I watched a lot of television when I was a kid. My favorite show was “G.I. Joe.” This program taught me almost everything I know about life. It taught me that it’s okay to run around firing machine guns and missiles at your enemies as long as you stop every 30 minutes to warn your audience about the dangers of campfires. If it weren’t for Hardball, Pathfinder, Storm Shadow and their many helpful public service announcements, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I’d be living a life of deplorable sin.

I was once a big fan of television. That’s why it saddens me to see what TV has become. Nearly every channel is inundated with crappy programming that would seem lowbrow to the average simian. You probably won’t find anything worthwhile on the major networks unless you want to watch a show about cops, lawyers or doctors.

Cable TV isn’t much better. The last I checked, The Discovery Channel is overrun with bad reality TV shows involving pets and scalpels. ESPN boasts a lineup of sporting events that is actually built around the advertisements that the network forces you to sit through. That’s where those shady “official’s timeouts” come from. They’re not stopping the action so the refs can talk. They’re stopping the game so that the millions of viewers can endure some painful ads for cars and beer. Thanks ESPN. I really appreciate the great messages from your sponsors.

No one tops MTV when it comes to commercials. This channel has become one big commercial. I don’t know what happened to the music or the television. All I know is that I apparently need to buy some shit, get some tattoos, and act like an annoying emo-ghetto douche in order to be cool.

I should probably mention that I have anger management issues. I don’t know why, but I often get the urge to fire bazookas and operate heavy artillery when I encounter troubles in life. I’ve learned to cope with this hideous tendency through guided meditation. I used to get angry when I thought about the state of television. It pissed me off that I’d have to find something else to do other than sit around watching a flickering box all day. It doesn’t bother me anymore. Now I just sit back and meditate. I count to 10. I think about peaceful things like flowers and birds.

That’s precisely what I was doing one day when a little bird flew into my apartment and informed me that the United States prison system is bloated and overpopulated. I killed the little bird with two stones. I then had what you might call an epiphany. I realized how we can kill two birds with one stone.

Do you like the movie “Gladiator”? Do you like the movie “Terminator”? Do you instinctively turn to look at the carnage when you drive by a car accident? If you answered yes to any of the preceding questions then you’d enjoy my new brainchild. It’s a television show. I haven’t thought of a name yet, but I’m leaning toward “Inmate Destruction Death Match.”

The idea is simple. We take the baddest inmates in the world and force them to duke it out on TV. I’m not talking about some sissy “American Gladiators” or “Celebrity Boxing” type stuff. I’m talking about pure, unbridled savagery. Each night’s episode would feature a card of exciting bouts to the death. Who wouldn’t tune in to see Jeffrey Dahmer battle Charles Manson in a chainsaw cage match? How about John Wayne Gacy fighting Ted Bundy in a pool of sharks? You get the idea.

People pretend not to like violence, but Steven Seagal keeps pumping out movies, so there’s clearly a market for ass-kicking entertainment. I think it happens to be a pretty big market. Gladiators were superstars in ancient Rome. Their battles were wildly popular. Society has changed since those days, but people are still fundamentally the same. If we build it then they will come.

So that’s my plan. Inmate Destruction Death Match. We can continue to waste gajillions of dollars feeding and housing convicted killers, or we can finally put them to work doing what they do best. I hate television. I hate wasting tax dollars. I think it’s time we start solving these problems. Write your local government officials. Tell them Cobra Commander sent you. He wants his TV back.