What’s Life Without Shock-Till-You-Drop Programming?

After the huge backlash following the airing of “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?,” the Fox television network announced that it would no longer produce or broadcast such reality specials as “When Good Pets Go Bad,” “Alien Autopsy” or “World’s Scariest Explosions,” bringing an era of exploitation to an end.

“They’re gone,” a top Fox executive said. “They’re over.”

America is in mourning. Strangers are stopping one another to share the news. Some weep openly.

“Busted on the Job” is gone.

Like Camelot, like Brigadoon, this shining city on a hill has vanished, leaving behind only bittersweet memories.

Fox has now officially brought this Brass Age of Television to a close. No more attacking Chihuahuas. No more alien hand puppets prostrate on the autopsy table. No more Masked Magicians.

And no more “Busted on the Job.”

America weeps.

The “Busted on the Job” family had become our family. Treasured moments shared as surveillance cameras rolled. The office worker urinating into the coffee pot. The secretary photocopying her breasts. The man on the graveyard shift enjoying sexual congress with a pinata. Indelible images that defined our modern world. Confirmed and italicized our humanity. A world-class reunion for the dysfunctional Family of Man. Now, like the bon mots swapped around the Algonquin Round Table, the moral crusades of Edward R. Murrow and the criminally underappreciated work that marked the Syndicated Era of “Hee Haw,” their time has passed.

Yes, with a frightening cold-blooded calculus, it has been decided that “quality” will once again run roughshod over prime time. Programs that “enlighten” will trample programs that once aspired to frighten. Programs that “educate” will replace those that quietly, in their own modest way, just wanted the chance to nauseate.

In this cruel, Darwinian world of natural and unnatural selection, Armani ayatollahs now plot ways to force-feed the public a steady diet of carefully crafted, emotionally resonant dramas and witty, sophisticated, Noel Coward-esque comedies that appeal to the best in their fellow man (and women--provided, of course, they are in the coveted 18-34 age demographic).

But where does this leave the chef blowing his nose on a customer’s steak? The disgruntled waitress spitting in the coffee? The receptionist relieving herself on the boss’ couch?

With no place to go. Alone. Friendless.

Gone from a network that no longer has the time to care.

Will this mad rush to “respectability” forever change the way we look at our world--or, at least, the way we look at it during ratings sweeps?

Sadly, yes.

They’re over.

The electronic campfire has grown much colder.

“Busted,” we hardly knew ye.

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Although Erik Nelson has absolutely no hidden agenda in writing this, it probably should be mentioned that in a previous life, he was the executive producer of “Busted on the Job,” Roman Numerals I, II, III, IV and, of course, V.