by Thomas Hart

G21 Muckraker

AUSTIN, REPUBLIC OF TEJAS - As the resident Pop Culture maven in these parts, our Esteemed Editor sent me an e-mail askin' me what the big deal was about the television sitcom "Friends" havin' its final season. After all, I'm supposed to be up on what Britney (Are-them-tits-real-or-ain't-they?) Speares is doin' and what to think about Courtney (I'm-in-trouble-with-the-law-again?) Love is doin'.

But, fellow Sanitation Engineers, I have to admit I was stumped this time. "Friends" just ain't the kind of show that any self-respectin' trailer park denizen here down in Bubbaland would be caught watchin' even if you was holdin' a gun to his head. He'd beg for death first.

I mean, come on! These folks are in New Yawk! They hang out at a guldurned coffee shop because of a broad who -- even if she does have a last name that sounds kindah Southern -- is a hippy-dippy blonde that you wouldn't think was cute unless you was sittin' in the local roadhouse late at night after fifteen shots and beers.

So I guess I gottah disappoint our Editor this time. Tabloid Hart is clueless as to why anybody in Amurrica watched this show for all them years.

But that's not the point of this here column. My point is why all them danged network sitcoms is getting they death-knell. Lissen up!

I took me an informal poll here at the trailer park and here's what I found out. Just so you know:

1. Everybody does not like Raymond.
2. I don't know one redneck of my ilk who has spent more than an hour watching parts of "Friends" at a bar or some fool's house who didn't know better.
3. Drew Carey ain't been funny in ' bout three years now, according to my poll respondents.
4. "Frazier" is a gay show. Anybody who believes that David Hyde Pierce ain't queer must be from some other planet, so his love affair with that British broad plays like a piano without the white keys.
5. "Will & Grace" - Okay! Let's talk openly gay show. It's a non-starter down here, y'all.
6. You would think that "Reba" would make it among my fellow Sanitation Engineers, right? What most respondents said was, "She should stick to singin'". Imagine a dry Texas drawl on that comment, pard'. (Okay, I'll admit that guys said, "Nice rack" when they ole ladies was not around. Sorry, Buford.)

As you can see from my totally "fair and balanced" survey of random respondents (with a plus or minus four percent margin of error) network television just ain't producing comedies that anybody wants to watch. Why? 'Cause this is Amurrica and we got cable, pardner!

Or let's put it this way: 89% of the survey respondents had cable. 100% of those people love the Comedy Central channel and HBO. The rest of the respondents had choices so odd and varied that the results were insignificant.

Big Hits down here in the trailer park outside of AusTex? "Insomniac" makes people bust a gut! Everybody wishes they was that guy and could get drunk all night all over the country. "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" gets props. (That surprised Tabloid Hart since that guy is from New Yawk.) "The Simpsons" are riding high to this day. Folks like "King of the Hill" a lot down here, but who would be surprised by that?

What gets me is that I had to remind folks that both "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under" didn't qualify for my survey because they are NOT comedies - per se. I brang this up because those are both shows that a high percentage of respondents said made them bust a gut.

Now get this: Of my total survey, only 19% said that they have watched a network television SitCom in the last month. You see what I'm sayin', y'all?

I have an opinion about why this is happenin' to the networks. As far as I can see, they are tryin' too hard to catch up with what is really happening but are so danged out of touch with the lives of real people - much like the The Shrub administration right now - that they got the chance of a diarrhea patient in front of pay toilet with a bent dime. They are too Focus-Grouped and Accountanted to realize what makes a good belly-laugh anymore. I look at them with a sense of deep pity.

I think somebody should deprive them of they expense accounts and limo drivers for a few durn days and let them go to a local diner or -- better yet! -- a local bar and see what average folk talk about and think is funny.

We don't gravitate toward a weird collection of folks in New Yawk City, despite how much money they think our lovin' "Seinfeld" made. We don't think puttin' a strange and slangy Black person in close proximity to a White yuppie is a crack-up. We're sick of seein' how folks up there in the part of the country where almost nobody lives anymore is "unique and challenging"!

Take the TABLOID HART CHALLENGE, network Execs: Hire a team of writers that ain't from New Yawk or El Lay and give them they head to see what they come up with. Guess what? There is a Third Coast. And you are missing the biggest demographic you could think of if you keep ignoring us.

The funniest thang ya'll got goin' on right now, Left and Right Coasters, is watching your commercial television networks eat the dust of HBO, TNT and other cable channels with the guts to do real cutting-edge television. The only real reason y'alls shows get Emmys at all is 'cause some of the high-powered talent you hire have very aggressive press agents and publicists who don't mind spreadin' around the good ole payola when they have to is what I'm thinking. I could be wrong but at least I still know what funny is.

I'd like to hit the ole remote on TV one day and see somethin' that makes me laugh until I cry. It can happen. I've seen flicks out of Hollyweird that used to make me do that. I even remember, as a kid, my folk talkin' about the days when Mel Brooks and Woody Allen used to write for TV and how some of the shows back then actually had people in stitches. I'll wager there are still danged good comedy writers out there who would give they eye teeth for a shot at the work. What I'm saying here, network execs, is that Amurrica is a country full of clowns. Heck, we even got a clown in the White House right now and a bozo as the newest governor of Californyeaye. So why can't y'all figure how to make funny?

The ghost of Sam Kinnison is lookin' at y'all and waging his head.

And REMEMBER: It will take more than a few tornadoes to blow away all the trailer trash...

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? E-mail Tom down in the trailer park. Go ahead!

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