bizarreville

General Electric today announced that it had applied for Obama government bailout funding, citing extraordinary unexpected financial difficulties.  Sources say that their difficulties all stem from its NBC division having to pay Conan O’Brien and his staff $45 million to not show up to work.  It had been rumored that NBC might easily qualify for bailout funding, stimulus funding, or some kind of earmark funding which could come out of a special bucket for companies adept at sucking-up to the Administration.

But the Obama bailout czar suggested that the well is dry, and that GE should just put O’Brien to work mopping office floors, cleaning toilets, and restocking shelves at 11:35 pm every night.  “Put a couple cameras on him, and just call it the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.”  He proposed that they keep his staff busy dusting furniture, emptying garbage, spraying pest control, and washing windows all night…cancel the cleaning crew. 

It is possible that the O’Brien camp might consider that option, considering the difficulty he may find trying to land another show with another network.  Television experts say that there is already a plethora of pathetic unfunny nitwits in the Telesphere, hardly room for one more… let alone a guy who just got fired from a job in 7 months, from a show whose average tenure of predecessors was 25 years.  “He could always change his shtick to drama: maybe Conan MD, Hairmeister NYPD, or Desperate Talk Show hosts.

The GE spokesman said he was disappointed in being turned down for bailout money, and that the company would need to seek alternate financial help.  He remarked that the Conan payoff was just a small piece of their difficulties.  “About 50 NBC executives will need to get the boot after this fiasco, with untold golden parachute costs.  Then there are the rehiring costs of a whole new team of execu-bozos who will need to doll up their offices, stock up their mini-refrigerators, and load up on gold-plated staplers and business card holders.  Yeah, it’s more than just Conan.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that sound like they could be real.

Bizarreville’s local NBC affiliate announced yesterday that it was totally fed-up with all the wankers running the network, is pulling the plug on these guys, and signing on to become some kind of PBS station.  They say that the latest nuttiness over who will host the Tonight Show has been the last shovelful of excrement in filling up the NBC manure wagon.

Bizarreville’s station plans to keep a late night talking format, but with an intriguing PBS twist.  They will employ PBS’ patented Pledge Drive babble for the full 55 minutes of the show without commercial interruption.  This format, according to the station manager, will be used to target the key market in that time slot:  folks who just want white noise to help them fall asleep in their beds.  Negotiations are underway with Joe “the Monotone” Barker to host the show by just drivelling nonsense continuously for 55 minutes, while old-fashioned telephones ring off-the-hook in the background manned by a panel of drones.  Joe has plenty of experience, and has hosted several interminable PBS pledge drives in the past 5 years with a droopy style that fits the new concept perfectly.

The station believes this talk format will be much more effective than the comedian format in terms of accomplishing the true goal:  doze-off.  They are confident that they can get a 90% konk-out performance within a 30-minute sleep timer.  The station has tested the concept with office staff people, and found most dozing off in 10-15 minutes listening to Joe, even during daylight hours with several pots of coffee at hand.  “We believe this will also make our viewers healthier by getting up to 30 minutes more sleep per night, and waking up more refreshed and energized,” the station manager said.

NBC is paying attention, has gotten the lowdown on the Bizarreville concept, and is rumored to be studying something similar…especially in light of Leno and O’Brien telling them to stick the Tonight Show up their ass.   NBC has a stable full of mellow-voice yawnable candidates for hosting such a show, who cut their teeth in their limpy News department and have been putting the public asleep for years.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that sound like they could be real.