In line with the network’s never-ending quest to force-feed teenagers and children sexually explicit material, MTV’s new puppet series, Warren the Ape (Mondays, 10:30 p.m. ET), barrages young viewers with non-stop references to pedophilia, prostitution, pornography, masturbation, and drug use. The premiere episode, shown on June 14th, was definitely the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.

The premise of Warren the Ape is itself a pathetic parody of so much of the “celeb-reality” programming that passes for entertainment on MTV’s sister network VH1 (both channels are owned by entertainment giant Viacom). Warren is a small, furry puppet and presumably a former star of a children’s program, a “D-list celeb trying to clean up his act.” The episode’s first scene shows real-life therapist and VH1 omnipresence Dr. Drew Pinsky (star of Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew) talking to the puppet as if it were a real person.

Dr. Drew interviews Warren about drug and alcohol use. Warren says he drinks a few airline bottles of alcohol a day.

Warren: “It's probably in the area of a (bleeped s***) load.”

Dr. Drew: “Pot?”

Warren: “Yeah.”

Dr. Drew: “Cocaine?”

Warren: “Snorting, only habitually.”



Later, Warren decides to surreptitiously make a sex tape of fellow puppet Chauncey the Bear. Chauncey enters a motel room with Peg the prostitute. Peg removes her pants, with the viewer seeing her panties. Chauncey removes his own, revealing a blurred but unmistakably large penis.



Warren: “Holy (bleeped s***)! Just one more reason to hate the son of a bitch!”



Peg has sex with Chaucney while Waren watches singing, “I put my (bleeped c***) inside your (bleeped p****).”



As a result of Warren’s maneuvers, Chauncey the Bear becomes a porn star. The episode concludes at an awards show for pornographic movies, where a porn actress shows her behind to cameras, with her crotch blurred for exposed genitalia; Chauncey discusses the size of his penis with male porn actor; and a porn actress approaches him and offers to “do the motorboat,” after which she buries his head in her cleavage and batters his face with her breasts. Ultimately, Chauncey wins an award consisting of a vibrator attached to pedestal, which Warren rubs in a sexual manner.



Nor has the program’s gut-wrenching combination of children’s puppets and explicit sex abated. The June 21st episode featured Warren recounting picking up a woman in a bar, going home with her, and waking up “with a cattle prod in my ass;” a scene set in a bordello, in which Warren introduces his fellow puppet “Greg the Bunny” to prostitutes and Internet porn; and a concluding scene in which he urges Greg to go to a young girl’s house for sex, which results in the puppet being arrested as a child molester.



The episode also included Warren bellowing to his friend what could be a MTV’s own credo: “You are a loser!...I’m a degenerate gambler, I’m a sex addict and I’m a drug addict, and I am less of a loser than you are! I mean, godd**** it, God gave you a set of (bleeped f******) balls!” After Greg is arrested as a pedophile, Warren addresses his therapy group, yelling, “Abstinence does nothing!” Considering that the network habitually rates Warren the Ape as being appropriate for 14-year-olds, a better summation of MTV’s corporate message – and the attitude which it is inculcating in children – could hardly be imagined.