Celebrity Splash! No, I’m not joking. Apparently this is the name of a new TV show screening next year on a network that is obviously totally bereft of ideas.
You really couldn’t make this stuff up — the program I believe is a kind of Diving with the Stars. Imagine the meeting in some aesthetically pleasing, yet functional boardroom in a random European country (where I assume the concept was spawned), “Ok, Nikolaas, so your program concept is to get G-grade TV and “music” “celebrities” desperate for any airtime — no matter how degrading — to agree to jump off a high diving tower while we film them, secretly hoping they’ll flash some nipple / suffer a non-life threatening but amusing injury?” “Ja!”
Why do a lot of these bizarre TV shows emerge from Scandinavian-ish countries? Is it the cold? My personal favourite is Champion Chaalbaaz No.1 — but I digress. This is just the latest in a diarrhea stream of “…with the Stars” and “Dancing…” style shows and you have to wonder when, where and how it will end. Has Dancing with Myself – the Billy Idol themed reality show been done yet?
Speaking of ending, those two late, great, totally offensive, totally politically incorrect comedy geniuses (genii-is?) Derek and Clive (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) had a totally offensive sketch on the subject of celebrity TV shows back in the less-sensitive and less-everything 70’s. Derek and Clive offered a few savoury suggestions that I won’t repeat here. Ok, if you insist… one of them was “Celebrity Saviours” (Google at your own risk) where… use your imagination… suffice to say it involved carpentry.
I just hope a TV programming executive isn’t reading this.
©Steve Williams 2012