Con on Air

Last night, just after watching a riotous South Park spoof of Sixth Sense, I was briefly reminded of a recent post on how our culture glorifies crime at d'Anconia Online. And I emphasize the adverb, "briefly."

I lasted for ten minutes of an episode of Comedy Central's Con, a series that follows the unintentionally funny adventures of Skyler Stone. According to the Comedy Central web page for the show, "Skyler Stone is a con artist. And he's going to show you how you can be one, too." Look at the web page and pay attention to the various facial expressions of Stone. You can tell that the boy finds himself quite clever.

The episode I saw part of is summed up there in this manner.

What do you do when you want a clean apartment but don't want to lift a finger? If you're con man Skyler Stone you convince hot models to do it for you by posing as a big time fashion photographer doing a magazine spread on house cleaning.

So how does one "not lift a finger" to avoid two or three hours' work? By concocting an elaborate scheme requiring advertising over the Internet, going through email applications written by morons (He used the term "Equestrian" in the magazine title to, "weed out the smart ones."), babble on the phone with same, hold interviews with the "applicants," ad infinitum. (Remember, I only saw the first ten minutes or so -- up to the point where he steals a pizza over the phone -- before I got too annoyed to go on.) Notice all that he's had to do, and the hot babes still haven't arrived at the sty he calls home!

Being male, and fairly close in age to the target demographic of the show, I know that the real objective is to get the hot babes into the house. So why bring them there only to do one of the things you should have done already to get them to stay? This is what I did when I was single: I got off my can, cleaned up the place, used my phone to set up dates with hot babes (only I screened out the dumb ones), and occasionally, I even brought one home! The cleaning was done already, so the action was a little bit more interesting than having her clean my place up. In fact, I doubt Comedy Central would have been able to show it on television. I ended up marrying one of them, and now, aside from having Mrs. Van Horn around any time I need her to help me clean the place.... Oh, but I forgot. Skyler Stone's the clever one and I'm the chump watching him on the telly.

From "about the show:"

From strolls down the red carpet to a singing gig at a baseball game, Skyler Stone can get anything he wants for free. Why? Because he's a con man. And his new show is about showing you how you can live the con lifestyle, too! This half-hour reality series finds the ever-charming Skyler Stone conning his way through life, documenting the entire process of executing his next "hit." Each episode features a new scam, a new mark, and a new perfect con for the history books.

In the "cast and crew" section, Stone is described as a "professional con man" in his bio, but he sounds a lot more like a "professional actor." I have just one question. If he's such a good con, why is he fooling around with a penny-ante television show? Look, Skylerino. Get away with an Enron and retire, and then maybe I'll believe crime can pay. If, that is, you think you can come out of hiding long enough to tell me about it and you really believe I won't turn you in.

A second's worth of thought along these lines will show that the only people being conned are the audience of the show. The premise is blatantly ridiculous. The pranks are mildly amusing at best. And other guys are out there hooking up with the real babes while you watch this crap.

-- CAV