Gloucester’s Next Reality Shows

With the smashing success of Wicked Tuna on National Geographic and its new spinoff Wicked Tuna: North vs South (which I guess I’ll have to recap… fantastic), we here at the Gloucester Clam realized that many millions of people will apparently watch hours upon hours of people mostly failing to catch fish.

We thought to ourselves, “Gloucester isn’t done cashing in on this trend. It’s been fifteen years of reality shows, and people aren’t tired of it yet. We can bang out a good dozen more reality series in this town alone.”

These were our clearly Emmy-worthy ideas.

1. Laundry Stars (on the brand new Laundry Network coming January ’15). A plucky East Gloucester laundromat owner faces the struggles of organic detergent clogging up the machines, sand and forgotten pocket chum in the dryers, and the constant smell of smugness emanating from somewhere they can’t quite find.

2. Storm Drain Heroes (Science Channel). Just like its predecessors, Storage Wars and Storage Wars: Sewer Edition, Storm Drain Heroes focuses on teams of bidders desperate to find that one lucky storm drain containing the historical maritime relics that will get them the cash to continue buying other storm drains. A true American underdog story, it will also contain hijinks like “Team Deborah finds a family of putrid, decaying raccoons” and “Team Bob Bought 5 cubic tons of dead leaves for $500 and he needs to pay for his daughter’s wedding!”ie

The cold hard cash is so close I can feel it!

3. Lobsteriest  Catch on National Geographic. This is pretty much just giving Joey C a show in which he can yell, which we are totally down with for reasons that include “pure awesome”. There will probably be high drama, some epic moments between boats fighting over lobster territory, random cutaways to butterflies and rainbows, and the entire thing will be underwritten by the butter industry.

This was a total stretch, but I just wanted to throw a Simpsons reference in somewhere.

4. Scrap Metal Men on the Military Channel. Cameras follow Gloucester’s elite team of scrap metal collectors in their 1987 Ford Rangers on their rounds during trash night, picking up stray bicycles that probably still belonged to somebody’s kid, fishing perfectly good beer cans out of the recycling, and ending up at North Shore Scrap Steel with their day’s catch. Each season will have a leaderboard, and the winner (if not predeceased in a terrible tetanus tragedy) will get bragging rights over the rest of the fleet. Kind of like the other show, but MORE METAL.

Exactly. Like. This.

5. Seagull Dynasty on Animal Planet. A ragtag “family” of unemployed men living out of campers invents a seagull-calling device to ensure dinner. Slightly less racist and homophobic than Duck Dynasty, but with all the folksy mannerisms and dependence on propane. The show lasts only one year after the creators realize no one actually has a need to call seagulls, and the company is sold for a pony keg of Natty Light.

6. Ed’s Mini Mart Ninja Warrior: A tournament where shoeless folks staggering like zombies, people pushing baby carriages with no babies in them, and rat-tailed men with open shirts picking half-smoked cigarettes off the ground compete in the most basic of physical feats to prove to the staff that they’re totally sober enough to buy $4 of Rubinoff vodka.