One can imagine John Logie Baird screeching "MOVE THAT BUS, LADDIE!" as he put the finishing touches to his new invention, and it is obvious that all of the advances in electronic gadgetry, televisual performance and magic have been mere stepping stones on the way to this programme of towering brilliance.
There are of a course a couple of things one must do before settling down to watch EM:HE.
Firstly, it is important to get slightly drunk - about three or four glasses of wine should do the trick, and secondly it is critically important to get anyone cynical or world-weary the fuck out of the room.
Are we sitting comfortably? Good, then let's begin...
A fuck-off huge bus kitted out with bling, some all-American hunks, some rather effeminate men and some sex-kittens ploughs across a lonely highway. You don't know where it is going, but the editorial lets you know it is urgent and important...
Then a large screen TV clicks on and people begin to beg. Their daughter has married a black man and their son has come out as gay and it's all so fucking tragic and their house in Alabama is a fucking shit hole, and grandad lives in the basement and our car is shit and we have to drive 300 miles a day to Westboro funerals...and...and...beg...beg...sniff...snuff.
By this point the tears are already welling up in my eyes. How the fuck can anyone be that unlucky? Why did so much tragedy befall such a lovely, special, dirt poor (although seriously overweight) group of people? I must pour another glass of wine and see what happens...
The bus pulls up outside the shithole of a house, built as it is on a flytip and falling apart because its occupants are just too fucking tragic and sad and too fucking busy helping the FUCKING local community to do any goddamn fucking work to it. Oh lordy.
A man called Ty Pennington gets out of the bus with a megaphone. There are a number of things one should know about Ty Pennington:
1) Ty is a stupid fucking yank name
2) Ty is a stupid fuck
3) Ty doesn't need a megaphone
4) Ty pretends to be 14 and his wikipedia entry describes him as a television host, model, philanthropist, and a carpenter.
Anyway, Mr Pennington proceeds to holler "Gooooooooooooooooooood morning Poxapony family!!!!!" at 8am, with no regard for sleeping neighbours and this is usually followed by 16 people running madly and fully dressed with breakfast eaten out of the said house.
Then the design team walks around with each member of the family, searching for inspiration for the design of their bedrooms and finding out more about their awful lives, their selflessness, blah di bollocks.
There are lots of hugs and tears before a stretch limousine leaves for Disneyworld (great publicity for fuck all outlay) with the passportless family.
Then 14,000 local people march up the road to the house with cheerleaders jumping about and doing demented somersaults while countless American flags wave above hard hats and the crowd walks with fists clenched and much whooping and hollering. Minorities and other non-subscribers to the American dream need not fuckin' apply.
A silly man called Paul will then cry like a baby as the building contractor explains how privileged he is to do the job which he could have done any time in the past twenty years but unfortunately the TV cameras weren't around then, so what do you do etc.
Then Mr Pennington holds a camcorder and shows the family in Disneyworld how there house is destroyed - no matter how big a shithole, all the dreams, love, fears, hopes and deep emotions are trampled on by monster trucks and big fuckin' diggers y'all, but it makes for good American TV.
Then the build begins, and it's not just any old house - it's a full on fuckin' mansion going up in the hood, with 18 bedrooms and a fridge the size of a garage. After 4 days Mr Pennington is filmed dangling the keys from the porch screaming "They've finished the house, let's get some fuckin' furniture in this motherfucker!" (or words to that effect).
Next morning the stretch limo returns, and pulls up behind the bus - the family gets out, but they can't see their house - the crowd desperately vies to get seen on TV, there is more inspirational shit, and then the scream goes up to "MOVE THAT BUS!". The bus pulls away, the family collapses in a heap of freebie happiness, I burst in to tears and spill some wine, but I'm just so fuckin' deleriously, religiously happy I don't give a shit - I suddenly understand US patriotism and its power - I wanna be a yank for a moment, a full-on god-fearing, southern red neck sonofabitch, building houses for folk and eating grits.
Then the family are shown around..."Oh my gosh!" "Oh my gosh!" "Oh my gosh!" over and over and over "Oh my gosh!" "Oh my gosh!" "Oh my gosh!". Big manly snorts and tears from the mother, squeals of delight from the kids - Stevie Wonder is playing piano in the music room, Michael Jordan is shooting hoops in junior's bedroom - a mental, fucked up dream of dreams coming true and uber-happiness...
The family has their mortgage paid off, the kids all get scholarships to Harvard, and dad gets a new hummer and a blow job from Candy...
By this stage I'm a sobbing, quivering wreck, swamped with saccharine drenched keyboard and strings music, utter tragedy, utter happiness, utter faith in humanity...I need a fuck. I creep in to Mrs Dev - "Fuck off, you twat - you made me go to bed early so you could watch that blubbering American shite!".
ps I bet Topsy/Flora loves it too.
)
It's probably a great business model too, since all the stuff they get to give away comes from advertisers.