My Night of Television Watching

So it turns out that watching television last night (May 20) provided quite the revelation for me. It was kind of a perfect storm of unfortunate events that led me to discover that television can be great again. Upon returning to Houston from California last Thursday my cable reception was having a few issues. And quite naturally, these issues had not resolved themselves by the time that I returned to Houston from St. Louis on Saturday. Consequently, I was exploring channels that I usually would not explore throughout the rest of this past weekend. What made matters worse was that somehow the New York Mets forgot that they were playing a crappy team like the New York Yankees Sunday night and started to suck. (More on this later...) This fact facilitated the ease with which I constantly flipped channels last night.

During my meandering through channels I happened to stop on the VH1. Now, the VH1 is a channel that I may stumble upon once every three weeks to month. It's one of those channels that I know that I have, but would struggle to tell you within ten numbers what number it is. I happened to come upon the current season of Celebrity Fit Club, and my how intriguing this episode was! Now generally, I prefer to hear news about fat pseudo-celebrities losing weight in thirty-second intervals (e.g., the Dan Marino et al. NutriSystem commercials). However, I became transfixed as I watched near the end of the show as Dustin "Screech" Diamond preceded to irritate all of the other "celebrities" until the point that six of the other seven walked off stage (ultimately I did think that this was a gross overreaction by the other cast members as it seemed that they were all forgetting that they were allowing Dustin "Screech" Diamond to humiliate/irritate/get the better of them), seriously argued that he took offense to being labeled a porn star, but was okay with being labeled a pornographer, and nearly signed his own death warrant by possibly challenging US Marine drill instructor to a fight (this part was a bit confusing). Oh good times...

But this only served as a prelude to what I was to experience. While Celebrity Fit Club was on, I happened to flip through channels during a commercial break and stumbled upon what to me now is one of the greatest programs ever: Women of Ninja Warrior. If you have never seen it, then you have certainly missed out. The show comes on the G4 channel (sorry, I'm too lazy to actually search for times when it airs) and involves women trying to complete four stages of an obstacle course in order to attain "total victory." Apparently, this show was spun off from the original male versions called Ninja Warrior, naturally. Oh, did I mention that this show is a Japanese production in which the action is called in dubbed English? (The comedy meter is rising...) Oh, and did I also mention that of the 100 women that begin each competition, fewer than 10% complete the first round of the challenge? (The meter is rising higher...) And that only one woman has ever completed all four stages? (Higher...) And of the 90+ women that lose in round one, probably about 90+% end up falling into the water? (Higher still...) And did I mention that some of the costumes these women wear are absolutely absurd? (I can barely contain myself now...) And would you believe that despite all of what I have told you about the show, it is still probably at least one hundred times better than I've described when you actually watch it? (Comedy gold!) The show is absolutely thrilling because you know that almost invariably the woman is going to end up taking a dive into the water, but you just hang on to see just how creative that dive is going to be this time. This show certainly meets with my seal of approval.

However, this was not the lone show that I watched as the night progressed. I ended up turning back to the VH1 and somehow got stuck watching Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School. Now many are certainly aware that I hate reality shows. For the most part, they are not entertaining in the slightest. This show is different because you bring together a bunch of superficial girls who all absolutely hate one another, competing for a chance to win $50,000, will do any amount of backstabbing to try to win, and the judges of the show appear to be at best completely detached from the realities occurring on the show, and at worst completely incompetent. This all makes for some brilliant television. Okay, brilliant is certainly too strong for what appears on this show as I'm certain that this adjective has rarely been used to describe any of the show's participants. But can you imagine a show that has more comedy potential than one in which the contestants are tasked with selling as many of their clothes as possible to a thrift shop but one is essentially unable to sell anything since she is a stripper and the only clothes that she has brought with her are stripper clothes? Oh, and did I mention that all of these girls absolutely hate one another?

The Answer is Yes

There's a new phenomenon sweeping the country (and by the country I mean the United States). And this phenomenon is the Fox network's new show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? I would say bonus points go to those of you reading this who already know that there is not a chance that I have actually watched this program to date (and it is highly likely that I will never watch this program), but I probably should be a bit more stingy with the bonus points that I am handing out. But as many people are well aware, the fact that I have not actually watched this program does not in any way preclude me from making comments about its merits.

The first brief statement that I will make is yes, I am smarter than a fifth grader. I know that this was a long time ago, but I do remember being smarter than several fifth graders way back when I was in the fifth grade. (I do not like to brag, but as the smartest kid in my class, I was smarter than all of the other fifth graders.) To take this a step further, I was smarter than a fifth grader when I was in the fourth grade, and finally when I was in the third grade, my older brother was in the fifth grade and goodness knows that I was smarter than many of his classmates. So at this point, for at least twenty years I have been able to answer in the affirmative as to the question of whether or not I am smarter than a fifth grader. So obviously with this in mind I would have to automatically be declared the winner once I start playing the game, right? The show and game is called Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? and the answer is yes, so I win. That's good work by me, but moving on, I find some things troubling.

The first thing that is troubling is that Jeff Foxworthy is the host. I would suggest as evidence for why he should not host any sort of show exhibit (a) The Jeff Foxworthy Show, (b) any of his CDs, and (c) any of his "comedy" routines. It's about as bad as getting Bob Saget to host 1 vs 100, only replace The Jeff Foxworthy Show with Full House, and drop the part about CDs since as far as I know Bob Saget has not released any CDs. The second thing that is troubling is why they chose to use fifth graders in the first place. Was it that they could not find some supposedly all-knowing fourth grade wunderkind to use on the show? And to some degree related to the last troubling part, what happens to Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? next year? I'm sure the kids will want to reprise their roles on the show in the next season. But guess what; the kids won't be fifth graders anymore. Will these evil show producers force these kids to fail in their current grade just to keep their jobs? Well, it is Fox so you never know.

That's just horrible.

It's Once Again Time to Dance with the Stars!

The big news in entertainment for today is that tonight is the premiere of the fourth season of Dancing with the Stars. Anyone who knows me knows that I will not be watching this show. The reasons are varied, of course, but ultimately you can narrow it down to the fact that I hate reality shows. I refuse to watch Survivor, American Idol, or any of these other shows. There have been exceptions over the years - most notably when I watched just about the entire season of Joe Millionaire, you know, just to see how much of an idiot the star was. However, that's been just about it.

One of my major objections to DwtS is that it is false advertising. Other than on the show DwtS, where would these people be considered stars? To me, it is very much similar to when that show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here! came along a few years back and I was barely able to identify any of the "celebrities," let alone identify anything any of them had done in at least the previous five years. People whom most would label as stars are usually busy with work and thus would not appear on one of these programs. But, and I know I'm not the first to discuss this, the presence of Heather Mills on this coming season is bewildering.

First of all, you need go no further than reading the Wikipedia description of Heather Mills on the DwtS Wikipedia page: former model and ex-wife of Paul McCartney. Those are her credentials as a "star?" Wow! Can I get on the show because I'm a former athlete and I met Dick Vitale once? However, as we all know, it is now her standing over her star legitimacy that makes her intriguing. It's the fact that she has a prosthetic leg that makes her intriguing. Now I do think that it would be quite insensitive for one to watch this program just to see whether her leg will stay attached (of course I will not be watching this program at all), but the promotional commercial that ABC has aired in which Mills states that her biggest concern is whether the leg will stay attached gives cover to those who were feeling a bit ashamed about watching for this reason and were wavering. ABC is essentially saying, "Oh come on, watch DwtS! Oh you're a little bit concerned about watching just to see if Heather Mills's leg comes off? Well look, she has no problem with it! Go ahead and watch it!" That's classy.

Well, at the very least, I do hope they play nothing but Beatles music when she dances...