Monkey See
6:08 pm
Wed March 20, 2013

Why Not Fall From A Giant Bucket?: Tomorrow's 'Splash' Headlines Today

Originally published on Tue March 19, 2013 10:42 am

With the recent tragic news that this summer will not bring a new season of ABC's stupidest show, Bachelor Pad, this has been a very trying time for people who believe that Dancing With The Stars is too highbrow and lah-dee-dah for them. What are they to do? Where can they turn? Where is the solace for the stupidity enthusiast?

Perhaps it will come with tonight's premiere of Splash, a show that features celebrities and semi-celebrities (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar! Kendra Wilkinson!) engaging in platform and springboard diving. Greg Louganis is their mentor, probably because he is the diver that Americans, who have elite diving amnesia for 47.5 months out of every 48 months, can think of.

Now if I were making this show, here's how it would work: The show would begin. The celebrities would be introduced, and the host (ideally Tom Bergeron, if he can get time off from his other show) would hold one hand over each celebrity's head. Whichever one received the most applause would be escorted by two people dressed as dolphins over to a 200-gallon yellow plastic bucket. The celebrity would step into the bucket and sit on a small seat. The bucket would be lifted using a system of winches and pulleys while the audience continued cheering. The audience would be allowed to raise the celebrity as high as possible, provided the "safety whistle" was not blown by a nearby "referee" dressed as a starfish. If the safety whistle is blown, the audience loses and the celebrity is allowed to fill the bucket with cash and flee. This gives the audience a motive to stop yelling "HIGHER!" before the bucket becomes unsafe.

When the audience stops yelling "HIGHER!", the bucket is turned until the celebrity falls out and drops into the water. The celebrity is then fished out with a crane and warms himself or herself by a bonfire of burning tires. The host would then move to the next most popular celebrity. This would continue until all the celebrities had gone or the audience had lost its desire to see B-list celebrities dumped out of a bucket.

In the "lightning round," all the celebrities would be raised over the pool in a 2000-gallon bucket, they all answer a trivia question about the history of U.S. swimming, and then they're all dumped into the water simultaneously. And then Jonathan Coulton sings a song about fish.

But because I am not in charge, the show is simply going to consist of people trying to actually dive. After the show airs tonight, tomorrow's news will include various reports of how the ratings are. I hereby choose to save many headline writers from themselves by declaring the following headline puns "reserved" to me, so that only I can use them. (Well, okay, you can use them. And I'm not going to use them. But you shouldn't use them, is what I'm saying. It's for your own good. Take it from the lady who wants to drop people out of a bucket into a pool.)

1. ABC Fails To Make A Big 'Splash' (or 'Makes A Big Splash,' etc.)

2. 'Splash' Premiere All Wet For ABC

3. 'Splash' Tanks In Overnight Ratings

4. Tuesday Nights Take A Dive With ABC's 'Splash'

5. Viewers Apparently Board With ABC Diving Show

6. Hardly A Cannonball For ABC's 'Splash'

7. 'Splash' A Belly Flop On ABC Tuesday

8. 'Splash' Lands Safely As A Modest Hit

9. Is Something Fishy About ABC Tuesdays?

10. 'Splash' Is Off To A Drippy Start

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