Crying Wolf with Chris Marlton

Wool Wool Wool…
New Reality Show Canned Too Soon

Winter is finally over, so it’s time to burn all of your woolly jumpers again! But one foolish free-to-air television network has gone too far in their sheepskin destructive madness. Chris Marlton has the scoop!

The hit reality-TV sensation Woollen & Ready has been confusingly cancelled this week by SBS after only one season on the air. The show had broken all domestic Australian ratings records with viewing figures that would make the AEC jealous.

Australian Electoral Commissioner (AEC) Commissioner, Tom Rogers, denied this in a formal statement released through his office yesterday:

“We ain’t jealous of no-one, especially not no TV-show.”

Managing Director of SBS, George Savvides, has not been able to be reached for comment.

Woollen & Ready took the nation by storm in 2022 with its unusual approach. The show consisted of first-person perspective filmed via head-cameras mounted on the contestant. We followed as they battled to complete three long-form challenges over twelve months.

Airing every weeknight on SBS Viceland from 6pm till midnight, the six-hour running time was uninterrupted by traditional ad breaks, instead punctuated by contestants orating advertisements in a manner akin to Orson Welles’ Campbell’s Soup ads heard during his 1930s radio plays.

The show’s format pitted six teams of three, all of whom were throuples, against each other. Using ingenuity, stealth, and independent wealth to outperform each other, the following challenges were staged:

Challenge 1: Woolstock

The first task facing our throuples was to organise a one-off music festival in the style of famous “you had to be there” 1969 mega-concert, Woodstock.

The catch? It had to have a central theme of “Wool.”

At the end of the challenge the judges decide if the wool-theme usage was appropriate, scoring the task out of 100 based entirely on the woolly vibes. Some notable highlights that occurred during this task include:

Throuple Number 5: Candy, Steph and Jacob attempted to set up their festival on the salt plains of Lake Carey in Western Australia. Candy was adamant that:

“Rock bands love salt… and the sheep should too because Mountain Goats lick the salt off the sweaty skin of mountain climbers all the time.”

They managed to convince You Am I’s Tim Rogers (twin brother of AEC Commissioner, Tom Rogers) to headline the festival alongside Lou Bega of Mambo No.5 fame.

Shortly after Bega and Rogers arrived in the desert to join Candy, Steph, and Jacob, all five suffered from extreme dehydration due to salt consumption.

Their drastically lightened bodies were soon blown away by an unexpected haboob.

They have since been seen living together in a five-person polyamorous relationship in Norseman, 700 km east of Perth, inhabiting a caravan, and managing a broken-down ferris wheel. All five answer to new names since the strong desert winds stole their memories and humour.

They were disqualified from Woollen & Ready for no longer being in a Throuple.

Throuple Number 2: Jade, Lettie and Joose chose to hold their festival on the Hibernia Platform, 300km east of Newfoundland, Canada.

The Bern (as Lettie called it) is the world’s largest offshore oil-drilling platform, with the cold weather perfect for ensuring everyone wears as much wool as possible.

Jade and Joose were determined to hold the concert on The Bern when they heard about the 12,000 litre oil spill that occurred recently.

“We thought,” sang Joose in his dulcet tones, “that we could soak up some of the remaining oil with all the wool. Maybe help out the wildlife in the area a bit.”

Unfortunately, hiring the Hibernian Platform proved expensive, as it has already produced over $100 billion worth of oil, and is set to produce close to $150 billion more before the predicted field-depletion date in 2040.

In order to afford this, the three of them got jobs as rig workers for HMDC (subsidiary of ExxonMobil Canada and Chevron), where they are still currently working and making very good money for your information.

Challenge 2: Woolgarden

In the second task, the teams had to grapple with the design and construction of a robotic sheep believable enough to convince a farmer it was real.

Some executives at SBS argued that the manufacture of industrial cybernetics was outside the capability of the cast of a reality-TV show. Savvides soon talked them around (read: threatened their families).

Throuple Number 1: Bogart, Willis and Trent dove into this challenge head-on, with a can-do attitude and a positive spirit. Unfortunately, their bold strategy of using a combination of wire coat-hangers, old sheep parts from the butcher, and zombie voodoo techniques acquired from 1970s American horror films proved disastrous.

The results—which could generously be described as smelly—eventually caused a generation-defining flood of meat-borne zoonotic bacterial pathogens to contaminate both Trent and Willis.

Still emboldened by the enterprise, Bogart kept practicing the voodoo chants, and while Willis eventually passed away, Trent became an evil immortal.

Trent broke up with Bogart, left the show, and is currently streaming 16-bit console video games on Twitch.

Throuple Number 3: Vanessa, Melissa and Thumb were far more inventive. Both Thumb and Melissa have Cert III’s in mechanical bio-engineering, and soon put their knowledge into practice.

After two months they introduced the audience to Sheepbert, the robot Sheep. Their celebrations were short-lived however, as Sheepbert continued to learn at an alarming rate and soon became sentient.

For a number of weeks, Sheepbert was happy to shear itself, but grew bored with how slow the wool grew.

Sheepbert’s ever growing intelligence allowed it to self-upgrade and modify its mechanical DNA to make the wool grow at 350 times the original speed.

Despite Sheepbert shearing itself continuously at an alarming rate, the situation reached a horrible endgame when the speed of the wool-growth outstripped Sheepbert’s impressive self-shearing speed.

Sheepbert’s size was expanding exponentially, threatening to engulf the entire planet.

George Savvides stepped in and took charge. His Space Exploration Subsidiary, Cypriotic Endeavours, generated a space-time singularity on the opposite side of the sun.

This singularity generated an Event Horizon (also known as a Black Hole Sun). The now Moon-sized Sheepbert was flung into the Event Horizon, and 18 June will forever be remembered as The Night of the Woolly Moon.

Some scientists believe Sheepbert is still expanding on the other side of the Galaxy.

Challenge 3: Woolfully Ignorant

The third e Throuples to learn early 00s calligraphy along with a series of expert forgery techniques. The teams were tasked with forging World War One historical documents in an attempt to significantly changes perception of the history of Wool in War.

Throuple Number 6; Joan, Johnny and Jim learned the skills, but abruptly left the show and moved to Northern Europe where they are believed to be operating as professional confidence tricksters.

Throuple number 4; Xavier, Albrecht and Storb embraced the challenge and were extremely successful. This power-throuple’s forged accounts of sheep and goat based espionage are responsible for the recent renaming of Wooled War One.

Judge or be Judged

The show was judged by George Savvides and UK singer Seal. In the end, Throuple Number 3, Vanessa, Melissa and Thumb were narrowly awarded as winners for the creation of Sheepbert over Throuple number 4, Xavier, Albrecht and Storb and their changing of history.

No one is sure why SBS chose to cancel this very successful and scientifically aggressive Reality-TV show. But one thing we are sure of is that public perception of non-traditional romantic multi-partner relationships is continuing to be more accepted. Maybe it won’t be too long until Australia elects its first Polyamorous Prime Minister.

Chris Marlton is a comedian, writer, painter, and filmmaker. His comedy special Mephisto Waltz is available to watch for free on YouTube. All upcoming comedy shows are available at linktree/ChrisMarlton. Follow @chris.