Chapter One -- The Pandemic Begins
During the global pandemic of 2018 a lot of hard working people financially struggled when their incomes were interrupted by the lock-downs and restrictions imposed on them at the time. Three such people were May Cleaver, Bobbie Billingsly and Hugo Beaumont. Their real names have been changed to protect their identities.
While people like May, Bobbie and Hugo struggled, others capitalized on the situation and found new ways to prosper. Judith Blossom and her husband Jerry were two such individuals.
Before the pandemic, Judith Blossom had been the popular host of a reality based courtroom show called Judge Judith's Justice; her husband was both its producer and announcer.
On March 19th, 2020 the State of California, where the show was filmed, issued a stay-at-home order for all 'non-essential' workers. The recording studio where the show was produced closed and production came to an abrupt halt.
For Judith and her husband the timing couldn't have been worse. Judy Justice's ratings had been dropping for months; the network was refusing to renew her contract and her production company had already sold the syndication rights for the next three years for less money than they were worth.
Also, at the time, the stock market, where Judith and her husband had heavily invested was going up and down like a roller coaster and the only source of income the couple had were the residuals from the show's syndication rights, which barely paid their bills. Even the wealthy wasn't to be spared the economic effects the pandemic caused.
So it was that one night, late in the month of April that year, with nothing else to do, Judith Blossom and her husband, like so many other Americans at the time, found themselves sitting bored in their living room channel surfing with the remote control, searching for something interesting to watch on television.
"What's that?" Judith asks.
Jerry had the remote at the time.
On the screen were a couple, a man and a woman both in their early twenties. The man was sitting on an over-sized couch, the woman was kneeling on the floor between his legs giving him a blowjob. Jerry answers dismissively, "A porn channel."
"How much are we paying for it?" demands Judith, thinking about the bills.
Jerry, knowing her concerns, quickly answers... "Nothing, it's part of your contract with the satellite providers. We've got every satellite channel there is both domestic and foreign."
"Hand me the remote please."
Curious about her sudden interest in porn he inquires, "Why? See something you like?"
"Just give it to me, Dear."
Jerry hands her the remote.
Judith scans up and down the channels, then stops on one.
"That looks like a reality based show. What's it called?"
He tells his wife to press the GUIDE button on the remote control. She does and he reads the description on the screen out loud. "Big Sister." Then explains, "It's supposed to be a parity of Big Brother but the actors are all porn stars and the sex is hardcore. Why, what are you thinking?"
"How long would it take your cousin to convert the garage into a studio?"
His cousin is a general contractor and had constructed the show set.
Jerry doesn't answer but instead inquires, "You want to become a porn star?"
"No Jerry, we're not that desperate yet." She expects him to answer her now and becomes impatient when he doesn't answer again. "I'm confused."
"I'm going to create the world's first totally adult oriented civil court. It'll specialize in non-violet disputes relating to sexual relationships. I intend to sell the episodes to whoever is willing to pay us the most for them." Judith replies.
He asks her if she is joking then realizes from the expression on her face she isn't. "It'll never work."
"Why?"
Somberly, Jerry replies, "First, the lock-down prohibits non-essential travel which means we can't have anyone come to the studio. Second, even if they could, who would you get to come on the show?"
"Doesn't matter and to answer your second question... anyone who needs the money bad enough that isn't a porn star."
Jerry wonders what she is thinking. "What do you mean it doesn't matter. How are you going to hold court without litigants and witnesses?"
"Webcams. After the participants sign appearance contracts, we'll send them web cams and provide them a link to a instruction video explaining to them how to set up the equipment." Then, anticipating his next question, she went explained... I don't want to use porn stars because I want everything to look real. Porn stars will be recognized everyone will assume the show is scripted. I want amateurs whose reactions will be genuine. Unlike other so-called reality based court room programs, Carnal Court, that's what we're going to call it, won't be just another small claims court where the 'judge' is an arbitrator settling financial matters.
The cases will be about discovering the truth and not settling a tort. Win or lose, everyone will get paid the same amount... $5,000.00 for appearing on the show."
The monetary considerations out of the way, Judith's husband returns to his second question. "Okay, now tell me how you propose to get your first batch of participants?"
"Tomorrow I'm going to open new accounts on all the major social media networks... Faceless, Chirper, Isntagram and YouNoob. Then Friday night I'm going to post an ad offering $5000 for people to appear on a new courtroom reality show. It will say something like 'Interested persons should join the Carnal Court Discourteous channel at 20:00 PST for more information.' There I'll post a link to the CarnalCourt.com, our new website which I'll pay that lazy son of ours to create for us. It's about time he does something with the IT degree he got."
Jerry thinks about her proposal and believing she has missed something says... "If you word it like that, you'll get tens of thousands of people showing up.
"Right and most of them will drop like flies when they find out what the show's really about. I figure we'll be lucky to get enough candidates to shoot five shows. After that, we'll have to hope the show is successful enough to bring in more participants."She pauses, then continues... "Now answer my question... how long will it take to convert the garage into a studio?"
Jerry sends his brother a text on his laptop and almost immediately gets a reply. "He says about a day if we have all the materials shipped to his house."
"Fine, set up a video conference and we'll start going over the details tomorrow."
Judith spends the rest of the night at her desktop documenting the details of her plan and setting up the various accounts they would need for their web-cast later that week.
At 8:00 pm. PST the newly created Carnal Court web-cast went live. Much to both Judith and Jerry's surprise twenty-three thousand people attempted to connect to it. Sure enough, nine-five percent of them dropped as soon as the people learned the show's true nature leaving 1,150 perspective candidates.
A week later the show begins airing and is a success.
