Get ready for a new TV network – Total Honesty Sports

Anchor: Welcome to the halftime show on this, our inaugural broadcast of the THS network. Total Honesty Sports is your source for the truth, and nothing but the truth throughout this coming season. I'm Handsome Anchordude.

Let me say right up front: The game has been a huge snooze for two quarters. Central Institute leads Big Valley State 3 to 0, and both teams look as if they'd rather be watching reruns of "La Femme Nikita." But who cares what I think? Let's go down to the field, where our correspondent, Sideline Blondie, is standing by with Big Valley's head coach, Duffy Hedgefield.

Blondie: Thanks, Handsome. Coach, you're trailing right now but it's not a huge deficit. How do you feel about your team's first-half performance?

Coach: Well, our guys are giving it a great effort, and I saw a lot of good things happening on the field...

Blondie: Excuse me, Coach, but when your school signed the TV contract with Total Honesty Sports, you agreed to drop the blather.

Coach: Oh, right. Well, in that case, I'm pretty well disgusted with this whole mess. Our team played like a herd of dairy cows waiting to be milked. I'm surprised we're not behind by 50 points.

Blondie: Your quarterback, Rocky Jensen, didn't complete a single pass in the first half. What kind of adjustments does he have to make?

Coach: Hard to say. If forward passes were garbage, Rocky is pretty much a human landfill right now. But he may just be distracted. I noticed he spent a lot of time hitting on you, over by the Gatorade cooler.

Blondie: Do you think your team can turn things around in the second half?

Coach: A little improvement would be nice, but you know that old saying – twice nothing is still nothing.

Blondie: Looking this bad in the opening game – what kind of impact is that going to have on the rest of your season?

Coach: Well, 20 years ago, we'd call a team meeting and talk about how to get better. Now the kids just go back to their dorms and post nasty comments about me on MySpace.

Blondie: Well, Coach, maybe you can address some of those issues in the locker room right now. Thanks for talking with us.

Coach: Hey, my pleasure. I'm glad I didn't have to bore everybody with platitudes. You guys really think this honesty approach is gonna work?

Blondie: Sports is just the beginning. We're already planning a spinoff channel on politics.

Coach: Honey, have you folks gone loopy?

The country needs more political talk like Martha Stewart needs another holiday pudding recipe.

Blondie: Point taken, Coach, but Americans seem to have an insatiable appetite for whatever TV dishes out. You agree, Anchordude?

Anchor: Blondie, I'm with you like white on rice. One thing we definitely don't need is another 30 minutes of dairy cow gridlock, so let's hope Duffy can get his herd of Guernseys moving in the second half. You're watching Total Honesty Sports. As we say at THS: The truth is right here. Can you handle it?

• Jeffrey Shaffer writes humor from Portland, Ore.