Another Shining Example Of Television Quality

Being a Shaw TV customer for my whole life, it was strange for me to hear that my parents went with Telus TV when they moved to their new house two years ago. Our house grew up with Shaw, we laughed, learned and lived with Shaw. I memorized the channels and had to re-memorize whenever a channel moved. I watched with rapt attention at the exhilarating hours of enjoyment that only watching a simple fireplace or Thanksgiving turkey could give, all thanks to Shaw. But Telus? Could they give the same amount of picture tube love and shoddy customer service that Shaw regularly gave? Alright, so Telus already has a lock on treating customers like retarded lepers through their phone services, but I want quality TV programming and channel selection. Would Telus meet my expectations? Would Telus offer me only the finest TV this great world has to offer? Unfortunately, no. But fortunately for Telus, it's not their fault. It's the fault of one specialty channel that's only contributing to the TV quality watershed mark.

Having recently made a life-altering decision in my life (going back to school), I've found myself once again living with my parents (a post on this topic will come soon). Since TV is a massive part of my life because of it's regular spewing of popular culture and my need to lap that culture up, I was interested to see what Telus could offer where Shaw could not. To my grand disappointment, I noticed some channels were missing like AMC and Encore Avenue (no first-run Mad Men this summer? No unedited movies? Fuck that!). I also noticed some channels that I've never watched but heard of, like G4 TV. Primarily a channel for tech dorks, it features shows on video gaming, video game reviews, video game news, and some other things that may or may not include video games. Now I'm not a gamer per se, mostly because I'm too interested in girls, but I was once an avid gamer as a kid (Blockbuster Video Game Store Champion, 1994), so I watch the channel every now and then. One show that everybody should see is Attack of the Show. Not because it has groundbreaking information and entertainment value, but because it has Olivia Munn as a co-host. Good God, she's hot. And she blogs! I mean, look at her!

But it's not all geeks and hot ladies on G4. There's also this piece of garbage, which features morons.

Hurl! is a blatant attempt at gross-out entertainment, or gross-tainment. The name describes the premise of the show as straight-forward as possible. Contestants eat food. They do physical stuff. They hurl! Woah! As the Hurl! website describes it, it's "...representing an entirely new type of competition, HURL! combines speed-eating with intense physical challenges all designed to shake up the competitors...it's an eating competition with an extreme sports chaser!" Basically, the show has dudes, mostly frat-douchebag-idiot types, and some girls who really thought "being on TV" would be awesome, that gorge on shitty food like mac and cheese, then try not to barf while they go on a carnival ride or something like that. Now, as we know, Americans love to watch people gorge themselves on food, like some kind of patriotic and competitive "fuck you" to starving people elsewhere in the world, but this show is going too far. Check out this captivating video!

Yeah. There's no doubt. This is the worst show on television. This is even worse than Toddlers & Tiaras, and that show pretty much just caters to pedophiles and psycho mothers. The inherent problem is that we have to look at what we really find amusing and entertaining. Do we as a society find throwing up to be that entertaining, as long as it's not us? Who has ever seen a child throw up at the supermarket, only to think, "Fuck! That's hilarious! The image and the smell really made my day!" Have you ever had a friend complain of a stomach virus or flu, and you asked them if you could film it, because shit, you had a tough day and could use a laugh? Puking is only funny in a couple situations, like when a fat guy enters a pie-eating contest to get revenge on his fellow townsfolk. Or when kids take a carnival ride after eating chewing tobacco. It's certainly not funny when you start drinking at noon one day, then after playing some late night poker, your friend convinces you to pound shots of Butter Ripple Schnapps, and you vomit all over the back interior of the car driving you home (sorry Joe, and thanks a lot Greg).

So what's really the attraction here? Are we getting so mentally challenged that we've now resorted to bodily rejections as entertainment? How low will TV slide into cultural depths even Philistines would consider beneath them? Because of these types of shows, and our increasing tendency to reward the stupid, are we expanding the ever-widening quality gap between good and disturbingly bad? So much so that people will no longer value the good? Are we inching closer and closer to this type of show?

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I hope not, for our sakes. But from the looks of it, we're steering that way. For fuck's sake, Hurl! is a show about people eating massive amounts of food, then trying not to throw up. Hell, I can watch that happen live every Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family. Obviously, the only solution to these types of television abortions is to not watch. Yes, I know you want to, but don't. If we can tank the ratings, then hopefully it gets pulled. If you can ignore Hurl! I'll let you watch The Hills without making fun of you. And you know I want to, and you know you deserve it.