A-Train Fan Page

#7. REVIEW: TNN/SPIKE TV

This is an updated version of an article I wrote a month or so ago. Now that everything has been settled with regards to the Spike TV brouhaha this article can finally be considered complete. Mind you, I'm sick of rewriting this TNN article so hopefully this will be the last time I do so. If I have to rewrite this article a fourth time I am going to go Brian Regan on all your asses. Seriously.

THE SPIKE LEE VS. SPIKE TV LAWSUIT

This lawsuit is more entertaining and more full of shock value than anything that is ever going to be aired on TNN/Spike TV. I used to think the lawsuit was a publicity stunt until the channel lost more than $17 million in revenue just because they weren't able to make the switch in time for their June 16 launch (the launch is now scheduled for August 11). I really don't have any clue why Spike Lee (of all people) would want to sue a station that ripped off its "new direction" from Canada's own MenTV, to be quite honest. We have a radio station for men in the land of hockey and socialized medicine, so what's his excuse? If anything, Spike Lee should be suing the WWE for Theodore Long's White Boy Challenge (and get some haterade handed to his chocolate-coated white ass). Hell, if you want to get anal about it, Spike Jonze, Spike Dudley and the estate of Spike Jones should sue for illegal use of the name "Spike." Spike Lee couldn't afford the lawsuit anyway, which denied me some hilarious entertainment. If you ask me, Spike Lee and Viacom are both assholes.

WWE BRAND RASSLIN'^™

RAW IS THE GAME

WWE Raw (MONDAY, 9:00 PM) | This is supposed to be the flagship show of the WWE Raw brand. To be quite frank, the show has been terrible for a while now. Every episode of Raw is basically HHH and his pals trading around dialogue and shots at the WCW/Raw World title while shitty matches featuring wonderful wrestlers like Scott Steiner, Goldberg and Kevin Nash stink up the joint. I'm a sucker for decent matches, decent writing and decent angles and Raw hasn't delivered that for quite a few months now. Right now the WWE brass are on a huge nostalgia trip while emptying the OVW bladder for new talent they can job to their superstars. All this, and HHH gets to hog more than a quarter of Raw's air time. I know I sound like a gay Internet wrestling columnist who'd whip out the phrase "Cripple H" at any time, but I'm just a fan who can't stand the same old shit for months on end. Maybe I'm just too cynical about everyone's favourite "fake" sport. Still, after an eternity of HHH, Rock, Austin et al., I'm yearning for something new. Maybe I should just sit back and watch Goldberg squash Rodney Mack on his way to the World title. Screw me for not liking this shitty product.

WWE Sunday Night Heat (SUNDAY, 7:00 PM) | STEVIE NIGHT HEAT!

STEVIE NIGHT HEAT!

STEVIE NIGHT HEAT!

Oh, who am I kidding. This show is less essential than deciding whether I like the adult side or the kids' side of Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats. Let's move on. Thanks for ruining Steven Richards' career, Vince

EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE FAT JEWISH WRESTLER!

EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE FAT JEWISH WRESTLER!

WWE Velocity (SATURDAY, 10:00 PM) | I like Velocity. Right now the show is actually better than the show that it's supposed to be a secondary extention of, Smackdown. This show has a lot of cruiserweights (read: people who are less than 230 pounds and not heavily on steroids yet) on and they tend to put on decent matches. There are the odd appearances by fat undesirables like Bill DeMott and A-Train but overall the show is decent enough. Velocity isn't essential viewing but at least when Smackdown gets really fucking stupid (i.e. whenever Vince McMahon and/or The Big Show appear on my TV screen) it's more entertaining than Heat. Granted, banging your head on a frying pan is more entertaining than Heat, but at least with Velocity you can play the Decipher What Ernest Miller Is Saying Game. I swear that man is the black man's Steve McMichael.

WWE Confidential (SATURDAY, 11:00 PM) | What can I say about Confidential. It's basically WWE Magazine On TV. If you want to know how A-Train spends his time or have one of the asses from Tough Enough do canned interviews with Kurt Angle, then you will love this show. I know some people don't like this show on the grounds that the WWE is breaking all kinds of kayfabe (i.e., revealing things behind the scenes), but most people hate this show because it's a waste of time. I mean, seriously, this show gets something like a 0.5 rating or less every week it's on the air. Personally, I'm surprised anyone watches TNN/Spike TV Saturday Nights at 11:00 PM. Test patterns get better ratings than Confidential. And Vince McMahon wonders why he's no longer a billionaire.

SHITTY ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING

Most Extureme Erimination Charrenge (ALL-PURPOSE TIME FILLER) | This should have been the easiest show not to fuck up. Redub a Wacky^®, Japanese^™ game show where people do dangerous and entertaining stunts, and the result should be laughs and fun for everyone. Unfortunately, the producers of this show decided they also needed to parody the "extreme sports" genre and the result is not as funny as it should have been. The whole What's Up Tiger Lily?/Kung Pow "redub the Japs" genre is served well when the writing works. Sometimes the writing is good and there are a few good puns and bits of dialogue thrown in but really, Most Extreme Elimination Challenge raped a perfectly fine Japanese game show (in this case, Takeshi's Castle) for the sake of cheap comedy. Also, isn't it stretching the point to call this show an "original?" Seriously, if you want your wacky Japanese stunt show fix, watch Banzai. Banzai may have that whole fake-Japanese look to it. I think it might even be British. It's still more Japanese than this crap.

SlamBall (LIKE IT MATTERS WHEN IT'S ON) | Basketball with trampolines. Do I need to say more?

"THE STRIP"

Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon (THURSDAY, 10:00 PM) | Oh, shit. Kricfalusi made Ren & Stimpy a gay couple. This is what I was afraid of. When John K. does adult humour he does it...poorly. I used to be a Kricfalusi mark but I feel like he's taken me to the back and raped me with this...thing. Watching this show is like watching fucking Ren & Stimpy fan-fiction. If you think I'm overreacting...well, there's this scene in the first new R&S in eight years where an oversized uvula inserts itself into Ren's bare ass. That should be funny, but then Ren wakes up and slaps Stimpy around yelling "WHAT DID I TELL YOU?", prompting Stimpy to say "YOU'RE THE PITCHER I'M THE CATCHER!" Cue blackboard with said saying written a hundred times on it. Gay anal sex jokes, aren't they hilarious? You can almost hear John K.'s career flush down the drain with that clip. Everything is so off-model about the new R&S cartoons that it makes the old cartoons that much better. Could it have killed you to hire Billy West again, Kricfalusi? More to the point, could it have killed you to not suck?

Gary the Rat (THURSDAY, 10:30 PM) | A man turned into a humanoid rat, a ratcatcher and the homoerotic relationship he has with his cat...oh, and the rat's a lawyer. Sounds like funny shit, doesn't it? Well, they got the "shit" part right. The thing that most annoys me about Gary the Rat is the fact that the Kelsey Grammer-voiced schmuck and everyone else is so self-conscious about him being a rat. "I don't know if we're compatible...due to the fact I'm a rat." "Where's the cheese delivery boy?" We know you're a rat, you fucking stooge. It isn't exactly clever to build thirty-minute episodes that exploit this one premise constantly, and yet they do. It's a conceit that is a sight to behold...well, you don't have to behold it. In fact, if you've ever beheld Gary the Rat in all its poorly-animated glory, I feel sorry for you. It's not the sort of thing I'd want to be beholden to.

Stripperella (THURSDAY, 11:00 PM) | After watching Stripperella, I realised that the main character's being a stripper/superhero is irrelevant to the discussion of the show itself. To be quite honest, this show is nothing more than another fucking lame superhero parody. It has better animation than most cartoons I've seen recently (although the style is copped from Batman: The Animated Series), but the blurred boobies and the Stan Lee connection are just window dressing. They seem to divert from the fact that somebody decided to add their two cents to a subgenre that was played out in 1997. Basically, it's The Tick with better animation, more cheesecake and worse writing. I don't openly hate Stripperella as much now that I've seen it, but the show's still not that great. That said, it's the best new show TNN has aired since 1982.

Ren & Stimpy Classics (THURSDAY, 11:30 PM) | This is the best show of the two-hour animation block. Of course, that went without saying so I'm going to say no more at this point.

ENDLESS RERUNS OF THE SHITTIEST SHOWS KNOWN TO MANKIND

All I'll say is this: three hours of Real TV followed by two hours of Blind Date followed by three more hours of Real TV? Never mind the fact that those two shows are the biggest wastes of programming time since the old TNN's Sunday Morning block (although I prefer watching Bassmasters to Blind Date - it's fishing, for chrissake). Seriously, Canadians know how to appeal to a target demographic better than the Americans. Our "men's" channel has Benny Hill. Our "men's" channel actually bothers to air Sledge Hammer! every once in a while. Hell, Home & Garden Television has programs that just exude manliness every time someone builds something. It can't be that goddamn hard to program for a male demographic. Besides, I know of a men's channel that was there long before Spike TV. It sometimes has a lot of shitty programs on it, but it shows a lot of sports, knows which demographic it is programming for and is so successful it has branched into a veritable brand name known the world over.

In Canada, we call it TSN. Americans refer to it as ESPN.

Given a choice between SportsCenter/SportsCentre and Miami Vice, which show would you rather watch at 3:00 in the morning?

Wait, I just answered my own question. I'd rather watch Sledge Hammer!

CAMERON ARCHER
06.24.2003/08.05.2003