Bizarrely, that's close to a real problem! Ethernet over barbed wire may have been just for show, but phone service over it was a very real approach.
Perhaps not "the internet released the cows", but at least "the stampede cut the phone lines".
Otherwise: Dabnabbit Maude, the cows gone loose again because we lost the interwebs. (I’m half-Texan so it’s not -ist.)