TV is the new reading

Hee hee hee hee hee heeeee ... 'Wipeout'

I wasn't holding out a lot of hope for Tuesday night's premiere of "Wipeout" on ABC. From what I could gather, it felt like more of the same sort of hijinks I'd seen on the basic cable howler "MXC," which stands for its former name, "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge."

In "MXC," archive footage from a wacky Japanese obstacle course game show is dubbed over by wry off-screen commentators. As the contestants haplessly fall about among giant foam rubber obstacles in outrageous situations, the commentators make observations, dub in dialogue, and generally just sit back and have a good laugh at their expense.

"Wipeout" is a pretty good reimagination of that same basic premise. To wit: People who fall down are funny and easy to mock.

Hosts John Anderson, John Henson and Jill Wagner send contestants plunging to their almost certain discombobulation in a series of qualifying rounds, elimination challenges and finally, The Wipeout Zone. The Wipeout Zone is a complicated course that reminds one of nothing so much as the old board game "Mousetrap" or a Rube-Goldberg device that stands between the intrepid final contestants and $50,000.

The running commentary really adds to the humor. In a pre-course interview, Wagner asked a beautiful blonde contestant if she'd like to say anything to all the guys in the viewership. She said "I'm available! Call me!" This was rejoined by Henson, off screen, saying "That's $3.99 for the first minute, then $2.99 for each additional minute."

Another woman who said she'd attack the course like it was her ex-boyfriend proceeded to curse a blue streak as the course knocked the stuffing out of her from her very first step onto the foam-padded pathway ("That's not technically an obstacle," Anderson said from off-screen). As she fell about and cussed, the commentators reminded the viewing audience several times that she was, in fact, available.

Other contestants were lampooned for their age, weight and general lack of agility as the field narrowed from 24 to 12 and so on. To be fair, this competition is more than a bit silly and none of these people had anything but a cold run at some of the most unfamiliar and unbalancing obstacles.

But in the end, people getting knocked into a mud pit and bouncing along a series of "Big Balls" -- aptly named for their being gigantic rubber balls that knocked people silly as they tried to leap from ball to ball -- and spun until they were dizzy and then trying to negotiate something called "tippy tables" in hopes of winning $50,000 ... well, that's just televisual gold.

And as game shows go, it's certainly more entertaining than "The Family Feud."

"Wipeout" airs Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on ABC.