Feel, or No Feel?

“Obviously, with those TV gambling programmes – which make up the bulk of our current overnight programming – completely discredited, we’re looking to revamp our all night schedules with more credible and worthwhile programming,” Channel Five’s owner, newspaper magnate and former porno magazine baron, Richard Desmond, told a press conference yesterday. “Celebrity Tit Wank, in which several big-busted micro celebrities will attempt to wank off various Z-list personalities using only their breasts, is to be the mainstay of our new weekday schedules.” With viewers able to bet by phone on which celeb will ejaculate over whose breasts first, Five hopes to retain much of its current overnight TV casino audience. “Clearly, such a programme is going to appeal to a predominantly young heterosexual male audience,” Desmond conceded, in response to criticisms that the new programming seemed to be aimed at a very narrow viewing demographic. “To satisfy older viewers and those of differing sexual orientations, we also have Up the Chutney, in which a studio audience has to judge which celebrities take it up the chutney most by the expressions on their faces as they are anally penetrated by the show’s host.” The Daily Express supremo added that the show would also feature a light-hearted round where the celebrities would have to guess what the ‘penetrator’ had smothered their penis in – margarine, crunchy peanut butter, olive oil, even chutney.

Desmond, who also owns various ‘adult’ channels, assured the gathered journalists that the new overnight schedules wouldn’t entirely consist of sexually-orientated game shows. “We’re developing a very exciting format for Keith Allen, in which he surprises unsuspecting public figures by farting at them through a long brass horn,” he explained. “There’s a very amusing sequence in the pilot in which Keith nearly gives former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a heart attack when he slips his horn through the open window of her living room while she’s asleep in an armchair. He gets the bell-end right next to her ear before letting rip! She’s so startled by the amplified trump she falls out her chair clutching at her chest. Pure satirical genius, I think you’ll agree.” The newspaper owner also outlined plans for a ‘hidden camera’ show, in which the presenters would risk life and limb baiting notoriously short-tempered and violent celebrities. “It’s a bit like an urban version of the late Steve Irwin’s programmes,” he muses. “Its real edge of the seat stuff, as the likes of Russell Crowe charge the camera.”

Having already tried to boost Britain’s fifth terrestrial channel’s prime time ratings by importing tried and tested classic formats such as Big Brother, Desmond is hoping to apply the same approach to the night time schedules. “I’ve commissioned one the country’s top independent production companies to come up with suitably ‘adult orientated’ versions of existing shows,” he explained to the press conference. “These guys have a track record second to none – they’ve already come up with classic shows like Opportunity Knockers and Wankety Wank for Filth TV. Pure, bloody genius!” Indeed, Tom Follacker, creative director of Handjob Productions, is already working on a new format intended to be the centrepiece of Five’s overnight schedules. “We’ve cleared the most important hurdle – we’ve got a title which sounds like a porno variant of an already existing popular show,” he explained to journalists. “We’re confident that we can build a fantastic show around the title Feel, or No Feel?, it’s just a question of coming up with a format to go with it.”

Follacker admitted that initial discussions of the format had revolved around devising a game show similar to the popular Deal, or No Deal. “I suppose the obvious format would be a variation on Deal, Or No Deal, except that instead of having to guess how much money is in a particular box, contestants have to decide whether to dip their hands into the box and feel what’s there,” he said. “It could be a thousand pounds, or it could be a huge turd. It’s all a gamble. Alternatively, there could be a set of boxes with plaster casts of celebrity whangs, buttocks, vaginas and breasts, and the contestants have to guess who they belong to by just feeling them.” However, this approach ultimately foundered on the rocks of possible copyright infringement. “Our legal team thought that there was a very strong possibility of being sued by Channel Four if we went with either of those formats,” Follacker conceded. “So, we decided that we needed a more radical approach to the project, taking it to places no other terrestrial channel other than Five would dare to screen.”

The Feel, or No Feel? version Handjob are now working on promises to stir controversy if it ever airs, confronting the emotive issue of sex offending in an entertainment format. “We envisage sex pests being put to the ultimate test, with hidden cameras watching to see if they can resist groping attractive women on the tube, or in cafes and the like. An agonising choice – should they take the thousand pounds or go for a quick feel?” Follacker explained to journalists. “Nipping off to a public toilet to relieve themselves with a quick one off the wrist would result in instant disqualification, unless they’ve done a deal with the mysterious ‘Wanker’, who calls them on their mobile and offers them the opportunity for a quick handy shandy before the next temptation rolls up, in exchange for a proportion of their potential prize money. The tension could be cranked up throughout the show, with girls in shorter and shorter skirts bending down right in front of contestants, virtually rubbing their lovely arses in their faces.” According to the creative director, rather than being tasteless exploitation, this programme proposal actually represents public service television at its best. “We’re trying to do society a favour here, by finding out whether these guys are really safe to be out on the streets,” he enthused. “By using this format, we’ll be able to take the debate over whether it is safe to release sex offenders into the community to the kind of audience who would never watch Panorama.” Handjob Productions has yet to engage a presenter for the proposed series, although Follacker already has some ideas. “The obvious route could be the best – we need to poach Noel Edmonds from Deal, or No Deal,” he mused. “I have no doubt that with Noel officiating over the whole thing and asking the crucial question – “Feel, or no feel?” – this could be a real winner!”

Desmond dismisses suggestions that this proposed new overnight schedule is, if anything, even more down market than existing offerings. “Big breasts, masturbation, taking it up the bum, farting, drunken violence and sex offenders – our new programmes are perfectly tailored to the average post-pub post-midnight viewer,” claimed the newspaper proprietor, who had told the Levenson enquiry that the concept of ethics confused him. “Far form showing contempt for our audiences, I’d say we’re actually in danger of over estimating their intelligence.”