As proof that people will watch anything, there’s the DR. PIMPLE POPPER show on TLC. Dr. Sandra Lee is a dermatologist and has this show where she graphically pops pimples, and other skin procedures that most people would find disgusting. Not for the squeamish to be sure.
Now you may wonder how a show like this gets on the air. I do. I can’t imagine her pitching it to TLC. “And then we drain the puss and…” “STOP! Say no more! SOLD!”
My guess is she’s had videos on YouTube that went viral and TLC came after her. I could be wrong, but that makes sense.
So how does the show do ratings-wise? Very well. Are we that starved for entertainment? How would you like to be a competing show that loses to her in the ratings when she does her lancing blisters episode?
I'm sorry, but I find this hilarious. And as disgusting as some of the scenes are, I'd still rather watch Dr. Pimple Popper than Dr. Oz.
Someone has the theory that whatever sick, weird fetish you may have there’s a porno site for it — or 100 porno sites for it. Eyebrows? Sure. Left thumbs obsession? (way sexier than right thumbs) Gotcha covered. Watching bunions removed? Tune into TLC.
I look at Paddy Chayefsky’s NETWORK, which at the time of its release in the late ‘70s was considered satiric and bordered on the absurd. Now we’ve gone so far past that it feels somewhat quaint. Dr. Pimple Popper has replaced Howard Beale. Except I'm not mad as hell. I'm amused.
I don't watch either. (Dr. Pimple Popper or Dr. Oz.) The only doctors I watch have DVM after their name. (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.) I am hooked on *every one* of the Nat Geo Wild vets, both US and Aussie.
ReplyDeleteMy wife has watched her YouTube channel for years. I can't stand the stuff, personally, but she has a huge online following.
ReplyDeleteWe love Dr. Pimple Popper. First of all, she has a great caring personality. But onto the real attraction. Guessing whether someone's grotesque lump is a cyst or lipoma. Personally speaking, the cysts are more entertaining. Especially if they spray the room like a popped zit. And oh, all the different colors the cysts can produce. Even on the same person!
ReplyDeleteI'm so old I remember when The Learning Channel was about learning, The History Channel was about history, and American Movie Classics was about....well.
ReplyDeleteApparently, popping pimples or watching someone do so will trigger a dopamine release in the brain, and that’s why that genre of videos is so popular.
ReplyDeleteI directed a “premium content” series for YouTube a few years back and found that one of our YouTube personalities—a sexy, Russian-American woman—had a channel that catered to balloon fetishists. Balloons!
“Everything’s a thing.”
Yes, NETWORK revealed American crap television to be beyond parody, which I think it was even in 1976. Pimple popping as a show premise? Why not.
ReplyDeleteAnd...President T***p.
She’s a doctor who listens to disenfranchised peoples with embarrassing problems. That part I like. I don’t like watching her procedures, but I do like seeing the almost immediate results achieved and how happy, and sometimes life-altering her work can be to her patients.
ReplyDelete20 years ago I crated and ran a series for the Comedy Network up here that featured two puppets exploring the Internet. One of the episodes was about fetish websites and we featured (all real) sites devoted to: the sound of women sneezing; men who like to wear diapers - the wetter the better (echhh); women popping balloons; women holding their breath underwater for as long as possible; plump naked people covered in various kinds of soggy rotting food; farting; pee play; and many many more!
ReplyDeleteMost of the search engines we used to do our research melted after a day or two.
But, whatever floats your boat!
Well, I'm so old I remember when The Travel Channel was about travel. Resorts, hotels, great train rides...Now it's all shows called "Ghost Adventures," "Portals To Hell," "Scariest Night of My Life," "Paranormal Caught On Camera" (it isn't). They just haven't gotten around to re-naming it The Gullible Idiot Channel.
ReplyDeleteHave you looked at the rest of the TLC lineup? I'd rather watch zits than people who have to be brought to Houston on flatbed trucks to have their stomachs stapled.
The first rule of basic cable: Everything turns to crap sooner or later.
I've heard of this show but thankfully, have never seen it. I just wanted to mention that you have an intriguing spelling error. Did you mean "drain the pus"? Because "Drain The Puss" sounds like a show on that kinky porno site you referenced.
ReplyDeleteComing soon to Discovery+ : Dr. Anal Bleacher.
ReplyDeletePost and some comments reference "Rule 34."
ReplyDeleteFrom what I am told, anyway.
Does anyone remember when Sunday nights on Lifetime were devoted to nothing but surgeries? Much like "Nick at Night", the network would adopt the name "Lifetime Medical Television" for the evening.
ReplyDeleteBack in my 60s-70s adolescence, I had extensive acne and was often obsessed by it. Lots of popping (officially discouraged), scrubbing with abrasive sponges and substances, high-power prescription pills, lotions that were supposed to dry the skin, and the occasional sub-zero freezing thing applied by the dermatologist. I switched to an electric razor -- still use one -- because shaving otherwise meant a multitude of bloodied bits of toilet paper I'd forget to remove.
ReplyDeleteI would have watched the heck out of this program.
As it was, all the media offered was print ads for blackhead extractors (what about whiteheads?) and commercials for Clearesel (sp?). The commercials were bitterly amusing, since they always had flawless-looking teens obsessing over one discreet blemish. The best one had a kid sulking because he had just played Romeo opposite a gorgeous Juliet in the class play, and thought everybody was staring at a near-microscopic red spot. I was a theater kid and knew that distance and slathered-on pancake makeup hid everything. It was after the show, when you scoured it off and saw the raw, irritated face you'd be wearing to the all-night coffee shop where cast and crew gathered, that you got depressed.
To everybody who'd forgotten complexion-based teen trauma ... Wrinkles don't seem so bad now, do they?
The Walmarting of America.
ReplyDeleteLucky for you Ken, Dr. Pimple Popper is a frequent guest on the Dr. Oz show. You can have the best of both worlds.
ReplyDeleteVincentS. Along with the channels you mentioned, what the hell happened to "Bravo?!"
maxdebryn A little graphic, but spot on.
I'm surprised you know who didn't find a way to blame Trump for Dr. P.P. and "TLC."
Speaking of Dr. Oz, today's show is about Natalie Wood's death. See how the universe brings everything together.
M.B.
Mike
DeleteWhy would anyone blame Trump for Dr Sandra Lee, an attractive, educated Asian woman and the kind of person Republicans refer to as slant eyed and yellow?
I actually want to thank Trump. It's because of him that hordes of uneducated, retarded redneck racists have died of Coronavirus after they refused the vaccine that he himself received back in January.
I almost feel like they stole the idea from SEINFELD. "You call yourself a lifesafer? I call you Pimple Popper, M.D.!" That just sounds like a TV show title, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteMost people slow down to see an accident to see it, not for safety.
ReplyDeleteI can admit one of my guilty pleasures was Jackass on MTV. The one stunt I could never bring myself to watch involved someone (maybe Steve-O?) popping a pimple. Several stunts involved bodily fluids and placing objects in places not designed for placing objects, but the pimple popping was where I drew the line.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably why I can't watch this show. A few years ago, I dated a woman who wanted to pop a zit on the back of my neck and it freaked me out a bit, although popping my own is strangely cathartic.
I saw her YouTube channel before I even knew she had a show. There are a lot of "oddly satisfying" medical channel topics on YouTube. Other dermatologists, podiatrist foot scraping, otoscopic ear wax removal. The latter I had to undergo this summer, my ears were so blocked up and itchy, I couldn't hear people who were right next to me.
ReplyDeleteThorough chiropractic exam/physical therapy videos seem to be the most popular. Part of that is the discovery of how the unusual way the spinal and nervous system affect the body. Of course, another part is that a number of the patients are athletic young women wearing tight workout gear. When it's them instead of a muscular guy or an average-looking person in loose clothing, you'll often see the comment "Men of culture, we meet again."
@Mike Bloodworth: Anal bleaching is *real*. Kids today: crazier than we ever were.
ReplyDeleteWatched a heart operation when I was a kid...Back then in B&W but that night Mom served some delicious blazing RED tomato soup...In a weird way it was kinda like bring right there in the operating room...Still do tomato soup but I will NOT watch an operation ever again...
ReplyDeleteI read this post hours ago. I’m still throwing up.
ReplyDelete@Joseph Scarbrough
ReplyDeleteYou are understating this, as the show definitely ripped off Seinfeld. As for which writer should get credit, there are three credited writers on "The Slicer": Gregg Kavet, Andy Robin, and Darin Henry. Ultimately Jerry Seinfeld gets the credit, though.
Hey, Dr. Oz fans! He's running for the Senate in Pennsylvania!
ReplyDeletehttps://newrepublic.com/article/164356/dr-oz-senate-pennsylvania
@Buttermilk Sky
ReplyDeleteOz has been a long-time resident of the same New Jersey neighborhood as Geraldo Rivera, so I'm surprised he is willing to move back to PA to do this.
Should be sponsored by Dr Pepper.
ReplyDelete