“Don’t you wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence?
There’s one marked brightness, but it doesn’t work”
Leo Gallagher
I seem to turn on the TV these days, and am totally gob smacked by the programming that people not only have available to them, but are actually watching, and subscribing to as well. Check out the audience participation of American Idol!
I thought the UK was bad enough with all this Big Brother nonsense. A group of people living in a house. Talentless people. And millions of people in the UK are tuning in to watch the bickering and all. What are shows of this kind designed to do? Can someone please enlighten me as to how a show with content like this can be classified as entertainment on any level?
The amount of media hype and coverage the show gets is understood, as is the income that can be generated by text messaging, franchising and all. That much is clear. But at the end of the day, the program is about a group of people existing in a house. How can this be interesting? Entertaining?
I mean, most of the people who watch this crap also live in a house… and I can assure you that what goes on in the viewers’ houses is probably way more entertaining… and realistic to boot. Plus, in your own house, you can actually vent anger and frustration when people are driving you around the bend.
Are people watching this to give them the impression that maybe their life isn’t so bad?
That’s kind of like a line I once heard in the Simpsons, where Marge states they are the worst family in the neighbourhood, and Homer’s solution is to move to a bigger neighbourhood and improve their position statistically.
People who watch much of this nonsense must think along similar lines, mustn’t they?
What’s next? Fish Brother? A reality TV show set in a fish tank, whereby a group of fish exist and the public get to watch fish take a crap, and fight amongst themselves for the food that’s delivered? The general public can bet on which fish dies first, I suppose. Text if you think Jerry, the goldfish with the black markings, will kick it first. And if that’s not bad enough, look at some of the other shows.
Take Jerry Springer, for example. Where do these guests come from? How come people like this aren’t regularly (if ever) seen anywhere? And if that’s because I don’t get out enough, I think I’ll just stay in from now on. Hollywood portrays the lives of people from pretty much all walks of life, yet I can’t recall one Hollywood movie reflecting people who show up as subject material on the Jerry Springer show. Even the red neck hillbilly’s in Deliverance haven’t a patch on half the people who show up on Jerry Springer. Massively obese, out of work, toothless, unkempt, congenitally challenged, deranged ‘guests’ by the look of most of them. Then they discuss their issues and challenges, which are so absurd it is not even worthy of rationalising. The subject matter for these shows are bewildering, to say the least.
“My sister used to be a guy and now she wants to sleep with me, my wife, my pets, and all my in-laws”
“I was visited by aliens and they have convinced me that the Ku Klux Klan is the way forward, providing I procreate with farmyard animals”.
Then the audience members show off their boobs in an effort to get a worthless string of beads.
What is that about?
If you want to show your naked body off, I would have thought the following might be worthy of consideration…
- if you are going to do it, consider that viewers might be eating… if it isn’t pretty, don’t do it
- if it is pretty, don’t be shy… take everything off
- if you are hell bent on doing this, do it in a strip club and get paid for it at least
If you are the show producers and allow people to show off like this, remove the pixels in the network output at the very least. Inevitably these “guests” have this ‘all too common’ bizarre set of issues and they “don’t know what to do Jerry”, other than tell the insane or deformed creature they are in a relationship with that they have a problem. Quite naturally, this communiqué needs to be delivered on national TV, as discussing in the privacy of their own home doesn’t work… they live in an area where atmospheric influences prevent the discussion of such things.
Yeah right. I mean, the entire content of the show couldn’t possibly be engineered, could it? What? Some of these “guests” might be paid to appear? Really? Do you think that’s possible?
Other shows are equally bewildering. One of my favourites has to be “Who wants to marry my Dad?” I must admit that I do watch this occasionally, as it is amusing because it is a fabulous example of skilled carpentry. It has to be, doesn’t it, given the wooden performances of all and sundry.
Here’s some reportedly rich guy, who chooses to have a group of women found for him to fall in love with, and all in that well known romantic environment, on camera, in the presence of 15000 TV production people… that well known catalyst to spontaneous mate finding.
I don’t know about you, but most every date I went on, the first thing I would organise would be the film crew… it’s just naturally the thing to do, mandatory procedure as it were.
Meanwhile, his three daughters are onlookers and judges as to who he should marry.
What is going on with these people? The guy is getting ‘romantically involved’ with these women, some of the women are being eliminated, all amongst tears as contestants leave and daughters hearts go out to these hapless women. Yeah right! What an absolute crock of bull!
I think the elimination should be the guy and his stupid bloody daughters – on a very, very, permanent basis. Let’s clean up the gene pool and make the human race better – order the genocide of all people who have featured in this reality TV show – that would give them something to cry about.
Alternatively lets get some real reasons to tune in attentively and totally re-theme the program …
“Who wants to shag my dad?”
This time the performers or ‘candidates’ could get actively involved, couldn’t they? I guarantee you the viewing statistics would go through the roof and in America alone there would be 100 million males vying for the lead role. And the list just keeps going on and on with all that reality stuff.
Survivor? Put a group of ‘people’ in a location they aren’t used to, and ask them to survive? How are these people having to survive? They’re only trying not to get voted off, it isn’t life or death. So basically the ‘survival’ mechanism is about a group of morons who use politics to remain in the show. This isn’t a new concept, is it?
Why not just tune in to ‘Parliament Live’ … same outcome if you ask me. It’s still a bunch of unattractive idiots, mainly trying to segregate themselves into camps, squawking at each other, and using politics to get upper hands in debates. The only difference is the location, how much clothing is worn, and the fact that the voting off process only occurs every couple of years. Same nonsense – different arena – another key differentiator is that the people in Parliament actually have the ability to change people’s lives whereas Survivor contestants are people who are trying to change their own… which isn’t the same thing is it? Better still, try and get hold of “Today in Parliament” , the Taiwanese version. This is excellent as it combines our UK live parliamentary show with Rocky V as all the politicians try and beat the living crap out of each other… live! Now That’s Entertainment!
Why are members of the general public interested in who is voted off or not in these shows? How does any of this affect the lives of the viewers? Why should we care? Why do people care? Another example of this reality TV nonsense is American Idol or Pop Idol as it is called in the UK. I have to admit at the early stages of this show, the auditions stage, it is funny. The panel in the American version consists of Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell, if you haven’t seen it, and their job is to critique a group of individuals who perform songs each week. The viewing audience text or call votes to decide who is the better or worst of the group until the show eventually has only one artist remaining. The auditions stage is very funny because the degree of sheer delusion that some of these pop star wannabes are under, is frankly mind-boggling. The performances are so bad they are really funny, especially the look of surprise on many of their faces when they learn they aren’t quite up to it.
Plus of course, Simon Cowell has his sledgehammer critiques to throw in, so it can be a laugh at the early stages. But when the closing parts of the series are in full swing, people are spending millions to vote for someone to stay in the show…
Why? They don’t know the ‘performers’ personally, do they? I think the last time I caught the show, there were six contestants remaining and over 40 million Americans actually paid money to text and call so that they could influence who gets voted off the show and who doesn’t??? Over 40 million votes? These people who are singing are strangers… why would you spend money texting anyone about people who have no bearing on your life whatsoever?
This is total madness, surely?
Having read a plethora of responses and commentary on websites dedicated to American Idol, including Vote For The Worst, I cannot believe how naïve much of the commentary actually is. American Idol is contrived? Surely not? No! Please! Say it isn’t so!
I am sorry to tell you this folks, but this is reality TV. This is a partial misnomer, given that there’s little reality yet the show does air on TV. Wake up! How can one possibly believe that this isn’t contrived to the max? What makes me laugh is that millions of people are sufficiently cognitively challenged that they actually PAY THEIR MONEY to vote for stage monkeys. How does that work, exactly? You are investing time and money in unknown people who, in the overall scheme of things, have about as much positive bearing on life as Nick Leeson had on Baring’s... it isnt exactly positive.
As for Sanjaya, or whatever his name is? My goodness. How can people vote for this talentless and, perhaps, hapless person in any other forum other than the Darwin Awards? Unreal!
But wait… maybe I have this wrong, and just MAYBE reality TV isn’t totally fake? Then again… hehehe.
Why not just rename the show American Idle and only have performances from people who are never going to make it in the music business… then everyone can vote for the worst performer and the people who get voted off are cast away because they are too talented. This may at least be comedic.
I guess we could turn reality TV towards world issues if someone gets creative enough…
“Who wants to eradicate Al Qaeda?”
This would be a great one. It would be like a lifestyle travel program, a cross between Michael Palin’s Pole to Pole, and the latest Steven Seagal movie. Basically the main character travels from country to country taking in the sights and culture, with minimal luggage and a shitload of automatic weapons. There would be plenty of targets to aim at and interesting places to visit, search and destroy. At the end of each show, the main character could use the terrorist playing card deck and through a process of audience participation and elimination, identify the next target to be killed.
On that subject, why chose a playing card deck to reflect the Al Qaeda members? Has someone the belief that there are only 52 members in Al Qaeda? Maybe not… perhaps this pack only has one joker, eh George W?
How about The Apprentice? Donald Trump always shows up, in a trumped up way, and tells people “you’re fired”. Brilliant. If I was him, the person I would fire first would be his hairstylist. I kind of feel sorry for people who are claiming bankruptcy protection and have a meagre multimillion dollar monthly expense allowance… this is really kind of tough.
Maybe the playing cards were Donald’s idea? He always seems to come up Trumps, doesn’t he?
The programming that people are watching on TV these days I find unfathomable. So much time and effort is being put into the production of all this syndicated nonsense, and much of it is effectively a more progressive (?) version of Scooby Doo cartoons. Surely you remember how the plot was always the same, and the end tagline was pretty much
“and we would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those damned kids?”
But hasn’t much of the programming been like this, and for a long time? Staid, cartoonesque, and entirely predictable?
Please don’t tell me that Baywatch had always lost the plot and it was just a slightly covered up animated version of The Sun’s page 3, watched by millions of solitary men the world over that undertook preparation for watching the show excluded coffee, tea or snacks and includes tissues and baby oil .
Please don’t tell me that MacGyver wasn’t responsible for building the Apollo 11 first lunar module from the contents of an in-flight toiletries bag, the make up kit of a flight attendant called Jessica, the contents of an airline business class food tray, and using only a Swiss Army Knife. Please don’t ruin my delusions, HuHuHu.
I always thought that the soap operas were bad enough, with Eastenders, Crossroads, Emmerdale and all. I never could figure out why so many people got so entrenched with these type of programs in the UK, or with the transatlantic junk we were spoon fed, such as Dynasty, Dallas, The Bold and the Beautiful, et al. Same rubbish, just sunnier and with actors and scriptwriters who cant speak English properly. Having said that, neither can the actors and scriptwriters in UK soaps, either, mostly at least.
If people are spending so much time watching this garbage, is it any wonder that so many kids are being raised as dysfunctional? Look at the stuff parents are exposing them to. It does have an effect on kids. I remember as a kid watching, with much enthusiasm, Batman. THE ORIGINAL TV Batman, with Adam West and Burt Ward as the dynamic duo and such wonderful villains as Cesar Romero playing the Joker, Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Julie Newmar/Eartha Kitt as Catwoman. I still enjoy this series now – it is such a scream… a brilliant hammed up comedy that everyone knew for what it was and what it tried to be. However, I also recall several kids killing themselves by trying to emulate the various activities of our ‘vertical wall walking’ crime fighting super heroes. Today, our kids are being exposed to reality TV… I can only hope that they do not form the view that any of this stuff is real.
My two boys went through a phase where they would try and act out scenes from WWE Wrestling. I think this used to be called WWF? I guess that conflicted with the World Wildlife Fund maybe, and at the end of the day anyone in this cast of insane loons purportedly ‘wrestling’ shouldn’t be protected, I would have thought. Quite the opposite, if anything.
TV is becoming absurd… I guess prime time viewing will soon consist of Family Misfortunes, Only Fools and Divorces, Yes Sinister, and Priestbenders.
Haven’t we just about had enough?
Nah… that’s perhaps just too much reality for most TV viewers today I suppose.
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