The Late Late Plank Show
Grandad November 29th, 2008
As usual, there was fuck all in the way of good programmes on television last night.
You would imagine that with five hundred or so channels there would be something passable on, but there wasn’t.
Herself somehow managed to flick over to the Late Late Toy Show.
To those of you overseas who have missed this annual treat, maybe an explanation is needed?
The Late Late Toy Show is an orgy of commercialism directed at the toddlers of Ireland. They fill up one of RTE’s largest studios with toys, pack in an audience dressed tacky reindeer horns and Santa hats, and then let loose a pack of kids into the toys to let them play. The Master of Ceremonies for this mayhem is The Plank himself.
The biggest problem with this scenario is that apart from having the personality of a gravestone, The Plank hasn’t a clue how to interact with children. He has a couple of his own, and I dread to think what they will develop into. To The Plank, children are like tiny adults, to be ignored at all costs. They are an irritant, and worst of all, they have the potential to take the spotlight off Plank and his massive ego.
The programme started showing Plank doing something. It has to start showing Plank, just to reinforce the idea that the programme is about him, and the children and toys are just incidental.
I squirmed.
The children were brought on and the show started.
Straight away, Plank started interrupting the children any time they had anything to say. Plank knew there was a risk they might say something cute or funny that would outshine his efforts. Each child was dismissed like unfortunate candidates at an interview.
The toys were the usual collection of utter shite. They were all the kind of toy that would have an attention span of ten minutes and an horrific price tag. Every toy required batteries. Every toy had to talk, sing, walk or shit itself. Every doll or stuffed toy seemed to have enough computing power to land a man on the Moon.
I got drunk.
The Plank grabbed more and more screen time. The camera men obviously had orders to focus on the main even, which was Plank and not the children. All we saw was Plank grinning inanely into the camera as he showed off.
I threw an ashtray through the television screen.
Herself wasn’t too happy about that, but she should have known it would happen. It happens every year. She shouldn’t have switched it on.
At least this year I managed to restrain myself for a full twenty minutes.
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