Don’t come too close. I’m sick. Been leveled by the flu all week. So I did what I usually never do – watched daytime television. This resulted in depression along with the fever. The commercials alone can get into your head, pounding the same message – you’re a LOSER! You have no job, you can’t post bail, you can’t get auto insurance, you don’t know a trade, you’re a trapped housewife, the day is soon coming when you’re going to need the “Scooter Store”. Why Dr. Kervokian doesn’t advertise on morning TV I’ll never know.Anyway, I decided to do a little channel surfing and at random this is what I found from about 10 to noon on Wednesday, January 23, 2008.
THE PRICE IS RIGHT – Drew Carey does a nice job, very personable. Doesn’t let on that he thinks these contestants are idiots (which, good God they ARE). That takes a real talent. I couldn’t do it. Someone would say a new car costs $3000 and I would say, “Are you fucking kidding me? Are you a moron? $3000 for a new car? What world do you live in? Has anyone told you you’re too fucking stupid to live? And by the way, that cowboy hat looks ridiculous and you’re on a national television show, you can’t wear anything better than a fucking T-shirt?”
TODAY – How many hours is that damn thing on? Ann Curry was doing her best to stay awake.
JERRY SPRINGER – A streaker with balloon animals wrapped around his head was being chased through the studio. So a typical day.
MIKE & JULIET – Mike has had more face work than Mary Tyler Moore. Phyllis Diller looks more natural. There was a debate over whether your kids should be permitted to have sex in your house. Brain trust Juliet asked one of the experts: “Does age make a difference?”
THE VIEW – Tom Brokaw was guesting with the hens pimping his book 1968. They managed to zero in on the most significant event of that year – bra burning.
LEG MAGIC INFORMERCIAL – Testimonials from women who have gone from size 20 to size 16. Hosted by hot bulimic models.
DIVORCE COURT – A husband was accused of cheating on his wife and having sex at work. Angrily he responded, “It wasn’t at work!”
There were 7 channels selling jewelry.
LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE – First line of dialogue I heard, “Daddy, can we go to church tomorrow?”
C-SPAN – the U.S. House of Representatives were discussing the practice of stalking. Most seemed to be against it. But that could just be because it's an election year.
JUDGE MATHIS – Judge Judy has spawned like ten more judge shows (another reason to hate her). This one wants to be Cosby. From what I gathered, a woman was suing a guy because he was no longer performing well in bed. Didn’t Fat Albert have the same problem?
JUDGE ALEX – Captain America in a robe (pictured right) . A couple having problems because they were both sleeping with each other’s best friend.
STEVE WILKOS SHOW – Who is this guy? I’ve never heard of him. And he has his own show. It’s as if Dr. Phil were a member of the Sopranos. Only host capable of killing his guests right on camera.
KCBS-2 NEWS – Britney Spears custody hearing with a live report.
There were six channels showing music videos.
TYRA BANKS – Dr. Drew was the guest. Isn’t he the guest on every show? Reverend Gene Scott didn’t get as much airtime.
MATLOCK – This was the classic episode where he wins his case.
ER – This was the classic episode where someone was brought in with an emergency and we follow the gurney as everybody runs along and yells instructions.
Seven channels have SESAME STREET. Big Bird is aging much better than Maria.
BEST OF MIKE & MIKE – Radio on television is always great.
FOX NEWS – Click!
CNN HEADLINE NEWS – A flying saucer citing.
LIVING SINGLE: Girl: “How’d you get to be a handyman?” Guy: “Well, I’ve always been handy and I grew into the man part.” Huge laugh from the audience. Click!
WILL & GRACE – Should be called JACK & KAREN because they’re the funny ones.
WALKER TEXAS RANGER – Chuck Norris teaching teenagers how to break jaws.
ROCK OF LOVE 2: Hot skanky women in a roller derby competition to win the favor of a guy who looks like Meatloaf wearing a bandana. It’s the bikers’ version of THE BACHELOR.
At this point I turned off the TV and took my meds, even though I wasn’t supposed to for two more hours.
40 comments :
you need to watch DVDs or videos - ANYTHING but daytime TV. at least you weren't hooked on the soaps.
What? You did not watch the Match Game reruns on GSN? Its a good week, too - Dick Gautier with his Robin Hood 'do from WHEN THINGS WERE ROTTEN...
MG is still funnier than 90% of the **BLANK** out there...
My take watching daytime TV is that people who are home during the day are:
Minorities who have been in 37 car wrecks that weren't their fault who have bad credit, toxin emitting feet, need credit counseling, incontinent, depressed, people in need of a reverse mortgage so they have money to take them off the fact that they need a scooter to get around and can't get it up.
My favorite ambulance chaser commercial.... 1-800-ASK-GARY where the woman pronounces the 800 number as One, Eight Hundred, AXE GARY.
We also have billboards, commercials, and even our phonebooks covered with this guy:
http://www.isaacsandisaacs.com/
Could this be David Isaacs' lost son?
Not a bad idea.
I love Match Game. Anyone ever read MG writer's book on his work at Mad Magazine? It's an enjoyable read if you loved Mad Magazine.
What, you didn't stay awake to watch the 2-hour block of M.A.S.H. that follows Little House?
STEVE WILKOS SHOW – Who is this guy? I’ve never heard of him.
He was, I suppose, Jerry Springer's head security guard who became as popular as Jerry and because Jerry obviously didn't want to share the stage, Wilkos got his own show.
ER – This was the classic episode where someone was brought in with an emergency and we follow the gurney as everybody runs along and yells instructions.
What are you talking about? I never saw that one. *insert obligatory ironic winky face here*
You missed Monty Hall making deals? It's a time machine kind of moment. Take a double dose of Nyquil and it all makes sense.
"...and behind curtain number three, a brand new Chevrolet valued at $3795..."
I think you meant ROCK of Love 2.
As for Dr. Drew, have you seen his new Celebrity Rehab show? While channel-surfing around 2 a.m. the other night, I washed up on it. Though most of these celeb reality shows seem to be wacky and/or full of manufactured drama, this one is unutterably sad. There's no fun to be had watching Jeff Conaway shake and drool his way through withdrawal. Dr. Drew seems to know his stuff, but PUBLIC rehab?
Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab is indeed sad.
It's really how reality should be done, though. It certainly doesn't feel staged, although some have suggested that Jeff Conaway is faking it. If so, it's the acting job of his career.
I'm actually enjoying the Celebrity Apprentice as well.
I've never had a driver's license so have no clue if $3000 for a car is high or low (I suspect it's low). Then again, I'd never go on TPIR.
No cooking shows? You've got to catch Giada slicing prosciutto with her cleavage bouncing around.
Hope you feel better soon. Try Gatorade and grain alcohol.
Hours of morning television made you yearn to be back on the picket line, didn't it?
You clicked off of FoxNews quickly, how about CNN and MSNBC? Same quick exit?
Steve Wilkos used to be the head of security for Jerry Springer’s show. This of course qualifies him to solve the problems of trailer park residents across the nation.
Long time lurker, first-time poster. Re: Sesame Street, my family knows Bob's brother. He grew up in my hometown, and his brother owns a sports bar/restaurant that we go to occassionally.
As for daytime TV, I avoid it like the plague. Which is ironic, since it sounds like you had the plague. Feel better soon, so you can escape daytime TV hell and get back to picket line hell.
"There were six channels showing music videos."
You forgot to mention that MTV was not one of them.
Kenny....still love your humor...please come back to Seattle and do a series this season....M's need the help....
My only negative comment about anything you've ever written on this blog ever is this:
Back off on Maria, man. An entire generation of men in this country-- maybe two generations-- have her back. Her hot, hot back.
Hey, don't get me wrong. When my kids were little and I was watching SESAME STREET I had a big crush on Maria. I would have much preferred if she stayed the same and Big Bird got older.
If you'd watched Oprah, you'd have a more loving and charitable view of those shows and be eternally grateful. Just checking: were you sick BEFORE you watched those shows?
Two things:
1) Big Bird has gotten older. He hasn't always had those white feathers, you know.
2) I know you're like, some kind of writer for teevee n stuff, but why do you even have so many cable channels? Call the company, cancel now, and hook up the rabbit ears. You won't be sorry.
You were lucky you missed the 20-per-hour commercials for Empire Today, a cabal of sleazy carpet merchants whose spokesman sounds like a cross between Winnie-the-Pooh and a child molester. In these parts we also have incessant commercials for a mattress store which, like the carpet creeps, has had a sale consistently for the past 200 years.
How did you miss 9 hours worth of soaps on your journey?
I started cutting down my television when my oldest was born (I don't let them watch it, so it was just easier if I stopped, too) and I've completely stopped now, other than the few shows I download and watch on my computer. One day, my wife took the kids for the entire day and I turned on the television. I felt completely inundated. loud, brash commercials, plastic looking people, shows that looked like they were made for people with ADD. After ten minutes I couldn't take anymore and turned it off.
For shame, Ken. TV is always entertaining. Why, the moment I read about all the channels selling jewelry I thought "Oh, yeah. Isn't it Gold Rush today?" and immediately turned to QVC, hit the mute button, and tantalized myself with sparkly things.
Lock the AMPTP negotiators in a room and force them to watch that vast wasteland on television, and the strike would be over by midnight.
I may not have all my facts completely straight, but the Empire commercials started out locally in Chicago, and the guy who does/did them is in his 70's, so they animated him, rather than letting him age.
Speaking of FNC, there is going to be a tribute to Suzanne Pleshette on tonight's O'Reilly Factor.
Years ago, my father got sick and stayed home for a few days. After checking out the TV shows, he decided that daytime television was a government plot to keep people in jobs. Now that we have hundreds of channels of the same thing, I'm convinced he was right!
I know money must be a little tight with the strike, but you should have gotten your flu shot. I think you can order them on the HSN.
Feel better soon.
Ray
today's contestant bid on a living room furniture set, a high class camcorder and a 7 night trip to New Zealand.
The contestant bid $8900.
Drew just laughed quietly and reiterated, "8900?" ok...
actually retail price $22000.
Oh well.
What was that flying sauce citing? Like, Blackstone's Commentaries or something?
I am impressed that everyone seems to aggree that the show's name should have been Jack and Karen, I like Will but no one in Mexico (where I live and from I where watch the show) likes Grace at all (of course I mean the character).
Get well soon!
I'm glad that I am not the only one who has noticed that Today is on all damned day long.
How did you manage to take the rest of your meds BEFORE you got to the 47 channels selling, "Blue Zircon in a lovely Pink Indian goldtone finish."
Feel Better.
Yes, daytime TV hasn't been the same since PASSIONS went off the air.
If you really want to make yourself ill, sit on the TV Guide channel for 10 minutes. The crap spewing from know-nothings as they endlessly speculate about the Heath Ledger tragedy without any facts to go on, psychoanalyzing a man they never met, and leaping on any rumor that comes along as though it constitiutes a Hot Scoop makes me want to vomit. If I hear the phrase "Rolled-up twenty dollar bill" once more I may go down to their building and just start shooting. They can analyze why as they die.
But you know, there are 37 repeats of THE DAILY SHOW each day you could watch. And some channel is probably running VOLUNTEERS
Two thoughts -- do either Robert Vaughn or Daniel J. Travanti do commercials for your local ambulance chaser law firms? (Living in a cable region that brings in both the New York and Connecticut markets, I know Vaughn is pitching a Connecticut firm, but I can't nail down who's keeping Travanti on retainer.)
#2... when we were kids, in the 7-channel, no-remote-control era (if you lived in New York or LA), you saw GREAT game shows -- Concentration, Password, PDQ, You Don't Say -- and reruns that were funny and timeless such as I Love Lucy, December Bride, both Ann Sothern sitcoms, I Married Joan, Amos & Andy, My Little Margie and The People's Choice (sorry, I have a thing for talking housepets). Almost made you look forward to being sidelined by chicken pox.
mike mccann: I didn't anyone else was old enough to remember I Married Joan or December Bride. I loved those shows, too.
"Both Ann Southern Sitcoms"? Weren't they both identical, only her character had a different name, but the same boss?
I rented and watched some I MARRIED JOANs recently, having loved them as a boy(GREAT theme song!), only to find them now a tiresome I LOVE LUCY rip-off, not holding up well at all, although it's a measure of how natural a slapstick clown Joan Davis was, that Jim Backus was the straight man. Loved her, didn't still enjoy the show.
I wonder if I'd now find DECEMBER BRIDE as funny as I did as a boy, with Harry "Sherman Potter" Morgan as Pete, the next-door neightbor married to the never-seen, zany Gladys. Later, when we saw her in the PETE & GLADYS spin-off (Cara Williams? Am I right?), she wasn't nearly as funny. How wise of CHEERS not to have done a NORM & VERA spin-off, despite the undeniable talents of Burnadette Burkett. (With whom I have worked, so I know.)
Meanwhile, we can all hold our breaths waiting for AMOS & ANDY to come back.
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