New year, same old crap on tv…

But really, what else are we going to watch?! If anything, reality TV has been the most successful ongoing experiment to test just how desperate we, the people, are for televised entertainment. Sure, we’ve also had Jerry “You Ain’t My Baby Daddy” Springer and Ron “Why use just an ordinary fork when you can use the Amazing Fork-o-Matic 5000?!” Popeil and even Monday Night “I’m not athletic enough to do it myself, but I can still drink beer and idolize other guys doing it on TV in a totally heterosexual manner…” Football, but in the end, nothing has pushed the boundaries of desperate viewers near and far quite like reality television…

Of course, I bring this up, not because I’ve already failed on too many of my New Years resolutions to mention, but more so because this week one of the first reality TV shows that I ever watched, The Real World, celebrated the premiere of its 21^st season. You know the one – where seven strangers are picked to live in a house to find out just how zany people get when they’re surrounded by hot members of the opposite sex who have nothing but free time because they don’t actually have to work and pay rent on said ridiculously lavish house that they’d otherwise never be invited into for the purposes of fixing the cable, much less spending the next six months of their lives? Good times.

Actually, I’m not sure if I should admit this, but growing up I honestly really enjoyed The Real World, as much as a prepubescent young boy can enjoy watching sexy twenty-somethings lounge around doing cool stuff like playing pool and hanging out in the Jacuzzi and gettin’ crazy just off camera, but close enough that we could guess what was going on. It was a show that had everything that I was looking for – hot, feisty chicks, buckets of controversy, and a timeslot right after Saved by the Bell – what more could a kid without a social life want?!

And sadly, as I eventually transcended into adulthood, things didn’t get much, at least with regards to my social life, and thus Survivor came onto the horizon, where we replaced the house with an island, the trendy clothes with bikinis and skirts made out of palm fronds, and even added the little bonus of a million bucks prize money to spice things up a bit and ensure that everyone would stay at each others’ throats over the next 39 days. I lost a good portion of my mid-twenties to Survivor, eventually jumping ship around season 187 (editor’s note: actually 10) when unbelievably, I found myself finally bored of watching women who haven’t showered in three weeks duke it out in their bikinis…

Of course, the whole eating rats thing didn’t help, either.

I think even those among us who find themselves even more engrossed in reality TV than me (i.e. you’ve never seen sunlight in the last 15 years) will sheepishly admit that our beloved reality television is definitely one of the guiltiest of pleasures of our time. Case in point – the one I’m watching right now takes a mansion full of women who’ve posed in Playboy (or at least will after their appearance on the show) and coerced them into all swooning over three eligible bachelors, all of whom would be more than happy to date a woman who’s showed her ha-has in Playboy, except for that one teensy, little detail that their Mom’s are also living in the house and are all too eager to share their opinions about who’s too hussy or fussy for their favorite sons. Hell hath no fury like a Mom who doesn’t want her son dating a porn slut…

What’s that, you’ve been watching Mama’s Boy (on NBC), too?!

Can you believe what happened the other week with Megan’s breakdown?! I know!!!

But the funny thing is that even though each of us no doubt have our own guilty pleasure reality favorites, we also are quite clear to maintain a list of other shows that we wouldn’t be caught dead watching, too. So whereas I used to enjoy me some Survivor and I’ll still watch The Apprentice, I couldn’t care less about Big Brother and will readily admit that The Amazing Race is simply way to amazingly boring for me. I’m sure you’re the same way, dreaming at night about being the next big contestant on American Idol or Dancing with Screech from Saved by the Bell: The College Years, but turn on a rerun of Fear Factor where they’re eating baby alligator eggs and then swimming with the mothers and the line is firmly drawn! And yet that’s the beauty of reality TV shows, in that they’re so cheap to put on the air, you can crank out eight or nine different hits about fire breathers and midgets and fire breathing midgets, and people who want to date fire breathing midgets, and if by some odd twist of fate nobody ends up watching it, you can still just keep on trucking next season with your groundbreaking new series about nine hermaphroditic sheep herders picked to live on a mountain to find out what happens when people stop being polite and the sheep start biting back.

Now that I’ve given the folks at FOX another three seasons worth of material, it’s time for me to bid you ado so that I can grab some popcorn before The Littlest Ninja comes on. You know the one, where they pick 127 highly-skilled ninjas and place them in a cafeteria filled with traffic cops and silly putty, then … well, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but let me just tell you, when those ninjas get mad – wow! Parking tickets and silly putty everywhere! I’ll bet you that was a game of Twister that those traffic cops won’t soon forget…

With reality like this, who needs the real thing?!

If only Santa had any idea what he just did to my productivity…

I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to popular culture, I’m typically a little late with jumping on the old bandwagon. My television didn’t first see the barrel-hurdling antics of a young plumber named Mario until several years after the Nintendo was first released here in the US, it took me years of hearing this whole “Tivo is amazing!” talk before finally splurging the extra ten bucks to feign off Old Father Time with regards to my reality TV favorites, and I’d never even heard of the rise and fall of an up and coming alternative rock band called Nirvana until long after its lead singer played out the rock stereotype to its ultimate demise.

That said, just because I have a tendency to come to the table late certainly doesn’t mean that I ever find myself leaving with an empty stomach! It may take a while for me to catch up with the rest of society, but once I finally do – goodbye, seemingly already non-existent social life! It’s that unbridled passion to get unequivocally obsessed with whatever’s in front of me at the given moment that cost me days worth of sleep, months worth of sanity, and lord knows how many chances to actually talk with girls in my teenage years, all the while instead I found myself up at three o’clock in the morning chasing down princesses or trying to upgrade my magical armor so that I would stand a chance against the evil dragon that guarded the tri-force that I so desperately needed!

These days I may be a little older, and occasionally even a little wiser, but I’m still just as susceptible to temptation … and given the inane size of my current personal and professional to-do lists, I’m not so sure that tempting fate with the offering of a rich, innovative new gaming platform is really in the best interests of pretty much anybody who needs things done that just so happen to be on one of my lists…

Nonetheless, what can I say? Out of all the other fancy pants gaming consoles on the market today, the Nintendo Wii is by far the one that I can get the most excited about, and despite having managed to hold back for two years already (two long and arduous years), the time for rationale and self control had finally passed and our household simply couldn’t go another Christmas without one. Even being daunted by the unfathomable idea of actually having to move around while playing video games (blasphemy!) could only restrain me for so long, but deep down I knew that ultimately it was only a matter of time before I was waving my Wiimote around the living room like a pro … which would sound vaguely pornographic if the phrase Wiimote didn’t also just sound so darned cute!

So Christmas was only yesterday, but between Zelda and Mario and the illustrious Guitar Hero, I estimate that I’ve already lost roughly 87 hours of otherwise productive time. Now whether that time would’ve been spent actually writing, making a sandwich, or just staring at the TV wishing I had a Wii if the fabled machine hadn’t showed up under our lop-sided Christmas tree this year, it’s hard to say, but I guess at this point further speculation is kind of like crying over split milk.

Instead I think we’re better off simply facing the facts, looking to the future, and wholeheartedly admitting that until I beat each and every one of these new games, my contact with the outside world will be precisely zilch. Nothing personal, but for a guy like me with an addictive personalty coupled with the hand-eye coordination of a blind sea captain, it’s like I’m learning to walk in the video game world all over again. Maybe I should just go ahead and wish everyone a Happy New Year now…

Or possibly even Happy St. Patrick’s Day? Just trying to be realistic!

We’ve all been there before – you sit down in front of the TV after a long, hard day, a cold, refreshing beverage in one hand and a heaping plate of food in the other. At this point in the day, you really have only one desire – to relax – and you intend to do so with the help of a delicious smelling dinner and a bit of indulgence in your guiltiest of reality TV pleasures. You get all situated, let out that deep sigh to acknowledge that you’ve made it through another day, and then … nothing. You repeatedly jam your thumb on the remote control buttons with increasing frustration, but there will be no Survivor: Antarctica for you this evening…

Or maybe you’re in your car coming home from work, racing home to see your supermodel wife who’s planned a romantic evening of strip poker and pudding wrestling for her man. All day long you’ve fought with jerk clients who want the world of you for only pennies on the dollar, and your boss chewed you out for the third time this week because you still haven’t closed the Henderson account. But tonight is your night – I mean, really, who doesn’t like pudding?! As you pull into the driveway with the excitement of a schoolboy who’s about to see his first nudie mag, you reach for your clicker, but it does nothing of the sort. Begging it to “Just please open!!!” as you gently, but firmly press its one and only button again and again, it fails to do the one thing that it’s designed to do … the thing that it gets it’s name from – opening the garage door.

Bad batteries are an epidemic that has haunted mankind since the dawn of early…well, since about the year 1800, anyways. Even some two hundred years ago when Alessandro Volta had just invented the first batteries (seriously, look it up!), you know that our ancestors still found themselves faced with horrendous frustration when their electric lanterns or walkmans or whatever the heck they used batteries for back then went dark from a lack of juice in that small, or actually probably very large at first, self-contained electrical storage device! I mean, you get home after a long day of walking around wearing a hat with a buckle on it and all you want to do is sit by your brand-new electric lantern and write on your scrolls, but no – the plague of the bad battery strikes again.

Alas, but mere mortals like you and me have few options when it comes to fighting the battles associated with a portable, but also quite limited electrical charge. Sure, we could stockpile massive quantities of batteries in drawers around the house in an attempt to prepare for an unexpected blackout, but with roughly 18,000,000 different sizes for any application, you’d need a separate room filled with nothing but drawers full of batteries to keep up with it all! Some might suggest that we could even get up off our lazy butts and change the stinkin’ channel ourselves, but really, that’s just not a very practical thing to do and those who dared to even suggest it should be ashamed of themselves…

Really, at the end of the day when the lights go down and we turn to our cordless devices to do our bidding for us, all we can do is cross our fingers, pray to the almighty battery gods, and hope beyond all hope that there will be enough juice in that remote to get us through the night.

And if that doesn’t work, try rubbing them in your hands to warm them up – sometimes that works, too…

Here on the streets of Downtown Tampa, we’re about to surprise one lucky pedestrian with a lunch-time treat that they certainly won’t soon forget! As these folks here walk out of the world famous Jerk Chicken Café, they won’t know until hours later (and even days for some!) if that spicy, Caribbean flavor alone was worth the ordeal that their digestive tract will soon endure…that is, except for this strapping, young gentleman right here…

“Hi there! I’m a television host that you’ve probably never heard of before – what’s your name?”

“…uh, Jim. My name is Jim…”

“Well, Jim – today is your lucky day! I’d like to exploit your dignity for the entertainment of roughly three and a half dozen daytime viewers. Now let me ask you something – how was your lunch today?”

“I guess it was pretty good.”

“Hehehe, that’s what you think, Jim! But it won’t be long before that Jamaican Delight is doing one heck of a number on your small intestine! Now typically you wouldn’t even be aware of that Rastafarian recourse until it caught up with you late into the business day…possibly in the middle of an important business meeting or something…but today you’re going to get the inside track of the tract inside you!”

“Huh?”

“You see, Jim – with this tiny, fiber-optic camera (provided by Sony), we’re going to be taking a journey today that is usually reserved only for “special circumstances!”

“So I get to be on TV, eh?”

“Yes. Yes you do, Jim! You’re going to be on TV and be the envy of your friends, family, and co-workers for months to come, and we’re going to get started right after this commercial break. For those of you watching at home, I can already tell that this is going to be one of our spiciest episodes ever! Don’t change that dial – you’re watching Ambush Colonoscopy!!!”

Ahhh, the joys of daytime television…right?! First the soap-operas, next the cheesy, yet mind-numbing, tongue-in-cheek programming about relationships and the importance of personal grooming to keep us all occupied until the court tv circuit kicks in to round out the rest of the afternoon – it’s a wonder that I’m able to get any work at all done, really…

I could just go on and on about all of the shows that I just love to hate, and frankly that scares the bejesus out of me because I would’ve thought that I was above all of those reunions and tales of heartache / revenge / bitter loneliness…but apparently I’m not! There’s nothing quite like the whimsical ravings of the girl who got stood up at the prom thirty years ago whose only goal in life is to tell that Bobby Fletcher just exactly how he made her feel, let me tell you! I’ve been watching these creations more and more as the opportunities arise and it’s because of this that I’m finally able to realize just exactly why there’s so much crap on television nowadays – because we keep watching it!

How can we honestly expect these offerings to change when it turns out that we just can’t get enough of them in the first place?! Of course, most people are at work during these times of the day anyways, so I would assume that their daytime ratings expectations can’t be much higher than, oh say, watching grass grow in the first place…much like how it is day-in, day-out at The WB…but take a day off being sick or just stubborn and I’d be willing to bet my lunch money that you’ll be glued to the set just like the rest of us! In reality, there’s probably nothing that we can do because hey, it beats going outside and working in the garden, doesn’t it?!

Yes, yes it does, but if we’re not careful, eventually we are going to see programming on the air that results in something like this…

“Wow, it almost feels like we’re spelunking, doesn’t it Jim?”

“…owwww…”

“I know, I know – you’re speechless. Don’t feel bad – it happens a lot here on our show, actually! But don’t worry, as we’ve made you and your family a copy of today’s adventure on DVD so that you can relive the excitement whenever you’d like! How does that sound?”

“…owwww…”

“Gotcha! Well, that’s about all the time we have for today’s show – I’d like to thank our sponsors over at Sony for providing the technology that makes my budding career possible, along with our good friend, Jim, here for giving us something to look at! By the way, buddy, I’m no specialist or anything, but you might want to have a doctor take a look at that tape worm after the show – boy, does he look hungry!”

“…wha?!”

“I’m Lindsay Brightman, that was Jim’s gastronic chamber, and you’ve been watching Ambush Colonoscopy!”

What can I say? I know that this is going to come as a bit of a shock to some of you, but I have a small confession to make – I’m not really the cool guy that my writings here make me out to be! It’s hard to believe, I understand, but this is just something that I’ve finally come to terms with and I think it’s about time that everybody else does the same. Although I never really claimed to be the hip guy anyways, it was just recently brought to my attention that they’re not even using the term “hip” anymore, so that alone goes to show you just how out of touch I am!

You want to know who I envy? Gay people…or homosexuals, or fruit loops, or whatever they want to be called this week. Mind you, before I get myself in a pickle here (…or even vise-versa…), it’s not the actual orientation itself that I’m jealous of, but think about it – have you ever really met a dorky gay man?! And don’t get me wrong, I’m not solely referring to the guys on the TV show, either. It seems like every one of them that crosses my path is completely in tune with what’s going on around him, culturally diverse, relatively in shape, and a snappy dresser to boot! At the rate I’m going, I’d be willing to settle for a percentage of the four…

But don’t stop now because I’m willing to take it even another step further – make our model gay man black and you’re now pretty much dealing with one of the coolest cats on the planet…they are still using the term “cat,” right? I don’t know what the source is – maybe it’s genetic or maybe they all take cool pills at night and just don’t bother letting the rest of us in on their secret – but more than likely it’s just an unwritten law that the black guys all get to be cool by default. Being the out-of-touch white guy that I am, I get to own a minivan and do my own taxes…hardly seems fair, now does it?!

“Cool pills” – maybe there’s more to that idea than meets the eye! Just take two of the tiny, blue drugs each morning with breakfast and by the time you’ve finished reading the daily paper, writing letters to the editor will be the last thing on your mind! The car radio will finally make that transition from AM to FM, and of course, that hot, new administrative assistant will even remember your name and look at you while you’re talking…well, a guy can dream, right?

I guess when it all comes down to it, though, I know that no drug could ever improve how cool I really am – it would probably take a new sports car or a fancy yacht to even come close, but sadly there’s just no room for that right now in the budget of this fledgling humor columnist! Maybe someday I’ll hit it big or come across buried treasure and be able to simply buy myself into that hip and keen lifestyle, but for the time being, it’s back to Nick at Nite reruns and instant oatmeal to pass the evenings by…and just between you and me, at the end of the day I’m fine with that anyways!

Cockroaches, supermodels, and gay men – flip on the television this fall and you’re bound to come across at least two of the three within any given hour. And not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing – anyone who doesn’t find the harsh critiquing of the Fab Five even minutely amusing obviously has a few screws loose – but I don’t think I’m alone when I cry out that Hollywood really needs to lay off with all of this reality TV nonsense before one of us finally loses it and goes Survivor on their asses…

Now before I get too far into this, it should already be widely known that I’m a fan of reality TV, or at least I used to be! I’ve watched every single episode of every single season of Survivor (with the exception of the first season), like most other guys, I get a huge kick out of watching women freak out around rodents and large insects, and I’m even really digging what this whole Queer Eye for the Straight Guy-deal is bringing to the screen – for the first time, the mainstream is getting to see that the gays (as they like to be called!) aren’t all diseased and scary, and can actually be quite entertaining when given the opportunity! That having been said, just as there’s such a thing as too much chocolate (Welcome to Zit City!) or too much sex (Ok, maybe not with this one…), too much reality television is definitely a big problem these days and something needs to be done soon before the entire schedule is cast out of people just like you and me!

Reality TV was a brilliant and unique form of programming several years ago because it was presenting something that, other than with MTV’s Real World & Road Rules, had never been seen before. These were shows that existed without a script, without a cast that had any previous experience whatsoever, and yet they worked out for the best and were actually quite successful…so what happens when one guy starts cranking out gold and is caught by the rest being very successful? Suddenly overkill isn’t even a harsh enough word to apply anymore and every Tom, Dick, and Harry within a mailbox’s reach of Hollywood has their own suggestions for a new hit show, and sadly enough, many of them are actually getting airplay to this very day! I was watching a special on this the other night and heard that the networks receive something like 25,000 submissions every day – do you have any idea just how much crap that adds up to?!

And the truly scary thing is that what we’re seeing on TV every night is the very best of what these people received! That’s right, sleazy men and women who are more than happy to manipulate each other for a million bucks, housemates that are willing to stab each other in the back for a million bucks, college students that are willing to eat their way out of a vat of lord-knows-what for a million bucks – these were the good ideas! Apparently for a million bucks, your average American Joe is willing to do just about anything, on live television even, with little to no shame, and that fact alone has got me scared silly about what we might be seeing here shortly in the future…

Sensation Station – Contestants identify various sounds and smells in New York City’s Grand Central Station while blindfolded; whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins the chance to navigate a Double-Dare-style maze throughout the station for cool prizes!

Sumo! – Office professionals, secretaries, and other high-rise-bound individuals are pitted against champion Japanese sumo wrestlers for a chance at cash & prizes.

Buried Alive – Players from all walks of life compete to find out who is willing to be buried in the most bizarre of substances, with the winner having the opportunity to be buried in an actual grave, casket and all, for one million dollars.

Who Wants to Write a Reality TV Show? – Writers pen up their own ideas for upcoming programs, the best of which are bought off for only a fraction of what the networks will actually profit from them.

Hey, That’s My Baby! – It’s the classic game of roulette modernized for the working mother, as parents are challenged to identify their own children from a pool of similar babies. The winners walk away with a combination of cash and savings bonds for the child, while the losers are immediately whisked away by Child Services until foster parents can be arranged.

And all of those ideas took me, like, fifteen minutes to come up with! It’s a sad world when folks like me are actually considering exercise as an alternative evening activity, but until either some drastic changes are made to that programming schedule or I actually end up earning a million dollars myself, then I’ve got no choice but to buckle down and find something else to occupy my free time!

Hey, did you know that there are already a lot of other people going outside at night? Maybe somebody should make a show about that…

We haven’t been faced with the very worst of them yet, but as even the previews begin airing for the fall television schedules that we have to look forward to, one distinct idea has become very apparent to me – Hollywood is getting horrendously cheap! Just the other night, I watched probably eight or ten promotional spots for new and upcoming shows within about two hours and I’ll tell you right now that if this is what they’ve got in mind for “entertainment” this fall, I might just have to find myself another hobby to pass the time after all! Maybe I’ll have to take up tennis or something…

If you somehow haven’t noticed, it seems that somebody near the top of the television food chain came to the stunning conclusion a year or two ago that it’s ridiculously cheaper to challenge insane people to do really stupid stunts for cash than to actually write and produce a decent sitcom these days! Do the math – at a million dollars per star for each episode of Friends along a series of approximately twenty-two episodes, that’s…a lot of money! So even after giving away a million or two at the end of the season and dropping a healthy chunk of change on production costs, dung beetles, and Jeff Probst’s wardrobes, there’s still gotta be an easy fifty or sixty million leftover to help re-tile the executive washroom back at CBS headquarters…

(Don’t get me wrong – Survivor is the one reality program that I actually like!)

Now I’ve tolerated this reality-based monstrosity just like everyone else has for the past several years, but after seeing this year’s fall schedule and realizing that there could be no end to this beast unless somebody stands up and takes action, I’ve opted to take this opportunity to use my creative writing abilities for good instead of evil to bring down the horror that can only come from sixteen horny women competing for cash and romance (…but mostly cash…) once and for all! The last few minutes have been spent feverishly hunched over a hot laptop, brainstorming for ideas that could very well become the next Seinfeld, or perhaps warrant a twelve-episode mini-series on the WB at the very least, so consider yourself fortunate to be one of the very first to witness the beginning of my very own television producing debut…

Everybody Loves Cheese-Nips®

A light-hearted comedy based around everyone’s favorite cheese-flavored snack-food, the pilot episode deals with Bill Whitley (played by Harry Anderson) as he suddenly learns that his wife (Catherine O’Hara, or Shelley Long if she’s not available) has always favored Chex Mix® as opposed to Cheese-Nips®.

Spike!

Although it has absolutely nothing to do with Spike Lee or his over-inflated ego, I’m sure that this appropriately titled sitcom starring a young terrier named Spike will have viewers 14-39 glued to their sets with anticipation! His family may always be dragging him to the most boring events around the state, but somehow Spike always seems to find an interesting aspect of any situation!

Back to the Basics

David and Cynthia Allen (played by David Spade and Brooke Shields) are quite possibly the last two people you would expect to see together, but their clashing personalities and everlasting sarcastic take on those around them make for the hilarious new comedy that will return Spade to his throne as the court jester of primetime! Pilot episode features guest appearances by Amy Yasbeck and Norm MacDonald as the couple argues about each others’ previous relationships.

Frog Legs

Just a group of neighborhood kids hanging around the small pond at the end of their block – what trouble could possibly come from such an innocent scene, right?! Three lucky young children will begin their Hollywood careers starring in this new comedy for families as parents are finally provided with a bit of insight as to what their children are actually up to when they go out to play! An hour-long pilot jump-starts the series as Tommy, Jimmy, and Suzie play a joke on their parents by slipping some of their slimy friends into various dishes at the neighborhood block party, sending several friends to the hospital…

Jack Says…

Jack Nicholas stars as God in this fresh new comedy that takes a look at what life on Earth is like when this supreme being stops being polite and starts being real! The pilot episode targets such social issues as homelessness, obesity, and people who talk to loudly on their cell phones in public.

A Special Note to Any Television Executives Who Just Happen to be Reading This:

Any or even all of the concepts above can be yours for a very affordable price – no reasonable offers will be refused! I’m available to fly out to L.A. and start shooting these babies as soon as right now, so get on the phone and let’s get these people laughing during primetime again – did you really think that those slutty shows about money and marriage were going to hold them off forever?! Have your people call, well, me, and we’ll do lunch…

Just don’t go taking my ideas and replacing any of my above characters with cheaper, third-rate actors, because the end product would be really disappointing! Besides, I already thought of that one and it just would never work, anyways – Paul Reubens as God?! I don’t think so!

Unfortunately, I just don’t have the hips for it, or the breasts for that matter!  I do have a stunning personality and a sense of humor to die for, but we all know that these contests are all alike.  I could have finesse and etiquette collectively coming out of my ass and dancing circles around the room, but without the looks of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model, I simply don’t stand a chance…

Confused yet?  Well, I got your attention, didn’t I?  They say that once you’ve got their attention, you can easily consider them hooked for the next few minutes, or hour-and-a-half if you’re broadcasting on national television.  My inspiration this time around: Who Wants to be a Princess? from everyone’s favorite network for plot-less programming, FOX Broadcasting.  Yes, these are the same people who brought us Temptation Island, Boot Camp and countless other Survivor knockoffs.

Let us not forget one other very special show that FOX hit us with a little over a year ago entitled Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? Apparently the writers behind our latest Princess tale must’ve been on another planet around that time because there really isn’t any other excuse for making this mistake twice.  About the only thing missing from this episode was a hormone-driven Rick Rockwell, and boy, I’d be willing to bet that they were very careful to keep this one quiet until after the initial video was shot!  I can just hear Rick now, “Technically I’m sure I can be considered a Prince by someone…”

I would almost consider actually giving the writers credit for this one, actually, except for the fact that it basically looked like the show had been edited by a fifteen year-old copy boy.  You can tell that a lot of planning went into the script:

• Night before presentation to executive board – dig out old copy of Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? script
• Substitute the following phrases:
  • Prince for Multi-Millionaire
  • Marriage for Blind Date
  • Sloppy Tongue-Kiss for Friendly, Platonic Handshake
• Emphasize waiver section of model contracts
• Finalize advance payments to off-shore bank account
• Take one long, last chuckle about the absolutely insane number of entries submitted for contestants in this meat parade

Normally I could think of 800,000 better and more important things to do than sit around and watch TV, but somehow my lazy gene always wins the coin toss and I find myself sitting in front of the tube for hours on end; this night would be no different.  The show began much like we have seen the Miss America pageant open in the past, with each girl showing herself off to the audience and then proceeding to give her name, home state and estimated bra size.  This is not surprisingly sometimes the most difficult part of the competition for these girls as several have been known to strike out early by answering two or more of the questions wrong.

The show pauses for a brief commercial break and soon returns to what I had hoped would be the best part of the competition – the swimsuits!  What can we say?  If a chick doesn’t look like a knockout in a bikini, is royalty really the best route for her anyways?  What Prince in his right mind would show up at the beach with anything less than a Perfect 10???

I regretfully report, however, that what I saw that moment was enough to make a man cry like a woman whose mare has cut the ribbon to red town: these girls were not, pardon my French, pretty!  They were, in fact, the direct opposite of those who should be competing for the prize in any beauty pageant.  It was a disgrace to all those who have ever uttered the phrase, “Maybe it’s Maybeline…” and actually meant it.  I’d be willing to bet that Marilyn Monroe just rolled over in her grave…

I think the implication of the contest was just too confusing for these girls to comprehend.  When the creators of this program specified Princess, they weren’t actually talking about our modern day Princesses, who recline on sofas all day in their castles over in Europe while their slaves pick the lint from between their toes.  They meant the classic storybook Princess, who is very quiet and reserved and generally looks hot, or at least as hot as Disney’s artists are able to animate them.  See what communication problems can lead to???

They actually lead directly to the question and answer portion of our competition, which always seems to peak my attention after my expectations have been driven into the ground by the first half of the show.  Not that a fashion model isn’t generally an astute public speaker simply due to the fact that she’s a woman, but let’s face it – most of these ladies have the vocabulary of a kindergartener whose mother chain-smoked crack cocaine during the delivery.  This evening’s program was particularly interesting because one of the questions presented asked each of the girls to describe their experience in the pageant and what they had to offer to the Prince if selected.  The speeches took nearly an hour to listen to, but luckily I can sum them all up in three short sentences with lots of small words: “This pageant was the most amazing experience I have ever had in my entire life.  I look forward to spending a long, smiley date with the Prince, during which I would like to learn more about his culture, his family, and his money.  Please reconsider my breasts as you cast your votes.”

I remember a day when beauty pageants were worth watching, both for the amazing talents asserted by America’s fine young women and for the insightful ponderings carefully portrayed during the interviews.  Ok, so the swimsuit portion of the night might have had something to do with it, too, but back then, the hosts chose only the hottest and most-endowed ladies to permit on stage, requiring that the ‘other candidates’ wait near the buffet table for their time to appear on stage.  Besides, channel 99 was always scrambled and the best we were ever able to get were some faint outlines and what sounded like a 60-year-old woman exercising, so it was the best we had at the time!  MTV’s Spring Break beach house specials wouldn’t be born for several more years, so we enjoyed what was available and we loved it!

Nevertheless I’m always a glutton for punishment and ended up sitting through the whole thing, although I did get up to find the Sears catalog so I’d have something decent to ogle at one point!  The Prince turned out to be some pasty-faced rich boy from Europe who apparently didn’t realize that the friendship which he actually desired, as indicated by his royal staff, could be obtained much easier and cheaper by means of a quick run down Sunset Blvd.  Oh well, as long as that girl’s dream of dating a real Prince came true, there’s still a happy ending!

Don’t worry about me: I just got the Sears Christmas catalog in the mail today and if I stand on my head and squint really hard, I can almost make out a breast on channel 99.  Or is that an orange with a nipple?  Either way, it should prove to be another interesting day!  I’ll be just fine…

Along with the rest of the country, I’ve been caught up in the media trap that is NBC’s Fear Factor.  Yes, it’s a gigantic waste of time and there are probably better things that I could be doing, but until the next season of Survivor begins, this is all I’ve got!

If somehow you haven’t seen the show, basically it pits six people who’ve recently graduated college and have lots of loans to pay off against each other to determine who is the most likely to end up in an institution in the future.  The prize: $50,000.  All that’s required is that you jump off of a fourteen-story building, take a bath with a thousand rats, and eat two buffalo testicles.  And no, I’m not making this up…

Actually, these events didn’t all come from the same episode, but this gives you a taste of what contestants on Fear Factor can expect.  A typical show consists of three segments.  The first being a really insane stunt, such as this week’s episode where the contestants were strapped into a car which was then lowered into a lake.  They were then expected to save the child in the back seat as water rushed into the car and swim to shore without drowning!  Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

The middle portion of the hour-long program is usually filled with an event where all of the girls get really grossed out because they’re going to have to eat.  Ok, there’s a little more to it than that: they’re going to have to eat something that only a caveman would eat, such as a beetle, worm, etc…  Come on, tribes of thousands of people all around the world survive on these types of creatures every single day, but for some reason the women on this show just can’t seem to handle a nice, crunchy cockroach, or five!  It’s great watching the guys during this segment because we’re all used to doing disgusting things like eating bugs and swimming in worms and all sorts of other stupid guy things.  Considering that most of these contestants are coming straight from college (and fraternities…), I’d guess that those weren’t the first buffalo testicles these guys had actually eaten…

The last segment of the show is typically pretty lame because by this point there are only two people left.  The writers know that their audience is a bunch of suckers and by this point we’re all hooked anyways, so they can come up with pretty much anything to fill in the rest of the time slot.  The show that featured the human targets in the junkyard was my pick for the all-time lamest event – it reminded me of a lot of the challenges from Survivor 2!  (Wow, they’re really going to have to step things up a notch now, aren’t they?)  Anyways, to win at this point, you basically just have to do two things:

1. Show up.
2. Prove that you’re not a complete idiot by listening to the instructions and not getting disqualified.

Last night’s prize was awarded because the other guy escaped from the flooding car through the wrong window, of all things!  He must have fun getting to sleep at night…

I’ll admit it: I like this show, but I still don’t consider myself a fan of reality TV.  I hated Weakest Link with a passion (although I did watch their latest comedian edition – Kathy Griffin and Rob Schneider were great!), and I forced myself to sit through one episode of Spy TV, which didn’t impress me either.  Temptation Island was alright, although it didn’t take me long to figure out that Cinemax was just as entertaining and lacked commercials!  Boot Camp, Big Brother, The Mole, even Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? – none of these shows did a thing for me, so that basically just leaves Fear Factor and Survivor.

What do I look for in a good television show nowadays?  Well, as long as bugs are being eaten, I’m tuning in…

I love a good fight just as much as the next guy, but what’s really kept me entertained these days has been watching the various television networks go at it.  For those of you that have been living in a cave this season, I’ll take this opportunity to fill you in on all the excitement that you’ve missed this season…

Reality TV seems to be the name of the game right now, which is interesting because the Nielsen ratings have officially proven that some 16 million people would rather watch people go about their business in front of a camera for an hour a week than actually live their own lives. Granted, the lives of these people are most likely very boring and, knowing this, they’re going elsewhere for their entertainment, and I say that this is ok!  That’s one less wacko out on the streets trying to make his own news by riding a pogo stick through the local mall wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and a smile.  And Tom Green, if you’re reading this, a small cut of the profits would be nice…

But I’ll admit it: I, too, have been bitten by the bug and have thus devoted one hour of my week to the latest craze.  My choice?  It was relatively easy for me to make the decision to go with Survivor 2, partially because it began directly after the Super Bowl and I had little choice but to watch, and partially because, after all of the hoopla last year over the original, I just had to see what it was all about.  Well, now I’m stuck and I find myself glued to the television set every Thursday night, praying that Elizabeth doesn’t get voted off.  (if you don’t follow the show, Elizabeth is the only attractive one left on the show and, although she doesn’t stand a snowflake’s chance in hell, I’d like to see her win, and since I doubt that we’ll see this one in Playboy, that’s the second best thing I can hope for!)

Actually, I like Survivor 2.  For the most part, it’s been an entertaining show.  Granted, there have been some lame episodes, particularly the ’sliding puzzle,’ but it’s kept me tuning in week after week.  I’ll tell ya, the night Jerri got voted off was damn near the happiest night of my life!  Sad, isn’t it?

But this article isn’t about Survivor.  It’s about the latest “reality tv” program, brought to us by NBC.  As we all know, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? has held its title as the number 1 game show in North America for almost a year now, having aired several hundred episodes and making Regis Filbin one of the happiest richest game show hosts of all time.  Monday night NBC attempted to de-throne Millionaire with a new program which apparently was a huge success in the U.K..  The name of this show is Weakest Link…

If you tuned in for this hideous attempt at prime time entertainment, you were most likely disgusted, if not at least frightened, by the relentless jeering of host Anne Robinson.  Remember while watching this program that it originated in England, which explains the spiteful ‘personality’ displayed by Robinson as she brings former and present game show hosts to shame.  I’m sure Regis is laughing in his gigantic pool of money as we speak.

Witnessing this program, I noticed that it is basically a cheesy attempt by NBC to jump ahead in the ratings by combining every other successful program that’s dominating them right now.  Millionaire influences are painfully obvious, making us wonder if they’re simply renting the studio from ABC when it’s not in use.  They could’ve at least came up with some original sound effects, but knowing the British, they’d probably just claim that they came up with them first anyways.  The voting system after each round lacks only a lightning storm to be an exact copy of Survivor, except for the fact that people continue to watch Survivor.  After a player is voted off, we’re treated to a Real World-ish intimate interview with the contestant who was just voted off, during which he or she is given a moment to bad mouth the other players and tell us why he should’ve won.  This doesn’t happen after Jeopardy, does it?

I never thought I’d run across a television host as scornful as Judge Judy, but it has finally happened.  I must say, though, that at least Judge Judy makes a point once in a while!  Throw in a splash of Atilla the Hun and the haughtiness of the Queen of England and, boom, you’ve got the host of NBC’s latest flub.  So much for being friendly…

However, there is still hope!  I think that the general concept behind Weakest Link has potential; it just needs a little work to make it watchable.  For starters, lose the bitchy host and get someone who can actually deal out a decent rant once in a while without completely burning all the bridges.  My recommendation: Dennis Miller, that is if he’s not busy with that, ummm, thing he’s got going on with the NFL.  Honestly, his talents could be better used elsewhere.

After we hire a new host, let’s find us a set that hasn’t been used before.  Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right and Family Feud, along with countless other game shows were successful because they were different from anything else that was on at the time!!! Consider any of the game shows that MTV tried to launch during the 80’s (a la Remote Control, etc…) and you’ll see what I’m talking about.  These all flopped big time because they were nothing more than copies of popular shows that we’d already seen, so stop cheating and come up with an idea on your own!  If you want to recreate a game show of the past, let’s bring back the Physical Challenge from everybody’s favorite program especially for kids, Family Double Dare!  I think I speak for everyone when I say that you can show us the kid frantically searching through ear wax for the flag, or Dad sliding into a bucket of slime a thousand times and it will always be entertaining.  Some things should never change…

Unfortunately, knowing how these corporations work nowadays, until it starts receiving ratings equivalent of those reserved for the XFL, Weakest Link is here to stay.  Luckily I’ve got something else to keep me busy.  I’ll be waiting to see Richard, Jerri & Jeff Probst appear on a special edition of Celebrity Jeopardy…