South Padre Island, TX, residents -- such as this surf fisherman -- welcomed news that MTV pulled the South Padre reality TV series due to new Texas teen tanning law in effect on January 1, 2010. (photo in the public domain)
MTV scraps plans for South Padre
by shf
January 1, 2010
NEW YORK (FASTLAUGH.com) – MTV abruptly announced yesterday that it had scrapped plans for the new reality show, South Padre, modeled after its hit series Jurzee Shore, due to a new Texas law placing heavy restrictions on teen tanning that goes into effect today.
South Padre had been envisioned as a younger-skewing extension of the controversial Jurzee Shore franchise, but development executives at MTV were clearly caught off guard yesterday upon learning of, and then misinterpreting, the new law requiring teenagers to have parental consent when going to tanning beds in Texas.
MTV’s sudden announcement was triggered as the consequence of several of its Twitter-obsessed staffers tweeting and then retweeting erroneous information about the new Texas law.
What started out as as an internal advisory alerting that “Texans between ages 16 1/2 and 18 must provide consent forms signed by their parent or legal guardian in order to use tanning beds,” rapidly morphed into the frantic, “Teenagers must be accompanied by their parents when going to tanning beds in Texas.”
An anonymous MTV executive, closely associated with the show and still stunned by this development, confided that “…MTV had been looking towards leveraging the Jurzee Shore franchise into the mid-teen market by featuring a pack of socially-arrested, self-obsessed high school students working on their tans while sharing a spring-break beach house on South Padre Island this March.”
He added, “…we didn’t count on Texas passing a stupid law requiring teens to bring their mommies and daddies with them when they tan. That kinda makes for crappy TV, and MTV won’t make crappy TV.”
South Padre Island, Texas, had been selected as an ideal location for extending the Jurzee Shore formula due to the vast pool of socially-arrested, self-obsessed teens living in Texas.