I Have Broken Up With 'Cops'

 

Fox has never been my favorite network channel. Sure they kept Firefly on for all of 10 minutes and gave a chance to In Living Color, 21 Jump Street and Married With Children (my Mom's all time favorite show) but now they have done something that even I can't forgive them for.

For twenty years I have made no excuses for the fact that I love the show COPS. It's so stupid and you can always been guaranteed that if some numnut without a shirt was causing trouble, that he would be prominently featured after running from both the cop and the dog. Entertainment doesn't get any better than that.

For the past month or so I have noticed that COPS is not in it's regular Saturday night spot. It's not like the show costs any money to make because basically all you need is a camera and some cops on patrol. The rest of the program just takes care of itself.

 

So here I was, all happy that they had three episodes of COPS RELOADED on my torrent download site and silly Calvin assumed that this was the new EXTREME version of the show I so loved.

Then I found out that it was on the CMT (Country Music Television) and the RELOADED part consisted of clips of the best of 25 years of the Fox show highlighting toothless numnuts I have already watched break the law before. This is just a cheap way to make money off those lyrically bankrupt hillbillies that both sing and watch CMT.

Suddenly all that delicious Schadenfreude is now directed back at me and I have to go all the way to Australian TV to find a show similar to COPS here in North America. Sure, Australians can act like idiots when they drink but there are no finer stoned or drunk losers on film than in the USA. I know that and you all know that. Trying to sell me on a polite police force that doesn't even use tasers - well to me that is an abomination.

I'm hurt.

I feel abandoned.

I almost want to go out and commit a crime just to get my fix but they won't film me unless I do something really bad IN PUBLIC and frankly, they no longer deserve such devotion from me.

I am done with COPS. I have been with that show longer than most married couples. I should get some kind of settlement in our break-up because broken-up is what we are now. Don't call me or write to me. And those old reruns of COPS that I would have on in the background as I multitasked? Well you can forget about those too.

 

For the past 25 years, ‘Cops’ has been bringing us the stories of police officers as they encounter shirtless drunks, belligerent prostitutes and clueless thieves. It’s one of the longest-running shows on television and remains an intensely guilty pleasure, but its upcoming season, which starts next month, may be its last, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In order to make room for sports, Fox has reduced the number of episodes it typically orders, leading ‘Cops’ co-creator John Langley to call the show’s future “uncertain and problematic.” In fact, Fox ordered only 16 episodes for the upcoming season, down from 45.

To date, the show has earned $400 million in reruns alone, but it consistently gets bumped for college football and other sports. Fox is being cagey about the show’s future and has only said there’s no official decision yet. But this doesn’t necessarily mean the end. If not renewed, the show’s creators may bring it to cable instead.

Whatever the fate of the venerable show, today’s current crop of reality TV owes ‘Cops’ a huge debt. Without it, there’d be no ‘Steven Seagal: Lawman,’ ‘Lizard Lick Towing’ or ‘Parking Wars.’ Hell, there probably wouldn’t even be a ‘Billy the Exterminator.’ So, join us in (possibly) mourning the granddaddy of them all.