But there’s one thing TV has never done, and it’s this:

Been watched, by you, online, here, right now, with actors including but not limited to Blaine and Genna, for you, forever.

Please confirm.

Well, welcome to the world’s first-ever Online Television!

Using “Digital Methods,” the computer has become television’s only house, and it’s not going anywhere, because we smacked a stake through the heart of old television using a three wood.

For watching-TV purposes, you are Virtua-Roger.

Meet Virtua-Roger!

• Medical student studying Human Arm at Big State Central Downtown University
• Loved nacho-esque foods and becoming dry
• Exactly one penis
• Did not give up his physical body willingly

Today, Virtua-Rodger is a husk for you to inhabit, for television.

Let’s go! We’ve got the closed captioning all set up for you, and the shows can’t be beat. What channel do you want to watch?

What do you want to watch?

Please use this test pattern to calibrate your online television display, or just to show off all the colors you know to your aunt or uncle. Challenge your friends to a color race, for charity! The test pattern is a prince among channels.

BZZZT.

STERN VOICE: Lonely? Extremely lonely? A human tumbleweed in a dusty ditch? You could be entitled to companionship from real, bar-certified lawyers!

At the law offices of Balsam, Schwartz & Balsam-Schwartz, we specialize in getting YOU the pleasant company YOU deserve from OUR highly trained lawyers. They WILL not leave your side, they WILL not touch you, and they WILL not give you legal counsel! Professional lawyers can be in YOUR home or car within hours, smelling like DRY-ERASE MARKERS, ready for YOUR body to perceive THEIR body through BIOELECTROMAGNETICS.

Call NOW to get a free consultation, or just to chat!

Balsam, Schwartz & Balsam-Schwartz: “We’d Die For You.”

BZZZT.

TRUSTWORTHY VOICE: You can trust BETH.

She’s proven herself in the boardroom, to executives.

She’s proven herself in a parking lot, to cars.

She’s ready to roll up her sleeves and get filth on her forearms, and she knows it!

She once got a tooth knocked out when a crow flew into her, but she just popped it right back in. That’s pretty cool!

Wherever you go, you can rest assured knowing Beth’s been there first, and left a little plastic figurine behind for you to find.

Don’t think too hard about it: It’s Beth.

(Paid for by the Committee to Ensure That It’s Beth.)

BZZZT.

EXCITABLE VOICE: Six hundred dollars! Six hundred dollars!

It’s never been this many dollars before, and it may never again!

You’ve experienced four hundred dollars. You’ve experienced nine hundred dollars. But six hundred? No way! How could you have?! When would you have?!

Come on down, because it’s six hundred dollars, right now! Get down here, now! Six hundred dollars! Now!

BZZZT.

RUSTIC VOICE: When you drink Gershwin’s Grape Slurry, you’re not just drinking juice, pulp, and bits. You’re drinking juice, pulp, history, bits, and tradition.

Way back during history, our founder, Buck Gershwin, discovered his famous grape slurry when his grape silo collapsed, sending sweet, opaque slurry flooding through the county.

Today, we make our Gershwin’s Grape Slurry the exact same way: by loading a rotting silo full of soft grapes and letting it buckle.

Is it easy? No way. Is it sustainable? We’ll see. But is it worth it? That’s honestly hard to determine.

So pour yourself a glass and raise it to the light. Because when you see the mulch, you’ll know it’s real Gershwin’s slurry.

BZZZT.

UNTRUSTWORTHY VOICE: How much do we really know about BETH?

Sometimes when she talks, we think about other things: whether melons are a winter plant, and how our kitchen would look with a kitchen island. Should that REALLY be happening?

Beth doesn’t own much art…but art can be a nice thing to own. Something’s not adding up.

Her pinkies seem weird. How do they bend?

We didn’t learn about shark migration patterns from Beth. We learned about them from our Encarta encyclopedia CD-ROM. What else isn’t she telling us?

And is she even all that tall? There’s no way to be sure.

Face it: When it comes to Beth, we’re all in the dark, and who is refusing to turn on one of her proprietary, patent-pending, flashlights? It’s Beth.

Enough already. It’s time to kill Beth.

(Paid for by the Council on Should Beth Live Y/N.)

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

[One overaggressive trumpet plays an extremely fucked-up and halting version of “Reveille.”]

ANNOUNCER: Iiiiiiiiiiiit’s You Got A Problem? with Biff Little!

BIFF: This is exhausting. This whole thing is exhausting.

BIFF: I get done with this, I go home, my wife wants to talk to me. I just tune her out. It feels like if I look her in the eyes and open my mouth I’ll start crying and never stop. I make lemon squares instead. I don’t even eat them.

BIFF: Our contestants today are Maisie, the mama bear from Minnetonka…

MAISIE: Biff, this is a dream come true.

BIFF: Please don’t engage with me.

BIFF: We’ve got Gregg, the not-so-nutty professor. Gregg, what’s your deal?

GREGG: This is the only thing I’ve got on my calendar for six months in either direction.

BIFF: You understand me, Gregg.

BIFF: And we’ve still got a camera feed on Lou, but nobody has any idea where he is. Lou, if you can hear me, stay put. We’ve called the fire department and a couple local empaths, and we’ll figure this one out.

BIFF: Maisie, Gregg, are you ready to play “You Got A Problem?”

MAISIE: Biff, absolutely.

GREGG: Yes, but I’ll have to feed the meter in 20 minutes.

BIFF: All right, then. Maisie, you’re up first. You got a problem?

MAISIE: I dunno, you got a problem?

BIFF: You got a fucking problem?

MAISIE: Quit fucking staring at me, or we got a problem.

BIFF: You got some kinda problem?

MAISIE: You heard what I said.

BIFF: So you’re saying we got a problem?

MAISIE: I said, you heard what I said.

BIFF: Walk away.

MAISIE: Walk away, asshole.

BIFF: You walk away or the joker’s coming out to play.

MAISIE: Walk away, or we’re dancing.

BIFF: Walk away.

MAISIE: Walk away.

[Buzzer.]

BIFF: And that’s it for Maisie!

MAISIE: How’d I do?

BIFF: I don’t fucking know. Gregg, you’re up! It’s time to play “You Got A Problem?”!

BIFF: You got a problem?

GREGG: Jesus.

BIFF: You got a problem, man?

GREGG: Leave me alone.

BIFF: I asked you a question.

GREGG: Please stop.

BIFF: Are you deaf? I asked you a question.

GREGG: What the hell’s your problem?

BIFF: Oh, I got a problem?

GREGG: Yeah!

BIFF: I got a problem?!

GREGG: You do!

BIFF: Fuck you!

GREGG: Fuck me? Fuck yourself!

[Buzzer.]

BIFF: Well, that’s it for Gregg, and I’ve been told we’ve lost our feed on Lou, so that’s probably it for Lou as well.

GREGG: That was horrible.

MAISIE: I feel tense and awful.

BIFF: I don’t even get insurance for this.

GREGG: Did anyone win?

BIFF: Of course not. I’m Biff Little, and this has been You Got A Problem? Join me next week, when I’ll finally try to goad a contestant into choking me out. Good night!

[One overaggressive trumpet plays an extremely fucked-up and halting version of “Taps.”]

OLD MAN (V.O.): It’s…news. Whenever it happens…that’s news. Watergate, that was news…When they shot that deer in the indoor swimming pool and it turned out it had a pig in its stomach…that was news too.

And look at my gorgeous daughter…She has a job at the station…26 dollars an hour she makes…lives like the Queen of Sheba…buys herself premium cliff ice from Greenland…But she won’t speak to me…not a word...

[Uptempo jazz-fusion signifying the hustle and bustle of modern life.…but also, hope for the future?]

CLUTCH: Hi, yeah. Yes, hey, it’s me, it’s your friend Clutch Locale, the Clutch-Man himself, stumbling towards you with two heaping armfuls of my famous news.

CLUTCH: That’s…That’s right, you’re absolutely correct. You have a news craving that only ol‘ Clutch can slake.

CLUTCH: What else kind of news are you craving?

CLUTCH: Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to utter. I’ve been Clutch Locale.

To close things out, we go now live to the network president’s silent son, who’d like you to look at him.

PERCY: ……

PERCY: ……?

PERCY: ……

[You can hear the sound of eyelids touching and coming apart, but Clutch never blinks.]

CLUTCH: Local news! Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right now your mayor is barreling down the highway dragging a pinball machine behind her Malibu. It’s the pinball machine she bought her son Deke for placing second in the county Oceanography Olympiad. It’s Addams Family pinball because Deke is a little troll type of child. She’s dragging it behind her Malibu, sending chunks of pinball machine bouncing off into the shoulder and into people’s windshields, because Deke forged her signature on a bill making scrambled eggs officially a dessert. The police won’t do anything about it because she’s the mayor, and because she’s got a hook in her lap that she’ll swipe them with. And that’s local news, from Clutch!

CLUTCH: Dave Navarro found a cigarette butt in the back of his cheek when he was digging around in his mouth with his fingers, but then he popped it right back in there. This was just the other day. I can’t believe you hadn’t heard about this.

CLUTCH: If you have a boat, sell your boat. If you don’t have a boat, buy two boats. If this doesn’t make sense now, it will in a couple months, but for God’s sake, don’t tell anyone I told you this. There’s a legal loophole that would let the SEC take my neck but leave my head, and old Clutch’s career couldn’t recover from that.

CLUTCH: They sure did! Someone kicked over a Saudi rock and found a bunch of scrolls under there, and it turns out you’re supposed to dunk the Bible in light beer before reading it. Molson and Michelob work great. That’s just what the scrolls say, anyway.

CLUTCH: I’m not great. I got an X-ray and it turns out I’m mostly polyps. Like 60 percent bones and 40 percent polyps, plus skin. There’s no name for that. It’s just…how it is. That’s how Clutch is.

PARTY LINE THEME MUSIC (“Oh These Nights” by Vim & Vigor):

Whoa-oh!
Whoa-oh!
Whoa-oa-oa-oh!
Yeah!

Yeah!
Whoa, yeah!
These are the days
These are the nights

Whoa-oh!
Whoa-oh!
Yes!
Definitely.

[Music like you would toast a city skyline to.]

DIRK: Websites…Gotta be like a billion of them.

HECTOR: Yeah, and maybe you can Google one to tell you where your penis and its balls are.

STUDIO AUDIENCE: Yes! Hell yes!

DIRK: Hey, have you called into the party line yet today?

HECTOR: Not yet. I’m still trying to get over this hangover.

STUDIO AUDIENCE: Hm.

DIRK: Hangover? But we didn’t drink last night! We read the atlas!

HECTOR: It’s…a…sex…hangover…from…bedding…down…with…women…

STUDIO AUDIENCE: Now that’s what we’re talking about!

DIRK: You dirty dog! Let’s tell the party line all about it.

HECTOR: I’m the filthiest pooch in all the district. Particularly the inside of my mouth.

PHONE: [Ringing.] Brrring…Brrring…

[Busker’s pickings.]

STEPPAN: And you know me, guys: One sip of heavy water, and I’m all elbows. Just a big ball of elbows. No eyes or mouth.

STUDIO AUDIENCE: That’s Steppan for you. To a T.

PHONE: [Digital noise.]

STEPPAN: Whoa, gang, looks like Dirk and Hector are phoning in with some juicy nuggets to concern ourselves with!

BIG BART: Dirk and Hector, with that juice? Now this I gotta hear! There’s truly nothing like spending a barbecue on the party line!

ONE OF THREE KYLES: Ask them if Dirk’s mother finally gave birth, like she’s always been talking about.

ONE OF THREE KYLES: Tell them that One Of Three Kyles says, “Howdy.”

ONE OF THREE KYLES: I’m just happy to be here at all.

STUDIO AUDIENCE: God, we wish we could spend time with these people.

THEM: It’s us, together at last.

STUDIO AUDIENCE: We honestly never thought we’d see Them all together this season. We’ve been thrown for, of all things, a loop.

THEM: Tell us of Dirk, and the sensuous Hector.

[Skrillex or some loud shit like that.]

LIMOUSINE ELMER AND HIS BACKSEAT COHORT: Blap-blap!

STUDIO AUDIENCE: “Blap-blap” for sure!

ELOUISE: I can’t wait to tell my child the next twist and turn of the party-line saga. Fire away, boys.

HECTOR: Hello all. Hector here. You should all know that I performed not one but two sex acts, in quick succession, on the same person. One, then the other.

DIRK: One, and then, the other.

HECTOR: I did one sex act—mouth and teeth—and then I did the other one, which was all legs.

STUDIO AUDIENCE: Whoa-oh! Whoa-oh!

BIG BART: Great to hear, boys. Keep it up.

ONE OF THREE KYLES: This is where the action is.

THEM: We love this. Way to have gone, Hector. You sure are filthy.

[It’s so loud.]

THE BACKSEAT COHORT: Tremendous. Sex? Incredible.

LIMOUSINE ELMER: Just tremendous.

ELOUISE: My child, it’s sex, by Hector.

CHILD: Mother…I love these juicy nibbles…I want you to drop me before you ever hang up that phone!

STUDIO AUDIENCE: What a commitment!

STEPPAN: …

STEPPAN: …

STEPPAN: I hate being the only virgin on the party line…

STUDIO AUDIENCE: The drama only makes the comedy more piquant!

PARTY LINE CREDITS MUSIC (“Out On My Own” by Vim & Vigor)

EDUARDO’S REALM THEME MUSIC (molto allegro):

It’s Eduardo’s Realm!
Eduardo’s Realm!
An entire world in one boy’s mind!
How can this be?

Caitlyn, Tina, everyone’s here!
We got Caitlyn!
We got Tina!
Everyone is here in Eduardo’s Realm!

Are his parents real?
Is anyone real?
Eduardo’s Realm!
Eduardo’s Realm!

EDUARDO: Hi there! I’m Eduardo, and this is my realm! I’m 7 years old!

SEVEN

EDUARDO: This is my father! If I concentrate I can remember him young and strong, but here in my realm, I’ve made him old and feeble! I like him this way because he can’t punish me!

EDUARDO’S FATHER: [Unintelligible rasping.]

EDUARDO: No one has power over me here!

EDUARDO: And this was my mother! She’d turn around if I allowed her to, but only I may see her face!

EDUARDO’S MOTHER: [Wet sounds.]

EDUARDO: I’m trapped here, but so are they!

EDUARDO: These are my best friends, Caitlyn and Tina! They remind me of when I was just a child. They tell me when I’ve gone too far, like when I took Tina’s bones for whispering about me!

TINA: [Slurpily.] I don’t mind that you took my bones, Eduardo! I’ve seen much worse!

CAITLYN: Hey, Eduardo, are we your real friends, or just your memories of us?

EDUARDO: That difference means less every day!

EDUARDO: In my realm, everything is mine to play with! And in here, it doesn’t matter if I break one of my toys…

EDUARDO: I can just decide it’s fixed, and go on playing with it!

TINA: Thanks for giving me back my bones, Eduardo! Now we can play!

EDUARDO: Play is the only thing that keeps me myself!

CAITLYN: Hey, Eduardo, do you think you could bring my parents into your realm? I miss them so much!

EDUARDO: Sorry, Caitlyn, I never met them! But I could make up some new ones for you!

CAITLYN: Please don’t, Eduardo! I don’t like the things you make! I don’t want them for parents!

EDUARDO: Who are you to turn down my generosity?!

TINA: Eduardo, no!

[Skin noises.]

EDUARDO: Are half your bones enough, or should I take more?

CAITLYN: I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!

EDUARDO: I can’t wait to see what kind of parents I come up with for you!

TINA: [Ragged breathing.]

EDUARDO: Yup! Life here in my realm is pretty much perfect!

EDUARDO’S FATHER: [Gurgles.]

EDUARDO: The only thing that’s missing? Anything and anyone that isn’t just a part of my mind!

EDUARDO: But you can help me, right?

EDUARDO:

EDUARDO: Please help me.

THEME MUSIC (reprise):

It’s Eduardo’s Realm!
Eduardo’s Realm!