Not pictured: the moment his life starts going to hell.
Porkin' Across America is a satirical video series, parodying vapid food tourism shows such as Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, produced by The Onion in 2012. The series follows Today Now co-anchor Jim Haggerty as he takes a trip across the United States while his life falls apart around him.
Porkin' Across America has a whole hog-load of these tropes:
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The PA that Jim paid to drive his car initially seems to be pretty normal and innocent, but we later find out that he broke into Deb's house, beat her up, and stole all of their valuables.
- Bittersweet Ending: Jim becomes a horrific pig-human abomination and the rest of his human family are either dead or estranged from him, and he attempts to speak to his former co-host and is too damaged to do so. But he is able to find happiness with a new family of pigs on Kelson's farm and rejects an offer to become a TV star again, knowing the damage it has already done to him.
- Body Horror: Jim's body becomes increasingly mutilated as a result of his extremely unhealthy diet and constant injuries, and his deteriorating financial situation forces him to replace them with pig parts. By the end he makes bizarre pig noises constantly, his hair has been burnt off, his arms and back have been replaced with pig skin, all of his internal organs have been replaced with pig organs, and his face has been severely burnt and a fake pig nose fused to said face.
- Break the Haughty: Jim begins the series as a smug know-it-all whose status as a morning television host has given him an inflated ego. By the end of the series, he's divorced, destitute, badly mutilated and behaving like a pig.
- Bribe Backfire: On a number of occasions, Jim attempts to bribe people with money. It never works out in his favor.
- Chekhov's Gag: Jim is disgusted to learn that 'Donuz Qan' is actually pig's blood. By the next episode, he starts to become addicted to the delicacy. Eventually, it causes changes to his DNA that prevent his body from rejecting his subsequent pig transplants.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Liz Cramer, Jim's producer and a callous pragmatist, is indifferent to his plight and increasingly dire medical emergencies (though she finally does show some shock and concern after Jim is disfigured by the propane barbecue explosion and seems to be at least somewhat disturbed by the fact that Jim has become genetically a pig).
- Entendre Failure: Jim appears to be oblivious of the fact that when 'pork' is used as a verb, it's actually a slang term for sexual intercourse.
- From Bad to Worse: By the end of the second episode, Jim's dog has been killed and his wife has filed for divorce. And things go only downhill from there.
- The Ghost: Jim's wife Deb never makes a full appearance; we only hear her voice through the phone and, in Episode 7, see her silhouette through a window.
- Green Aesop: In the penultimate episode, before a pig sharing his name is set to be slaughtered by him, Jim begins protesting and comes to the realization that pigs should be celebrated and loved instead of slaughtered and devoured for their meat, causing him to leave the show.
- Heel Realization: Jim realizes in the penultimate episode that he's completely destroyed his life in his pursuit of a moronic TV show, and indirectly caused to the deaths of his dog and niece, but as he desperately begs his ex-wife, it's shown to be too late for him. He instead chooses to flee and become one with the pigs.
- Horror Comedy: Starts off as a very dark Black Comedy, but eventually becomes Horror-dominant. Yes, really.
- Horror Hunger: After trying "Donuz Qan" (pig blood) in Episode 2, Jim develops an aggressive addiction to the stuff, needing his crew to pick up a cooler full of it just to make it through the day. He eventually becomes intolerant to it, but only after he becomes more pig than man.
- Humiliation Conga: Jim's personal life gets worse. And worse. And worse. All in front of the cameras.
- Invisible Celebrity Guest: Episode 4 promises the appearance of country music singer Miranda Lambert. Due to the film crew arriving at the wrong location, we never see her and she threatens to sue for breach of contract.
- Jerkass: Jim himself deliberately neglects his family, randomly belittles, threatens and attacks people, and is a generally unpleasant individual before realizing his wrongdoing.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Jim shows himself fairly early on to be comically ignorant of food in general, as he apparently does not know that (most) meat is muscle and somehow thought that the bones simply dissolve when you cook meat.
- Laughing Mad: In the penultimate episode, Jim's life has been completely ruined and he has completed his physical transformation into a human-pig. When he goes to pick out the best pig, the revelation that one of them (which he eventually chooses) is named Jim causes him to start laughing incessantly for a bit.
- Nice Guy: The vast majority of the restaurateurs Jim meets are completely nice, hospitable, and polite to him, which serves to make Jim look even worse.
- Obfuscating Insanity: A potential interpretation of the ending is that Jim is deliberately avoiding letting people know who he truly is due to preferring his life living with the pigs and Kelson, the farmer.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Dinner Kingdom is listed in the top fifteen Medieval-themed restaurants in New Jersey.
- Pet the Dog: Jim takes his niece to rehab after she becomes addicted to crack. She is unfortunately stabbed and dies while Jim attempts to film the show by circling around New England instead of taking the much shorter route to visit her.
- Psychological Horror: What begins as a parody of vapid Food Network shows quickly becomes a descent into one man's spiral into insanity, obsession and failure.
- Sanity Slippage: Already clearly unwell, Jim only becomes worse and worse through the series as his life begins to collapse around him and the show takes its toll on his well-being.
- Skewed Priorities: Jim regards the show as the most important thing in the world and refuses to interrupt it for any reason; as a result, his life completely falls apart.
- Sociopathic Hero: Jim appears completely unempathetic at first glance, but this is eventually subverted as he realizes the wrongdoings and neglect of his family that he caused while hosting his inane TV show.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Typical upbeat background music punctuates the series just like it would on a real food tourism show, even during some rather disturbing moments like Jim's human heart and organs appearing inside a hospital garbage pail.
- Stepford Smiler: Jim behaves like the stereotypical cheerful TV host, while horrible things are happening to him. As the series goes on, it becomes harder and harder for him to keep up the facade, and eventually he completely breaks down in Episode 7.
- Too Dumb to Live: Jim's increasingly gruesome mishaps are all a result of his idiotic decisions. He drinks pig blood without a second thought and doesn't even question what it is before drinking it, and refuses to admit that he is addicted to it. He cooks pork with the bone still in it (as he somehow believed that the bones merely melt) resulting in him cutting up his palate. He eats pork sausages that are very-barely-cooked because he wanted to rush, resulting in him getting sick. Finally, his attempt to light up a grill causes an explosion that horrifically disfigures him.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Jim gets addicted to Donuz Qan (pig's blood), however, he vehemently denies it.
- Villain Protagonist: Jim, an incredibly neglectful husband and disruptive and unfriendly guest, who Skypes into his niece's funeral and describes himself as attempting to "enjoy" it. He gets better in the last episode.
- Was Once a Man: By the end of Episode 6, Jim has lost enough of his human parts for his body to appear to all tests to be more pig than man. By the final episode, doctors have apparently deemed that he's genetically a pig that somewhat resembles a human, rather than the other way around."...I...am... piiiiig?"
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Deb mentions Jim's two daughters twice in the first episode, but afterwards, they're never seen or mentioned again and have no bearing on his subsequent downward spiral.
