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Be very afraid, NBC!
By Mark W. Mayfield
I'm not an overly confrontational guy. In fact, I often go out of my way to avoid disputes, especially when they involve a muscular motorcycle rider who wants to kill me just because I accidentally rolled down my window and called him a "stupid idiot who obviously didn't learn safe passing techniques during driver's education class." But my Mr. Nice Guy demeanor will soon disappear unless the greedy bigwigs at NBC start sending me large checks.
Allow me to explain my righteous indignation. I recently watched an NBC show called "Fear Factor," in which contestants try to win lots of money by performing a variety of disgusting and/or terrifying stunts, such as eating live bugs, running from vicious attack dogs and sitting in a locked room with a pack of bloodthirsty telemarketers. I immediately realized that Fear Factor is a blatant rip-off of a game I invented in elementary school.
My game was called "I'll Give You a Million Bucks," and here's how it was played. Several contestants, including me, sat on the curb in front of my house, greedily devouring "Abba Zabba" candy bars until one of us suddenly said, "I'll give you a million bucks if you..." He then completed the challenge with the most disgusting, painful and/or terrifying action you can imagine. Here are two examples:
"I'll give you a million bucks if you eat a heaping, steaming, stinking bowl of toe jam." (None of us had actually seen "toe jam" or knew if such a substance really existed. Nevertheless, the thought of eating a bowl of it made us sick.)
"I'll give you a million bucks if you let the biggest, strongest professional football player in the world kick you in the nose as hard as he can and then break all of your fingers by stomping on them with his cleats."
Sometimes, when the sugar from too many Abba Zabbas put our twisted 10-year-old imaginations into overdrive, the game turned very ugly, like the time when one depraved player said, "I'll give you a million bucks if you marry the ugliest girl in the 5th grade and kiss her at your wedding and kiss her again on your honeymoon and then live with her in the same house and sometimes see her in her underwear and then kiss her every day and kiss her every night and call her 'sugar lips' and 'honey pie' and tell her that you'll love her for the rest of your life while you kiss her again and again until INFINITY!"
"You're a weirdo!" the rest of us exclaimed in unison, refusing to even consider such a hideous offer. (Back in the late '60s, calling somebody a "weirdo" was an insult of the highest degree. We often used the term to describe the reclusive old guy down the street who occasionally dressed up like Lucille Ball and sang opera songs in his front yard at 2 a.m.)
Most of the challenges were quickly rejected by the other contestants, but sometimes a player would slip up and offer a million bucks for a stunt that wasn't entirely unthinkable. Such was the case when one of my friends offered me a million bucks to fill my pockets with chicken guts and leave them there for a week.
Although the thought of having pockets full of putrid poultry entrails was disgusting, I didn't foresee any permanent physical damage or psychological harm. Of course, for the rest of my life, people would call me "that weirdo chicken-guts guy," but it would be a small price to pay for a million bucks.
The kid who made the offer, knowing that a million bucks was considerably more than he had in his official Batman wallet, became increasingly nervous as I carefully considered his challenge.
"Okay," I finally said, "I'll do it."
"Oh, wait!" he suddenly exclaimed, "I forgot to tell you that at the end of the week, you also have to kiss and marry the ugliest girl in the 5th grade."
Needless to say, that last-minute addendum quickly ended my dreams of financial security. After all, a guy has to maintain his dignity.
Anyway, if those sneaky programming executives at NBC think they can cover up their thievery by changing the name of my game to "Fear Factor," they've got another think coming. If I don't receive a large check by the end of this week, NBC will face the ultimate Fear Factor--a vicious attack by a pack of money-hungry attorneys.
The sneaky programming executives at NBC can reach Mark at markmayfield@mindspring.com.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
