home, his deference to his friends in the corporate sector resulted in unprecedented largesse by rule benders such as Enron, Nationwide, and Arthur Anderson. Because he refused to fix the problems that his deregulation created, irresponsible credit default swaps continued unabated until they submarined the economy through bursting the housing bubble.

Reggie, on the other hand, pushed too far into the celebrity realm at the urging of agents and marketing firms who wanted a piece of building his public image. Had he maintained his commitment to supporting his family and training as a football superstar, he may have had enough discretion to turn down some of the gifts he received, or even dedicate himself to the game. At USC, his deference to people who did not have his best interests at heart resulted in unprecedented largesse by rule benders such as the marketers who bought him his Chevy Caprice and the boosters who bought his family a new house. Because he refused to repay the agents the money that they spent on him while he was an amateur, the irresponsible behavior continued unabated until they submarined the USC program by taking away a national championship and suspending several scholarships.

Why the NCAA or the Downtown Athletic Club- which awards the Heisman Trophy to the nation’s top college football player every year- would care about Reggie Bush getting free rims on his crappy sedan five years ago is a mystery. The NCAA is determined to ensure that its amateur athletes are actually amateurs, except for the part where the universities spend the entire offseason scattering their allegiances into different bowl affiliations, conference alignments, and television contracts to squeeze every last dollar out of the athletes who get a free education that they won’t use anyway once they turn pro. How Reggie Bush or the university derived any on-field advantage from an independent marketing firm putting his family in a house after he was already enrolled at USC is a complete mystery. But if the NCAA ever admitted that their authoritarian mentality toward its athletes had gone too far, they would risk losing ultimate control and might have to cede some of their enormous profits to the people who generate those profits. The institution’s greed is so great that it would even appall George W. Bush.

Reggie Bush’s fault lies in his inability to diffuse the situation once the benefits he received came to light. He allegedly received a car and a house for his family in exchange for a promise to sign with the marketing firm after leaving college. When he did not sign with the firm, they sought to recoup approximately $40,000 of the money that they spent on him when he was at USC. Instead of paying that sum, which amounts to 0.2% of the guaranteed money of his NFL contract- not to mention his endorsement deals with Pepsi, General Motors, Adidas, and Subway- he denied any knowledge of the situation. When making his denial, Reggie did not consider that the documents for the house clearly stated that the marketing firm helped make the down payment, and he somehow thought the phone conversation where his father identified himself and described the benefits he received would not hold up as part of the case against him. He did everything short of telling his father that he was doing a heckuva job, Bushy. Reggie’s crisis management skills were so abysmal that they would appall even George W. Bush.

The Reggie Bush story as a whole represents America’s obsession with irrelevant news. Whether the country has a short attention span that cannot process anything more than a sound bite or a cat fight, or if everyone is exhausted from the steady stream of bad news that has polluted the front pages for the last half-decade, it is clear that no one wants to address or even contemplate any meaningful issues. As a result, it is likely that the follow up to this story will have nothing to do with the NCAA’s misplaced tyranny and everything to do with Reggie’s emotional reaction. In fact, let me start the speculation right now.

[LEFT- Hey, Reggie, maybe if you did real exercises you could average more than 3 yards a carry.]

Where is Reggie’s on-again off-again lover Kim Kardashian now, when he needs her most? She’s rubbing salt in Reggie’s wounds by sleeping in the bed of another NFL star from a rival team, Dallas Cowboys’ wide receiver Miles Austin. When asked why Kim left Reggie for Miles, Kim’s sister Khloe pointed out that Austin has unique assets that few others possess. “Miles can squat and leg press more weight than any other receiver in the NFL, and that helps him get in and out of cuts really quickly,” Khloe told Radar Online. “More importantly, it means he has a huge ass, and Kim really wanted to see what it was like to date someone with an ass bigger than hers. Unfortunately, that narrowed the field down to Miles, Precious, and me. Precious is busy acting and I’m not into incest.”

Jersey Shore Exposed as Scripted Drama

By Natasha Imperioli

SEASIDE HEIGHTS- Stunned television watchers across America mourned the loss of one of their great train wreck pleasures this week when MTV’s smash hit Jersey Shore was revealed to be a scripted drama rather than a spontaneous reality show. Executive producer Sallyann Salsano said she was “embarrassed” that the news came out, but that she never expected the show to achieve such massive popularity.

The first hints of malfeasance occurred weeks ago when one of the show’s breakout stars Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi was spotted emerging from a Manhattan Barnes and Noble with a copy of Camus’ L’Etranger. Curious onlookers subsequently asked the waitress at the next door café about Snooki’s lunch, and the waitress said that she uncharacteristically ordered an arugula and fennel salad with dressing on the side. The conditions became even more dubious when the waitress described Snooki as “personable, engaging, and polite.”
The house of cards began to crumble when a private investigator caught wind of these facts and ran a thorough background check on Snooki. His search revealed that the self-titled Princess of Poughkeepsie is actually a 27-year old actress from Grand Rapids, Michigan named Nicole Huntington. Huntington studied drama at NYU and wallowed in obscurity before being offered the part of a fat airhead with stunningly little self-awareness by producers at MTV. She claims that she prepared for the role by eating paint chips and observing the behavior of Long Island teenagers outside a strip mall on Friday nights.

Perhaps the show’s most identifiable character, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino came clean shortly after Huntington was busted by the private investigators. Sorrentino, who was born in Sacramento under the name Michael Verba and is half Indian, said that the members of the cast did not anticipate gaining such notoriety and that they felt trapped by the characters. “The show was supposed to fill a time slot on the cheap for a year and get everyone something to put on their reel. When it became the most popular show in America, we realized that we couldn’t just tell everyone that it was a fake. They started to believe that our scripted nonsense was the way people really live in New Jersey. They were laughing at us because they thought we were so stupid, but I guess the joke was on them.”

Verba went on to explain that much of the show was ad libbed, but that the storylines and plot points were discussed at length in production meetings every morning before shooting. He claimed that the show’s head writer, Daniel Feldstein, is responsible for most of the catchphrases that the show introduced into popular culture, including “GTL” (short for Gym-Tanning-Laundry) and “grenade” (an insulting term for an overweight girl).

Many fans of the show wondered why Season 2 of the show did not include any new concepts of storylines that had not already played out in Season 1. In fact, the writers realized that the characters they created could truly only sustain about 10 episodes before their shallow, two-dimensional reality became redundant and predictable to even the least inquisitive viewer. As a result, Season 2 blatantly ripped off Season 1’s catchphrases in uncreative ways- such as “landmine” as a takeoff on the more popular and clever “grenade”- and fell into a holding pattern of repeating the same storylines verbatim. For instance, even though the writers of the show floated the rumor that Ronnie and Sammy ended their tumultuous on-camera romance between the seasons, when they realized that there was no genuine conflict in the second season, they reignited the story and borrowed heavily from Season 1’s scripts to create drama between the two characters. Many viewers complained that the on-again/off-again romance was unbelievable in the way that it incessantly repeated itself; the writers have since conceded that they only set up the story that way because they didn’t have any better ideas.

The revelation that the show and its drama are entirely scripted explains many confusing details about the progression of the characters. Despite several reported “arrests” of cast members for offenses ranging from aggravated assault to public intoxication, there were no court or police records for any of them in the state of New Jersey. Furthermore, every cast member remained in the house in spite of the supposed legal trouble. The fact that the legal issues were manufactured explains why there were never any repercussions for any of the cast members. Similarly, when Huntington was “punched” in a bar by a man in the first season, there were no charges or lawsuits brought against the instigator even though his transgressions were caught on tape. As it turns out, the extra who threw the “punch” was actually a lighting tech who they pulled onto the set because they thought he would be unrecognizable. When it was discovered that he was credited in some of the earlier episodes, his face was blurred out for every airing of the “punch” after its debut.

[RIGHT- Huntington allegedly "arrested" by two actors portraying police officers.]

Jersey Shore’s tumultuous second season has called into question the show’s future. MTV has already shot footage for a third season, but the network has not decided whether to air the show in the same “reality” pretense as the first two seasons. Market analysts have indicated that the show may not be in as much trouble as the network believes, because most of the demographic who watches the show religiously also thinks that Barack Obama is a Muslim and would go to war over the Team Jacob/Team Edward feud. Their only fear is that Glen Beck takes up the “Jersey Shore Conspiracy” as a form of left wing Nazi-esque propaganda, as anything less would probably fail to get anyone’s attention.