BEFORE the arrival of ABC Television’s Extreme Makeover:  Home Edition

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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

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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.

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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

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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!

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UPDATE:  A network memo on The Smoking Gun shows that this post is not as far-fetched as it may seem.