The Amazing Race, Family Guy Edition Episode One: "Shriek Your Booty"
by Landru
K, so I had this brilliant idea about leading off the TAR lineup, because I have, as you all well know, a pretty fucking high opinion of myself and all. It’s not that I’m not humble. I’m all the humble you need, baby. I’m the most humble mortal uberdeity you’re ever gonna get a piece of. I make humble pie seem bland. I’m the High Poobah of Humble. Oh yeah.
What I actually wanted, of course, was to take the first and last episodes of Survivor, because the Baby Jesus knows it wouldn’t be one of my TAR summaries unless I bitched about not writing about Survivor. But I got outsmarted, and it was a fair court, and here we are.
At a two-hour episode of TAR. You may recall the last summary I put up about something. It was a three-hour episode of, well, Survivor. And I says to myself, I says, “Andy, you are never again going to do a summary of something that exceeds one hour.”
I lied. To myself. Tragic, huh?
There’s also the little matter of how long it took me to write and post this thing. Diamond, she’s a golden girl. Diamond is going to a football game and got her summary done beforehand. Diamond, Diamond, Diamond!
Official excusifying: Wednesday: Meetings all day. Thursday: Ilse’s birthday. Friday: I actually worked on this. Saturday: Homecoming, including a big old stompass whupping of a certain football team, represented by fish that can drink five times their weight, from a certain neighboring state, represented by Republicans. Important stuff.
Not only does Diamond break all of my standing land-speed records for summary production, she puts in all kinds of high-tech flashbang in her summary. Diamond, Diamond, Diamond!
I’ll get you for this, my pretty. Oh yes I will.
We arrive at the beginning of the show, and we do the maudlin thing with the shots of the skyline and the Statue of Frogitude and various bridges. Phyllis Keoghan, our incredibly busty host, tells us that New York has been a “beacon of freedom and cultural diversity for nearly 400 years,” which is, I suppose, true, if you consider 381 to be “400,” a pack of Manhattan tribespersons and a few sharpie Dutch land swindlers to be “diverse,” and the Dutch conning the native persons out of huge tracts of land for the purpose of screwing the British, French, Portuguese, and Spanish to be “free.”
The lusty wench continues, telling us about the splendor that is this first-ever race of families. Yep, this is hugely historic here. If you, y’know, consider a pack of shrieking twits competing on a game show to be “historic.” Given the rich and illustrious history that is Family Feud, I’m not real inclined that way my own self, but to each his own, said the lady as she kissed George Bush’s pet goat.
Phyllis is way too fucking pleased with himself here, so we’ll focus on the five water taxis that are speeding toward Brooklyn with their precious human cargo of no-doubt adorable famblies. I suppose this would be the time for me to introduce them, hmm? As much as I’d like to come up with some pictures to dress this puppy up, as did my dear friends TJ and Goth over on that other show blog, I’m way too busy and way too lazy to search for joke photos of ten families. Sorry, I’m just not all that visual. No, that’s not my porn, why do you ask?
Man. Completely outclassed, passed by, and obsoleted by TJ, Goth, and Diamond, Diamond, Diamond! I should just retire to a life of shuffleboard, prostate exams, and Wheel of Fortune.
Right, there was a point here. Oh yeah, introductions.
The Gagging family is from Glastonbury, Connecticut and consists of a father, a mother, a son, and a daughter. The grups are marathoners and the chirrens run 5K races. Little Billy intends to spy on the other teams. Little Carissa is twee, and cannot possibly suffer enough throughout the rest of her miserable little adorable life for there to be justice in this omniverse. She is not only twee, she lisps. This child must be terminated with extreme prejudice.
The Gagging family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
The Linz family is, to Gothmog’s eternal dismay, from Cincinnati, Ohio, and consists of three brothers and their sister. The two older ones are fond of drinking, groping unwilling babes, farting, and condescending to their younger siblings. The girl is so disappointed with men she hangs out with her brothers.
The Linz family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
Wherever the Paolo family claims to be from, it’s actually Queens. The father was born in Italy and is a New York City garbageman, which he characterizes as “the American Dream.” The mother is a stupid, easily stressed cow. Their two sons are remarkably disrespectful little punkass bitches, about which we will have a great deal to say later, because by the 15-minute mark of this dogshit episode of a dogshit show, they will be the frontrunners in Landru’s usual Worst of All Evils competition. You all know that I am not a violent man, outside the confines of my own dark fantasies. Please do not test that theory by placing me in any proximity to this family, especially its offspring.
The Paolo family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
The Black family is from My Local Repressive Gilead of a Neighboring State and are, in fact, African-American. This would position us for a season of unremitting hoo-haws if they didn’t manage to get themselves eliminated in this very episode. The father teaches in a high school and apparently specializes in Ebonics. The mother teaches fifth grade and apparently specializes in mindless positive reinforcement. Their children appear, for much of the show, to be incapable of saying anything more than “Yes,” although the older one occasionally lapses into some hyperactive frenzy of carefully selected words that someone—probably the mother, since the father can’t possibly be certified to teach in the English language—scripted for him.The Black family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
The Branson family is from Missouri and consist of three blonde country and western singers. Okay, fine, they’re from Illinois and they consist of a remarkably doofus father and his three annoying blonde daughters. The daughters allow as how the majority of their interpersonal relations consist of them mocking their doofus father. It’s hard to say that they are in any way wrong.
The Branson family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
The Flanders family consists of a widow and her three children, one blonde daughter, one blonde son, and one daughter with blonde highlights, from Florida. Dad made like Maude Flanders one day. I shit you not. They are deeply disturbing and abundantly praiseful of a God who tossed a stock car at their patriarch. They view the race as one of the stages of grief.
The Flanders family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
The Aiello Family consists of a man and his three sons-in-law, none of whom were good enough to marry his daughters, from somewhere where people don’t want a bomb-laden blimp to crash into the Boston Red Sox. He wants to get to know his sons-in-law, although it seems a bit late for that. I predict fine things for this family, which is introduced to us with footage of the elderly daughterfather carrying a football and being gang-tackled by his three fine sons-in-law. One of the sons-in-law is inspired to allow as how he won’t spoon his father-in-law.
The Aiello family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
The Schroeder family, which must die, painfully and screaming, consists of a flaming jackass, his son and daughter, and their wicked stepmother. The daughter, who is I-shit-you-not named after the East German Secret Police, is a princess-whore who will one day fetch a fine price. I mean prince. Whatever. The son and stepwife are without distinguishing characteristics. The Princess Stasi refers adoringly to her father’s split personality, which you gotta think will one day lead to interesting things for her in the relationship department. The father makes bad jokes for the purpose of making the squeamish women in his family groan.
The Schroeder family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
The Godlewski family consists of four blonde sisters from Desplaines, Illinois, famous as the home town of serial pedophile/murderer John Wayne Gacy. They appear to be morons. The other teams will dub them, variously, the Desperate Housewives and Team Pink. There is not a single likeable thing about any of them. To affirm the notion that they’re big girls who are not to be judged by their blonde hair and giggles, we are shown footage of them wrestling while sharing a large mirror while putting on their makeup.
Sigh.
The Godlewski family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
The Rogers family is from Gilead. No, actually, they’re from Shreveport, Louisiana, but Big Daddy Rogers affirms that he’s in charge, that he’s into Biblical manhood, and that men should be naturally in charge of everything. He also asserts that everyone thinks Southerners are stupid. His daughter is a former Miss Louisiana who has regular ass sex so that she can claim to be a virgin. His son is stupid. His wife doesn’t matter, now, does she?
The Rogers family expects the other teams to underestimate them.
So there you have it: forty people, every last freakin’ one of them a gotdamn moron, every last freakin’ one of them expecting to be underestimated. The metaphysical implications of forty people overestimating each others’ capabilities for underestimation are just fucking staggering, no?
The troops file smiling into the park that will serve as the starting point for the “race.” Phil confronts them in the shadow of some bridge, which may be the Brooklyn Bridge, or maybe it’s the Manhattan Bridge. I don’t care, do you? What I really want, right now, is for the producers of this show to load these yahoos into some sort of vehicles and make them drive around New York City until each and every one of them is cold-bloodedly murdered for being so gotdamn white.
Oops. Tangent. My bad. So Phyllis drones on about the rules, which anyone who’s watching the show already knows, and which, if these people don’t already know, they’re even more fucked than we thought, and about travelling safe, and brak brak brak, and finally sends them off into the city to drive around on a giant scavenger hunt. CBS lawyers force Phyllis to ask the morons if they understand that they could lose, and they all say yes, and Phyllis nods solemnly, the video evidence incontrovertible. After an eternity of more brakage, Phyllis goes through a freakishly extended “Ready, Set, Go,”’ routine that includes a big old arched drag-queen eyebrow to indicate how very serious he is about all of this, and the yahoos are off to load up into gianteriffic GMC Yukons, drive across the Brooklyn Bridge (ah-HA!), get lost, and get cold-bloodedly murdered for being so gotdamn white.
It develops that the first task is to find Soho, go to the EMS store there, and pick up a bunch of camping equipment. As anybody with a brain knows whether or not they’ve been to New York City, Soho is south of Houston Street. Now, perhaps I just characterized you yourself as not having a brain. That’s okay, breathe deep and get on with your life. It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m just a blogger with an attitude and a deity complex. You have value. You are special. But remember that anybody with a brain knows that Soho is south of Houston Street.
Little Billy Gagging, the budding spy, informs us that Soho is a nice place, revealing that his parents from Glastonbury have, in fact, been dressing him up in womens’ clothing and peddling his 12-year-old ass on the Lower West Side. There is various car-loading and shrieking (get used to it), and we roll credits, but we most emphatically do not go to commercial. I can’t help feeling that we will suffer for this later on.
Various teams have difficulty getting their giant SUVs with the giant luggage carriers on top loaded. The Dims family of Cincinnati becomes the first casualty of public stupidity, one of them asking “Where the hell is Soho?”
It’s South of Houston Street, you middle American dipshit. One of the great enduring tragedies of this episode is that four teams, including you, are not immediately eliminated from this show and from Our Great American Landscape. The thought that you possess live, swimming gametes and may one day impregnate someone stupid enough to fuck you is just bloody unbearable. Go back to Ohio, and once you do, for the love of God, stay the fuck out of Gothmog’s way, because he’ll cut you, man. He’ll cut you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, dumbass.
The Flanders family begins to pray. “Dear God, please help us find Soho,” intones mother Ned. You see, because the Baby Jesus has protected these valueless fuckwits since their patriarch’s death. See? No race cars have splattered them. Proof pure of God’s love, ne c’est pas? I’m sure God will tell them that Soho is fucking south of Houston Street. I myself pray that God does so by dropping several dozen monster truck tires on their vehicle from a height of several thousand feet, taking care of another of my personal Four Horse-Faced Teams of the Apocalypse. “Dear God,” I intone, “Please drop several dozen monster truck tires at terminal velocity on these breathtakingly stupid wastes of carbon, that it may be irrelevant that Soho is south of Houston Street and we may all better serve You for all the rest of our thereafter much happier days, forever and ever, Amen.”
The Gagging family thinks it’s in first place. Adorable little Twee rejoices that Mommy has torched a red light, leaving teams that are not so East-Coast burning idle a half-block behind. Little Billy spies out that this is a good thing.
The Gilead family is having a tough time getting the truck loaded, because Big Daddy hasn’t given them orders to do so just yet, and Big Daddy will beat them if they load the truck without permission, because God’s Will is that he, Big Daddy, tell them when to load the truck. And Mommy fell. I don’t understand how this is different from all the times she falls down the stairs, but I guess my understanding just isn’t all that important.
The Branson family daughters heckle their dumbass father as he drives off to Soho, where at least one of the daughters has shopped. Mister Black asks a crowd of bystanders the way to the Brooklyn Bridge, which cannot be missed from where he is sitting, especially given the number of directional signs that say “Brooklyn Bridge.” The bickering Italians scream at each other unintelligibly, giving each other conflicting directions and calling each other names. The Pink sisters get it on the road.
There follows an interminable stretch of morons trying to find a very large and well-marked bridge that is about one-quarter mile from their starting place, with several groups of morons getting lost and ending up in Jamaica Plain. Essentially, those who were smart enough to load the giant luggage carriers on top of their giant SUVs are able to follow each other over the very large and well-marked mystery of a bridge, while those who didn’t grasp the concepts of “open”, “load”, and “close” are left to their own devices and head out onto the BQE.
I left the commas outside the quotes there for one very special person. I don’t want to be too clubby here, but she knows who she is.
The Branson daughters heckle their father at the turn onto the bridge, noting that the sign “BROOKLYN BR” probably refers to the bridge itself. In a stunning intellectual development, one of them actually says: “BR is probably ‘bridge’.” Gee, honey, are you sure it’s not “BRanson?” We may need to give you a BReathalyzer.
I screwed with the punctuation on purpose there, too. Don’t worry, I’ll get it out of my system.
The Garbageman family are in a full-blown panic, screeching at the patriarch to keep up with the group. People, the man is a New York City garbageman. He knows every alley in all five boroughs. Shut the fuck up and let him drive. The Pinkies focus on reminding their driver about what traffic lights are for. The Flanders discover an inconveniently one-way street. Both the Pinkies and the Flanders erupt into shrieking celebrations when they actually get on the very large and well-marked bridge; further Pinkie revelry breaks out when they exploit a three-mile-per-hour speed differential and actually pass the Flanderses. Yeppers, game, set, and match there, huh?
The blond Flanders boy is chastised by his mother for calling the Pinkies “farts.” I am seriously not kidding. Did you know that during the 33 years of his life, Jesus never once farted? Well, at least not until they drove in the nails. Then he couldn’t hold it in any more.
The fact that there are Americans who chastise their non-four-year-old children for saying “fart” goes a long way toward explaining why George W. Bush is President, doesn’t it?
The Gagging family remains in first place. In a confessional, Mrs. Gagging tells us that they have travelled internationally, and that many of the other teams may never have left the United States before! This advantage over provincials who do not live in mostly placid Connecticut is supposed to propel the underestimated Gagging family to an historic victory of the sort not seen since the Grundel family housed the Fripperton family on the September 13, 1986 episode of Family Feud. Why, the Gaggings may get a full day ahead just on the trip to South of Houston Street.
It is abundantly clear that this two-hour ordeal is going to be a slogging nightmare. I’m sorry to have to remind you of the implications for this report on the two-hour ordeal.
The Son-in-Law family blows a red light following the Gaggings, nearly getting t-boned by a limousine. In a confessional, the driving son-in-law tells us that he’s terrified of looking like a “bonehead” in front of Pops, even though he turned the guy’s daughter into his marital property five years ago.
We are shown footage of the Empire State Building, just so we know we’re still in New York. The Gaggings are mortified to learn that some team has closed up their massive lead. It’s the Dims! After some brief Road Warrior action, they pull up level at a stoplight. The Gaggings decide to follow the Dims, who got directions.
The Pinkies pull up next to some guy and ask him where the town of Soho is. It’s not a town, and it’s South of Houston Street, you insufferable bimbos. They flirt with him and he hands them a map. This will not ease their passage to Soho.
The Jackass family passes the Pinkies in the opposite direction. Princess/Whore Stasi chastises Mr. Jackass for noting that the Pinkies have fake oobies. I’m not sure whether this is because she is embarrassed that her father was filmed making this joke, she’s jealous of the Pinkies’ unrealistically large breasts, or she genuinely doesn’t believe that there’s twice as much silicon in the Pinkies’ SUV as in all of the other SUVs put together. Mrs. Jackass explains in a confessional that her husband is a jackass and pleads with America not to take him seriously because he’s really a very nice man.
The Flanders family is panicking in the streets, which isn’t surprising given their perfectly understandable aversion to anything automotive. Ned praises the truly fuckugly daughter who is driving (the amount of collagen in the child’s lips rivals the amount of silicon in the Pinkies’ brassieres). Yep, she’s special. All God’s chirrens are, y’know. Collagenface treats us to a maudlin confessional about losing Maude at the racetrack.
The Branson daughters ride through the streets of New York staring at cute boys while Walter chauffeurs them. The Gilead prostitute waxes frilly about how purty New York is. Her brother, who basically consists of a really ugly mop of hair, some gangly limbs, and a putrescent accent, disagrees. The Lord don’t care for big sinner Sodomite cities lahk Noo York, y’know.
The Black family assigns their children, who now remind me a lot of Cleveland’s hyperactive son on Family Guy, to look out the windows. Mister Black Family tells us in a confessional that his sons’ minds move quicker than his. This must be a great comfort to Mister Black Family’s students.
We get another dose of the Arguing Garbagemen. Mom is having hot flashes and wants the A/C turned on. One of her unfathomably disrespectful punkass bitch sons screams at her not to worry about the air conditioning. I swear I’m going to cripple this family’s children. Someone needs to. Dad sits stone-faced at the wheel in the midst of the pandemonium in the vehicle’s back seat. I am sincerely hoping that, off-camera, he’s going to pulp both of his sons and stuff them into well-used garbage containers.
Gott in Himmel, I’m only 18 minutes into this tape. And we’re still not at the fucking camping store. I want to dah.
The Dims and the Gaggings find EMS and tear through the store, knocking over displays, taking their assigned equipment, and seizing their next clue. They are directed to a hot dog stand on 91st Street between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue.
At first blush, this seems to me to be idiotic. Any moron knows that if you want a hot dog in New York, you go to Gray’s Papaya.
Oh crap, did I just insult my readers again? Sorry about that. Trust me, if you want a hot dog in New York—especially at about 2 in the morning—find Gray’s Papaya. There’s one at like 71st and Ninth Ave. Or within a block or two of that, anyway. Best. Hot. Dog. Ever.
But there’s a secret reason we’re going to the hot dog stand on 91st Street. The secret is that the hot dog stand is manned by Drew and Kevin, the heroes of TAR past.
Frankly, this kinda sucks. First and foremost, it’s a reminder that there was a time when this program didn’t suck rotten eggs. Second, it’s a reminder that Drew and Kevin probably still don’t have jobs. On the other hand, it gives Drew and Kevin all kinds of opportunities to slaver over the asses of the teenage and young-adult female contestants, and I really can’t begrudge them that, because they’re good boys, our Drew and Kevin.
The Pinkies find the store, followed by the Jackasses. The Fighting Italians are lost, and screaming at each other about it. And on this undeniably tragic note, 21 minutes into the show, and nearly 3700 words into this Bataan Death March of a summary, we finally go to:
Commercials, brought to you by GMC, which wants you to know that the first season of this television program is now available on DVD:
Dworks in a coffee shop, for Verizon Wireless; a trailer, for Serenity, the Firefly movie, which is just absofuckinglutely going to kick ass, and I demand that you go spend whatever your local cineplex makes you cough up to see this movie on the big screen; smug voiceover, for someone’s orange juice; the fucktard Emeril, for some Crest product; people improving their homes, for Lowe’s; a not-very-attractive housewife, earnestly extolling the many virtues of Pledge; and CBS, for various unwatchable sitcoms, and for the season premiere of Yet Another Goddam Cop Show.
And we’re back. It’s killing me, I tell you, but we’re back. I hate them so very, very much. Please, Mommy, don’t make me finish this.
Okay. Back in New York, the Garbagepersons are bickering about whether there are phone books in New York City. I do not understand why. The Sons-in-Law family arrives at EMS, followed by the Flanders family and the Blonde daughters and their dumbass dad. The Gileads are also not far behind. The former Miss Louisiana has a remarkably cute ass, which does go a fair bit toward explaining why she’s still technically a virgin. The Black family finds the store, and the Fighting Italians ask directions and straggle in.
The Gaggings find the West Side Highway. Twee lisps that there is a great deal of spray paint in the city and asks if people are allowed to use spray paint. Daddy tells her not to talk to black people. The Pinkies find the West Side Highway, too, and you can tell they’re excited about it, because the driver’s nips are sticking out from her little pink shirt like…geez, like nipples. What the hell kind of simile could I possibly come up with for that?
The Jackass family is not far behind, and one by one, we see annoying families making their way across town. The Flanders are appalled that they have a long way to go, not realizing that you can walk 71 New York City blocks in about 12 minutes, especially if you’re in an area with a lot of spray paint. The Blonde daughters and their dumbass father pass the Flanders, who are afeared of driving fast, because after all, look what happened to poor Maude. The Gileads pass the Flanders while they’re still in shock from being passed by the other blonde people. It’s not looking good for Team Flanders.
We’ll just pass through some kaledioscopy stuff here, because I tend to get caught up in having to say some smartass thing or another about every single damn thing these morons say, and that’s just not healthy, and besides, Diamond already has her damn Survivor summary up, and it’s way more trendy cappuccino than this dreck. Just continue the themes of bickering Italians with disrespectful children who need to die, but not after being sold to leather slavers, stupid yutes from Ohio, and The Black Family.
So uptown, Drew and Kevin pull out the female Dims for a quick schtup, and she loves it, oh yes she does, and we find that the next clue will take us to Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, where we will…uhm…do things. Oh yeah. Rowboats across the Delaware River, guy in nominally period costume (I’ll bet you a buck they’re wearing Hanes underneath, for starters) standing in the bow, pick up a flag (this is really getting dreary), head back across the river to get back on the clue bus.
The clue instructs us to take the George Washington Bridge. This is a non-difficult proposition, because it is the only bridge that crosses the Hudson River for approximately 60 miles in any direction. There are, to be sure, many ways of crossing the Hudson River, but the GW Bridge is by far the most easily visible, from just about any distance within the horizon. There’s also the little matter of signs studding upper Manhattan that say, “GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE THAT WAY, YA STOOPID FUCKIN’ FUCK.” This is not good enough for the Dims, who must ask passersby about how to get to the “Washington Bridge.” Oh, to be the passerby who tells them it’s about 300 miles southwest, or about 3000 miles west. In, y’know, Washington.
Drew and Kevin show a disturbing side when Twee jumps out of the Gagging Wagon to grab their clue. “She’s cute,” says Drew. Or Kevin. I never could tell them apart, myself. Anyway, it’s disturbing, because she’s cute in a stuff-her-through-the-hole-in-a-Porta-Potty kinda way. Which is to say, she’s twee, not cute.
Stasi jumps out of the Jackassmobile, asking for a frank. “I’d like to give her a frank,” says either Drew or Kevin. Okay, not really, but this is getting dull enough that I’m feeling the need to make stuff up.
The Pinkies and their nippleage make jokes about eating big hot dogs, and then the Sons-in-Law family park all the way down to the corner, then make their father-in-law sprint back to the hot dog cart. Kevin (or Drew) correctly notes that the man’s gonna have a heart attack. Both Kevin and Drew make the Blonde Daughters beg for a clue, before noting, again correctly, that they’d really enjoy having sexual relations with those particular team members. The Gilead family and the Flanders duel to get to the hot dog stand simultaneously. Upon reading the clue, Ned Flanders is perplexed by the “Pennsylvania” reference therein. “I don’t know if that’s the state of Pennsylvania,” she wonders aloud.”
No, you stupid Jesus-spewing cow, it’s in the small village of Pennsylvania. I don’t know what’s more horrifying, that you’re allowed to continue to consume Earth’s precious oxygen, or that you actually used some of it to reproduce. WAAAUUUUGGHHHH!!!!! Just slump over, would you?
So there’s a whole lot of driving going on. One of the Dims is extremely dissatisfied that there is no defined plan, with a red squiggly line drawn on a map, showing her precisely how they will get to Pennsylvania. Even though there’s one of the most prominent “Vacancy. Yep. Right Here, Vacancy” signs ever on Ned’s head, Mrs. Gagging very nearly tops her by wondering if they’re really going to Pennsylvania. Twee falls asleep.
Mister Black points out the “frank-dog” stand to his brood. Apparently he expects hot dogs assembled from various bits and electrified into animation. Hmm, maybe he’s not so dumb after all.
The Bickering Italians pull into 91st Street…actually, they drive by it and send one of their punkass sons sprinting down the block. But when he gets there, and gets his clue, he shows at least a modicum of class, by telling washed-up reality show has-beens Drew and Kevin that they’re “the best.” Yes, I’m wiping away a tear, and giving the punkass bitch a momentary reprieve from the unholy shithammerstorm I’m going to unleash on his adolescent know-it-all punk ass.
Okay, so there’s some racing about New York City on the way out. There’s a lot of stopping at rest areas and getting directions and such. Ned Flanders reaffirms her fundamental unworthiness of being allowed to live, saying, “Pennsylvania may be a state, I don’t know, I’m just confused.”
Okay, let’s get this straight: you think you’re going on a “race” around the world, and you don’t even know which places are states?
There is a level of stupidity beyond which such simple privileges as voting, driving, and really pretty much everything beyond eating and shitting should be withdrawn. Ned Flanders is well below that line. She may well be the dumbest fucking reality show contestant ever, although I hate to make assertions of that sort, since that covers an awful lot of ground and I refuse to watch a lot of stuff. Y’know, stuff like So You Think You Can Dance or Boot Camp or Love Cruise.
Oh yeah. I watched all of those. Never mind. Just, y’know, throw me in the same slave pen as old Ned. At least I can amuse myself by attacking her with weapons like vocabulary and watching her head explode.
My amusement is not increased when the Flanders run into a friendly truck driver who gives them a map, and Jesus words are exchanged.
This shit has gotten out of control. Twenty percent of the families in this competition are dogma-spouting twits. This? Is not entertainment, especially when combined with the spew of family values tripe that must necessarily accompany the format, and the patriotic horseshit such as lingeringly loving shots of the Statue of Frogitude, the poignantly un-Towered New York City skyline, and the immensely vomitorious and historically incorrect flag imagery that will very shortly follow. I? Have had enough. I strongly recommend to each and every one of you that you stop watching this horseshit program and rely solely on this blog for information about the outcome of the “competition” portrayed therein.
Once upon a time, this was a fairly stupid but relatively inoffensive program, with the exception of two or three excremental moments in every season wherein some fuckwit beat his wife, or wretchedly white people complained about breeding in Third World slums, or amped-up freaks bellowed about the University of Texas Longhorns (a cause that, by the way, I support almost wholeheartedly, just not in a bellowing sort of way). But the slimefuck who produces this show, being the Bruckenheimer that he is, has decided on a lowest common denominator strategy, and it’s real obvious that this little tour of precious Americana that leads off this “race” around the “world” is going to be far, far beyond bad. I’m not sure what that is, because I don’t need all that much of a vocabulary to explode the tiny brain of someone like Ned Flanders, whose ilk apparently comprises a non-trivial portion of this great cultural mosaic we like to call the American electorate. But it’s really, really bad. This show has jumped the shark. It has become fascist propaganda, and I? Am very, very unhappy about it.
I’m also unhappy about the fact that I’m only 35 minutes into the tape and looking at an extrapolated word count of something like 22,000 words, so I guess I’d better get cracking here. Not to mention that whole Diamond, Diamond, Diamond! thing, not that I’m all that bothered by having my ass kicked by a girl, especially not so eloquently and creatively. Nope, not me. So I’m going to do something to which you are unaccustomed, coming from me; I’m going to try to just summarize, except for the bursts of opinionation to which you know I must succumb. I know, I promised that about a thousand words ago, and then got all caught up in sucking Drew and Kevin’s dicks. Totally my bad, chirrens.
At Washington Crossing State Park, along the banks of the beautiful Delaware River (you can actually say this about the part of the river that is in northern and middle New Jersey; it’s not far south of this park where the river becomes a fetid hole leading only to Philadelphia and, far worse, Wilmington), rowboats and fake George Washingtons are lined up, awaiting the “racers,” or racists, or whatever the hell they are. You can tell that the George Washingtons are fake, because one of them is African-American.
Now, this may actually be a historical accuracy. It’s abundantly possible that the famous (and vastly overrated) river crossing made by Washington and his troops on the Christmas night, 1776 was mispainted, and that the poor bastard standing in the head of the General’s rowboat was, in fact, one of his slaves. No, this is the part where I’m not joking about slavery.
One of the things TAR never does is teach you a got-damned thing about the history and significance of the many wonderful places to which the contestants travel. Everything is done at an extremely superficial level, including earth-shatteringly significant sites such as the slave port in Dakar, Senegal, the Terra-Cotta Army near Beijing, China, and the Berlin Wall. When the places visited are given any kind of contextual treatment, it’s at a really base level—hence the jingoistic treatment of the Berlin wall a couple of seasons ago, and the tearjerking in Senegal (coupled with, as I recall, Kendra’s assertions that foreigners breed too much—especially certain foreigners, if’n you catch my drift and I know you do), and the upcoming ubersignificance attached to a flag-folding ceremony that uses a historically inaccurate flag to reach right down into your patriotic American bowels and draw out an emotional response based on lies.
So let me draw out a few facts about Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. I should do some full disclosure here; as many of you know, I am a history guy. And what I am not is a Washington guy. There is no doubt that far bigger dumbasses loom in revolutionary history, the presidential landscape, and the history of generalship. But seriously, this guy gets way too much credit. A ham sandwich could’ve been the first President of the United States, and the only really non-trivial difference in today’s Republic would be that we wouldn’t have a giant phallus downtown on 15th Street between Constitution and Independence Avenues, and the big university down in my city’s West End would be called the Ham Sandwich University, which, really, would not be a bad thing.
Hamilton, a more significant figure by far, famously wanted Washington to be a king, and Washington, who wanted nothing more than to go back to his family home and bugger his slaves, declined. He was, famously, drafted to stand for election. But all that was nearly fifteen years after the events of Christmas night, 1776.
Do you know what General George Washington was, on Christmas night, 1776? He was a terrorist. Don’t even try arguing with me, because you’d be dead spanking wrong by any reasonable intellectual standard. The reason you might not think he was a terrorist is because he was on your side.
George Washington, a General in an illegally constituted army under the laws of his jurisdiction, led 2,500 terrorists in an assault—on a Holy day, no less—on the legally constituted forces of law in his jurisdiction. They moved surreptitiously, by night, and assaulted a force of people who were, depending on your choice of verbiage, allied combatants (Hessians) or prostitutes (mercenaries). They attacked in superior numbers, routing the legally constituted forces of the jurisdiction. The event was memorialized for propaganda purposes.
The victors, of course, write the history. I’m not by any means suggesting that our American forebears were incorrect in their choice to rebel against duly constituted authority, or that it was a bad thing for us that they did. But that’s what they did. They were terrorists.
Okay, I got all academic on you there. Sorry, let’s get back to making fun of morons.
What the morons are required to do is pick a rowboat, row it across the fast-moving Delaware River with an old guy in nominally period dress standing in the prow begging them not to drown him, alight on the New Jersey side, retrieve a flag that did not, on Christmas night, 1776, exist in the sense we now think of it, row the flag back over to Pennsylvania, the state, and observe as it is ceremoniously folded by other gentlemen in nominally period dress.
The Sons-in-Law family and the Blonde Daughters are the first to arrive and choose rowboats. They suit up and do the thing. All parties are encouraged to row (paddle, actually) in unison. One of the sons-in-law is or was a Marine, and charges ashore “at the exact same spot Washington did” to retrieve the flag. He, a by-God United States Marine, is admonished by one of his brothers-in-law to “respect the flag,” as if a by-God United States Marine does not know how to do so. Honestly, how do these people keep from murdering each other in cold blood and distributing the still-dripping pieces about this great planet of ours?
There’s much brakage about stroking nice and hard as the Sons-in-Law make their way back to Pennsylvania, the state, and this is all interspersed with footage of teams—the Gileads and the Jackasses, I believe, trailed by the Pinkies—making their way to the scene of the crime. The Pinkies and the Jackasses are, not surprisingly, thoroughly lost as we head into:
Commercials, sponsored appropriately enough by BP, which as you may recall stands for British Petroleum, and America Online, which stands for suckitude:
A moron walking carelessly and without due attention to his surroundings, for AOL; various consumers making insipid double entendres, for British Petroleum; a man in his yard, accompanied by some yahoo who is apparently a television home improvement celebrity, for Sears; Mister Dyson, touting his vacuum cleaner, which apparently sucks when yours does not; a trailer, for some Disney flick about a caddy playing golf, which promises to be the most historically accurate golf film since Bagger Vance; My Local News, pimping a local woman who travels to various disasters to rebuild things; women and their parts, in various stages of dress and undress, for one of my many local megamalls; Lance Armstrong, shilling for Bristol-Myers Squibb, his former testicle, and a giant bike ride finale event that will conclude at The Ellipse in My Local Nation’s Capital on a day and at a time when I will plan to most definitively be occupying some other geography; a family caught up in the natural foods craze, for My Local Grocery Monopoly, which is owned by the same band of scheming Dutch as your local grocery monopoly, if you happen to live in the greater Northeast; and a doctor, an older person, and a voiceover about prostate health, for a national grocery monopoly, which is the second-largest grocery monopoly in My Local National Capital Region (and yes, I am aware that technically, since I have now referred to two separate and distinct monopolies, they cannot, in fact, be monopolies, but please assume that I understand the nature of monopoly and oligopoly and get out of my hair, especially if you’re the annoying and rigidly clueless newbie butthead who chose to comment on that in connection with some previous summary of mine published in another location).
And we’re back.
People are still engaged in that old man versus nature conflict, and the Sons-in-Law are still making stroking jokes, and the Blonde Daughters are getting exasperated with their idiot father, who is actually quite reasonably exhorting them to actually row the fucking boat. The Gileads arrive and start their trip, as do the Flanders. The Gaggings are not far behind. Little Billy the Spy asks, astutely, if Washington Crossing State Park is where Washington crossed the Delaware. Wow. Career in the intellectual stuff for you, kid.
And the next clue sends us off to Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, the city of my birth. Fairmount Park is a big park stretched along the banks of the Schuylkill River, which descends through the hilly terrain of lower eastern Pennsylvania (the state), through one of the towns of my family’s origin (Schuylkill Haven, which is in Pennsylvania, the state), and through the city of Philadelphia, which nestles between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. You’re so lucky that this episode covers so much terrain with which I am quite familiar, aren’t you?
There are two ways, by the way, to pronounce “Schuylkill”; both must be rendered as “skoo-kill.” In one iteration, the “skoo” is pronounced as in “cool”; in the other, it is pronounced as in “rook.” Rural locals tend toward the latter. Philadelphians tend not to give a rat’s ass. The “L” in the middle of “Schuylkill” is mostly silent, although a hint of it is there when the word is pronounced as in “cool.”
The word “Schuylkill” is not used during the course of this episode of TAR, but I really am endlessly fascinating, aren’t I?
At Fairmount Park, teams must race to pitch their tents. Phyllis tells us this without the slightest trace of irony. Once they have pitched their tents, an Eagle Scout will, without the slightest trace of irony, hand them a ticket for a departure time. The times are spaced out over a half-hour the next morning. So TAR has now gone to overt, officially sanctioned bunching rather than just relying on the vagaries of Third-World airports and train stations. It is also now fairly clear that, in the course of this episode, I will be denied my usual opportunity to bitch about the usual Transportation Terminal Clusterfuck. Bastiges.
The teams begin to take I-95 south into Philadelphia. Sadly, I-95 will bring none of them into close proximity to Fairmount Park, which is on the other side of the freaking city from the park. This is nontrivial in Philadelphia, where not even the cabbies can find their way across town. I myself once spent three hours attempting to get from the Delaware side around the city to Chester (on the other side of the Schuylkill). It’s usually a 2-hour drive from the Delaware to my front door. I mean, the tanker truck that exploded on the highway down by the airport, directly in my path (I didn’t witness that, but I did get to watch another truck inexplicably jackknifing about six cars in front of me in the backup), didn’t help any, but still. Not a friendly driving town, and I live near one of the least friendly of driving towns.
Teams row, teams splash, teams moan and whine, teams bicker. No one notes the irony that one of the George Washingtons is stunningly non-Caucasian. Little Billy the Spy exhorts his family to stroke. Teams whine about other teams being ahead of them. One person—Miss Lousiana Assfuck, I believe—tells us that she didn’t realize how hard rowing a boat was. She still doesn’t realize, because they weren’t rowing—they were paddling. Not to go all vocabulary-technical on you, or anything.
Little Bobby Jackass is reminded by his mother that letting a 229-year-old historically inaccurate flag that is no longer representative of…well, anything…is “sacrilegious or something.” Nice work, person who married a donkey. Little Billy the Spy continues to monopolize every single thing, insisting that he must touch the flag because he is very respectful. Little Twee whimpers about the difficulty of paddling. She’s one tuckered out little…uhm…twee thing.
The Blacks, the Dims, the Pinkies, and the Italians are running way behind. The Black Family gets caught in the current and whisked downstream. On that tragic note, we go to:
Commercials:
A woman with an English accent, who turns out to be Kate Winslet talking about her roles, for American Express; automotive voiceover, for Buick and its no-doubt unique employee discount for everyone offer, which as best I can tell matches every other automotive manufacturer’s employee discount offer, which tells me that this discount is crap; a trailer, for the next great date movie starring the very annoying Orlando Bloom and the somewhat less annoying, but still not particularly useful, Kirsten Dunst; the Pillsbury Doughboy, oozing homoerotic imagery for some sort of biscuit dough; shrimps and sultry voiceover, for Red Lobstah, and the eatin’ just don’t get any better than that, do it?; an animated child and his animated insectival and piscine friends, for Nasonex, in a commercial that makes me feel like resurrecting my second-favorite art form, snot poetry (Kim doesn’t want me to talk about my favorite); CBS, for some other new crime show about profilers, starring various buff actors, including the guy who played Simon on Firefly, a movie of which is currently playing in Your Local Theatre, and which I continue to demand that you go see, and for some spooky new thing about some chick with a Marlo Thomas haircut—oh, Christ, it’s that whore Jennifer Love Hewitt—who whispers to Seabiscuit; Loud monster-truck voiceover, for Chevy’s impendingly doomed employee discount offer; not-very-hip music and yet more smug voiceover, for Honda; two athletic-looking guys tossing a football in the office, dissing cable Internet, for Verizon DSL; and My Local Weatherman, who continues to swear that his actual first name is Topper, for My Local News, which will apparently tell me that, shockingly enough for the last week of September, it’s getting cooler.
And we’re back.
The Black Family’s George Washington is warning them that they are continuing to drift downstream and toward parts of town where they’re not allowed. Back in Philadelphia, the Sons-in-Law find themselves some Eagle Scouts and get down, without the slightest trace of irony, to pitching some tents…er, a tent. The Blonde Daughters are caught in traffic and should’ve listened to me about Philly traffic about 600 words ago, but they’re too busy cracking on their dumbass Dad. The Gileads are in the wrong part of town, and are told so by angry residents. The Flanders family cheats on traffic to get to the park. There is much shrieking among the tent-pitchers every time another team arrives, those being the Gaggings and the Blonde Daughters.
Everyone has difficulty with the tent-pitching. It’s funny, that never happened before. The Sons-in-Law get a coveted 10 AM departure, as do the Gaggings and, I think, the Flanders. The Blonde Daughters get a 10:30 AM departure.
Back in Pennsylvania, the state, the Black Family finally gets washed ashore, and the Pinkies pull up to the park. Mister Black continues to demonstrate his command of both English and current hipster slang by saying things like, “Yo yo yo” and “C’mon, dawgs.” I reckon it’s too much for me to hope that the Black Family gets eliminated?
Oh, yeah, it is, since I intensely dislike the Italians a lot more.
The Pinkies get gone from the park, and the Dims show up. The Italians pull up while they’re out on the water, bickering and shrieking. The Italians are in last place. Good news, that. Their African-American George Washington tells them to row together.
In Philly, the Gilead family finally get to the tent-pitching, followed by the Jackasses, who get a 10:30 AM departure. I think the Gileads do too. This is not a well-documented portion of the race.
But back at the park, the Italians drop their clue. We know this must be significant, because the camera zooms in on it, and a significant-sounding note sounds in the soundtrack. This is quickly forgotten as they begin to bicker about which way to go on Interstate 95. But their little heads explode when they discover their cluelessness and turn around to go find it, as we head to:
Commercials:
Once again, various consumers making insipid double entendres, for British Petroleum, although I think this one is a little different because they’re talking about things like paying at the pump, canopies over the pumps, and car washes like they’re gas station novelties; a trailer, for the DVD of Disney’s Cinderella, which is apparently next up in Disney’s perpetual cheap market-heightening rotation, and I believe we had a conversation in my last summary about Cinderella, which myth is a linguistic corruption of an old European legend in which the Cinderella figure puts out for the prince, letting him have a test drive before he buys the goods; persons with cancer, for some cancer drug that keeps you from fucking up your immune system with chemotherapy, which is not a bad thing; a teenager and other consumers, for Verizon Wireless; and CBS, for CSI with Extra Sipewicz, and for a Survivor that led to Diamond, Diamond, Diamond! kicking my grievously slow ass, and for some new show about a prosecutor who handles major cases.
And we’re back, still focused on the Bickering Italians, who have decided not to go back for their lost clue. I smell a penalty!
The Black Family arrives at the park, and gets help from various families in pitching its tent. The Pinkies get to the park to find that they are late. Wait a minute, there’s a spirit of cooperation infusing this. That’s way too friendly. And metaphorical. Could it be that…we’re being propagandized again? Hello, IDIOTS! You’re in a race for a million fucking dollars! Why the fucking fuck are you helping each other do anything but drown?
The Pinkies get an 11 AM departure; the recordkeeping is not so good on the Black Family, so I reckon we’ll find out later what sorta time they got. The Dims get there, and get the same treatment, with Twee taking the lead in helping. She such a lovely child, the Twee. The Dims also get the 11 AM thing. The Bickering Italians come in last, once again getting the helping hands of all the other teams.
The next day dawns and it’s raining like hell. It was, in fact, the Sons-in-Law, Gaggings, and Flanderses who got the early times, and their clues are awaiting them in little plastic bags, tucked under their windshield wipers like parking tickets. They’re off to Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, and it will by now in no way surprise you to learn that I am still the Master of Their Terrain, since there are very few places in the triangle formed by Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and Scranton where I have not either driven myself or been dragged kicking and screaming, My People remaining devout Pennsylvanians. From, y’know, Pennsylvania the state.
The teams head out for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a deranged nightmare of narrow lanes, road faults, falling rock, maniacal truckers, and other forms of Death Incarnate. I am sorry to tell you that my hopes for this statistically encouraging highway are not realized and that each and every contestant is still alive when the teams arrive at Mount Joy.
Mount Joy is right down the street from Three-Mile Island, in Amish country, which, oddly enough, fills a pretty good chunk of the above-defined triangle in varying degrees of density, more densely to the south, in places within about 40-50 miles of the above-defined form of Death Incarnate. You know the Amish—the buggies, the beards, the anachronistic clothing, the damned good pie. There are, of course, varying degrees of Amishness, and some Amish get over their disdain for technology enough to come down here to Maryland and sell us pies and produce and other good things to eat. We loves us some Amish. And so do the racists, as we shall see.
The Flanders family has completely exhausted my patience. Ned says a prayer in Jesus’ name to keep them safe on the highway. Hey Ned, did it work for Maude, you remarkably thick piece of genetic misengineering? I mean, I don’t mean to be cruel or disrespect your perfect right to believe whatever the fuck you want, but do you have to keep beating me over the head with the fatal logic flaw that defines your entire existence?
Everyone heads for the Turnpike. The Blonde Daughters, the Gileads, and the Jackasses hit the road at 10:30. The Gileads and the Jackasses form a Louisiana alliance and decide to follow each other to Mount Joy. The 11 AM departure is the Black Family, the Dims, the Pinkies, and the Italians.
We get kinda glossed here; it’s about a two-hour drive from Philadelphia to Mount Joy, and we skip over a lot of driving, which is just as well, since we don’t really need to see every time these pimples on the butt of civilization get lathered with road spray from a passing 18-wheeler owned and operated by Johnny Rebeljack. But take my word for it, this is how they spend their time until they get off the highway, south of Reading.
We finally get out to the farm country, where either Rod or Todd Flanders—I can’t tell them apart—tells us that the Amish are “sooooo cute.” That’s a direct and unaltered quote, there, chirrens. Join me now in fervently wishing, once again, for something large and heavy to fall from the pits in the sky and onto this family advertisement for the benefits of concentration camps.
At the farm, it turns out we got one a them there Detour things. Phyllis patiently explains to us for the 142nd time that a Detour is a choice between two tasks. The tasks herepresent would be either building a small waterwheel, from a kit, or hauling a horseless buggy across about a mile and a half of corn fields. The waterwheel kit consists of seven large pieces and some connecting materials. The buggy consists of, well, a buggy, in which two team members must sit while the others haul them around cornfields.
We’re all clear that only someone with the effective brain power of something that came out of your butt would choose, under this paradigm, to push a buggy through a cornfield, right?
Guess what? All of the first three families to arrive choose the buggy thing. That’d be the Flanderses (who continue to insist that things Amish are sooooo cute!), the Sons-in-Law, and the Gaggings, who at least have the benefit of having two small persons to ride in the buggy, but the disadvantage of having only two large persons to actually drive the buggy.
And then, disaster strikes, and it sure gets our hopes up. The Flanderses, who are too fucking stupid to understand that the buggy will go faster downhill, run over Ned, as the idiot daughters scream in horror and the dumbass blonde son jogs ineffectually behind. Which is as good a time as any to go to:
Commercials, brought to you by British Petroleum:
Yet another iteration of vapid consumers, this lot talking about bodily functions, for British Petroleum; a trailer, for another gorram Wallace and Grommit movie; a bored couple, hungry and too stupid to sublimate their desire for food into hot monkey sex, for Chili’s; singing and nominally attractive women, for Talbots; sad music and a doctor, for TIAA CREF; a jogging man in the Serengeti, along with the stupid pink bunny, for Energizer; a trailer, for the DVD of Robots; CBS, with the whorebot Julie Chen Moonves, for The Early Show, referring less-than-accurately to tonight’s failed racers as “castoffs,” and for Dave, and for CSI, and for some other stupid new drama; My Local News, which is no less insipid and sensationalistic than it was the last time I complained to you about it; people eating, for Boston Market; turn-of-the-century poofters in a period car, for Mercedes; a man being stalked at his local convenience store, for Edy’s ice cream; and another person eating, for Boston Market, which is now pushing beef with a really annoying jingle.
And we’re back, watching a replay of Ned getting run over by an Amish buggy, which proceeds to crash into some shrubbery after running over Ned, who is, sadly, essentially unharmed. The opportunity for missed irony really, really pisses me off, a whole lot. Either Rod or Todd blames the incident on a failed brake, but the skid marks left on the asphalt path by the buggy’s metal wheels make clear that this was a failure of brains, which pretty much sums up this passel of idiotburgers quite nicely.
The Sons-in-Law successfully use the brake, as the Flanderses struggle to repair their buggy, which was damaged by their inept handling. They decide it was damaged beyond repair and head back to build a waterwheel, urging the Gaggings to check their brakes as they pass them on the return slog through the corn and the mud. No, Flanderses. The correct advice would be “check your intelligence,” but it’s not necessary, because little Twee, as much as I dislike her, is smarter than you four fucktards combined, with plenty of spare smarts left over to run a manned mission to the Moon. The Gagging children incontrovertibly prove my point minutes later by successfully applying the brake and keeping from squishing their parents.
We go back to some extended highway montage bullshit, and finally some other families begin to arrive at the old farmstead. The Dims start the buggy thing, being excessively stupid and muscular, while the Pinkies are smart enough to go build things. The Dims will be the last team to fall for the Buggy Trap.
The Blonde Daughters encourage dumbass Dad as he runs their building project; apparently, he’s an architect. The Dims flaunt their muscularity and make fart jokes. The Sons-in-Law change horses, their father-in-law staying in the buggy since even he can tell he’s about to infarct just sitting there. Little Billy the Spy starts to sing, most annoyingly—I believe I have advanced him well ahead on the Death List, well ahead of his sister Twee, and into a spot behind only most of the Gileads (the Miss Louisiana Assfuck really does have a pretty alluring ass), and all of the Dims, the Italians, and of course the Flanderses.
They don’t know the words to what they’re singing, and of course since Little Billy the Spy is the older brother, little Twee must imitate him. But I don’t blame her, for the same reason that I won’t blame her for going with the man in the furry hat and the long purple coat when she runs away from home and lands in the Port Authority Bus Terminal in five or six years.
The Black Family arrives at the farm and chooses to build. The Flanderses, who are stupid and ran over their mother, are nearly done building their water wheel as the Gaggings are only halfway through the buggy course. The jackasses arrive, in tandem with the Gileads. The Italians appear to be not far behind. The Dims are beginning to realize the error of the ways, and whine about it as we head to:
Commercials:
a trailer, for some water-based horror movie; attractive-looking food that cannot possibly be as good as tricky and underhanded professional food designers make it appear, for Subway; hip music and some psychedelic tail-light montage, for some Chevy SUV that looks way too much like the incredibly ugly PT cruiser; the stupid careless guy for AOL, again; a man with distressed breathing, for the American Lung Association and its asthma control campaign; hip music and saucy models, for Kohl’s; and CBS, for whatever new crime profilers show I bitched about earlier, and for CSI: SoHo is South of Houston, and for some other show I bitched about earlier.
And we’re back, where the Dims are still whimpering about not being as strong as they thought they were. They push on, being too stupid to quit, which will, in the end, only save them because several other teams is stupider than they are. I know, seems like a strain on mathematics, but there you have it.
The Flanderses, in the face of overwhelming odds against persons with vegetation filling their skulls, are the first to finish with the Detour, and get a clue telling them to drive off into the country and look for a farm with two blue silos, which will be the pit stop. They are shrieking, a lot.
The other teams work assiduously at their little waterwheels. The Pinkies finish next and head off for the pit stop, shrieking, which they really ought to, because they’ve made up an hour. That’s kind of impressive, given that they’re twits, and even though everyone else on the show is also a twit.
The Gaggings horse their way into the finish, and get the clue third. The Sons-in-Law appear to be not far behind.
The Dims stop at the turn to drink water and, as it happens, to puke. This induces much jocularity. The Pinkies bicker and shriek. One of them notes that her heart is beating, which is probably preferable to the alternative. At least for her, if not for us.
The Flanderses begin to pray for guidance on how to get to the blue silos. They cannot die or otherwise get out of this “race” fast enough. One hopes that Jesus responds to their unending begging for assistance with directions to East Los Angeles.
But little Twee queers the deal, by taunting God and opining that the Gaggings will come in first. Taunting is, you see, far worse than begging.
Incredibly, a shrieking gaggle of Pinkies arrives at the pit stop first. They’re so fucking annoying that the usually even-tempered Phyllis comments on it. The Mennonite gentleman next to Phyllis, the official greeter, looks dumbfoundedly at Phyllis, unable to believe the thing to which he has suggested himself, and I sure hope that Bruckenheimer paid him well. The Pinkies win a race-leg prize of $20,000.
The Flanderses notice that the Gaggings are right behind them, and begin to prepare for a photo finish, illegally unbuckling their seatbelts while driving—hey, it’s no wonder you people have such automotive safety related trouble! But they’re no match for the youth and speed of the Gaggings, and Twee kicks their Jesusbound asses in a footrace.
The Sons-in-Law are seeking the blue silos next in footage order. There is a brand of stupidity found only in the rootland of our nation that is the Northeast, and these boys reek of it, one of them noting that silos must be on farms, and that they, the Sons-in-Law, are in “farm country.” This is the same dogged determination in the face of a lack of preferential genetic coding that keeps the bulk of the Red Sox’ and Yankees’ fan bases strong (qualifiers added on behalf of any of my Soxfan friends reading this).
Back at t’other farm, various families are moving their waterwheels to completion. The Gileads finish next, with Miss Louisiana Assfuck demonstrating her very fine manners by sincerely and warmly thanking the Pennsylvanian (a denizen of the state) for handing her the clue. Don’t worry, Ilse, I wouldn’t really do her, not even with [insert name of random mutual acquaintance, add possessive] dick.
Various families are screwing up in various ways, the Jackasses worst of all; the shaft of their waterwheel is stuck and they can’t get it out. Yeah, do with it what you will, I’m off to:
Commercials:
A trailer for the DVD of the first season of this here show; another trailer, for the next Harry Potter movie, which appears to involve a pornographic bit about Harry snogging someone who isn’t Hermione, which film will not open for another seven weeks; a chick in a tight sweater and tight jeans, accompanied by some annoying version of New Order’s classic Bizarre Love Triangle, for Payless; a ladder on an orange tree and smug voiceover, for some orange juice; another damn trailer, for the Gameshow Network’s reruns of TAR; the unfathomably reptilian pile of smug feces that is Jerry Jones, for Verizon Wireless; yet more vapid consumers, discussing gas station junk food, for BP; CBS, for that stupid new crime/legal show, and for the Jennifer Love Whorewit show; a fakey edit job of some Apprentice footage, for the Virginia Lottery’s latest scritchup game; a giant orange ball, for Ing; and My Local News, with a former Fox newswhore, the squarejawed Noo Yawk import, and the guy whose name can’t possibly really be Topper, teasing some yellow muckraking crap.
And we’re back, with…uhm, cows. The Jackasses are the next to escape the Detour, followed by the Italians, trailed by their cowlike mama. One of her sons accuses her of being intentionally annoying. Wow. Mom has the good sense to crack under his withering abuse, and cautions The Garbageman that it’s time to give the little fuckstick the seriously massive whupping that’s about 14 years overdue.
The Sons-in-Law run into traffic; the Gileads find the blue silos. Miss Louisiana Assfuck is wearing a pair of little gym shorts that are…uhm…flattering. They are the next in to the pit stop. Even the Mennonite farmer likes the little missy’s ass. Oh yeah, giggety giggety giggety. The Jackasses are next. Mister Jackass whines about the stress, annoying even Phyllis with his…well, jackassery.
The Italians are next up, with the little bitch crying so hard his mother hauls off and slugs him. Way to go, Bossie! They are in sixth place, another impressive comeback, and Tony the Garbageman almost knocks Phyllis over with a giant loving bearhug.
The littlest Black goes down to get some water to work the waterwheel. He falls in the mud. Yes, that’s right. A Black child fell in the mud. Leave it.
The Blonde Daughters are next up, and manage not to shriek. The Sons-in-Law arrive eighth, a not-very-impressive performance considering they started off the morning in the first group of three. Dad warrants that they’re worthy of continuing to bang his daughters.
The Black Family finishes their waterwheel as the Dims are finishing their buggy ride. Mister Black completely misses the point, babbling about something blue sitting on a rock. Missus Black gently corrects him, noting that they seek two blue silos on Blue Rock Road. He asks her if she's sure.
The Dims turn off from following the Black Family. It’s a bold move. There is much babbling in both cars; the Dim daughter bitches relentlessly, thinking they should have followed the Black Family, which does not know what a silo is. The teams end up seconds apart, but the slow Black children drag down their family, and the Dims come in ahead of them as team number nine.
The maudlin music starts as the Black family jogs to the mat. Yes, yes, tears. “Black Family,” Phyllis intones, “You one daid Black Family.” Platitudes and tears follow. They’re proud of each other, they didn’t quit, brak brak brak. The littlest Black looks like he goan kill him somebody real daid. REAL daid, motherfucker. You feel me?
They slog off toward the farmhouse, and we slog off to:
Commercials, yet again sponsored by BP, this time in conjunction with Verizon Wireless and GMC trucks:
An assembly line, accompanied by Bill Withers’ Use Me, for GMC, and once again my understanding of the connection between song lyrics and advertising is badly strained; a trailer, for some Pacino-Matthew McConaghey vehicle; and CBS, for Dave.
And we’re back, for the last time. Next on TAR:
The Italians, oddly enough, bicker; the “race” goes to a Civil War battle re-enactment, which might suggest that we are taking U.S. 30 west to Gettysburg, although the terrain shown in the footage, which is not particularly hilly such as the ground around Gettysburg, along with a glimpse of a very familiar visitor-center-looking building in the background of a couple of frames, suggest that we are headed to Antietam, south of Sharpsburg, Maryland (aren’t you glad I’m such a fucking freak?), or to the environs of Frederick, Maryland for a re-enactment of the Battle of the Monocacy (which was tiny and you likely haven’t heard of it); and the Blonde Daughters’ dumbass father gets heatstroked--which, if we’re on a hot day in, say, July, puts us back at Gettysburg (July 1-3) or the Monocacy (July 9), rather than Sharpsburg (September 17, with less-celebrated actions in the same area on September 15-16 and 18). Gods, I’m a fucking freak of nature.
Thanks for reading, and thanks even more for visiting Survive This and What’s So Amazing? as we get these forums off the ground.