By Scott Buckner
I can’t think of anyone who looks forward to being awake during that early morning purgatory that bridges Friday night and Saturday morning – or Saturday night and Sunday morning – unless there’s some sort activity that calls for a bunch of clothing to be strewn recklessly about someone’s bedroom floor. However, occasions do arise when you end up spending Purgatory Time by yourself with whatever home shopping program WCPX-TV/Channel 38 likes to air in the wee weekend hours for the benefit of insomniacs and drunks with a hankering to buy stuff.
I didn’t find myself stuck on Cutlery Corner at 3 a.m. last Saturday because it was the most awesome thing on TV. It was because the voice of the fellow hawking all manner of recreational bladery was a dead ringer for that down-by-the-river-guy on SNL. Which was fine by me because you never know when Billy Mays is going spring up and convince you to buy stuff by shouting at you.
At one point, the camera pulled back to reveal that the segment’s host looked amazingly like actor Peter Jurasik when he was playing Sid the Snitch on Hill Street Blues.
Down-by-the-river-guy had a female co-hawker, too. She was as personable and perky as anyone promoting lethal weaponry just before sunrise could be, but she also struck me as someone who might have been wondering whether she was too hasty in making that career decision earlier in the week to leave the nunnery.
Forrest Gump once said something about stupid is as stupid does, so I was curious to see how far Cutlery Corner might stretch the envelope of stupid. After an hour and a half, I got the distinct impression that the envelope can be stretched pretty far even for people with absolutely nothing constructive to do at 3 a.m., so I went to bed. Within the previous 90 minutes though, I found plenty of stupid being promoted.
At one point, van-down-by-the-river guy decides to get everyone into the holiday shopping spirit by singing a little Christmas ditty: ” . . . Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you poke your little head out tonight?” Sure, go ahead. Poke your little head out, so we can slice it it clean off with – I kid you not – a huge-ass ninja samurai sword for $49.95!
Believe me, if you’ve ever seen what a herd of deer can do to your evergreens, a big honkin’ $49.95 ninja samurai sword is a reasonable investment.
Just when I was thinking the fun was done, van-down-by-the-river guy drags out something he refers to as “the gang murderer . . . popular among bikers” – a $19.95 utensil that celebrates the creative thinking behind combining a skinning knife with a set of brass knuckles.
Still, the added bonus of a sheath with a locking top seemed sort of unnecessary because if I was a gnarly murdering biker dude trying to make a decision whether I should disembowel that guy at the end of the bar for eyeballing my woman too much with one end of my knife or just bash his face in with the other end, the last thing I want to do is waste precious seconds of anti-social anger fumbling around with a locked sheath.
While I’m not much of a knife collector, I think I’ll check back with Channel 38 during the early hours this weekend anyway. I’ve been thinking I might be in the market for a good Medieval crossbow.
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See what else we’ve been watching! Submissions welcome.
Posted on December 11, 2008