Category: Great Ideas

You Heard It Here First

Matthew

I can see where this is going.

Women are in it for money, men are in it for sex. Or so we’re told by the recent rash of “relationship” reality programs hitting the airwaves.

FOX (as usual) fired the first volley with Who Wants To Marry A Multimillionaire, in which a gaggle of attractive (but not especially well-off) women competed for the nuptials of a well-off (but not especially attractive) man. ABC then ripped off this premise and turned it into a series entitled The Bachelor. FOX is now satirizing the trend with Joe Millionaire, where a bunch of sexy girls vie for the affections of a man they (erroneously) believe to be wealthy.

ABC, meanwhile, has rolled out the next iteration in this downward spiral: The Bachelorette. Here again we have a dozen people competing to wed a member of the opposite sex. But unlike the stars of Marry and Bachelor, the Bachelorette is not a millionaire. She is, however, Smoking Hot — or, at least, she fits the criteria set by TV for “Smoking Hot” designation: blond, buxom, under thirty and entirely too thin.

The question then becomes: how will FOX parody this? It’s easy to make a man appear rich and then pull the rug out from under those competing for his attention. But how do you hornswoggle a bunch of shallow suitors into thinking that someone is Smoking Hot when they are not? Announce, in the final episode, that she is a brunette that dyes her hair? Reveal that her breasts are not authentic? Stun the contestants with the knowledge that Ms. Right consumes two, sometimes three meals a day?

I pondered each of these possibilities, but decided that they weren’t outrageous enough for FOX to consider. And I was left wondering if this could be It, the logical end (and low) point of the genre. What could they possibly do to lower the bar even further.

And then it hit me.

“FOX is proud to present the next generation of reality television: The Crying Game-Show!”

You so totally know it’s gonna happen.

I Know Something You Don’t Know

Matthew 1 Comment

Scene: Last week, after seeing The Two Towers in the theater.

The Queen: I know who puts the ring in the Crack of Doom.

Me: You do?

Q: Yes.

M: I don’t see how. You haven’t read the books.

Q: I tried to read the books! But they were really really boring. Stupid and boring.

M: Yes, I believe you’ve mentioned that several dozen times.

Q: But it doesn’t matter, because I know who puts the ring in the Crack of Doom.

M: Okay.

Q: It’s Sam.

M: Okay.

Q: I’m right, aren’t I?

M: Why would it be Sam and not Frodo?

Q: Because Frodo isn’t going to make it. He’s almost dead and there’s another three hour movie to go. Only Sam will make it.

M: Huh.

Q: I’m right, aren’t I?

M: So you tell me.

Q: I’m right.

Scene: Last Tuesday, after rewatching The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD.

Q: Okay: now I know who throws the ring in the Crack of Doom.

M: Who?

Q: Aragorn.

M: Could be.

Q: Because it’s his destiny. There’s that whole scene where they talk about that king that tried to put the ring in the Crack of Doom and couldn’t do it, and then later they said that Aragorn was the heir to the Throne of Whatever, and then he had the chance to take the ring from Frodo but he didn’t so he’s stronger than his grandfather so he could throw it into the Crack. It’s his destiny.

M: You seem pretty confident that someone destroys the ring. How do you know that Sauron doesn’t get it?

Q: Shut up. It’s Aragorn.

Scene: Last night, 20 minutes after we turned off the light, as I lay sleeping and The Queen apparently lay awake thinking.

Q: Matt?

M: Mm?

Q: Matt, I need to ask you something.

M: Mmf?

Q: I need to ask you a question. And it’s important that you answer me.

M: [Suddenly wide awake and alarmed]: What is it?

Q: Who puts the ring into the Crack of Doom?

Postscript: It would be cool if, at the end of Return of the King when Sauron finally gets the ring, they played I Got The Power by Snap, and Sauron could dance around and do the rap part (“it’s gettin’ kinda hectic!”) and then be all like, “BOOYAH! It your face, hobbits!!” I think that would really drive home how evil he is.

(What? You didn’t know Sauron gets the ring and enslaves all of Middle Earth? Christ, I though The Queen was the only person who didn’t know the ending. Jeeze, sorry man. **spoilers!** Sorry.)

Non Scents

Matthew

Apparently Jennifer Lopez is coming out with a new “fragrance” (which is what they call perfume these days, I guess) called Glow by J-Lo. Here’s some others that will follow on its heels.

  • Mince by Prince
  • This Is How You Should Smell by Martha Stewart
  • Texas Tea by G.W.B.
  • Free For The Taking by Winona
  • Affair by Cher
  • I Am Led To Understand That This Has An Agreeable Odor But, Lacking A Nose, I Cannot Vouch For It Myself by Michael Jackson
  • Stink by N*Sync
  • Attack of the Colognes by Lucas
  • Drool by Jewel
  • I Hereby Command You To Purchase This by Oprah
  • Republic of Sudan by Alan Greenspan
  • Stench by Judi Dench

Legonomics

Matthew 33 Comments

Gold is dumb. What can you do with it? Gild stuff — lilies and Capitol buildings and whatever — or cram it into your cavities, that’s about it. So I’m glad the U.S. dropped the gold standard back in, um, back in whenever they dropped the gold standard. But I can’t seem to get fired up about the dollar either. Dollars are all the same boring color, they get wadded up and torn, and, frankly, I think Andrew Jackson was having a serious Bad Hair Day when he snapped his picture for the twenty. Plus the value of the dollar keeps going down. (Apparently it used to go up too, but that was back in the late 90’s when people still thought e-potbelliedpigs-online.com was a pretty good idea).

But I was listening to Marketplace the other day, and they said something interesting: no matter what the state of the economy, toy makers generally do pretty well — after all, kids don’t give a rat’s ass if Lucent missed their third quarter projections by 7/15 of a cent, all they know is they need a Fashion Polly Sparkle Style House and, by God, they need it NOW!

That’s what gave me Great Idea #57709: the US should make the four pronged square Lego the standard unit of US currency. The bigger Legos will be worth more, and the smaller Legos will be like coins, and those huge Lego plates will be, like, $1000 bills. We’ll also outlaw those stupid “Mindstorm” Legos because they are new-fangled and I don’t understand them.

This plan has so many good points that I can’t even begin to list them and yet now I will:

  • When Bush announces that we’re abruptly switching from the dollar to the Lego, your new wealth will depend on how many Legos you own at that moment. In other words, your affluence will become proportional to your nerdliness (which will pretty much make it a wash for Bill Gates, I guess).

  • People will have a much greater incentive to save. What can you do with a bunch of saved dollars, except hide them in the Minute Maid Premium Original Low-Pulp Orange Juice container you have in your fridge (not that I do this!!). With saved Legos, you can make castles and life-size blocky replicas of Halle Berry — hooray!

  • Money would suddenly become color-coded, thereby making the US exactly like Canada.

  • Legos are, like, impossible to counterfeit. Believe me, I’ve tried.

  • When you tip a pretty waitress you could make a cat or a rose or something cheesy like that. Conversely, when you pay your taxes you could build and send in a pair of $7,860 multi-colored buttocks.
I could go on and on, but I think it’s pretty clear that this scheme has no down side. In fact, I think this is my best idea yet, except for the Combination Bagpipes / Breathalyzer, but I’m not going to tell you about that one because it’s so great you’d steal it.

My Kitty Is The Mother Of Invention

Matthew 8 Comments

Remember how Larry would always burst into Jack’s apartment unannounced on “Three’s Company”? That’s what great, pet-related ideas have been doing to my head in the last week or so. Check out these two sure-fire winners:

Cat-A-Tonic 4000: My wife and I used to live in a noisy, urban apartment. We had so much trouble sleeping that we eventually bought one of those sound machines — not the Miami kind, with Gloria Estafan, but the type that have, you know, a bunch of “soothing tones” to help lull you into slumber: White Noise, Ocean Waves, Babbling Brook, Crickets, etc.

But we recently bought a house, thereby trading one insomnia-inducing problem for another. Now we no longer have the noise, but we have since acquired a handful of squirrelly, nocturnal cats. They like to show up at 2:00 the morning, leap onto the bed, and tromp around like a marching band, or give our faces unexpected groomings. So while we no longer require the white noise, we now need something to keep the kitties at bay.

That’s why I’m going to invent the Cat-A-Tonic 4000. It will work just like the traditional noise machine, except that, instead of quietly playing soothing noises, it will loudly play sounds designed to deter feline visitations. The five settings will be:

  • Vacuum Cleaner
  • Garbage Truck
  • Coke Can Full of Pennies
  • Firecrackers
  • Water Spritzer
Also, every fifteen minutes it will bark. Land of Nod, here I come!

Heroin Chew toys: Some friends of mine recently got a puppy that immediately ran away. It’s kind of a long story, involving loose collars, thunder, and a Nick At Night “Joanni Loves Chachi” Marathon; suffice to say, the dog ran away and my friends were worried sick for days. They kept putting his food bowl out in the back yard but he didn’t return until, like, six days later, when he finally hungry enought to come home.

So in the interest of preventing this kind of tragedy from befalling others, I immediately applied by parsnip-like intellect to this vexing problem. What would prevent a dog from running away for a full week, asked I. And the answer was so obvious that I’m amazed that you, personally, hadn’t already thought of it: a heroin addiction. That’s where heroin chew toys come in. If your puppy runs away, he’s guaranteed to be back on your doorstep, strung-out and whining for a fix by the end of the day. And this works a lot better than food as a Canine Retention Tool, because while a hungry dog can scavenge or eat (o)possums or whatever, a heroin addicted dog has no choice but to go home, unless you live in downtown Seattle, in which case your dog can get hooked up pretty much anywhere.

Wow, these ideas are so great that I am already rich!!

Lipidalooza

Matthew 5 Comments

America’s Favorite Snack
Just Got Favoriter!

This summer, people across the nation thrilled to the taste-sensation of the Deep-Fried Twinkie. But that fad is so last-August. Americans want something newer, something bigger, something that takes deep-frying to the edge and then over the edge and then across a verdant meadow and right up to a second, edgier edge.

That’s why Adipose Industries (a child corporation of defective yeti Foods and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics) is pleased to introduce

Deep-Fried Deep-Fried Twinkies!

And Coming Soon from Adipose Industries:

• Chocolate-Covered Deep-Fried Deep-Fried Twinkies

• Pork-Flavored Chocolate-Covered Deep-Fried Deep-Fried Twinkies

• Deep-Fried Pork-Flavored Chocolate-Covered Deep-Fried Deep-Fried Twinkies
Adipose Industries’ revolutionary secret process is to take a traditional deep-fried Twinkie and deep-fry it, adding a patented second layer of oil and batter to this already delicious, nutrient-free treat! You’d have to eat 730 bowls of Total to get the same caloric content as a single Deep-Fried Deep-Fried Twinkie– that’s enough energy to power your SUV to the moon … and back!

But don’t just take our word for it: “American Glutton Monthly” ranked the Deep-Fried Deep-Fried Twinkie #4 in their 2002 “Excellence In Corpulence” issue! And “Eating Well” magazine called it “an abhorrence”!

So drive, don’t run, to your nearest county fair, and experience all the seizure-inducing excitement this fat-tactular snack has to offer!

Deep-Fried Deep-Fried Twinkies
It’s like Armageddon … For Your Mouth!™

#733 In A Series

Matthew

At my library, on the “New Arrivals” shelf, I noticed yesterday that they now carry The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Golf.

Gimmie a break. What’s next?

AA Is For Another Alibi

Furry Love: The Rules

Ender’s Pancreas

Lonely Planet Guide: Antartica

Drunken Groping (Silhouette Intimate Moments, No. 1179)

Starfleet Retirement Community #14: Sulu Checks In

Chicken Soup For Martin Danderson of Kentdale, Iowa’s Soul

Mars Won’t Ask For Directions, Venus Loves To Shop: More Explorations Into Gender Stereotyping

The Darwin Awards XXIV: More Dumb People! Dying!

The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Played-Out Franchise Book Themes (Step one: “Don’t panic! No one will read the 72nd or 73rd book in the series, but that doesn’t mean a publisher won’t buy them.”)

Update: Rory reminds me that, when it comes to marketing, you can never assume that an idea is so absurd that it doesn’t actually exist.

Down In The Mouth

Matthew

I have a dentist’s appointment tomorrow. I hate the dentist. The thing I dislike the most about going to the dentist, aside from the dentistry, is that I learn unpleasant things about myself. Like the fact that, apparently, I never floss. And that if I were to be captured by The Enemy and tortured, I’d confess everything inside of 60 seconds.

The Enemy: Where are your loved ones hiding?
Me: I’ll never tell!
The Enemy: Okay. Before we begin I’m going to put this tube in the corner of your mouth; it will gently vacuum up any excess saliva that —
Me: Basement of Pizza Hut, 65th and Harrison Ave.
At least in the old days I would get prize for making it through my visits without shrieking. Did you? The “Children’s Dentist” I was dragged to as a child had two big things going for it: (1) the dentist would wear a surgical mask which made the lower half of his face look like a big cartoony basset hound (this was a lot less nightmare-inducing than it sounds), and (2) after all the unpleasantry you would get to root around in a big cardboard treasure chest and pick out a toy — a small plastic sword or a fake hook-hand — from amongst the hundreds of previously passed-over packages of sugarless gum. (I’m not sure what the deal was with the pirate theme; perhaps because, at this point, all you could say was “Arrrgh arrr arrrghr.”) Sure the toy was inevitably some cheap piece of crap that would break the first time you hit your sister with it, but even that would be better than the “Remember to Brush!” emblazoned $0.65 toothbrush they give me now.
The first person who starts an “Adult’s Dentist” practice is going to make a killing: knowing there’s a treasure chest full of Nirvana mix tapes, Warcraft III demo disks and girlie magazines (or IKEA catalogs, for the ladies) waiting for you at the end would make any dentist visit more bearable for we Gen X’ers, where X > 29. Million dollar idea, right there. I’d do it myself, but becoming a dentist would leave me with no excuse not to floss.

Pump Up The Volume

Matthew

I love how the commercials on tv are, like, twice as loud as the programs they interrupt. “Stayed tuned and find out who Melissa chooses, next on Fifth Wheel. THINKING OF REFINANCING!? NOW’S THE TIME!!!”

What a great idea! I’m going to do this from now on, double my volume whenever I am engaged in self-promotion.

Me: Hey, how are you doing?
Girl at Party: Fine, thanks. And you?
Me: Doin’ alright. I’m Matthew, by the way.
Girl: Nice to meet you, Matthew. I’m Cheryl.
Me: Pretty good party, huh? I noticed you were over here looking over Paul’s CD collection. Are you a big music fan?
Girl: Uh-huh, totally.
Me: I’m a huge music aficionado myself. I mean, I DON’T LIKE THAT POPULAR CRAP THEY PLAY ON THE RADIOS, I’M INTO INDEPENDENT MUSIC!!
Girl: I, uh, whoa. Yeah, uh, Indie stuff rules. So do you like, ah, The Strokes?
Me: Not any more, but I USED TO LIKE THEM BEFORE THEY SOLD OUT!!
Girl: Oh, right. But the video is cool.
Me: I wouldn’t know, since I DON’T HAVE A TV!! Hey, that’s a nice jacket you’re wearing.
Girl: Oh yeah, you like it? I got it at a thrift store, believe it or not.
Me: I buy a lot of my stuff from thrift stores too, SINCE I REFUSE TO PATRONIZE McCORPORATIONS LIKE THE GAP!!! I AM AGAINST GLOBALIZATION!!! AND SUVS!!!!
Girl: Do you realize you are shouting?
Me: You may have SEEN ME ON THE NEWS during the Seattle WTO uprising. I was THE GUY WITH THE BIG PUPPETS!! Or maybe you saw
MY ARTICLE DENOUNCING THE WTO that was PUBLISHED IN THE SEATTLE ANARCHISTS QUARTERLY ZINE!! As a matter of fact, I’m using that essay as a starting point for THE SCREENPLAY THAT I AM WRITING!!
Girl: People are starting to stare.
Me: It must be my STARTLINGLY GOOD LOOKS!!!! HERE’S MY PHONE NUMBER!!!
Hey, that reminds me: this post was MENTIONED IN THE GUARDIAN, ENGLAND’S SECOND LARGEST NEWSPAPER!!!!!!!!!!*. Thanks to Rory for the scan.
* Several readers have informed me that the “England’s second-largest newspaper” bit is a lie. I have informed several readers that I don’t care.