Crappy the Smart-Assed Toilet

We’re quite amazed that baseball is going to formulate a super-special commission to investigate whether Barry Bonds and other current/former players ever used steroids.

In other news, the U.S. government just announced plans to organize a blue-ribbon panel to investigate whether there were Nazis in World War II-era Germany.

Justin Rood at TPM Muckraker has an enlightening summary of the various tentacles of the Jack Abramoff operation, and notes the recurring theme of crooked Republican lawmakers and lobbyists using their wives to skim a little extra money off the top. (Sadly, poor Duke Cunningham, ever the “No Rocket Scientist,” doesn’t appear to have been aware of this particular scam).

So now we can finally nail down what the GOP has meant with their constant preaching about “family values” for the past 20 years:

It’s about 10-15%.

Jack finds a mysterious hatch hidden behind some foliage in the CTU medical facility, which takes him to Desmond and the fake Mandy. Hilarity ensues.

So Survivor: Panama - Exile Island had another episode this week, which not very many people watched. But before we tell you about it… in our continuing efforts to passively ingratiate ourselves to our desired masters at CBS (now really, who wouldn’t want to see Crappy’s shining fixtures replacing “Ralph” on the CBS Survivor blog?), we’ll attempt to “explain” why CBS thought that was a “tribal council like never before.”

- There had “never before” been an all-male tribal council with only four tribe members. That’s a pretty rare and exciting thing, especially for Probst. Sadly, none of them were Colby Donaldson.
- There was the minor problem where for about half an hour or so, Nick or Austin quit the game, because he had some sand lodged in his eye, and the medical crew refused to let him have some saline. Apparently, he felt that it was worth quitting, because he didn’t feel like wearing an eyepatch, and having to yell things like “Yar!” all the time, just for the privilege of having been on Survivor. Silly, ungrateful model/actors! Okay, yeah. People (frequently model/actors) have quit the game before. But how many times has one of them quit the game, returned to it, then voted out an astronaut? Oh… right. They edited most of that out. Whoops.
- After all these dead ends, we thought maybe CBS had been thinking of some lame ’80s Disney movie named Never Before, which this tribal council in some way resembled. But after checking IMDb, it appears there was never actually such an atrocity committed against filmmaking. Plenty of others, of course, just not one with that title. According to Google, however, there is some Deep Purple song named “Never Before.” We’d ponder the significance of this, perhaps even link you to the lyrics, but the less time people spend thinking about Deep Purple, the better.

So since we’re back where we started, and no closer to an answer to the many mysteries of claims made in CBS hype, we might as well get on with it. Clearly, the “never before” must have actually been the first 20 minutes or so of the show, which featured a review of the previous episode (which did indeed include a tribal council, which had “never before” been rehashed on the air, except on last Firday’s The Early Show… close enough?), people starving and/or eating beans at La Mina (they’ve never been shown both starving AND eating beans at the same time), and of course, Shane fighting with Danielle at Casaya (never before shown in exciting Nightvision, complete with subtitles!). See CBS, we know you’d never lie! And we’re not afraid to convince the viewing public of it! (As long as you pay us, handsomely, cough… cough).

Someday, CBS may come to their senses. And if they do, this is what you’ll see. *sniff* We’re also available to replace Stephenie, if you’d prefer.

Wait, maybe there was something marginally novel in the first 20 minutes: We were introduced to a strapping young fellow named Barry or Jerry, or something. (After checking the CBS site, it appears his name is actually “Dan”). Anyway, everybody on La Mina really, really likes this Dan guy, especially after he let them in on his big “secret,” which is that he’s an astronaut. Of course, he also had to explain to them what an astronaut is, since most Americans have never heard of any of them, except maybe Neil Armstrong, and of course, Tom Hanks, Luke Skywalker, and that guy Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And for good reason: Who can keep track of trivial details like “Who first walked on the moon?” or “Who was the first man in space?”, or “What was the X Prize for? (hint: not porn)” when there are 24 semifinalists on American Idol to learn the names of each season?

Anyway, Dan told this “astronaut” story to some other tall, skinny guy we don’t recognize (Rick? Yorick? Asterisk? Aw hell, we don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, he wasn’t shown again for the rest of the show), and the story spread like wildfire through the La Mina camp. Which, as with most wildfires, is not a good thing. As Austin, in a confessional, began to openly question whether additional deities to the Great Terry might exist, the daily thunderstorm rolled in, and as a lightning bolt struck La Mina’s shelter, Terry bellowed “Thou shalt worship no false idols but me!”

Terry thought about amending that, but Austin and Nick were still busy trying to figure out what the big words (”thou” and “shalt”) meant, and at that point, the treemail came, inviting the tribe to a combined reward/immunity challenge. So instead, Terry put on his “Joe Torre hat,” and gave a rousing speech to the tribe, ending with: “Let’s go out and show Casaya what we’re made of, like the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS!” Like never before, indeed!

Speaking of “like never before,” the challenge was… a puzzle. Although it did also involve… knots. And running. Bet you never thought you’d see that on Survivor! Surprisingly, the contestants were required neither to untie the puzzle pieces underwater, nor dig them out of sand. As usual, the Great Terry singlehandedly led La Mina to an insurmountable lead, until he was forced to allow Astronaut Dan and Sally the Covert Casaya Sympathizer to take over the puzzle-handling duties. As these two sprung into action (in the sense that Dan resembles a spring, which is, largely, not at all), Casaya slowly got around to collecting their pieces, performed a stirring interpretive dance/ karate routine, were led by Aras in a thrilling yoga power-focusing exercise, used this power to set fire to their puzzle pieces, collected four rocks and chiseled them back into puzzle piece shape, decorated them with the ashes of the original pieces, and then finally placed them correctly in the puzzle. It was a close and stirring finish though, as La Mina managed to place exactly zero pieces in the interim.

What followed could be told in a series of searing still images (which we do below, anyway, but for the sake of padding we will describe here): Casaya erupted into ecstatic leaps at the prospect of living with Shane for three more days; Dan collapsed in grief, knowing he would not be allowed to play with the hula hoop reward; and Sally was all wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say-no-more smiles at being selected to escape from her La Mini Sausage tribemates, at least until she was handed a map to the hidden immunity idol in which the entire Exile Island had been crossed out, with the legend, “It’s not here. Feel free to look in the ocean, but it’s not there, either.”

“All is lost! Now I shall never be able to test the ability of humans to hula hoop in zero gravity!”	“Hooray! I’m for the other team!”

Casaya got to take some gaudy toys and trinkets to a local Panamanian fishing village, in exchange for which they all received enough food to feed the entire population of India three times over, Shane got just enough nicotine (which works out to be approximately twelve cartons of Marlboros) to apologize to Danielle, and Danielle consumed just enough alcohol (two cases of beer) to accept Shane’s apology. The natural result of all this was, of course, cockfights. Surprisingly, those did not appear to involve Shane, although it’s possible he was just out of camera range. They were sent home shortly after Silent Bruce started boring the children with his karate moves.

So all that was left was the minor matter of La Mina being forced to vote out one of their men. Which, as always, required a Proclamation from the Great Terry. And as with all deity-based decisions, it was thoroughly logical. Since the Great Terry had a solid, unbreakable Final Two pact with Dan, and since the previous day, Austin and Nick had spent the night creating fragrant fountains of vomit and diarrhea, Dan had to go. But at least they did it with class, telling him “the Great Terry has decided, so your ‘arguments’ and ‘reasoning’ are futile.” And they did stand up when he was voted out. Nobody saved him a hula hoop, though. That would have made it all better.

But anyway, tune in next week, for another episode “like never before,” in which CBS revisits the first 15 days of the starvation and the puking. But they claim they will deign to air footage they snipped the first time through in favor of more commercials for The Unit and TAR9, such as the “snake dinner” they promised in the title of Ep3, but thoroughly failed to deliver. Maybe they’ll even show how La Mina actually won the floating puzzle reward challenge the first time they ran it, in the episode where Terry found the hidden immunity idol. Nah, probably not.

Is this (The Wild) really the best Disney could come up with, when not being led by the nose to the computer-animated box-office trough by Steve Jobs?

Take the basic plot and two of the main characters from Madagascar (right down to the mid-strangulation giraffe sticking out his tongue for the poster), borrow the main concept and an accent or two from Finding Nemo, render as “realistic” instead of “stylized” to avoid complete Dreamworks copyright infringement, and call it a success!

What’s the over/under on whether this gets pre-screened for reviewers?

You know, Edgar’s death on 24 was shocking (for Chloe, at least) and all, but shouldn’t the allegedly smart people at CTU have figured out by now that if terrorists are suddenly running rampant and striking targets on American soil, somehow, some way, someone is going to die within CTU walls within 24 hours? You’d think they’d at least be on a bit tighter security those days, anyway.

Maybe it’s just that there isn’t much institutional memory, because apart from Jack, everyone who’s seen it enough times to figure it out seems to keep getting fired. Or, of course, dying in unfortunate incidents at CTU. Which is where we started.

Episode five of Survivor: Panama - Exile Island opened with some Completely Unscripted Dialogue (CUD, in reality show-writing parlance) at the clearly “grieving” La Mina beach. Thanks to the magic of Spoilervision, we can now take you behind the scenes.

Sally and Nick were asked to walk along the beach, and discuss their innermost feelings with each other. “Golly…” (Sally paused to look at the strategically concealed name tag on the side of Nick’s head) “… ‘Nick.’” Sally paused again, squinting at the cue card. “I sure do miss Ruth Marie.” Nick, exuding the natural charisma and screen-grabbing presence that got him on the show in the first place, concurred. “Yes, uh… Sally. I really do miss, uh… Ru… Ralph? Murray?”

“Cut!” sighed the off-camera producer, “Can I get someone to write the cue cards out phonetically for these guys?” And after only forty-two more takes, the scene was in the can. Later, the executive producers would rate this riveting scene as a “home run!” Which means of course that, while those camera crews and cue cards don’t come cheap, at least they finished filming this “early morning scene” while it was still light, and didn’t have to spend extra on nightvision.

How about that? It’s this kind of unparalleled insight, coupled with brisk, largely comma-, hyphen- and parenthesis-free writing that we here at Crappy the Smart-Assed Toilet are happy to provide for you with our fine new product, Spoilervision*. All for the low, low price of… wait, we’ll get to that later. (* Note: Spoilervision is generally only accurate after the show has actually aired. Then again, looking back at our DVR copy, maybe not even then).

In other matters, the peace-loving Casaya tribe decided to use their allotted camera time for an extended discourse on the relative benefits of Yoga and Zen. As with all discussions at Casaya, particularly those in which principles of non-violence are at the core, this was not unlike an episode of Jerry Springer, except that the L.A.-area model/actors didn’t bother to fake Southern trailer-park accents, and there were fewer bouncers (but on the plus side, more machetes).

Sadly, Shane was busy on a smoking break (actually, auditioning for another reality show, but his time sheet claimed it was a smoking break, so that’s the official CBS line) when this was filmed, so designated yelling duties had to be split between Aras and, regretably, Silent Bruce. As with most Hollywood productions, Bobby was passed over for a lead role in the conflict, despite an audition that he completely nailed, several large piles of recommendation letters from noted African-American writers and directors, and a pre-show highlight reel of choice quotes that had already racked up download records at the iTunes music store. In protest, Bobby continued sleeping. Courtney took his spot in the production, giving a largely silent performance that was nonetheless highly praised by the critics.

Somewhere in here, Probst called the tribes together for a frank assessment of their likelihood of continued survival. “Okay, here’s the deal guys. It’s day 12, and none of you have even come close to finding food, except for Tina, but we planted that one so that she wouldn’t get the first boot. So here’s what we’re gonna do: We’ll give you the food, but since we forgot to design a challenge for today, we’ll make you stand on these mats and hand it to each other, so it looks like you’re doing a ‘challenge.’ La Mina, because you haven’t been reading your cue cards with very much enthusiasm, you have to lose this one. Sorry guys, we just can’t wait to see what we’re gonna get out of these Casaya guys once we liquor them up. Oh, and Terry, you’ll have to go to Exile Island again. Since you already have the idol, there isn’t much point this time, so uh… sorry about that. But we’ll give you a t-shirt with my picture on it as a consolation prize. Better luck next time, buddy.”

Casaya dutifully carried out their end of the bargain, although there was a brief panic when they discovered that Silent Bruce was far less lethal with a dull meat cleaver than with his trusty machete. Around this time, there was a minor revolt in the production staff, as one of the camera crews refused to go back to La Mina camp, citing a complete lack of interesting events to film. “They all sit around praying, being nice to each other, and telling Terry how great he is. It’s like a cult. A cult based on Little House on the Prairie.” Probst tried to defuse the situation: “Don’t worry, we’ve uh… taken care of it. We’re sure you’ll be… ‘running’ around in excitement in no time. In fact, I’ve never uh, ‘bean’ more sure.” Unfortunately, Probst strained a facial muscle with his winking and nodding, but he was quickly patched up by medical, and at least the crew was convinced.

What followed was a blur of wine, uncooked meat, flood waters, Charmin, and Dawgs sleeping with men. When the fog lifted, however, Courtney was somewhat incensed that Bobby and Bruce had split the last bottle of white wine between them. “How dare you?!” She screeched. “Danielle and I got up early to split that, dammit! Surely we deserve more than you, since we had to sit through that whole boring ‘challenge,’ and while you were taking your sweet time winning it. Bastard! How do you feel now, huh?” Without missing a beat, Bobby told her, “Uh, hung over? Naw, just kidding. I’m still drunk.”

Okay, time for another Spoilervision exclusive: Over at La Mina camp, the tribe was beginning to lose their faith, having spent a full day praying for Terry to send them a sign, telling them how to cook their dried beans. Nick had proposed impaling them on really small sticks, and roasting them over the fire. As soon as Terry got back to tell them how to build one. Austin proposed slicing them in half with the machete, and frying them in the hot sun. Eventually, the cameramen broke down, and told the tribe that Terry had come to them in a vision, saying “You must boil them in the pot, with water. But not for very long. That might destroy the toxins we laced them with.” Sadly, the tribe was so busy kneeling, bowing, and screaming wails of great joy at word of the Great Terry, they missed the last sentence.

Something around here smells an awful lot like Emmys!

This worked out pretty well for the crew, as it turned out. Somewhere between Nick’s fifth and Austin’s sixth vomit/ diarrhea excursion, the various crewmembers exchanged high fives. “Yeah! Now we’re sure to kick Amazing Race’s butt at the Emmy’s this year! It’s a slam dunk!” One of the cameramen had been following Austin out as he raced to his favorite vomit/ diarrhea spot, but was called back to take part in a celebratory bottle of champagne with the rest of the crew. Sadly, that was the time that Austin managed to both vomit and spew diarrhea at the same time. Had they caught it on film, that would have been a surefire Emmy-winning moment for reality TV. Better luck next year, boys.

Eventually the tribes reassembled to hear about the immunity challenge. After La Mina had completed their ritual 30-minute annointing and praising of the Great Terry, Probst explained how it worked. “Basically, it’s different from all our other challenges, because it’s a race, but it also has water, and puzzles! You’ve never seen that before! Casaya, because the merge is getting close and you have two extra members, your puzzle pieces will be tethered 30 feet further below the surface than La Mina’s, and we may have ‘lost’ a piece or two of your final puzzle. Good luck with that. Oh, and please don’t boot anyone who’s entertaining. God (and the Great Terry - my apologies, La Mina) knows we don’t want another Thailand.”

And as had been foretold, on the Third Day, the Great Terry arose from Exile Island, and single-handedly carried La Mina to another victory. The production staff was not especially pleased about this development, but they quieted down after Probst reminded them that there were still more beans back at camp.

Back at Casaya, thanks to quick, logical thinking, a consensus for voting was quickly reached. The tribe decided only to vote for people who had (a) spent enough time on Exile Island to find the hidden immunity idol three or four times, and/or (b) had won at least two challenges for the tribe largely on their own. This worked well, except for Shane, who had misunderstood and thought the rule was “Vote for someone in your alliance,” and for Bruce, who thought they’d agreed to “Vote for whomever you damn well feel like.”

Somehow, in all the mayhem, someone ended up with the most votes. We’ll say it was Bobby, because he showed up on the Early Show the next day. We could check the Spoilervision feed, but apparently the people working that got distracted by several bottles of free wine towards the end of the show. Unfortunate, yes. But at least they aren’t still stuck with La Mina. But ignoring that, back to the price of our exciting product: Now how much would you pay? But wait, there’s more!

Oh wait, no there’s not. And yeah, we understand. CBS wouldn’t pay us anything for it, either.