Comedy Central has a new TV show called Con. The premise is a guy named Skyler Stone (sounds like a con name to me) who has this “amazing” ability to con people. The cameras follow him around and he scams people and companies. They sell the show as a how-to guide to getting things free etc.

This show IS the scam… the setups are preposterous, the scams are not even possible without a tv show budget, and the things that the average guy could pull off are downright illegal.

Take the scam of getting a free meal in a restaurant. Skylar (isn’t that name the worst) happens to have a friend that looks like Brad Pitt (yeah right, we all do.) He calls a fancy restaurant and tells them they are shooting a Punk’d style show and want to fool Brad Pitt in their restaurant. The manager agrees – who wouldn’t? They have like five of their “friends” act as the show crew to help setup the prank and then all get together and giggle when Skylar (chuckle) gets his free meal. Yeah – you too can get a free meal if you have a friend that looks like a celeb and have a half dozen friends willing to work for free to get you a meal.

Another one is the time they wanted to break into the porn industry. The goal was to throw a party and have all the big names in porn attend the premiere of the film thinking Skylar (haha) is a big time director. You too can pull of this caper if you A) have a studio to film your fake porn B) are willing to pay porn talent to be in your film C) rent a fancy venue for the premiere party D) promise & deliver free food & free drinks at your party. Not a very profitable scam.

The show intercuts segments with mini-scams… but most of those are not scams but petty theft and/or vandalism. Skylar (that name is really killing me) paints over a no-parking sign, takes a polaroid, and uses it in court to fight his parking ticket… hmm, can of paint, hassle of court, possibly arrest for vandalism, all to get out of a parking ticket? It’s easier to park a block away.

In another “quick scam” he shows how to get out of paying for parking in a garage. Using the thinking that you have a 15 minute grace period in which you don’t have to pay, he waited by the entrance for another car to arrive and then ZOIKS! steals their parking ticket as it comes out of the printer. He runs up to his car, drives out and says he decided not to park here. Uh, what about the guy who just had his ticket stolen, or maybe the guy in the little booth that probably saw it all? How stupid is this?

The only real con going on is seeing how long Comedy Central keeps paying the tab for this show.