Courtesy of CBS

"The whole thing makes me sick. It's fixed! The sooner the people who created the show—and the pinheads here at the network who thought it was a good idea—go to prison, the happier I'll be."
—David Letterman

Ever since the first English ships washed up on the fatal shores of Australia in 1788, the Aussies have done their best to turn this fine continent into the Zoo From Hell. First they imported hares, which bred like, well, rabbits, and ate everything in sight; then they imported foxes, which bred like rabbits, and ate everything in sight except rabbits, then they introduced the housefly, which also bred like rabbits and didn't eat much of anything, but laid eggs in everyone else's excrement (praise God the Aussies never imported Ralph Nader). Then in 1935 certain ratbags in Far North Queensland, near the site where the malarkey of Survivor Out Back was taped, decided that the only way to save their sugar cane harvests from the Greyback beetle and its teenagers, the Greyback grubs, was to import an amphibian from Hawaii called the cane toad. But to the horror of the farmers, who thought they had the beetle by the balls, Mr. and Ms. Bufo Marinus ate everything in sight except the Greybacks, which gave them the strength to what cane toads do best—and that's make more toads. Well, that, and secrete a deadly toxin from glands in their backs that kills any native animal who tries to eat them.

There was a slim window of opportunity when the toad could have been wiped out, saving the Big Down Under from the environmental storm to come. Yet, the Aussies just never seem to learn. Last fall they had a chance to shield their munchkins from something far worse than the cane toad, and that's American "reality" television. But no, they let producer Mark Burnett and his band of incompetent, pig-sticking psychopaths get away clean. Now, from Sydney to Humpty Doo the kiddies and all the rellies (that's Aussie, you know, for relatives) have already been exposed to the kind of mind-eating drivel that makes toad toxin seem like a shot of cane brandy with a Foster back. Unlike Yank viewers, they've never built up the antibodies they need to fight this pestilence, and so have no natural defenses when they hear Alicia say to Kimmi: "I'm tired of you and your f*****g chickens," and "I will not be treated like a jerk-off." Or when Kimmi retorts, "What the hell's up your butt?" Or when Michael informs the hapless Kimmi that her personal hygiene practices are not up to snuff and "if you told me I had a booger hanging out of my nose I wouldn't get all defensive." Or when Colby "the Cheesesteak" Donaldson refers to himself as The Colbster. Or when Jeff Varner announces: "I have a fire in my woolie."

The only good thing about Episode Five was the banishment of Kimmi from the Kuchas, and that's because I will no longer have to suffer sympathetic cramps watching her grimace with what unctuous host Jeff Probst described on Letterman as fourteen days of life-threatening constipation. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get relief like this again till Survivor Out Back fades into the bush nine torturous episodes from now. Because I have to watch it due to the community service that is punishment for my sins (trespassing on the Malaysian island where Survivor The First was taped last April), you don't have to, gentle watcher. Next week I suggest you rent instead the finest flick the Australians have ever made, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. Imagine the result if The Kids in the Hall produced the winner at the International Wildlife Film Festival. You'll laugh. And you'll cry.

Speaking of crying, in retaliation for the murder of Piglet by Mike-o The Psycho Skupin, which is being investigated by Australian animal protection authorities, I have decided to organize a boycott of the most appropriate Survivor Out Back sponsor. Don't eat at Burger King until CBS apologizes! Write or call your nearest outlet and tell them that Piglet Lives!