On March 20, CBS told us that spring break can be scary when it aired its gripping, chilling and riveting made-for-TV movie “Spring Break Shark Attack.”

It was this generation’s “Jaws,” for we the young’uns needed a movie we could relate to where scores of one-dimensional characters methodically enter the unforgiving ocean only to be gobbled up by sharks because the scriptwriters wanted it that way.

Indeed, spring break can cause mass panic, but not from sharks ruining a perfectly good week of intoxication and debauchery. Hence, a more appropriate film would have been called “Warm Corona Disaster” or “That Cameraman Wasn’t Actually From ‘Girl’s Gone Wild.'” (The BG News does not endorse alcohol consumption — refrigerated or otherwise — or the video recording of naked breasts for profit.)

Still, over 11 million bored citizens tuned into watching sexy coeds being devoured by fish who were probably angry because the swimmers couldn’t wait to relieve themselves until after they got out of the water.

But CBS isn’t happy with 11 million. They want more. So their next venture will be another gripping, chilling, riveting movie about — you guessed it — extremely big locusts.

Slated for an April 24 air date (that’s a Sunday, so don’t make plans!), “Locusts” will star Lucy Lawless as a locust expert who must find a way to stop a plague of genetically engineered locusts. Lawless will no doubt use what she learned while portraying Xena, Warrior Princess and run around swinging her sword at the large locusts while wearing a gold breastplate.

Or she might play a doctor who uses her thinkin’ powers to stop the mutant locusts. Either way it will be masterfully gripping, chilling and riveting.

But, like any normal columnist would point out, we must consider what to do if a fictional movie actually happened in real life. What if someone created giant locusts to do his bidding, and how relieved would we be that he didn’t engineer giant hamsters? The human population would be gruesomely nibbled to death!

But people are ignorant of how giant locusts would really behave. According to the voices in my head (who received a Ph.D. in Locustology with a specialization in Abnormally Huge Animality), a typical giant locust would be the size of a Sega Game Gear and reproduce faster than a rural Ohio high school senior class. Their sound would be amplified tenfold, and a swarm would sound worse than a concert in Anderson Arena.

But by no means would giant locusts kill humans, even though a nice man in a tinfoil hat told me that mutant locusts were behind the Kennedy assassination. According to a press release from PETA (People for Equal Treatment of Aphids), “KNHKNHKNHK” — which is locustspeak for “The locust collective has no intentions of eating any humans because people are unclean and some of them wear too much cologne.”

Added the locusts, “KNHKNH” — which, in short, means they have made no promises to spare our soybean crops and Little Debbie snacks. I can hear you say to yourself, “Not the soybeans!”

We cannot stand idly by and let them feast on our Oatmeal Cream Pies. Therefore, since a plague of giant locusts is very possible and we should always brace for the worst like the Department of Homeland Security does, we must plan for Sega Game Gear-sized locusts.

The voices in my head tell me that locusts are just swarming grasshoppers, and that some people eat grasshoppers. Therefore, instead of gorging ourselves with the new Burger King’s Enormous Omelet Sandwich, we must round up all the cooks of the world to capture and cook the very enemy which threatens to eat our soybeans.

Better yet, we must air a special gripping, chilling, riveting episode of “Iron Chef” where the chairman of Kitchen Stadium will announce “the secret ingredient is … LOCUST!” That way we will watch expert chefs skewer and sauté our insect foes, much to the delight of all 11 million viewers.

Hopefully this column has rid any worries you had of giant locust swarms, because next to nuclear war, rising tuition and warm beer, unusually large locusts are one of our generation’s biggest concerns.

As for man-eating sharks? Let Lucy Lawless handle it.

E-mail Matt (or the voices in his head) to hear all the latest locust news stories at [email protected].