Bad TV

As with any other recreational drug, television, when used judiciously, can be a pleasant experience. I know I'm gonna get death threats from William Bennett for saying this, but TV is responsible for a lot of spontaneous education. How many times have you been channel surfing, when suddenly you click onto a special on the Discovery channel about giant squids fucking and for the next hour you're completely spellbound and oddly stimulated?

But I'm not talking about good television. The topic here is bad television and America's insatiable thirst for it. It's easy to figure out. We all work hard during the day and TV is our main source of entertainment. Did you hear me? Entertainment. Most people don't watch TV for enlightenment, they just want to giggle as they doze off.

Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but America's jones for bad TV is growing faster than your penis while watching that squid thing I mentioned earlier.

Television is the most important invention since the wheel, and I might add most of us first learned about the wheel from television. Every night millions of Americans Krazy Glue down the scan button on their clickers and strobe past great, great stuff like HBO's Larry Sanders, HBO's Tracy Takes On, HBO's Tales from the Crypt, HBO's Dream On, and HBO's original movies to settle in to an evening of albinos wrestling in a steel cage.

You know, a man can work up a powerful lip parch kissing that much ass.

TV is the great equalizer. Bill Clinton may be making decisions on our nation's security during the day, but at night he is laughing his ass off at some guy getting hit in the nuts with a rake on America's Funniest Home Videos.

To assure that everyone's going to "get it," the three major networks have to make certain their programs are about as challenging as bowling during a 7.4 on the Richter scale. Their job is to make sure that the only thing that goes over our collective heads is the hat that holds two beer cans with the Styrofoam tits on the front. Thus, they give us shows that are blander than Strom Thurmond's diet.

And any show that doesn't pull numbers like a bingo caller on methamphetamines is immediately snuffed.

A perfect example of how imperfect the TV rating system is is the fact that a few years ago the show M.A.N.T.I.S. was taken off the air. One of the greatest shows ever, it was about a guy that was half man, half praying mantis, and he fought crime. And they cancel it! A regular guy who, when trouble reared it's ugly head, half of him would turn into a praying mantis!

Don't you see the beauty of that, for chrissakes? Why didn't any of you fuckers watch... why? Sorry, but I guess there's a little mantis inside all of us. Manty, we hardly knew ye.

It's true, everybody watches bad TV. Now they are talking about five hundred channels. I can't wait to see what kind of brilliantly horrific programs are out there when we get up to half a thou. Hey, I'd give the "cat box" channel a chance if it came with basic cable.

And the cat box channel would be only one short step in front of daytime talk shows on the dolt meter.

If there's one thing that these shows have done, it's given overweight, big-haired southern women a forum in which to air their grievances.

Yeah. Let's face it, what are the chances that Ted Koppel is going to devote a half hour to helping fifteen-year-old Kimmy understand why her twenty-seven-year-old mother, Kimmy Senior, will date only Jamaican Siamese twins?

Here is the single most noticeable phenomenon of daytime talk shows: unbelievably grotesque men, men where you can literally see the dog-shit fumes coming off their hair, surrounded by two somewhat attractive women who don't mind sharing him.

The entire multibillion-dollar industry of daytime talk shows is predicated upon one simple subtext: I can't believe anybody is actually fucking that person.

And then there're the game shows. I always derive a cathartic moment when I watch a Chicklet-lobed Moorlock on Wheel of Fortune who opts to buy an "O" when the puzzle topic is body of water and the puzzle reads M blank S-S blank S-S blank P-P blank. Look, there's a reason Wheel of Fortune is on right after Jeopardy! Once you've been forced to choke down the foul-tasting tequila shot of your own abject ignorance, it's nice to be able to bite into the refreshing lime wedge of other people's incredible fucking stupidity.

Listen, bad television is three things. A bullet train to a morally bankrupt youth. A slow spiral into an intellectual void. And, of course, a complete blast to watch.

Much as bad TV may remind us of a terrible accident that you just can't look away from, there's nothing accidental about its badness.

Unctuous hosts, nonexistent production values, freakazoid guests, drekky theme music... all serve a complex, calculated purpose: They feed our dark and covert need to feel superior to others.

Folks, we can point fingers all we want, but it's the finger pushing the button on the remote control that is calling the shots. Face it, we are moths, and bad television is the porch light we've been slamming our heads against for decades now.

Not because it affords any illumination but because it barely beats eating socks.

Bad TV is part of our culture and harmless enough when properly abused. You know what? I say we should push it even further and wring the bad TV chamois for every last drop of stupid juice it contains.

Am I the only one who thinks they should put a laugh track on the show Cops? How's about shoplifter's week on Supermarket Sweep? What about Susan Powter as Sergeant Carter in the Gomer Pyle remake? How's about O.J. and Kathie Lee? Huh? Let's sew a tiny third arm onto Richard Bey's forehead. And finally, what about unwilling contestants on American Gladiators? Turbo, Laser, I believe you know Mr. Limbaugh.

Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.