I just finished up a project at work: something I dubbed The Great Sling.com Rewatch. The idea is, we have a lot of shows’ full runs on the site; why not watch all the episodes in order and do little recaps? Obviously, I had to start with The Paper: it’s new (to the site), it’s brilliant, and it had a (tragically) short run. (The show logline, if you’ve never seen it, is that it’s an MTV reality show set at the newspaper of a Florida high school.)
Don’t feel like combing through the whole Sling.com blog to find all my posts? Let me make it easy for you!
- “Race For Editor-In-Chief” is where we discover which of the Cypress Bay overachievers is going to run the titular paper.
- “The New School Year Begins” finds the kids going…uh, back to school.
- “Friday Night Fights” shows us what band the “cool kids” on the paper want to see. And it will make you laugh.
- “Deadline Duel” is where we see the staff putting together their first issue (and fighting about it).
- “The Vietnam Of Newspapers” is kind of overstating how bad things backslide at The Circuit, but not by a lot.
- “Homecoming”! Self-explanatory. Football, dance.
- “Superteen Bonding” really should have been called “The Legend Of Michael Jan.”
- “The Final Showdown” is, as its title implies, the end. Too soon, MTV. Too soon.
Now, I know for a fact that some of you out there are resisting the pull of The Paper. That’s right, Mark Blankenship! I am calling you out in front of the entire internet! You’re trying to tell me you didn’t get into slap fights with the other people in whatever dorky subculture you were part of in high school? You totally did. You will recognize everything that happens on this show, and cringe, and love it.
Finally, Amanda Lorber. I know you live in New York now. Maybe you’re looking for an intern job for the summer? I might have one. Get in touch.
