12 Reasons The Cable Guy Is The Greatest Comedy Of The '90s

2. Somebody Has To Kill The Babysitter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hh3I4zJZMQ What was advertised as the next silly Jim Carrey comedy has, by movie's end, become another animal entirely. On the one hand, you have the darkly hilarious tale of a deranged cable guy trying to make friends with a young Gen X'er. On the other you hand, you have a story that was and is a snapshot of its times. A snapshot of a culture, entertained, influenced, and saturated, for better or worse, by television. By movies end, both hands have joined to teach the audience a serious/comic moral lesson about the danger of letting the only influence in your life be television. As Chip accurately states in a moment of great grand reflection:

You were never there for me were you mother? You expected Mike and Carol Brady to raise me! I'm the bastard son of Claire Huxtable! I am a lost Cunningham! I learned the "facts of life" from watching The Facts of Life! Oh God!

The basic point that Chip illustrates in this statement,(aka the moral of the story) is that it is not good for the children to be raised by the television set. That explains Chip's odd behavior throughout the whole movie. The TV was his babysitter, so he only learned to relate to people through the idiot box instead of real-life situations. Imagine how odd you would be if the only influence in your life was the crazy stuff that's piped in through your tube 24/7. Thankfully, by movie's end, Chip has finally gained clarity and perspective about his broken state. Seizing the moment, he offers himself up as a sacrifice so that the "little cable boys and cable girls out there can still have a chance." But how do you save them? How do you go about liberating a culture steeped in TV culture/bondage? By doing what someone should have done for Chip Douglas when he was young; kill the babysitter. The satellite that Chip respected earlier in the story as a means of promoting inter media connectivity is now seen as the enemy. The satellite is the obstacle that stands between people living in reality or living vicariously through reality TV. It had to be destroyed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufQ4OqI30e8 Odd to hear such grand human insight coming from a guy who became famous for talking out of his rear. In my opinion, "Someone has to kill the babysitter" is a grand cinematic socio-political statement. Similar to Howard Beale declaring, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." in the movie Network. Like Peter, Chip Douglas' sentiments go a long way in summing up the feelings of both his and our generations. The hope is that said generations' senses have not been so dulled by media immersion that they can't even respond to what Chip is trying to do. You gotta have faith. If he can get that fat guy (cameo by Kyle Grass of Tenacious D) to put down the remote and pick up a book, (cameo by Kyle Grass of Tenacious D) then there certainly must be hope.