Who knows what's coming down the pipeline? (image courtesy Troy Holden)

At the moment, this situation is like a 7^th grade student council election. Back in my day, kids running for student council representative would gather votes through making outlandish promises that would appeal to a wide swath of eleven-year-olds, ignoring completely the feasibility of those changes. Like “Free candy all day!” or “No school on Fridays!” or “The Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync will perform an acoustic set together daily in the cafeteria, with biweekly guest appearances by 98 Degrees and Ricky Martin!” Keep in mind this was the late 1990s.

So here are eight awesome things I’d like to see on Conan’s new show, with no consideration of the practicality of any of these options.

Branch out in the top of the show. One of the best segments from Conan’s Tonight Show run was his very first cold open, where he appears to be sprinting across the country from New York to Los Angeles while Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” plays in the background. And – spoiler alert – his live show begins with a hilarious video segment featuring a fat and unshaven Conan bumbling around the house in a state of depression. Why begin the show every damn time with a monologue if you don’t have to? Let’s see more craziness at the top of the show!

ROCKING OUT. The “Legally Prohibited” Tour features several musical numbers where Conan fronts the band on guitar and vocals. The crowds have been eating this up and craving more, and with good reason – dude’s got chops. Please give us more of your rockstardom, Coco.

Rock. Star. (image courtesy JasonBaldwin)

More Clutch Cargo. Conan’s Tonight Show didn’t have enough Clutch Cargo, a bit where he’d talk to “celebrities” which were, in actuality, a static image of the interviewee with an impersonator’s lips on top. Past guests included Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger (JINGLE ALL ZE VAY!), so why not update the segment with inane conversations with Barack Obama, Ahmadinejad, and Snookie and the Situation?

Pyrotechnics and explosions. Let’s break stuff! One of Letterman’s famous stunts during his time on Late Night was dropping stuff off of a five-story tall roof and showing the destruction. This bit wins every time – who doesn’t want to watch a 300 lb. safe demolish a car? Conan did some of this on the Tonight Show, one example being a monster truck crushing the world’s largest pumpkin. But why not up the ante and add lots and lots of fire? BLOW SHIT UP.

Integration with Time Warner’s other properties. When NBC merged with Universal, they acquired the rights to Walker, Texas Ranger, thus birthing one of Late Night’s classic segments: the Walker, Texas Ranger lever. Time Warner, aside from owning TBS, also owns HBO, TNT, Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim, among other channels, and all of the Looney Tunes cartoons EVER MADE – so Conan will have unfettered access to that intellectual property. Conan + old school cartoons = ?

Conan, as someone else. Conan’s run on TV had actors or, more often, writers portray beloved characters, like Fed Ex Pope (Brian McCann), Frankenstein (Brian Stack), Masturbating Bear (?), the Slipnutz (Brian Stack, Andy Blitz, Jon Glaeser), and more. In these segments, Conan would play the straight one. But I’d like to see the guy take on more ridiculous roles himself – he made a hilarious Conando in spoofing overacted Spanish telenovelas, and reportedly played Slim Chestershucks, a cowboy, for his crew during their live shows in Texas. He has the chops, so let’s see some absurd Conan-fronted characters. Super hero, rock star, tax attorney – the options are endless.

More elaborate remotes. Conan shines when he improvises, and that’s doubly true whenever he ventures off of the studio lot. Because the TBS show will air only four nights a week – Monday through Thursday – the staff will have an extra empty day to plan, film, and tidy up remote segments off campus. I hear Mexico isn’t too far from Los Angeles…

Beard shaving. Conan now boasts an unemployment beard, not having shaved since he lost the Tonight Show a few months ago. It’s unclear as to whether he’ll want to keep the beard when he starts again on TBS, but should he decide to shave it, he could chip away at it over time and wean us off of the scruff. It’d be a ridiculous transition from his full beard into any one of these. Especially mutton chops. Or the Franz Josef.

Believe it or not, there was a time when Jerry Springer’s show was actually less about marital problems between cousins and somewhat of a legitimate forum for discussion.

Jerry probably deserves his own post, but for now, I have this little gem for you from the early 90s.  You probably know enough about Jerry Springer, but you may not know enough about a guest featured on this particular show, GG Allin.

GG Allin was one of most likely the world’s most vile, mentally unstable, angriest, and offensive musician to have walked the earth. Here are some choice snippets from his Wikipedia page. I would read it all because it’s ironically hilarious in that “holy crap, this person actually lived” sort of way and it’s good set-up for the video.

Kevin Michael “GG” Allin (August 29, 1956 – June 28, 1993) was an American punk rock singer-songwriter who performed and recorded with many punk-rock groups during his career.

Allin is best remembered for his notorious live performances that typically featured wildly transgressive acts such as Allin defecating and urinating onstage, rolling in feces and often consuming excrement, committing self-injury, performing naked, and committing violent actions toward the audience—often doing many of these things simultaneously.

His politically incorrect lyrics, which often covered subjects such as misogyny, pedophilia and racism, deeply divided opinions of him within the highly politicized punk community. Though he had a devoted cult following, Allin’s music has received mostly negative reviews from critics.

GG was born as Jesus Christ Allin at Weeks Memorial Hospital in Lancaster, New Hampshire. He was given this messianic name because his father, Merle Colby Allin, Sr., told his young wife, Arleta Gunther, that Jesus Christ Himself had visited him and told him that his newborn son would be a great and all powerful man in the vein of the Messiah.

As a young child, his older brother Merle Allin, Jr. was unable to pronounce “Jesus” properly and kept calling him “Jeje”, which became “GG”. The family lived in a log cabin with no water or electricity. Allin’s father, who forbade all conversation in the home after dark, was a religious fanatic and an antisocial man, and was allegedly violent towards his wife and children, though GG himself never used this as an excuse for any of his own eccentricities. At age 12, Allin had contracted Lyme disease and claimed to have never fully recovered from the effects of having the disease at such a young age.

GG was considered an outcast from junior high school onwards, being placed in special ed classes and having to repeat the third grade. He was known to rebel by showing up to school dressed in drag (his 10th grade school picture depicts him this way), which he said was inspired by the New York Dolls. When asked about his childhood, GG has been quoted as saying “Very chaotic. Full of chances and dangers. We sold drugs, stole, broke into houses, cars, etc. Did whatever we wanted to for the most part – including all the bands we played in. People even hated us back then.”

By the mid to late 1980s, Allin was addicted to heroin and alcohol and general abused any intoxicants provided to him, sometimes taking pills without even asking what they were. He was poorly groomed and rarely cleaned himself. At this point, Allin also began eating laxatives before performances – as defecation was becoming a regular stage act. Allin described himself as “the last true rock and roller.” By this, he meant that rock and roll music itself had started as an embodiment of danger, anti-authoritarianism, rebelliousness but had become largely taken over by corporations and business concerns. Allin’s music and performances were thus meant to return rock and roll to what he saw as its roots, reclaiming it from the corporate system.

By this point, Allin’s performances, which often resulted in considerable damage to venues and sound equipment, were regularly stopped after only a few songs by police or venue owners. Allin was charged with assault and battery or indecent exposure a number of times. His constant touring was only stopped by jail time or by long hospital stays for broken bones, blood poisoning, and other physical trauma.

Another attraction to Allin performances was his continual threats of suicide. In 1988, Allin wrote to Maximum RocknRoll stating that he would commit suicide on stage on Halloween 1989. However, he was in jail when that day came. He continued his threat each following year but ended up imprisoned each following Halloween. When asked why he does not follow through with his threats, or sometimes his on-stage defecations, Allin stated, “With GG, you don’t get what you expect—you get what you deserve.” He also stated that suicide should only be done when one had reached their peak, meeting the afterlife at their strongest point and not at their weakest.

Despite threats of an onstage suicide, Allin died of an accidental heroin overdose in New York City on June 28, 1993, in the Manhattan apartment of John Handley Hurt and Dwanna Yount only six days after leaving prison (and three days after attending the premire of the documentary [of his life] Hated, whose director gives an account of Allin’s attendance in Bizarre magazine). He was found lying in his apartment on the night of the 29th but he actually died overnight in his sleep on the 28th. He was 36 years old. His last show was at a small club called The Gas Station in New York City. Video footage of the soundcheck, concert, and aftermath is appended to the DVD release of Hated. In his last show the power went out during the second song, after which he trashed the venue and walked the streets of New York naked and covered in blood and feces, surrounded by fans whom he openly embraced. On VH1’s Freakiest Concert Moments, Allin’s final show ranked at number four.

After arriving at his friends’ apartment, some party-goers posed for photos with Allin, not knowing that he was already dead. The next morning, some noticed that Allin still lay motionless in the same place where they had left him, and called for an ambulance. Allin was pronounced dead at the scene.

At his funeral, Allin’s bloated, discolored corpse was dressed in his black leather jacket and trademark jock strap. He had a bottle of Jim Beam beside him in his casket, per his wishes (openly stated in his self-penned acoustic country ballad, “When I Die”). As part of his brother’s request, the mortician was instructed not to wash the corpse (which smelled strongly of feces), or apply any makeup. The funeral became a wild party. Friends posed with the corpse, placing drugs and whiskey into its mouth. As the funeral ended, his brother put a pair of headphones on Allin. The headphones were plugged into a portable cassette player, in which was loaded a copy of The Suicide Sessions. The video of his funeral is widely available for purchase, and is an extra feature on the Hated DVD and some bootleg VHS tapes.

Now wasn’t that just lovely? Just imagine Thanksgiving dinner at the Allin house.

Anyway, with this in mind, I now present the semi-legendary eposide of Jerry Springer featuring GG Allin as his main guest.

I can never remember if the correct version of the quote is “life imitates art” or “art imitates life.” Either way, we’ve got a case of one of those.

A few years ago, the Canadian duo of Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz introduced the world to Kenny vs. Spenny. For those of you unfamiliar with this incredible series, these guys basically challenge each other to outrageous feats (“Who can eat the most meat?” “Who can commit the most crime?” “Who can drink more beer?” etc…). Well, the “evil” half of Kenny vs. Spenny, Kenny Hotz, has a new show on FX that’s pretty interesting.

It’s called, of all things, “Testees,” and it’s about two best friends, Ron and Peter, who work for Testico, some sort of scientific research company, as human guinea pigs. The show chronicles the duo’s lives as they cope with ridiculous side effects of scientific experimentations. It’s pretty fun to watch and available for free at Hulu.

I’m only a few episodes in, but I’ll probably watch some more. Kenny actually makes an appearance in the pilot, and Steve Markle, the actor who plays Peter, bears an uncanny resemblance to Spencer Rice.

Unrelated to this, Kenny Hotz has the most over the top, egomanical website I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing.

Click on the title of a show to see clips and full-length episodes.

Home Purchasing Club

Ever wish you could watch a parody of QVC? The answer to that question probably says a lot about your personality. If it’s “yes,” then you might want to check out Home Purchasing Club. The series does a masterful job of combining the intriguing with the cheesy in clip after clip. There also some great cameos by David Koechner, Diedrich Bader, and more.

Dice Undisputed

Andrew Dice Clay is a professional comedian and ass. Not in an offensive way, I’m sure he’d describe himself like that too. Need proof? This clip right here is from an awards show where Dice, as he goes by, was supposed to … well, present awards. He did a LOT more than just that:

You may also have seen this legendary clip from an appearance he made on CNN:

Dice Undisputed didn’t perform all that well in the ratings, but who would have guessed? I would have thought this guy would have “reality gold” written all over him. See some of the clips from his show and decide for yourself.

Free Radio

This show is incredible. It’s like The Office meets 30 Rock, except instead of a paper company or a successful sketch comedy show, Free Radio tells the story of the employees at KBOM, a radio station which receives a massive boost in popularity after a highly incompetent and inadvertently offensive intern lands a spot on-air as a DJ. There are tons of special guest appearances– Tony Shalub, Perez Hilton, Bob Saget, Kiefer Sutherland and these guys:

VH1 has the whole first season avaiable to watch for free right here.

The Springer Hustle

This show combines two of my favorite types of television: behind-the-scenes documentaries and Jerry Springer. This miniseries is available in full from VH1 for free to watch and I highly suggest watching it. There’s a lot of work that goes into producing just one episode of Jerry, most of which is pretty interesting and entertaining to see.

The World Series of Pop Culture

There aren’t that many any game shows on VH1, at least not anymore. But for a short time, VH1 graced us with The World Series of Pop Culture, hosted by Pat Kiernan. It’s actually pretty well done and worth a view if it’s your sort of thing. Here’s the opening from the first episode:

In a way, I wasn’t so surprised. Actually, this is just the most recent in a long line of poorly produced promotional videos for the software giant. Need proof? There’s a decent chance you may have already seen this gem promoting Windows 386 from years ago.

Then there’s this old ad from Japan:

Let’s not forget about this one either:

Sometimes the ads don’t make that much sense:

Sure, there are some decent commercials too. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld ads which aired a while ago. I guess I’m just surprised that such a successful company has done such a phenomenal job of mucking up promotions for their own products.

1950s Commercial (Click to Play)

This man wants to tell children that Dentyne gum will come for free with Cheerios because Cheerios is made with oats to give you among other things, healthy nerves and teeth…. so if you’re looking to get healthy teeth, chew on some Dentyne gum, because that’s supposed to keep your teeth healthy and white too.

1960s Commercial

Team up with V8 and Cheerios for lots of energy! This commercial also boasts a giveaway for a free moon-related toy/game which looks really not that fun at all.

This commercial is from 1962 and emphasizes most of the same things from the 50s ad.

1970s Commercial

This one is for the child and acid tripper in all of us. Cheerios are groovy. Do you hear? Groovy. Also, I thought it was pretty funny how they chose to leave in video of the kid getting hit in the head with a football and missing the pass. And who eats cereal lying down in a field anymore? Pretty interesting to see how this was promoted as an “energy cereal.” Hopefully Red Bull never moves into the breakfast market.

1980s Commercials

GREAT BALLS OF POWER — FREE in Cheerios

This commercial from the 80s has a neat twist at the end. While you’re enjoying your breakfast, why not have some Skittles? That’s right. Why not have some Skittles with your balanced breakfast? And by the way, has ANYONE ever actually had the kind of “balanced breakfast” that they show in the ads? The type with a cereal, milk, orange juice, toast, a piece of fruit, and possibly lots of other things? I certainly haven’t, I’ve got things to do in the morning besides eat. The only reason this last part with the Skittles makes even a little sense is that they were only introduced in the US in 1981. They didn’t exist until 1974 and were previously sold only in the UK.

1990s Commercial

Apparently Cheerios needed a lot of improvement for some reason and so when the ’90s rolled around, General Mills changed things up and released this ad, boasting that the golden lil’ o’s will now be crispier in milk. It just SCREAMS ’90s . You’ll see what I mean once you see the deaf woman.

2000s Commercial

Many of you have probably seen this ad. Note the shift from the 50s from the “appeal to the viewer” form of advertising to the much more modern and subtle integrated promotional style. Lots of people don’t know this (or maybe they do) but this ad was actually first aired in the UK and stars British actors. They look pretty British, don’t they? The original version is pretty hard to find a good copy of, so here’s a quick and dirty look at the British one: