What’s on TV on Sunday Morning

July 2nd, 2006 Posted in 2006

This Sunday morning found me hungover, bored, and flicking through channels on the TV. If you’ve ever watched TV on a Sunday morning, you can probably back me up that it’s the place where entertainment stops trying, lets out a soft moan, and quietly lays down to die. Vaguely unsettling church shows with wild-eyed ministers, 40 year-old movies that nobody wanted to see then and certainly don’t now, Knot’s Landing stars explaining the many uses of the blender that’s also a broom and a comb — a Sunday programming schedule is decided, seemingly, on the sole basis of someone’s horoscope, or possibly whatever shows were being used to prop up the fan on the programmer’s desk.

After a few minutes of channel-surfing, I finally stopped at a music video for a Hispanic rapper called Daddy Yankee. Apparently Spanish gangsta rap is now a viable entity, as Snoop Dogg makes an appearance in the background throughout, doing that rappy hand thing all rappers do when not required to rap but eager to look busy. You know the one — the gesture where it looks like they’re constantly waxing an invisible table at chest-level.

The video was called ‘Gangsta Zone’ — the well-known topographic region annexed exclusively for use by gangstas — and was notable for flashing some of the most conflicting imagery I’ve ever seen in a music video. In order of appearance: motorcycles; enormous breasts; Snoop Dogg waxing an invisible table while Daddy Yankee raps at camera; the Virgin Mary; preparation for cockfighting; enormous breasts; the cockfight begins!; Hispanic children sitting around doing nothing (not invited to the cockfight, at a guess); Daddy Yankee endorses a crucifix; Daddy Yankee walking around with two WWF Championship belts (?); Virgin Mary again; Daddy Yankee and Snoop endorse prison life; prisoners endorse iguana ownership; enormous breasts again; then another big helping of the Virgin Mary and chickens, crescendoing to a big booty-shaking finale.

I couldn’t have felt more white and confused if they’d actually cut to me on my couch in the video, shaking my head and looking confused. I reluctantly admit that I might not be the target audience for Hispanic gangsta rap. At least, I hope I’m not, or they’re in for a tragic surprise when they get their album sales numbers back.

I kept surfing, eventually settling on a commercial for a half-hour cartoon show of pure Japanese lunacy called Magical Do Re Mi. Ostensibly an empowering children’s show, Magical Do Re Mi teaches little girls the lessons of teamwork and believing in oneself through the medium of the occult. From the theme song: Hey hey hey / lets get together / do re mi / forever and ever / we can make a dish appear / or wish away your greatest fear.

I’m hoping something got lost in translation — perhaps there’s no word for “tentacle super-rape” that rhymes with “friendship” in English — but I’d like to think that if I decided to embrace the dark arts of Baphomet worship at a young age, I’d be getting more choices than “wish away greatest fear” and “make a dish appear.” The first one seems useful, but I can’t imagine the second would come in handy unless my greatest fear could be fought with dinner plates; in which case, I’d already be covered by the first spell anyway.

I didn’t bother to watch the entire program, since it’d naturally have the insane dream logic only translations of bad Japanese cartoons can muster (”Help the Witchlings make dishes disappear so they can get true-time ultimate friendship rune!”). I will note, however, that the phallic symbolism of the witch’s broom and wizard’s wand are seemingly lost on the show’s creators, who happily showcase three young girls alternately riding or enthusiastically gripping big meaty penises throughout. You’d find less cock imagery in TV shows that were actually about cock.

It’s a bit disturbing, in other words; but I guess since we’re not technically seeing invasive close-up shots of the girls’ labia through their tiny cotton panties, this should be viewed as progress.

So that was my Sunday morning. Full disclosure here — I technically could have watched Lethal Weapon 2 on TBS, so it’s not like there wasn’t anything on. It’s more just that a) there’s a finite number of times a human being can be expected to watch Lethal Weapon 2, Forrest Gump or The Shawshank Redemption on TBS, and I think I reached it last year; and b) the deft comedy stylings of Joe Pesci seem to get more grating the more I’m exposed to them, to the point that I’m at Nails Down Chalkboard with him now and pray he’s stricken with bowel cancer. If I don’t get a good pen-stabbing-from-Casino antidote soon, he may be lost to me forever.

Enjoy your long weekends, folks. As you can see, I certainly am.