Cowardly Robert Dotson, CEO of T-Mobile, personally ordered his company's ads to be pulled from all of the shows on FX after caving in to pressure from the Right Wacko Reverend Donald Wildmon of the Mississippi-based American Family Association which is small of actual influence and even smaller of mind.
The claim was that 'Rescue Me' and 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' were too graphic.
Dotson said he would immediately withdraw all T-Mobile ads from FX and vowed T-Mobile 'will not support programming or content offerings that are sexually gratuitous and explicit, racist, hateful or excessively violent.'
Never mind that both shows didn't air until after 10 pm on the cable network, which isn't broadcast into just any home, by the way. Wildmon and his rabble of nutjobs want all TV shows to conform to the mild pablum that they want, and to hell with other people might want to see.
Denis Leary, who created, produces, and stars in 'Rescue Me', when on the Opie and Anthony radio show to fire back at the decision made by Yellow Belly Dotson.
But that's not good enough for Toobworld. Toobworld demands vengeance and retribution to these knuckle-draggers from the South.
Leary should work the controversy into the show, in much the same way that David Chase sought revenge against former Daily News TV critic Eric Mink: work your payback into the script!
What Leary should do (and this goes for those guys who created 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia') is to have various characters bitch and moan about the poor quality of service they get from T-Mobile. Or they could make fun of the types of commercials that the company throws at its audience "ad nauseum".
And then those on 'Rescue Me' who have T-Mobile should be seen finally dumping T-Mobile altogether. They could even claim that having T-Mobile could have cost one of them his life while battling a fire.
Now, I supposed in this day and age of product placement, going in the opposite direction to slam an actual device may be too dangerous - it could open them to lawsuits.
But think of how all those other cell phone services would be knocking on the office doors for Leary and his partner Peter Tolan to have their services named as the replacements for T-Mobile within the reality of 'Rescue Me'. The money might be too good to ignore.
(I'd like to see them opt for a fictional service. Even though the show is set in NYC, maybe TelCal ('VR.5') could branch out to go national. Or perhaps it could be that mega-corporation for which 'Bob!' McKay toiled, American-Canadian Transcontinental Communications (or AmCanTransCom for short).
They should even toss their old T-Mobile cell phones into a garbage can and spit on them! (a la "The Producers")
And the American Family Association shouldn't be exempt from ridicule and abuse, although it might be better to definitely go the roman a clef route to avoid lawsuits.
But there should be a nutjob based on that jerk Donald Wildmon who comes to the defense of one of his followers who caused a fire which Tommy Gavin and the crew would have to battle. Probably a fire to destroy some TV show set which is on the fictional version of the AFA's hit list.
And genius that I am, I have the perfect choice!
'Miss Sally's Schoolyard', which was seen on 'Oz' as well as in the reunion movie for 'Homicide: Life On The Street'. That way the link would make 'Rescue Me' a definitive part of the Westphallian version of the TV Universe.
Not that I would want 'Miss Sally's Schoolyard' to be obliterated from the TV landscape. Miss Sally has huge..... contributions to the enjoyment of Toobworld.
But somehow the message has to get out to panty-waist Dotson that he should never have given in to the maniacal pressure from a group that is ultimately powerless in its inlfuence.
Just sayin' is all.
BCnU!
Tele-Toby
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