It seems Mike Judge's dark, dystopic vision of a functionally brain-dead society, who require nothing more than watching grown men getting thwacked in the nuts to be entertained, wasn't quite so far off into our distant, idiocratic future as we might have hoped: Variety is reporting that ABC has ordered a new reality competition from the producer of Fear Factor, called Ow! My Balls! Wipe Out.

ABC is teaming with Endemol USA and "Fear Factor" showrunner Matt Kunitz to produce "Wipe Out," a reality competition designed to produce what the network hopes will be "the most crashes, face plants, impacts and wipeouts ever seen on television." [...]

"There's just something inherently funny about watching someone wipe out, as long as they're not seriously hurt," said Endemol USA topper David Goldberg. "It's why we watch Charlie Chaplin or cartoons."

Developed and exec produced by Kunitz, "Wipe Out" will feature 24 contestants trying to make their way through increasingly tough obstacle courses. "But the courses are designed to make people crash and burn," Goldberg said, explaining that there will be wipeouts "from the minute the show starts."

Comforted by Goldberg's trenchant insights into how and why non-life-threatening injury makes for foolproof comedy (you don't get to top Endemols without occasionally demonstrating some deeper understanding of the human condition!), dare we say we might even find ourselves looking forward to Wipe Out's premiere. It will be nice to have a place on the primetime schedule where we feel safe to point and laugh at other people's pain, free of the guilt of indulging those gut-busting few seconds between the moment an American Gladiator contestant falls onto his skull from the jousting podium, and eventually starts to move again.

• ABC falls for 'Wipe Out' [Variety]

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