Idiot Box Savant: Meet the new boss!

By Andrew Kiraly

May God's big evangelical moral-values heart bless the Savantette. Thanks to her personality that mostly manifests itself in a typhoon-like desire to get free shit, we've had a suite of HBO and Cinemax channels at no charge for, damn, like 207 showings of The Rundown now. Last month, it was Showtime and Starz; ah, I love these halcyon nights when I come home, fling some Kettle Corn into the microwave and continue to rule from the throne of my couch in my kingly, socked feet with free upper-tier cable. I'm not bragging, and I won't bogart. Here's my secret: If you happen to call up the cable company for some maintenance or billing issues and put forth at least an earnest effort to make nicey-nice with LaShonda and drop hints like, "Listen, I really, really want HBO, but I'm put off by this whole 'paying for it' thing," well, she just might be moved to hit the master command switch and--voila--next thing you know, your lair is electrified with life renewed as you begin your journey of spiritual awakening that only a Police Academy marathon can provide. Our goal: to get through at least the end of the year on free premium channels. (Of course, now that the masters of cable reality are reading this, they'll probably program my cable box to shoot pink revenge lightning into my balls.)

My favorite channel so far is Cinemax, if only for the late-night soft porn they bust out after your kids have gone to their rooms to chat with sex predators on the Internet. If you're looking for the true nasty, buy yourself a four-hour blockgasm of Spice. But if you're looking for droll/quasi-hot, Cinemax is the ticket! Thanks to the twin bummers of censorship and decency, Cinemax porn is sexlessly soft focus and enthusiastically athletic, with women and men, various jibblies a-bobbing, thrusting with Olympian fervor in positions so improbable that the only thing that runs the risk of being penetrated is your eye socket as you double over with laughter. ("Hello, 911? I need an ambulance. I fucked my own skull.") Think of late-night Cinemax less as porn than Mutual Masturbation of Omaha documentaries on the mating habits of personal trainers.

Anyway, with the ongoing TV dominance of "The Apprentice" and its spokeshair Donald McComb Trumpover, the cult of success continues to rage unabated like a chupacabra convention. Trump is god, worshipped by Wharton biz school Aberzombies and briefcase-toting venture crapitalists alike; it was only a matter of time until a parody came along. Thus we have "My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss," Fox's answer to the Trump popular show that blends "Survivor" and a particularly cancerous form of hero worship. In "Obnoxious Boss" (Fox Sunday 9 p.m.), contestants--a gaggle of young, tight-skirted and shiny-shirted entrepreneurs--must labor for the favors of one N. Paul Todd, an imperious, fickle flakehole whose show-closing catchprase--a la Trump's "You're fired!"--is "Get the hell out of my office!" Bossman Todd (William August) is the centerpiece of a show that tweaks the big mistake our biz-worship world makes: mistaking the the style of success for its content. We think Trump's gruff vigor is his secret, not his craftiness; that his sharklike, bullshit never-look-back credo is what counts, and not the less telegenic ingredients of success--the grunt work of research, glad-handing, pavement-crawling, investor-schmoozing. Got venture capital? Got confidence-inspiring eccentricities? You're in business!

This shared idea allows the producers of "Boss" to torture its contestants with the utterly obtuse schemes of a tyrant. N. Paul Todd slaps players with irrelevant challenges such as pitting them in paintball battles in business attire or forcing them to sell hot soup in the hot damp of July in Chicago. Naturally, they eat it right up. And as Todd takes the contestants on a tour of his supposed $18 million townhouse (rented, of course), he shovels outrageous B.S. right into their open mouths; for instance, he shows them a room where he's enshrined his first million dollars in a glass box. Oooh. Aaaw. Todd proudly sprays an aerosol can of smoke into the room to reveal a network of red laser-line sensors crisscrossing the shrine, the height of high-tech security. Oooh. Aaaw. (August confesses to the camera: The million dollars was just a bunch of $100 bills taped to a Plexiglas box; the security system a bunch of laser levels.)

Then he reveals to the young bizheads his prized possession, an ancient sword in a glass display. "This is Excalibur," he says. Oooh. Aaaw. (To us: "It was some lame knockoff from eBay we ran over with the car a few times.") But the young acolytes genuflecting at the altar of succe$$ take it as nothing less than a mystical revelation. One pantsuit queen summed it perfectly: Gee, since the legend says only the pure of heart can wield Excalibur, Mr. Todd must be the real deal! Real like a nutsack briefcase upside yer head, entreprenerds! May your credulity snap and Lou Dobbs haunt your dreams with his smelly elfin tights!