After more than a year of floating rumors and putting dings in Taylor Swift’s armor of grim stoicism, MTV has at last officially confirmed that it is reviving Punk’d, the show in which celebrities learn that their rarified existence is still vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life, then receive immediate reassurance that, ha ha, actually it is not. MTV plans to announce official details and screen early footage from the new Punk’d during its New Year’s Eve telecast, presumably in between segments of the Jersey Shore cast radiating indifference and Sway’s farewell tribute to all of ya boys that we lost in 2011.
Regrettably for fans of indiscriminate screaming, the network has confirmed that Ashton Kutcher will return as executive producer but not host, because pranking celebrities requires a certain amount of trust, and in the spirit of holding those values sacred, MTV has chosen to move forward. Earlier reports suggested that the duty might fall to Justin Bieber, who time and again has vowed to uphold his virtue no matter how many sperm samples it may require. But most likely, MTV will reveal that each episode will feature a different celebrity host pranking one of their fellow famous people, tugging on the invisible thread that separates them from calamity, then letting it go mercifully slack as they share a laugh about how grateful they are that their problems are so rare, they would require an entire stage crew just to create them.