Sex, check. Drugs, check. What, no rock & roll?

October 10, 2005 3:39 PM

Today in the Netherlands, public broadcaster BNN aired the first episode of sex- and drug-themed television show "Spuiten en Slikken"; the punning title translates to either "Shoot Up & Pop (Pills)" or "Squirt & Swallow". [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (21 comments total)

With the first episode of the live 11PM show just finished, forthcoming shows promise to include a 'reporter' using LSD under his mother's watchful eye and taking heroin in pill form. On tonight's show, he went on an Amsterdam drinking binge while in the studio, his colleague watched a couple¹ make love in a sealed conference room and ended up joining in.

The show's creators insist they do not intend to create an outcry - as the female presenter said during the programme: "If theres anything we don't want to do with this programme it’s get people onto drugs."² However, press announcements of the show did cause dissent with the Dutch Christian Democrat Party, and encouraged a Good Morning America camera crew to fly over for an interview with a presenter.

The programme being live, people are encouraged to phone in or send e-mails. As one viewer wrote during the show: "Could you [presenters] please refrain from smoking at the table during the show?"<sup>2

1</sup>: I bet they were really professionals in their field, if you catch my drift.
²: Translation mine.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:40 PM on October 10, 2005

Note: some of these links are in Dutch, because an English-language equivalent could not be found. Translations upon request.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:41 PM on October 10, 2005

Is there any premise aside from the guy doing drugs and being on tv at the same time? Is it educational, informative, info-tainment? Just stupid filler between news broadcasts?

Because some of it sounds like discarded Tom Green episodes.
posted by fenriq at 3:54 PM on October 10, 2005

Wasn't this discussed when the show was original announced? Was the consensus not, "who gives a shit? it's a tv show."?
posted by dobbs at 4:02 PM on October 10, 2005

Is it educational, informative, info-tainment?

That's certainly what it purports to be:

"It certainly isn't shock TV," Van den Broek emphasizes. "Rather, we want to demonstrate well and thoroughly for once what it does to you."

posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:03 PM on October 10, 2005

Wasn't this discussed[...]?

Was it? I've done the search but couldn't find a link. If I am mistaken, please prove me wrong.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:05 PM on October 10, 2005

TV presenters on drugs? Whoah! Never happened before...

(Disclaimer: As a matter of fact I am a resident of the Netherlands myself, but I'm sure that cocaine is as unknown a substance in the rest of the world's TV studios as it is here)
posted by Skeptic at 4:10 PM on October 10, 2005

Discussed here with a cryptic title.
posted by phatboy at 4:13 PM on October 10, 2005

I hope they will soon announce audience participation so I can plan my vacation around their filming (or shooting).
posted by Postroad at 4:18 PM on October 10, 2005

Have any torrents of this appeared?
posted by freedryk at 4:21 PM on October 10, 2005

I hope they will soon announce audience participation so I can plan my vacation around their filming (or shooting).

Ratings Bonanza Gold!
posted by y2karl at 5:26 PM on October 10, 2005

Since we're being astonished once more by the Dutch, meet Victor (or Dr Evil), Mirjam, and Bianca.

I just wonder how they divvy up the flatware if it breaks up.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:14 PM on October 10, 2005

Perhaps the point is that it will be deeply uninteresting.
posted by I Love Tacos at 6:27 PM on October 10, 2005

People fucking live on TV is uninteresting? Remind me to send my regrets to your wedding invitation. Personally, anything that raises the hackles of FoxNews is Green Acres, the place for me. Pharm livin' is the life for me. Of course, I'm a big fan of the Dutch anyway.

Not that I, you know, care. It's a TV show.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:24 PM on October 10, 2005

Where can I get heroin in pill form?
posted by mrhappy at 10:03 PM on October 10, 2005

I read about this awhile back. They say they're just doing a little pop science on topics about which most people are interested. Wouldn't surprise me if there isn't much more to it than that.
posted by dreamsign at 10:11 PM on October 10, 2005

Paul, i was sort of hoping you wouldn't feed the fox-news-holland-bashing type of trolls. By giving this more attention than it deserves, i think you're only strengthening the wrong idea people have about the netherlands..

(perhaps it should be mentioned that wooden shoes are made in taiwan, imported to the netherlands, and then sold to gullible tourists)
posted by Mijnkopthee at 12:30 AM on October 11, 2005

> Where can I get heroin in pill form?

Nowhere. There wouldn't be any point to it.

Here in the home of heroin prescribing, we prescribe it almost exclusively for use by injection, because it just isn't very effective when prescribed orally -- it breaks down to morphine, and so offers no advantages over that drug when used orally.

Here's a list of the various opiate preparations used in palliative care over here. The Oramorphs and the MST's are various preparations of morphine sulphate for oral use. As you can seem, diamorphine (or heroin) is only available as an ampoule for injection.

My personal preference here would be for the 100 mg "man sized", or the 500mg "jumbo sized party pack" diamorphine ampoules, the latter containing a full half a gram of pure pharmacutical heroin in a single dose.

Lets see our Dutch TV presenters try one of those on live television.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:10 AM on October 11, 2005

500mg? Jesus, wouldn't that kill an 800lb junkie?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 3:31 AM on October 11, 2005

This sounds like a logical extension to the great BBC series Body Hits.
posted by fFish at 6:29 AM on October 11, 2005

Paul, i was sort of hoping you wouldn't feed the fox-news-holland-bashing type of trolls.

I don't think anyone interprets this post as trying to do that at all. (I thought the 'moralpanic' tag would be a giveaway.) There aren't that many of those trolls to be found here anyway, at least not in this thread (so far, knock on wood). If anything, I felt it was unique and interesting enough to be postworthy, and I tried to present the material in the most neutral way possible.

As for people having a wrong image of the Netherlands, people on MeFi tend to be better informed than in many other places, and if they're not they're often genuinely interested (rather than judgmental).

Also, where have you *been*, say, this past year? :)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:22 AM on October 11, 2005