PBS Spoofs Reality TV With Awesome Fake Trailers: Watch Them Now!

New York PBS station pretends to bring you Clam Kings, Meet the Tanners and Long Island Landscapers

By Natalie Finn Jul 16, 2013 3:27 AMTags
Meet The TannersYoutube

We must admit, we're sold on all three.

The trailers for Clam Kings, Long Island Landscapers and...wait for it...Meet the Tanners all appear to be reality TV at its best, be it thanks to the bearded blokes taking the aesthetic value of pink flamingos super seriously or the group of absurd sunbathers who obviously haven't gotten the memo about the ozone layer. 

But New York's PBS station WNET, in an attempt to point out exactly what's wrong with television these days, didn't actually create three new series.

"I think the ability to tan is just something that you're, like, born with," brags one over-bronzed gal on Meet the Tanners.

Instructs a clam digger: "There's an unspoken clam digger oath—you stick to your territory."

Meanwhile, the landscapers are "going over the hedge."

So, which one is too "good" to be true?

If you made it to the end of all three, you now know that they're all fake.

"The fact you thought this was a real show says a lot about the state of TV. Support quality programming," reads a message capping off each one.

So while you have what's wrong with TV right in front of you, so do you have an example of what's oh-so-right about public broadcasting.

"We've been experimenting with humor as a way to cultivate new viewers and donors," WNET president Neal Shapiro told The Wrap. "And these spots are really fun."

The trailers are part of a larger viral campaign that started with posters for the equally awesome-sounding Married to a Mime, Bad Bad Bagboys, Knitting Wars and—our personal favorite—The Dillionaire.

Who, by the way, even has his own Twitter.

"Keep these guys away from my 3-acre front lawn," Ron Pickles tweeted today about, you guessed it, the guys from Long Island Landscapers