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June 18, 2012

THE WEEKLY TRAGEDY: Alabama Public Television announces new fall lineup, says you’re going to Hell

Cal Alabaster, Jr.

Cal Alabaster, Jr.

Cal Alabaster, Jr. is a well-known resident of Shelby County and allegedly the author of the "fictional" Alabama politics weblog known as King Cockfight. You can follow Cal on Twitter @KingCockfight. Cal's contributions to Weld should be considered satire.

Following recent changes, Alabama Public Television announces a new fall lineup including shows like "Snake Handler Antiques Roadshow." Also: "Howdy, yall should come to Moulton,…

Every Monday at Reran Tragedy, Editor-in-Chief Cal Alabaster Jr. draws on his considerable experience in Southern politics to round up news, notes, and blatantly pasted-in press releases that readers may have otherwise missed.

Alabama Public Television's new logo.

Following a sudden turnover in top leadership last week, Alabama Public Television has announced its new fall lineup, with an interesting new approach to public broadcasting.

The executives were reportedly fired due to their opposition to airing a Christian-themed rewrite of American history, but APT said in a statement that despite the allegations “they remain committed to objective, accurate and informative public television.”

Mondays kick off this fall on APT with the new 12-part documentary series “How Jesus Could Stop the Holocaust If We Just Let Prayer in Schools.”

“An exciting new documentary series from Crazy Jesus Guy Public Ministries (and viewers like you — who like Crazy Jesus Guy Public Ministries!) shows the amazing truth that if we just let the kids Christian pray in schools, Jesus would use his magic Christ powers to go back in time and save each Jew from Hitler,” an APT statement reads.

Following each episode will be the APT’s new locally produced weeknight show, “Some Guy in Baldwin County Just Yells ‘Jesus!’ at You Until You Repent.”

Tuesdays are a night of witty comedy from across the pond, including the British sitcom “Yes, the Minister Went to Hell Because He Did Not Repent to Our Savior” and the British sketch show “The Not-Gay Bits of Fry & Laurie.”

Wednesdays are a night of hard-hitting investigative reporting, led off by “Sharia Frontline.” The show, according to an APT statement, “probes each week into Muslim schemes to install Sharia law in places like schools, Walmart parking lots and individual trays at CiCi’s Pizza to, you know, do evil Muslim not-Christian stuff.”

Following “Sharia Frontline” will be two new half-hour news shows. First, a provocative new political roundtable show called “The Only Important Things in Politics Are Not Killing Babies and Making People Act Christian.” Then, it is “Black Christian Time,” which APT describes as “a time when black Christians can do whatever it is black Christians like to do on television.”

Thursdays are about “discovery,” with the new show “Nova Was Fake,” a “documentary series that takes a hard look at why science doesn’t actually exist.” The episode list for the series includes looks at “Why Chemistry Is a Lie,” “Physics Is Really Witches Taking Your Soul,” and “Homosexuality Is Not Genetic But Simply a Manifestation of the Devil’s Sinful Obsession with Bottoms.”

That show is followed by “Snake Handler Antiques Roadshow” and “This Olde House Consecrated with Lamb’s Blood.”

Keeping with APT tradition, Fridays are for Alabama politics programs that you don’t pay attention to because you are lazy and you think they are boring. It starts with “Capitol Improvements,” a new show that takes you inside the halls of state government and points out where Ten Commandments monuments could be placed.

That will be followed by “The Hank Erwin Show,” an import from Chilton County public access TV in which former Republican State Sen. Hank Erwin decides which sinful places God will destroy with natural disasters this week, bleeds to stop abortions,  and then makes people prove their faith enough to flush his magic disco toilet.

The week is capped off by a special Friday edition of “Some Guy in Baldwin County Just Yells Jesus at You Until You Repent” in which the Baldwin County Guy mixes in a “Moses!” to, according to APT, “honor the start of the sabbath for our Jewish friends, even though they are totally all going to Hell when they die.”

Saturdays APT will show no primetime coverage “so that no one will have a temptation to not go to sleep early for church.”

Sundays, however, will be topped off by “Christian Viewpoint Masterpiece Theater,” in which “exciting, original drama will be presented and adjusted  according to the correct Christian viewpoint that the world is only 80 years old.”

Key broadcasts will include “Sherlock Holmes Looks Like a Devil Giraffe Because He Hangs Out with Nekkid Women!” and “Downton Abbey Is a Lie Because the Dinosaurs and World War I Never Happened.”

APT said that while some may see a jarring religious slant to its new lineup, it is the right way to remake public broadcasting to appeal to a state audience that largely cannot be moved to accept a viewpoint that differs even slightly than their own, even if it is an accurate one.

“All Jesus stuff all the time is what outsiders expect of public television in Alabama anyway,” APT’s statement read.

The statement then finished with the network’s new slogan: “Y’all all going to Hell when you die!”

Effort to capture ‘voice of Alabama’ fails horribly, or not

For many, many years, Alabamians have looked to a natural geographic rival, saw their problems, compared them to our many errors, and said, “Well, at least there’s them.”

But for once, Alabama has failed too where Sweden has as well.

Swedes have drawn mockery for the wild rantings of one its natives on a nationally designated Twitter account, and Alabamians have as well after an effort to emulate Sweden’s handing of a Twitter account to a real citizen went awry over the weekend.

The effort led by the not-for-profit Alabama Image Awareness Council attempted to repair the state’s image among potential tourists and businesses by handing the reins to the “eState of Alabama” Twitter account.

AIAC officials said they had hoped that they would let each Alabamian chosen keep the account for at least a week, but things quickly went awry when the account debuted on Saturday morning.

An AIAC spokesman said that the first tweeter, a Cullman County gas station, owner had promised to tweet about Alabama as a harmonious place that is great for small business.

But this is what happened.

AIAC officials scrambled to bring on the next commenter, moving up a black man from Montgomery to hopefully offset the racism that had struck in the account’s first tweets.

Following those failures, the AIAC officials moved on to a new tweeter.

Unfortunately, he was an Alabama fan.

Following that sexually suggestive and inappropriate couple of tweets, the AIAC moved up an Auburn fan on the list to avoid being boycotted and campaigned against by vengeful Auburn fans.

The AIAC then decided to move up a group of tweeters they thought would be image aware, making it the Moulton City Council‘s turn to tweet as a group.

Unfortunately, that too went terribly wrong.

A handoff to a Bay Minette mother of five at least started as if it would work out better.

While far from happy about the woman’s ensuing Twitter rant, which included a threat to castrate and then murder her husband with his own genitalia for making her give birth five times, an AIAC official said that the organization was at least happy that she “sort of refuted” what the gas station owner tweeted earlier on the account.

Efforts to redeem the account on Sunday also went badly.

The account was then ceded to a man from Troy who talked about his love of shooting animals regardless of whether it is legally hunting season and how he enjoys watching them defecate during their demise.

An AIAC spokesman said that “as long as he keeps it not racist, we could do worse.

“We really underestimated how selfish many Alabamians are,” the spokesman said.  ”We thought that they might want to make the state look good for once instead of tossing random and weird crap they think out there in public. But having been trying as long as we have to make the state look a modicum better, we’re coming to the conclusion that, to be frank, that’s what gets the assholes in this state off, so to speak.

“Then again, this is also Twitter.”

You can follow the eState of Alabama here.

Headlines from this weekend’s Alabama papers

Mobile Press-Register: “Exciting new job opportunities for 400 Alabama workers!”

The Birmingham News: “Exciting new job opportunities for 400 Alabama workers!”

The Huntsville Times: “Exciting new job opportunities for 400 Alabama workers!”

The Alabama Baptist: “Y’all Birmingham News Staffers All Going to Hell When You Die for Drinkin’!”

The Daily Mountain Eagle: “Reports that the Zombies have moved into the Curry area. No reason to panic, they’re just looking for brains.”

This week in Alabama history

Today in 1916, a unit of Alabama National Guardsmen assembled in Montgomery, eventually to be dispatched to the Mexican border by President Woodrow Wilson to protect American interests during the hunt for the bandit Pancho Villa.

AND THATS HOW WE GONNA TAKE CARE OF THE OBAMA IF WE GONE STOP THESE HERE IMMIGRANT COLLEGE STUDENTS FROM TAKIN OVER OUR COUNTRY AND STOPPING THE SEC FROM BEING GOOD IN FOOTBALL.

WE GONNA SEC-CEDE!

SEC-CEDE! SEC-CEDE! SEC-CEDE!

RMFTR.

Love,
Bama4Whites2009,
al.commenter emeritus 

Reran Tragedy is Weld’s satirical blog about politics and life in Alabama and the South. Much of what you will read here is fictionalized, except for all the parts that are unfortunately true because they are about politics and life in Alabama and the South. You can like this blog on Facebook and follow it on Twitter @ReranTragedy. You can reach the blog’s author at calalabaster@gmail.com.

The artist known as Cal Alabaster Jr., if that is his or her real name, may or may not also be the author of the Alabama humor blog called “King Cockfight.” If true, you may read Cal’s work there at kingcockfight.wordpress.com.