The Last Good ‘Downfall’ Hack…

As I’ve commented, we don’t have a TV (although, thanks to the miracle of Netflix, we’ve seen almost all of the Sopranos, the Unit and Dexter, and the Wire is rising in our queue). But I’m not unaware of TV culture – here in LA, the bus shelters are billboards and many (most?) of the ads are for TV shows. Note that I personally decided a few years ago that as long as the City is giving away the store to rich corporations (like Cirque de Soleil) they should just give the bus stop billboards to women’s clothing line Bebe and improve the mood of half of the City’s commuters. Their billboards are, um, deeply aesthetic and enriching in a kind of rich puchritudinous Carvaggio way.

If you know what I mean.

Back to my point…the current crop of non-Bebe billboards are all for either Dexter as a dad or a show called ‘Trauma’, which you know is about selfless EMT because they all the beautiful actors are out in the field with coveralls selfless looks and blue nitrile gloves.

Now I’ve never seen Trauma, and if I play my cards in life right, I never will.

But…it has triggered what may be the last funny Downfall hack, after which one hopes we can put the genre to bed. hat tip to the Ambulance Driver blog…



I’m a trained First Responder, and have nothing but respect for the folks who drive the ambulances that show up when things go all pear-shaped. I’d like to remind them that this, too shall pass. And that maybe the TV show will lead to some of the Bebe models applying for jobs driving…

5 thoughts on “The Last Good ‘Downfall’ Hack…”

  1. …they all the beautiful actors are out in the field with coveralls selfless looks and blue nitrile gloves.

    Reminds me of Playboy coming to Pupin Hall, the physics building on the Columbia campus, for a photo shoot. They used the panels of instruments for backdrop but the scrawny graduate student who had been slaving away at the experiment for years with a crudded up erlenmeyer flask of hot water on a nearby hotplate for instant coffee, was nowhere to be seen. In his place were beautiful and handsome models. I thought it was all a bit of a cheat.

  2. Well, I like the way some show’s writers twist and twist the screenplay. Some politicians use the same tricks.

    In my country, the billboards are plenty of government advertising: no one wants to spend his money. It is shocking to recognize in such a way how much (national) socialist your country is.

    Der Krieg ist verloren!

  3. This is recycled satire; the same footage with different subtitles was used for a much funnier clip: “Hitler learns of Michael Jackson’s death.”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijxU25dCJvo&feature=related

    we’ve seen almost all of the Sopranos, the Unit and Dexter, and the Wire is rising in our queue …

    Ask yourself if you should just stop. I’ve followed the cable soap operas somewhat: Sopranos, Deadwood, Big Love, and the Baywatch versions of ancient Rome and Tudor England.

    Now The Sopranos definitely had its moments, and unlike some I really liked the ending. But I’ve concluded that these shows are all pretty much crap. They lack the scope and progress of epics, because they’re General Hospital without the organ music.

  4. I agree with you Glenn, I tend to watch 2 or 3 episodes of a show and then get tired of them, with a few exceptions:

    Lost
    Mad Men
    Friday Night Lights
    Battlestar Galatica

    Now, all of these had those “soap opera” aspects to them (some more than others) but most also dealt realistically with difficult decisions, hard life choices, and a certain realism of character (even though events were fictionalized). In each show, the dedication to character kept me watching.

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