the Funnelwhich

Neighbors question judgment of Kid Nation participants’ parents

After parents involved in the Kid Nation program subjected their children to extreme negligence and exposed them to extreme danger, neighbors of many of those parents have begun to question their good judgment. “I used to trust John with everything,” Ashley says, who lives next door to John Badparent, long-time resident of this quiet, nondescript suburban place. John’s child, Nicholas, was placed into Kid Nation after John wanted some fame. You see, John was never famous as a child, and he decided to live vicariously through Nicholas. That way, his child could be straddled with the same emotional baggage.

“But now, not so much,” says Ashley, mother of two children herself. “I’m seriously thinking of returning a music CD John recommended to me,” referring to the All that Glitters album that sits—unopened—on her desk. This trend is pandemic across all Kid Nation parents, I’m told. One man reports not buying the fruit his neighbor used to recommend. “It was good fruit, but now I just get this awful, icky taste whenever I bite into one of Dan’s recommended apples.” Another reports vomiting upon reading the complete works of John Steinbeck, recommended to her again by a Kids Nation parent Scientists have yet to determine if Kid Nation is the sole cause of that problem.

Tom Forman, who was the main producer of the show, has lost all friends. According to him, people have begun doing the opposite of what he tells him. “Not out of spite,” he says. “They just distrust me that much.” Schoolchildren, as they should, throw eggs, egg cartons, and sometimes whole hens at him. The hens’ eggs either hatch and produce more hateful chickens or become violent projectiles thrown by the hens again at the evil, miserable spirit that is Tom Forman.

Upon being questioned, the spokesman for CBS would only yell desperately, “Mistreating children is cool, right? What with first-degree burns and starvation and whatnot. Teenagers like that stuff! We’re hip! We’re hip! We’re still relevant!”