BEFORE the arrival of ABC Television’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Life has never been easy for the Wilson family. After she lost her job at the auto plant and her husband was killed in a freak explosion at an Office Depot, Deborah Wilson and her seven children, three of them disabled, became homeless.
Deborah remarried, but her new husband — an alcoholic, abuser, and wife beater — ran away with Deborah’s sister, leaving Deborah with three of his children. Two of his children suffer from a rare untreatable skin disease, and the third child, alas, was recently mauled to death when a Burmese tiger escaped from his cage during a class trip to the Phoenix Zoo.
The Wilsons now live in a tiny shack in the poorest section of Phoenix.
The arrival of ABC Television’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Ty Pennington and his design team roll into town from Los Angeles. They have decided to build a new home for the the family because, frankly, the Wilsons are one unlucky, miserable bunch of losers. The Wilson’s shack is bulldozed and three hundred construction workers, whose boss wants to be on TV, quickly build the Wilson’s new 5000 square foot home.
Every room is equipped with the latest appliances from Sears (the show’s official sponsor). There is to be a plasma TV in every room (from Sears). An elevator to the second floor is installed for the disabled children. Special space suits are developed by NASA to be worn by the children with the rare skin disease. The new house has a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a huge kitchen where Deborah can further her dream of becoming a gourmet chef. And to help her further her goal, ABC has convinced famed Scottsdale Chef Anthony Dematto of Anthony’s Bistro to give Deborah a job as an assistant chef.
After the house is built, the design team cries. The Wilsons cry. Three hundred workers cry… because their boss, who got his 15 minutes of fame, "volunteered" them all for this grueling ordeal for no pay. A beautiful new home has been built for the Wilsons — a family desperately in need of help. The show returns to Los Angeles — a job well done.
Three months after the airing of ABC Television’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Life has never been easy for the Wilson family. Deborah has been fired from Anthony’s Bistro after she accidentally poisoned a customer and famed Scottsdale Chef Anthony Dematto called her "an absolute moron."
The Wilson home has been robbed three times in the last three months by neighbors who resent a fancy house in the middle of their ugly impoverished neighborhood. All of their plasma TVs have been carried off by angry mobs.
Deborah’s youngest son is beaten up in school every day by bullies. Another child is mocked as "Ty Pennington’s Love Slave." The elevator in the house broke, and no one from the show returns the phone calls, so the disabled children haven’t been able to leave the second floor for two months. One of the children with the rare skin disease suffocates to death in his NASA space suit.
The wife beater who ran away with Deborah’s sister returns for the funeral service of the child he left behind. He reveals some more sad news — Deborah’s sister has bled to death after she cut off her finger to try the "sue Wendy’s because there is a finger-in-the-chili trick." But the car broke down while they were stuck in Houston rush hour traffic, and the finger ended up getting lost somewhere in the engine.
One good note — after the funeral, the abusive, cheating, alcoholic, child abandoning wife beater decided to stay in town, so he’s now living with Deborah again! They couldn’t afford the upkeep of the new place, so they moved into another tiny shack. It feels more spacious this time around, because they had to leave some of the children behind. The elevator on the second floor is still broken. So, everything is fine!
UPDATE: A network memo on The Smoking Gun shows that this post is not as far-fetched as it may seem.
I’m noticing that I miss an awful lot since I don’t ever watch television.
(I can appreciate the humor of the post all the same.)
Sarah…works for me.
You are EVIL! Bwahahahaha!
Probably part of it is true.
Ty is over 40!?! Damn.
I’m thinking there’s room on some network for a six months later ‘progress’ report on some of these makeover shows. Hell, if it was as you’ve parodied, even I’d watch the damn thing. I’d much prefer a parody show to a real show. It’s all too “Queen for a Day(ie)” for me.
Is Ty the one who lost his boyfriend in the Tsunami?
That’s one of the funnier things I’ve read in a while! Nice job!
Excellent post. I’d be blogging, but my blog has disappeared into nothingness for the time being. I miss you, Neil! How can we ever stand this time apart?
Okay that was pretty much fantastic. I laughed. I wept. I sat on the edge of my seat in anticipation for the dramatic ending. That, my friend, was grrreat television.
that was so wrong on so many levels.
Thanks for the laugh. I must admit that I often find myself sucked in by the show. What I have always wondered is what happens to these folks months later when there aren’t cameras around.
This was so awesome. I always wonder how those families can afford to maintain (or even simply to heat) their new million-dollar homes. I mean, I still cry by the end of any given episode, having been effectively emotionally exploited– seriously, though, how do they find these people?
Pingback: Citizen of the Month » Nominee for 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
I think we’re supposed to feel GUILTY if we don’t love that show. But I hate it. Forgive me, God, but I hate that show probably more than anything else on TV.
It’s been difficult to put it into words, why I hate Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Well, first of all I hate the title, so I guess it begins with that.
I have come to hate Ty Pennington, the host. Thought he was somewhat funny on TLC’s Trading Spaces: the goofy handyguy. Ah yes, I do admit to having watched that show. As silly as it was, it was still fairly normal people spending a fairly normal amount of money and doing something fun with their neighbors, and it was interesting to see what they could come up with, given $1,000 and a weekend.
For Extreme Makeover, somebody took that idea and supersized it a gadzillion times, like a Whopper weighing 3,000 pounds. Yes, it’s spectacular, but I can’t eat it.
So the show is designed basically around a sob story (the one on tonight I think is about a camp for families dealing with AIDS). How can I resist having my heartstrings pulled like that? Have I no feelings? I guess I don’t. You’ve had a tough life, bad things happened, so now we’ll bulldoze your house and build you a 7,000-square-foot mansion with state-of-the-art everything, we’ll all shed tears and feel better about ourselves. Meanwhile all the other people out there who have had tough breaks can…. well, they can watch the show.
There are so many things about this TV monstrosity (outsized, self-aggrandizement, maudlin emotions, lottery-winning mentality, gaudy tastelessness, to name just a tiny few) that embody all the worst elements of America.
Personally it’s the constant advertising that bothers me. Sears obviously, but also AOL and tons of others. Also, they always say our friends at [insert company] has given the [insert name] family all the [insert product] they’ll ever need. Let’s be honest, you begged them for it in exchange for you saying the product and company name on TV…Oh and btw is it just me or do the two hour specials stop being special when they come every second episode?
Can you spell EXPLOITATION? This show (and others like it) are what’s wrong with this country now. If they REALLY wanted to help people they would take the money they spend on these families and spread it out among hundreds or thousands of truly needy folks – but without the cameras and publicity. As long as we support this crap by watching it, it will continue. As for me, I saw it once and vowed NEVER AGAIN. If I even see a promo for it I change the channel. Please, STOP THE INSANITY!!
I used to like this show, too. I thought it was kind of edgy and funny. But I’ve come to hate the obnoxious product placement (we’re building you a Horton Hears a Who! room! “Thank you, ABC for my Horton Hears a Who! room!!”), crocodile tears (cue Ty/the contractors/the family/the dog wiping their eyes… ), over-the-top everything (a kitchen done entirely in PLATINUM! Plasma tvs in the closet! Diamonds for the 7-year-old!), “theme” rooms (how fun will that jungle room be when the kid turns 11?), and placement of a mega-mansion in a crappy neighborhood. But the most obnoxious thing about this show is how it encourages the illusion that if you REALLY f*** up your life, fairies will swoop down and save/reward you by building you your own personal hotel. I’m in my 30s, with an advanced degree, and I’ve lived a good, responsible life. Yet, I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, working 5 days a week, every week, and renting a crappy house that’s basically falling down. When’s Ty coming to give me my plasma tvs? Oooh, maybe if I had a kid with a terrible disease? Blech.
Pingback: Citizen of the Month » 2AM
I Hate that show so much! I know lots of people who really and I mean REALLY need a house im talking rat/mold/asbestos/yucky brown stuff. These people live in luxury compared to the people that really need to be on the show the impoverished and ignored
I very much despise this show, hate it with a passion.
I have always wondered about this show from the get-go. It wasn’t really bad when they just fixed up a house. But they went way beyond any reasonableness when they started building mansions, handing out scholarships and money. If they truly wanted to help mankind, why don’t they build homeless shelters and hire chefs to cook for them? Maybe they could set up something to help these people regain their lives??? That would go a long way toward some real help. So all of that leads me to wonder what the true objective of the show is….One more thing, if Sears can afford to “donate” all of these appliances, I guess they don’t really need my busines. I WILL NOT SHOP SEARS.