
If Computer Nerds Controlled Network Programming
by Robert S. Coats
  
Gilligan's Island:
  
The Professor finds some rare binary coconuts that can be used to
upgrade the ROM in his bamboo clone modem to support X.25.  After
hours of effort, he manages to establish a connection via his papaya-
based VT 100 terminal and satellite uplink with Telenet, but falls
asleep from exhaustion.  Gilligan walks up and types "+++" then "ATH"
and drops the line. The Skipper beans him with a rock and finally
loses it, his seafaring years catch up with him and he starts making
lewd remarks about playing Leisure Suit Larry IV with Mary Ann.
Meanwhile, Mr. Howell finally figures out how to work the ISDN set
that was accidentally dropped by a passing JAL jet and has a heart
attack when he hears via Dow Jones News Retrieval that the stock 
market has soared above 3000 points.  Ginger calls CompuServe and
emails some software developers in an effort to convince them that
she should would be a good model for MacStripPoker 2.0.  Eventually,
all connectivity on the island is lost, when Gilligan discovers an
actor in a bad gorilla costume has shorted pins 2&3 on the serial
cable, and everybody on the island has just been echoing characters
to each other.
  
Beverly Hillbillies

Miss Jane tries to convince Mr. Drysdale to network all the PCs in
the bank, but, typically, he won't spend the money.  Frustrated, Miss
Jane pleads with Jed Clampett to persuade Mr. Drysdale to "put in the 
LAN," but Jed thinks she said "put in the ham."  Jed then gets Granny
to cook up a dozen hams and has Jethro and Ellie Mae bring them to
the bank.  When they arrive, everybody is out to lunch, so Jethro
begins to distribute the hams, but is frustrated when he can't get
the coaxial cable to stay attached to the ham bone.  To further
complicate matters, Ellie May has brought along her pet goats, which
begin to eat the ham and cable, causing the the VAX to short out and
force an emergency electronic fund transfer of the Clampett millions
to a competitive bank.  As Mr. Drysdale is seen chasing Miss Jane
down the hall with a crazed look in his eye, swinging a ham at her,
Jed is heard to remark, "Weee- doggie!  Why look at that Granny.  Mr.
Drysdale is so happy about whut we done, he's gonna give Miss Jane
her own ham!"
  
The Brady Bunch
  
Peter uses Qmodem to dial into the high school computer and, through
hacking tricks picked up from a local "adults only" BBS, is able to
access individual student's "permanent records." He scans through the
listings, then, using a clever keyboard macro, alters his completed
courses such that he won't be required to take English Lit again.
Unfortunately, Jan is working in the school office at the time and is
alerted to the invasion by a diligent anti-viral TSR.  She is then
tormented with having to decide to do the "right thing" or be loyal
to her brother.  Jan goes home and talks to Alice, who says she
should analyze all the factors and then decide after using the new
artificial intelligence software Mr. Brady has recently installed on
his '386 laptop.  Jan tries to use the program, but instead
accidentally deletes all the files in the Harvard Graphics directory,
leaving Mr. Brady to blow a presentation the next day.  Mrs. Brady
finds out via Jan what happened, and forces Peter to write "I will
not hack into the school computer" 5000 times with EDLIN while the
rest of the family eats angel food cake on the patio.
  
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
  
Mr. Grant tells Mary to come up with some hard facts about all the
activity out in Silicon Valley.  Mary grabs her Macintosh Powerbook
and jumps on a plane west.  Unfortunately, she leaves the Mac
switched on and, due to an undiscovered bug in the latest release of
System and Finder, the hard disk continually optimizes itself when no
keyboard input is recorded for more than five minutes.  Needless to
say, she has a dead Mac when arriving and spends the next few hours
trying to find a replacement.  Meanwhile, Ted begins his broadcast
and notes that "We expected to have some good information about
Silicon Valley for this broadcast, but somebody had to take a Mac and
not a reliable laptop PC!"  Frantic, Mary calls long distance over
crystalline fiber optic lines to get help from Rhoda, who doesn't
answer the phone because she is playing Bomber and has the headphones
on.  However, Phyllis's snotty daughter is around and answers.  She
listens to Mary whine, then hangs up the phone.  Mary is last seen
violently flinging the Mac out a speeding taxi window while crossing
the Bay Bridge.                                                 {RAH}
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Robert S. Coats lives in Alpharetta, GA.  He's a silly person, a fact
confirmed by his being a user of The Puffin's Nest BBS, and by his
writing.

