I once went on IMDB and stated, rather politely, that I did not understand the appeal of the Olsen twins. Someone angrily emailed me that I should go f*ck myself and that the Olsen twins didn't suck and that it was indeed ME who did the sucking.

 

I nicely pointed out that, while that person, who may or may not be a cretin, was proud of their American right to love the Olsen twins, I, also an American with rights, had just as much right to dislike them. I then added that opinions are like a**holes: Everyone has one.

 

I love to hate. It's so much more fun for me to review the bad than it is to review the good. I feel my reviews of things I love are pretty dull.

 

I'll give you an example: Let's look at two people who are currently making movies:

 

One is Johnny Depp. First up, he's gorgeous and I want to have his baby. That's my not-very-professional assessment of Johnny. My professional opinion on Johnny is that he is a good actor, he's very versatile, and instead of playing it safe he takes risks in the roles he picks, which is quite admirable. For the most part a LOT of his movies are great and there are only one or two of them that are less than fabulous.

 

The other person is Paris Hilton who, as far as I'm concerned, should have been a cum stain left on the bed twenty-something years ago. Oh, to have a time machine and be able to tell Mr Hilton to "Pull out! Pull out! For the love of God and all that is holy: Pull out!"

 

What a talentless b*tch! That's fine and dandy if you wanna live your life as a really wealthy heiress who never has to work a day in your life. But noooooo, Paris feels she has something to prove to us. She sees herself as a "Renaissance woman" of sorts and so she makes terrible TV shows, terrible movies, terrible albums, terrible pornos and terrible hamburger-porn commercials.I think she designs terrible purses or clothes or something too. She's also a "Velcro Girl" with velcro pets and velcro best friends and velcro fiancees that can be removed and replaced in seconds flat. And she's a real wordsmith too! Her words of wisdom are "That's hot", "He's hot", "You're hot" and "I'm hot". BUSTER POINDEXTER should sue for plagiarism!

 

Now which review was more fun to read? The Johnny a**- kiss or the Paris bashing? You know you love it when I tear someone a new a**hole! (And Paris does indeed need a new a**hole because now Nicole Richie is gone. Zing!)

 

So "THINGS I PERSONALLY HATE" :

 

PEOPLE I HATE:

Paris Hilton (Gee, could ya' tell?!) 

The Olsen Twins

THE THREE STOOGES

MARIAH CAREY

WHITNEY HOUSTON

BOBBY BROWN

CHRISTINA AGUILERA

KEVIN FEDERLINE

JESSICA SIMPSON

ASHLEE  SIMPSON

JOE SIMPSON

FAVOR FLAV

Nicholas Cage

Amanda Bynes

Amanda Peet

Jenny McCarthy

Pauly Shore

Nicholas Cage

Ashton Kutcher

Dustin "Screech" Diamond

Chris Tucker

Martin Lawrence

Teri "Aren't I cute?" Hatcher

FRIENDS and the cast of FRIENDS and all their terrible movies

Sean PUFFY  / PUFF DADDY /  P DIDDY Combs

MTV VJ KENNEDY

MADONNA  when she talks with that fake English accent

 

 

MUSIC I HATE:

 

MARIAH CAREY

CELINE DION

WHITNEY HOUSTON
JANET JACKSON
SHANIA TWAIN

JESSICA SIMPSON

ASHLEE SIMPSON

DEVO 2.0

LIMP BIZKIT

ALANIS MORISETTE

JOHN MAYER

JAMES BLUNT

MOJO NIXON

DESTINY'S CHILD / BEYONCE

J-LO

THE GRATEFUL DEAD

VANILLA ICE

EMINEM

K-FED

FERGIE / BLACK EYED PEAS
KID ROCK

CHRISTINA AGUlLERA
GWEN STEFANI

20 FINGERS

SYSTEM OF A DOWN

JIMMY BUFFETT

RANDY NEWMAN

THE SPICE GIRLS

MARILYN MANSON

SHAKIRA

JERRY LEE LEWIS

 

"SEX SYMBOLS" THAT I THINK ARE HIDEOUS:

 

SARAH JESSICA PARKER

BENICIO DEL TORO

 

PLACES I HATE:

 

LEGO-LAND

 

TV SHOWS I HATE:

When I die and go to Hell they are gonna tie me to a chair and MAKE me watch these babies:

 

SAVED BY THE BELL: Oh dear Lord! Such an insipidly stupid show, and yet: Wildly popular! Go figure.

 

I wanna say that SAVED BY THE BELL (Damn them!) popularized the "FRIENDS trend" : A truly mediocre show that has a HUGE cult following just because the cast consists of very attractive people.

 

This show is totally dumbed down and so unfunny but you would never know that judging by the laugh track that goes off every 25 seconds no matter WHAT the people on the show are saying 

 

Zach: The thoroughly white version of a "trouble-maker"

Screech: A nerdy kid that is so annoying that there is no way in Hell these people would EVER hang out with him for more than five minutes

Kelly: The popular, pretty girl that everyone wants to bang

Jesse: The stern feminist smart girl. (The irony here, as we all know, is that the chick who played "feminist" Jesse later went on to bare all and make with the raunchy in the movie SHOWGIRLS)

Slater: Zach's competition: Way cuter, and built like a brick sh*t house

Lisa: This role was obviously written for a wealthy Tori Spelling Jewish American Princess type but they cast a cute little black chick making Lisa the first official B.A.P (Black American Princess)!

 

So these kids are all in the same school making life a living Hell for the principal Mr Belding and for us, the audience!

 

Bad enough that this show ran at all, it ran in many different forms starting with The DISNEY show MISS BLISS, "evolving" into SAVED BY THE BELL, then SAVED BY THE BELL: THE COLLEGE YEARS and SAVED BY THE BELL: THE NEW CLASS. There were also SAVED BY THE BELL TV movies! Stupid, stupid, stupid and.....Oh yeah....Stupid!

 

SHE'S THE SHERRIF: When THREE'S COMPANY was a hit show one of it's stars, Suzanne THIGHMASTER Somers, decided that she was the whole magilla and asked for a raise. They kicked her a** to the curb.

 

To "save face" she decided to do her own show. I'm guessing she agreed to do whatever script they handed her because SHE'S THE SHERRIF was a putrid, wretched dung-heap of a show. No foolin': I honestly remember stank coming off the television set when this thing was on!

 

Suzanne Somers, wearing HEIDI braids and an unsexy sherrif's uniform, is a small town sherrif's wife. When hubby kicks the bucket, instead of making the deputy sherrif the new sherriff, he appoints Suzanne to runs the county jail. Yee-Haw! This was a bad show. And speaking of "bad show" and things that rhyme with "Yee Haw"..............

 

HEE HAW: Will somebody PLEASE explain the appeal of HEE HAW to me? This f*cker was running since before I was conceived and I think I read somewhere that it STILL CURRENTLY runs in syndication in some states! (HEE HAW was in production from 1969-1993. Holy moly!)

 

This show was so unfunny it was painful to sit through. "Corny" does not begin to describe this stupd-a** show.

 

And they always had musical guests I never heard of. I'm not much for Country music....but you'd think just once they'd have someone I'd heard of on the damn thing: Where was KENNY ROGERS? Where was WILLIE NELSON? They were smart enough to keep away, I guess.

 

Love how the family of HEE HAW yokels consisted of all toothless old men and fat guys and yet all the women were rockin' hot!

 

THE RICHARD BEY SHOW: Everyone bags on THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW cuz he has no morals and shows stuff that shouldn't BY LAW be allowed on TV. These people have never sat through THE RICHARD BEY SHOW, a show that was just as bad, if not WORSE than SPRINGER!

 

This show ran in the '90s and was the loudest, most obnoxious show on television. Keep in mind it ran around the same time as THE MORTON DOWNEY JR show and STILL it was the most loud and obnoxious show on television! That's saying a lot!

 

So just try to imagine SPRINGER on crack and you have a pretty good idea of how THE RICHARD BEY SHOW was.

 

If I ever see Richard Bey in person I am so kickng him in the nuts!

 

JANE: This was the '90s when EVERYBODY who wanted a talk show was getting one. QUEEN LATIFAH had one. The chubby chick from WILSON PHILIPS had one. Vicki "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" Lawrence had one. And so it goes.

 

The worst was JANE, hosted by the editor of SASSY (and later) JANE magazine. Think of the RICKI LAKE show if Ricki had no skills as an interviewer and as a "people person".

 

JANE would have a panel of guests on and then run around not knowing how to control them, It was like throwing a virgin into the lions den that is now THE JERRY SPRINGER show. The guests were loud, angry and out of control and JANE could do nothing about it but hold the microphone and sweat!

 

STUDS: This was like an X-rated version of LOVE CONNECTION . EVERYBODY on the show was getting laid!

 

A smarmy host would set the good looking "studs" up on dates with three....count 'em....three wildly attractive chicks that all looked like lingerie models. The guy would spend the weekend dating and screwing the chicks and then come back and tell the host all the dirty details.

 

God, I wish I had a book of quotes! I will have to make some up, as the show ran in the early '90s and I can't recall any off the top of my head.(It doesn't hep matters that I was drunk as a lord EVERY SINGLE TIME I ever watched STUDS. No wonder the details are hazy!)

 

Host: Well, Doug, How were your dates with Tia, Jean Marie and Lavender?

Doug: Well, Smarmy Host, I'll have to say I had the best time with Lavender. (Lavender starts to giggle and play with her hair extensions)

Host: Why is that, Doug?

Doug: Because Lavender works in a bakery and she couldn't wait to show me her hot cross buns!

Lavender: Oh, stop! You're so baaad! (Tee hee hee) Okay: It's true! It's true!

 

This show had it's legion of fans (And you know who you are, Ulrich!) until the day the media broke with the story that some, if not ALL, of STUDS was scripted. The Hell, you say!

 

The fact that EVERYONE on the show was stunning (In a trashy way) should have cued people into the fact the show was not a legit dating show. Even THE DATING GAME and LOVE CONNECTION had an occasional uggo every once in awhile. There's no way the people on STUDS needed to go on a dating show to find dates and get loose quick and easy sex!

 

To STUDS fans though it must have been akin to when SPRINGER fans found out that some, if not all, of THE JERRY SPRINGER show is scripted. (And I really hope you already knew that and are not just finding out about it through me now!)

 

MARRIED WITH CHILDREN: This show had about a season's worth of premise. It somehow got streched like taffy and ran for TEN YEARS.

 

I admit I liked it when it first came out, but somewhere around the third or fourth season I got a sense of deja vu. I was always totally drunk when I watched it and STILL I knew what they were gonna say before they said it and what was gonna happen next. Every episode was the same as the last! I felt like I was watching the same thing over and over. The show pretty much found it's formula and stuck to it like glue, never budging foward and evolving. But you would have thought it was the most original and funny show on television judging by the loudest, most obnoxious soundtrack any show has ever had. It roared with laughter anytime a charactor did so much as enter the room ("Whooooooo!")

 

The show was about the American family The Bundys:

 

Al: The father who works in a shoe store

Peg: His sex-starved wife

Kelly: His slutty teen bimbo daughter

Bud: His conniving smart-a** son

 

This show was HUGE but the longer it ran the stupider it got. Remember when they adopted another kid? Can we say "Jump the Shark", Folks? I think that was the day I turned the TV off and said "No more!"

 

This show was CITIZEN KANE compared to some of the stuff it "inspired" though.

 

Observe:

UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER: A Poor Man's MARRIED WITH CHILDREN.

 

This dreadful show was about a couple, I THINK they were divorced...or getting divorced.....or the mom died. Can't remember cuz - y'know what? -  it wasn't worth a sh*t.

 

It was a show produced by b*stard "network" THE WB and people (Guys: Young and old) tuned in to watch Nikki Cox play a smarter version of Kelly Bundy as trampy daughter Tiffany. The show also had a younger brother charactor and, for some inexplicable reason, a stuffed animal rabbit named Mr Floppy that TALKED to the father when nobody else was around.  And not only did it TALK, it talked in the loud, shakey voice of comedian Bobcat Goldthwait!

 

Truly terrible show that surprisingly ran for a few seasons. I swear only twelve year old boy's watched to see what FREDERICK'S OF HOLLWOOD outfit seventeen year old Nikki Cox would be falling out of this week. Her charactor was supposed to be a virgin, but you'd never know it by all the cleavage and trim on display.

 

Strangely enough, Nikki Cox and Bobcat Goldthwait met on this show, started dating and later got engaged, despite the fact she was about 17 and he was in his late thirtys and she was hot and sexy and he was...Bobcat Goldthwait! They never did marry though.

 

THE THREE STOOGES: Oh, the pain! The pain! Trying to watch this show literally makes me squirm and start to get a facial tick. It's pure evil, I say!

 

Three bumbling idiots run around making the corniest mayhem possible and beating the sh*t out of eachother.

 

God, I hate those f*cking THREE STOOGES!

 

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!

 

Soap Operas...Especially PASSIONS: Soap Operas are the dumbest shows on television. Dumber than HEE HAW. Dumber than THE THREE STOOGES. The things that they expect their fans to open up and swallow are unbelievable. And yet, the stupid dolts who watch them eat it all up!

 

Awhile back my Mom used to watch a newer one called PASSIONS so I caught some of the episodes. This show was so truly bizarre and asininely stupid that for awhile I thought my mother might be putting acid in my food.

 

I HAD to be imagining that Juliet Mills (Yes, a relative of DISNEY child star Hayley Mills)  was playing a witch named Tabitha.

 

I HAD to be imagining that Tabitha had a doll named Timmy that would come to life and talk to her ("Timmy" was played by a dwarf that looked like he was six years old but was actually about forty)

 

I HAD to be imagining that Tabitha also had monsters in her basement.

 

I HAD to be imagining Tabitha spent all her time obsessing about putting curses on the show's good-girl charactors.

 

Were people really finding themselves on deserted islands????

 

Were people really having hexes put on them????

 

Were people really dying and then coming back????

Do people really WATCH this sh*t and ENJOY it?

 

PASSIONS is the dumbest show I've ever seen. It had one saving grace though: This one guy on it was rockin' hot - Galen Gering, who played "Luis". Yummy yum yum! What a doll baby! He and he alone almost made watching PASSIONS almost bareable. Almost.

 

MY FAIR BRADY: I only caught a few episodes of THE SURREAL LIFE season that Christopher "Peter Brady" Knight was on. Apparently, during it's filming he fell in love with one of his co-stars, a model named Adrianne Curry. They later got offered their own show and it was called MY FAIR BRADY.

 

It should have been called WATCH ADRIANNE CRY. I have not seen every episode, maybe three tops. But in every episode I watched Adrianne would cry! Sob! Weep! Tears and snot rolling down her face, the shakes, trouble gasping for breath, turning blue crying. And for what? Because Christopher "Peter Brady" Knight wouldn't marry her after dating her for six months! Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ!

 

Every episode was about Chris being a nice guy and setting up some elaborate date for Adrianne or buying some wonderfully romantic gift for Adrianne or making wild, monkey love to Adrianne and at the end of all this treatment that we girls at home would give our left arm for what did Chis get for his troubles? Adrianne would ask him why he doesn't wanna marry her and burst into tears!

 

Girlfriend, lemme tell ya: AFTER you're married that whole big fancy dates, nice presents, hot sex stuff is gonna die. Ride that horse as long as possible!

 

She was young too. So I don't know why she felt like getting proposed to TODAY was the be all - end all of every date. Yeesh. What a cry baby!

 

Christopher Knight had been married a couple of times before so he was a little wiser. But, no, Adrianne had to stomp her foot, make ultimatums and then burst into tears when he wouldn't propose to her out of sheer pity.

 

If Adrianne had ever watched a Reality TV show she would have realized that of course Christopher had to string her along until the season finale where he would inevitably pop the question, otherwise there would be no reason for viewers to stick it out and keep watching the show. And in the end, yes, he did indeed pop the question. And what do you think Adrianne did? Yup, she cryed! She cryed HARD! (I would love to download footage of her "Proposal Cry". It was almost as funny as ASHLEE SIMPSON lip synching on SNL. Almost).

 

I am so sick of people, mostly guys, talking about how Peter Brady is a lucky S.O.B. for landing Adrianne because she's "too good for him". The girl is clearly an emotional trainwreck!

 

FRIENDS: Ugh. I hated this show. Everybody loved it. It was a Nielson Ratings darling. The cast kept demanding more money and getting it. I could not imagine why any viewer would want to spend twenty-two minutes a week with these loathsome, annoying people! If the charactors on FRIENDS worked in the same office as me I would quit. That's how annoying they are. Especially "Ross" and "Phoebe". If I ever meet the guy who played Ross I am taking him down with all I got. A beating is too good for him. Death! Death for Ross!

 

A bunch of '90s trendies hang out in their bodacious Manhatten loft that NONE of them would EVER be able to afford in real life. They all make with a brand of humor that can best be described as "generic".

 

I think what propelled the show was the aesthetic appeal of the cast: Courtney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer. People wanted to watch a bunch of good looking people hang out in a coffee shop. Whatever. To make matters worse, to keep the show running the show would then mix and match the charactors into little cut and paste romantic relationships with eachother that were never believable. Ugh!

 

"PROFESSIONAL" WRESTLING:  Ugh. Carolyn, of all people, reminded me of this one. It was a shocking confession cuz Carolyn's beloved totally lives wrestling like some sort of religion. But she's right though: Very hard for a woman to sit through the loudest, most obnoxious, downright stupid "show" ever invented.

 

Grown men run around a ring in spandex two sizes too small breaking chairs over eachothers heads and screaming and pretending to beat eachother up. Wrestling is absymal, but even worse than that?...................

 

G.L.O.W. - GORGEOUS LADIES OF WRESTLING: Not the 300 pound monsters you saw on the WWF, Folks! These are size 2 gals dressed in lingerie and Farmer's Daughter outfits pulling eachothers hair extensions and ripping off eachothers tops!

 

The worst part of this, blatant sexism aside, was that from the very first intro of the wrestlers YOU KNEW WHO WAS GONNA WIN! The Hot One! There would be a big, ugly bulldozer of a woman named something like Medusa and this little blonde Jessica Simpson looking woman named Candy Kane.....and Candy Kane...cuz she was cute and lithe and wearing dental floss.......would win! It defies the laws of physics!!!

 

GREEN ACRES: Fish-out-of-water tale (These were popular in the '60s) about married couple The Douglas's. The husband Oliver is a wealthy hot-shot lawyer. His wife Lisa is a snooty Ivana-ish trophy wife (Played by Eva The Nice Gabor) .

 

They live in a fabulous New York City penthouse but, for whatever reason, the husband decides on a lark that he wants to go live on a farm. So he buys a farm in a hick town called Hooterville and spends the run of the show fixing it up. Actually, if memory serves, he makes LISA do most of the work! Well, anyway, they meet a lot of strange rube townies and make a pet pig named Arnold their "son".

 

This show was pretty bad, but it spawned the even worse spin-off........

 

PETTICOAT JUNCTION: We're still in Hooterville, this time with three bimbo farmer's-daughter-types named Billie Jo, Bobbie Jo and Betty Jo.  They live at the Shady Rest Hotel with their mother and their Uncle Joe, who is movin' kinda slow. In fact, everything is movin' kinda slow. Nothin' much happens at the Shady Rest Hotel. No really: Nothin'! Which is what makes this show so painful to watch.

 

I think the people behind making PETTICOAT JUNCTION wanted to give their viewers a sort of form of escapism from their hectic everyday lives. At least twenty- two minutes a week the viewer could visit the quaint, pleasant, peaceful, mellow, boring town of Hooterville and just relax themselves into a coma.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES: Another fish-out-of-water tale from the '60s (Before television was GOOD!), THE BEVERLY HILLBILLES is sort of the flip-side of GREEN ACRES. On GREEN ACRES the fabulously wealthy decided to get humble and moved to the sticks to get their hands dirty. In THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES the poor backwoods yokels accidentally found oil, become fabulously wealthy and moved to Beverly......Hills, that is!

 

Although The Clamppetts (Jed, Granny, Elly May and Jethro) are filfthy rich they look...well, more FILTHY than RICH! These people look like they smell bad! They hang around their big old mansion dressed in rags and cooking up roadkill.

 

Fun, fun, fun!

 

HOGAN'S HEROS: How's this concept for a Comedy: A bunch of American prisoners are captured during World War II and forced to live as prisoners of war in a POW camp in Germany. A laff-riot, right?

 

As if that wasn't bad enough, Hogan's Heros (Which consisted of FAMILY FEUD host Richard Dawson and sex addict / home-made porn maker extraordinaire Bob Crane) could easily fool their captor Colonel Klink and get in and out of the camp and yet............. THEY ALWAYS CAME BACK!!!!!

 

THE TELETUBBIES: This show ran for four years. You would never know it though because every episode looked just like the last.

 

Four lttle chubby, baby-faced, alien-lookin' dudes named Dipsy (The green one), Laa-Laa (The yellow one), Po (The red one) and Tinky Winky (The purple, purse-carrying effeminate one) and their "many" adventures,  which usually consist of them either eating or spilling tele-custard, them making or dropping tele-toast, them running, dancing, falling down, chasing their vacuum cleaner "the noo-noo" or discovering the joys of playing with objects such as Tinky Winky's man-purse, Dipsy's cow-hyde pimp hat, Laa-Laa's big orange ball or Po's scooter. They also watch a five minute video of real life children learning how to do things such as brush thier teeth or visit the library. When the video ends the Teletbubbies rebel and yell "Again, again!" And the five minute video we've just seen plays in it's entirety ALL OVER AGAIN!

 

The Teletubbies are a bunch of illiterate simpletons who speak in barely legible catch-phrases like "Uhhhhh-ohhhhh!" and "Biggggg huggggg!"

 

It is my belief that the Teletubbies were hypnotized and turned into mindless slaves by the Big Evil Baby Head that lives inside the sun that shines over their land. It watches over them, much like Big Brother in the George Orwell novel 1984, and controls them using creepy, hypnotic windmill transmitters that pop out of the ground and give them subliminal commands. (What? I'm not making this up!)

 

You yourself, will feel like you're being hypnotized while watching  THE TELETUBBIES (Either that, or you'll feel like someone slipped you acid, much like my mother did to me while making me watch PASSIONS). Now excuse me while I uhhhhh-ohhhhh!................biggggg huggggg!!!!

 

BOOHBAH: This "kids show" was brought to you by the same people responsible for THE TELETUBBIES (Damn them!). Nothing surprising there, as BOOHBAH is just as inspid and asinine as THE TELETUBBIES, with half the "plot" and twice the amount of farting.

 

BOOHBAH is another show that is the kiddie equivalent to having an acid trip. Brightly shiny, sparkly, glittery fat, turd-like creatures with names like Humbah, Zumbah, Zing Zing Zingbah, Jumbah and Jingbah fly around the screen saying things like "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" and farting, farting, always consistently farting.

 

They play this sh*t on PBS! PBS was once an educational channnel that it was safe to show your children. Now they are poisoning kids minds with this European pap that teaches them that mummbling is okay, obesity is great and farting is fantastic! *

 

LAZYTOWN: Should be called "CRAZYTOWN". This is one of those shows that kids love that just gives Mom a headache.

 

A bunch of brightly colored, weird looking people mix with their puppet friends and brightly and loudly cheer you on about the benefits of fitness and eating right.

 

Our heros here are the pink-haired, effervesent, club kid Stephanie, who bounces off every wall singing, dancing, aerobicising and REALLY needing Ritalin. The other one is the really weird and creepy half-puppet half-man Sportacus. He often fights the evil Robbie Rotten whose big crime against humanity is that he likes to eat junk food.

 

The pain! The pain! Please make it stop!

 

MUCHA LUCHA!: Cartoon about about a group of masked wrestlers named Rikochet, Buena Girl, The Flea, and El Rey. They live by "the code of the mask" even when they are not kicking-a** in the ring.

 

Another annoying, headache-inducing kids show.

 

ED, EDD, 'N' EDDY: Three loathsome, obnoxious, badly-drawn cartoon kids hang out in "the cul-de-sac" being as annoying and disgusting as possible while fighting with the other kids on the block and looking for The Holy Grail: Jawbreakers.

 

 If real kids acted like this I would get myself sterilized.

 

* I know a lot of you are probably reading this list and asking yourself "Where's BARNEY"? Well, I thought about adding the show about a big purple dope dinosaur and his clasroom full of annoying, ugly kids to this list but I just couldn't do it. Why? Because at least BARNEY had educational value. BARNEY taught kids how to be polite, how to keep safe, how to stay healthy and so on. Weighed side-by-side with crap like THE THE TELETUBBIES and BOOHBAH, BARNEY is a frickin' Godsend!

 

THE AMAZING CHARLIE CHAN AND THE CHAN CLAN: This is a '70s HANNA BARBERA cartoon in the vein of SCOOBY DOO, WHERE ARE YOU and JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS. It centers around famed sleuth Charlie Chan and his flock of ten....count 'em.....ten children.

 

Charlie Chan, for some reason, gave his brood of Asian children very white-bread, caucasion, American names (Except for Mimi). There is Henry, Stanley, Suzie, Alan, Tom, Nancy, Flip, Scooter and Anne. Which is which? I never could figure it out. There are so many damn kids I lost track of 'em all! (The rumor is that the kid charactors on the show were originally voiced by Asian children but nobody could understand a damn thing the kids said so they replaced them with American actors, one of which was Jodie Foster who did the voice of Anne Chan in the later episodes).

 

So in every episode Charlie Chan sets out to solve a mystery, his meddling kids offer to help, he tells them not to, and they do anyway behind his back causing all sorts of hi-jinx on the way. At the end they tell Dad all their findings and he neatly ties the mystery up with the resolve. 

 

The Chan Clan travels in The Chan Van, a sensational miracle mini-van that can change shapes. It would have to, to fit ten kids and their pet Chu-chu in it (Chu-Chu: A dog or a cat? You tell me!)

 

Just like many cartoon shows in the '70s, THE AMAZING CHAN AND THE CHAN CLAN featured some '70s bubblegum Pop music....performed by a few of the older kids in the family. These songs were not of the same "high caliber" as the ones performed by JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS and played during the chase scenes in SCOOBY DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? To make matters worse, those cheap b*stards HANNA and  BARBERA would use the SAME footage of the band "performing" for all the different songs, so their dancing and mouth movements never quite meshed with the song they were singing!

 

AMERICAN DAD: Just like FAMILY GUY, if family guy wasn't funny. At all.

 

MY SUPER SWEET 16: Okay, this is probably the most loathsome show on television. A bunch of spoiled rotten, UNGRATEFUL rich kids get exorbitant money and presents bestowed on them by thier clueless, wealthy, put upon parents.

 

It wouldn't be so hard to take if the kids acknowledged how fabulous mom and dad were, but no, they b*tch and whine and stomp their feet and pout all the way through.

 

One girl complained because Daddy, who she had belittled all throughout the show, got her the wrong color limo.

 

Another girl's parents got singer CIARA to perform at her Sweet 16 and the girl snapped "Okay, but CIARA better not try to upstage me!"

 

Does ANYBODY ever watch this show and feel a warm and fuzzy feeling as the end credits roll? It's maddening! You wanna reach right through the screen and punch these pampered a**holes right in the f*ckin' face!

 

PINK LADY AND JEFF: There are certain shows that are so infamous for being so totally bad that you can't help but wonder what the people behind them were thinking. Or smoking. So it is with PINK LADY AND JEFF,  a show brought to us by Sid and Marty Krofft (Why, Sid and Marty, Why?!), who seemed to get their jollys by mixing live human "celebrities" with singing, dancing puppets for achingly terrible Variety Shows that starred such talent as THE BRADY BUNCH and DONNIE AND MARIE.

 

PINK LADY AND JEFF was really strange because instead of starring folks like TONY ORLANDO AND DAWN or THE CAPTAIN AND TENILLE or THE BAY CITY ROLLERS or THE STARLAND VOCAL BAND  or BARBARA MANDRELL it starred people we had never heard of!

 

PINK LADY was a Japanese singing duo featuring two chicks who were cute and who had somehow had a fluke hit Disco single called Kiss In The Dark, which I, The Guru Of Groove, have never even heard of.

 

Jeff Altman was a "comedian" who wasn't very funny.

 

 I don't know whose bright idea it was to put the two elements together.

Jeff, while not exactly brimming with talent, had one advantage over PINK LADY. He spoke English! The gals in PINK LADY phonetically read cue cards, having no idea what they were saying. Jeff would tell a joke and then the girls, not knowing what else to do, would look at eachother and then giggle back and forth.

 

The show featured musical numbers (What great Variety Show doesn't?!), most of which were PINK LADY stumbling through trying to sing Engish lyrics to American hits like MacArthur Park. A favorite re-make of theirs is their version of THE VILLAGE PEOPLE song In The Navy with the lyrics changed to "Pink-A-Lady"! (What? I'm not making this up!)  Sometimes the girls would step aside while a guest star would perform. (The show I remember had BLONDIE on there singing a song I had never heard before. And I'm a pretty big BLONDIE fan. Guess they didn't wanna watse their "A" material on PINK LADY AND JEFF. They saved hits like Call Me for THE MUPPET SHOW!)  Sometimes the show would advertise musical guests such as CHEAP TRICK, only to welch on the deal by NOT actually having CHEAP TRICK on the show but just playing one of their videos instead!

 

The show featured Jeff and PINK LADY trying to fake their way through some sort of form of "banter", PINK LADY singing, special guest stars, comedy skits featuring people like Jim "Hey, Vern" Varney, PINK LADY reading their "letter home" and then finally ending, always  the same way: With PINK LADY whipping off their kimonos to reveal skimpy swimsuits and then pulling Jeff Altman into a hot-tub with all his clothes on.

 

Fun, fun, fun.

 

A truly ghastly show. One of, if not "THE", Worst Show(s) Ever!

 

SMALL WONDER: There is one word that sums up this show: ANNOYING.

 

Everything about this show is annoying.

 

The cutsey-pooh "La La La La" theme song: Annoying.

 

The father: Annoying.

 

The mother: Annoying.

 

The fat-armed son with shiny chipmunk cheeks: Annoying.

 

The family's "pet" robot: Annoying.

 

The neighbors: Annoying.

 

The ugly, red-headed neighbor girl: Annoying.

 

No, wait: BEYOND Annoying. The most annoying child star to ever "grace" the small screen. And, yes, I have seen Urkel. Urkel is a breath of fresh air compared to the ugly freckled brat that is SMALL WONDER's "Harriette"!

 

SMALL WONDER is about a dumb-a** father named Ted Lawson, who we are to believe is a Scientist of some sort. He lives with his annoying wife and his annoying son Jamie and he lives across the street from his annnoying boss Brandon Brindle and Brindle's annoying wife (Edie McClurg!) and their annoying carrot top brat.

 

One day Dad brings home his latest invention: A robot designed to look like a little girl named V.I.C.K.I. (And, yes, the letters in V.I.C.K.I. stand for something, but I don't remember WHAT). Vicki looks like a ten year old girl in the vein of those kids in those black and white VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED movies. She has an unblinking stare of steel, talks like Steven Hawkings, shows absolutely no emotion and wears a little dress, apron and bow combo it looks like she might have lifted from HEIDI. 

 

I forget WHY Ted invented V.I.C.K.I. but he decides to keep her in a closet in his son's room (!) and have her clean the house and do menial labor like that. V.I.C.K.I. has super-human strength and can lift furniture over her head with the aid of really cheesy special effects. She can also use parts of her body as a vacuum cleaner(!)

 

The neighbors are a nosy bunch and soon enough they discover V.I.C.K.I., who Dad tells them is a visiting relative a la Cousin Oliver. They are not weirded out by V.I.C.K.I.'s peculiar demeanor at all. Every so often, because they are so damn nosy, they will look in the window and see V.I.C.K.I. doing something strange (Like chug-a-lugging a can of motor oil) and then they run around like BEWITCHED's Mrs. Kravitz. Then Dad fudges an excuse to cover up V.I.C.K.I.'s odd behavior, the neighbors believe it and the end credits roll.

 

V.I.C.K.I. was an odd little "child" but not as weird as neighbor child Harriette, who would pop in through windows and say "Hiiii-yeee!" and then try to make moves on roly-poly Jamie. No foolin: Harriette is the kind of child you just wanna reach through the television set and slap!

 

This show ran four years and it was never explained how V.I.C.K.I., who was a robot, was growing and devleoping breasts, still wearing her little red aproned frock.

 

Towards the end of the run of the show V.I.C.K.I. started to "show emotions" such as crying and inexplicably become sort of human (Think A.I.). The family then adopted her (I think).

 

Well, as V.I.C.K.I. would say : "HA        HA"

 

WHAT A DUMMY: Okay, how's this for creepy? A family's uncle, who was a ventriliquist, passes away and they inherit a box from him. IN the box is his ventrilquist dummy, Buzz. Now get this: Buzz is actually ALIVE! (Oh, the nightmares this show caused!) And he's creepy and talks in the usual smart-a** ventrilquist dummy voice that we've heard in such eerie outings as THE TWILGHT ZONE episodes and the Anthony Hopkins Horror movie MAGIC. And, get this: WHAT A DUMMY was a Comedy!

 

Like ALF and SMALL WONDER, the family, which consists of three kids (One of which is actor Stephen Dorff!) has to try to keep the fact they have this THING living in their house a secret!

 

A recurring gag on the show is a family member doing something stupid and the dummy quipping "And they call ME a dummy!"

 

WHAT A DUMMY is such a poor quality show that it makes SMALL WONDER look like MASTERPIECE THEATER (Although the family this time out is a little more likable than those cretins on SMALL WONDER).

 

Could WHAT A DUMMY have been the inspiration for the hit movie CHILDS PLAY???

 

LEAVE IT TO BEAVER: When you consider how dysfunctional familes are nowadays  watching old shows like LEAVE IT TO BEAVER is almost a surreal experience. Do they honetly believe that we'll buy that families like this ever really existed?! The mother is a houswife who has every curl in place, a strand of pearls, a party dress and high heels on while she's vaccuuming the house. Dad gets home from work just in time to dole out advice to his two perfect kids, wally and Beav. (Beav, by the way is one of the ugliest child stars ever, with chipmunk teeth and the worst do-it-yourself haircuts on television). LEAVE IT TO BEAVER is the type of old school show that has the kids facing big dilemmas like school bullies, or trying to hide a pet in their room so their parents don't know they have it. A "biggie" I remember had Beaver shop-lifting! The guilt got the best of him and he returned the item and apologized to the store keeper just like any real child in the real world would (Rolls eyes).

Shows like LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, FATHER KNOWS BEST, THE PATTY DUKE SHOW and THE DONNA REED SHOW are so sweet they make your teeth hurt....And then they make you wretch? Truthful accounts of what American families were like in the '50s and '60s? No,  And I can prove it: Just look at what happened to some of these shows oh-so-wholesome stars ("Kitten" from FATHER KNOWS BEST was a prostitue , Patty Duke was abig druggie, "Buffy" from FAMILY AFFAIR died of a massive drug overdose....)

 

THE BRADY BUNCH VARIETY HOUR: Great Googly Moogly, was this show terrible! And that's coming from ME, a Big Time BRADY BUNCH Enthusiast! I have stood by these cornballs through thick and thin. I have every singe one of THE  BRADY BUNCH episodes on DVD. As a wee tot I used to watch the less-than-stellar THE BRADY KIDS cartoon that ran Saturday mornings at the crack of dawn (I now own a three episode bootleg). As a kid I raced home from hangin' out with my friends to watch THE BRADY GIRLS GET MARRIED Made-For-TV Movie . I never missed the less-than-riotous THE BRADY BRIDES. I have sat through the weak A VERY BRADY CHRISTMAS SPECIAL more times than I care to admit because i so enjoyed watching Peter PARADE around in that nightgown of his. (I somehow missed the '90s Drama THE BRADYS but I had a good excuse: By then I was into boys so I didn't really give two sh*ts what THE BRADYS were up to, I was too busy trying to get laid. But mark my words: If it ever comes out on DVD I WILL be the first one to buy it!) I have their "Greatest Hits" CD. I have read GROWING UP BRADY: I WAS A TEENAGE GREG half a dozen times (and own a copy). I own the homage cinema THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE, A VERY BRADY SEQUEL and even the stinky Made-For-TV Movie THE BRADY BUNCH IN THE WHITEHOUSE. So it only made sense that when I found out RHINO (God damn them! Although I used to LOVE them until this!) released a 100 minute compilation DVD with footage from THE BRADY BUNCH VARIETY HOUR I would race out to buy it. And I did. And nothing - NOTHING - could have prepared me for the crime against humanity that this piece of mierda is! A few years ago I had Lasik surgery on my eyes, a procedure that cost thousands of dollars. While watching THE BRADY BUNCH VARIETY HOUR I wished I hadn't spent the money on the operation and I fought the urge to claw my own eyes out! EGADS - How did this monstrosity ever get the Green Light?!

(And when you think that THIS  show actually got put on television doesn't it make you wonder what shows WEREN'T deemed fit to hoist on the unsuspecting public that year?!)

 

The show is about THE BRADY BUNCH a couple of years older than the last time we saw them - uhhhh- you know: when they were saddled with Cousin Oliver. And Bobby sold Greg the hair tonic that made his hair turn neon orange. And Greg had a high school graduation that Mr Brady didn't go to cuz Robert Reed hated the script? Okay, a few years after that. It seems that Bobby on a lark decided he wanted the whole family to tour the world singin' and dancin' and entertainin' the peoples.  The Brady family- God love 'em - dropped everything to make this dream come true for Bobby. Dad quit his job. Mom quit her needlepoint addiction. Greg and Marcia dropped out of college. Peter, Bobby and Cindy dropped out of high school. Jan ran away, changed her name to "Dawn" and become a Hollywood Boulevard Teen Prostitute so Mom and Dad have adopted a cute blonde teen girl and are trying to pass her off as "Fake Jan". Even SHE has agreed to drop out of school to be in the show. Oh yeah, and Alice gave up on that hopeless fantasy of becoming Mrs Sam The Butcher and came along too. They all dropped everything and raced out to buy matching velour outfits that are so hideous THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY would sniff their noses at them and big white platform shoes. They all learned how to do The Hustle and learned all the words to songs like Baby Face and Love To Love You Baby. They also bought a big arena to throw their shows in that comes complete with a giant pool that Esther Williams wanna-be's called The Water Follie Swimmers swim around in. When not singing, dancing and making fools out of themselves they live in a little beach house.

 

Now as bad as I SAY this all is, it's not nearly punishment enough! RHINO only put two eppys on this disc and I, a sucker for punishment, was a bit disappointed. I'm the type of gal that figures if the dentist is gonna drill one of my teeth he might as well give me a root canal while I'm strapped to the chair anyway. If I MUST  be tortured I don't just want a purple nurple, I want the whole AUDITION deal. Call me a sadist. Why sit through sh*t when you can sit through diarrhea?

 

I will now tell you about the two episodes they put on the disc:

 

 In one the family comes out singing and dancing and all and then they explain to us WHY this all is happening:  I like to refer to it as "Bobby's Dream"."Bobby wanted us to drop everything and host a singing, dancing, joke- telling, falling-in-the-pool review and we more than gladly obliged this wish of his!" 

 

So you would think that Bobby would be THRILLED that the whole clan has given into his demented fantasy, right? Nope. Later in the show we hear him griping that Dad is stinking up the act! They want to replace him with Tony Randall. Ahhh, yes, now THERE'S  a man who can bust a move! What '70s Disco-licious Variety Hour WOULDN'T benefit from the rump-shaking boogaloo that only Tony Randall can do? (And as a HUGE fan of THE ODD COUPLE and a fan of Tony Randall I gotta say the song he sings in this episode is dreadful. I'd much rather have heard him sing Happy And Peppy And Bursting With Love!) By the end of the show the family has realized that like bananas they belong in a "bunch" and so they kick Tony Randall to the curb and let Mr Brady back into the act.

 

Now in Episode Two Greg has decided that he's a man, dammit! So he decides he wants to move out. Mrs Brady takes this news verrrry poorly. She starts out worrying about Greg, which is fine, but around half-way through the episode her "I Can't Live If Living Without You" stance on how heart-broken she is about losing Greg turns almost ....ummmmm....creepy and incestuous? Mr Brady is pretty much fine seeing his flesh and blood move on but Mrs Brady, who is the boys step-mother is acting like she's lost a limb. How could her "baby" leave? She sings love songs in the night hoping that somewhere out there Greg will feel the love and come back to mama!

 

Greg rents an apartment from Rip Taylor (I love him too, but like Tony Randall, this is not his brightest moment. That would be when he's handing fat chicks a bouquet of carrots and a crown and singing the Miss $1.98 song!). The running joke is that the apartment is the size of a shoebox and has really crappy furniture that falls apart every time Greg moves (slaps knee). Greg  meets his creepy neighbor Vincent Price (I love HIM too! How did a show with all these dudes I love fail so miserably?! Didn't ANY of them bother to read the script?! Did The Krofft Brothers have naked pictures of these guys or what?!) and then he decides to move back in with the "bunch".

 

Now in one of these episodes (I can't remember which one and I will not watch the video again to confirm it for ya'll so you'll just have to take my word for it that this skit appears on the disc SOMEWHERE) there is a sketch that involves The Brady Family all dressed up as clowns and acting goofy. Then there's a fire and all the clowns (Oh, by the way, The Water Follie Swimmers are dressed as clowns too, making it hard to tell whose a Water Follie Swimmer and whose an actual Brady) try to put the fire out. They all end up in the pool and we get what was probably considered cool at the time: an UNDERWATER CAMERA shot of everyone smiling and blowing bubbles out their noses.

 

I watched this show with my daughter and a big bottle of wine and about half-way through The Clown Skit my daughter got on her hands and knees and lifted my jaw up off the floor. I sat there mouth agape, unable to blink, glass frozen in my hand, paralyzed with SHOCK at the whole thing. My daughter was like "Mom? Mom? Are you alright?" It was THAT life-altering! For days I could hear her whispering to other family members "Don't mention clowns!"

 

The whole "Clown Thing" is the strangest piece of cinema I have ever seen in my entire life........ and I've seen LIQUID SKY!

 

THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL: This is one of those Modern Day Folklore things you hear about and you're like  "For real? Did that REALLY happen?" and you either shrug it off or maniacally go looking for a copy because you just have to prove to yourself such a thing really DOES exist.

 

I remember when I was in first grade my older sister told my Mom that STAR WARS was a really good movie and so my Mom took me to see it. I liked it pretty good, I guess,  but I wasn't as blown away as everybody else in the world seemed to be. (I remember liking the part where they were stuck in that garbage compactor-type thing that was gonna squash them. I also remember making my uncle buy me this huge comic book that was a comic adaptation of the movie word for word - Damn do I wish I had that now!) But in the '70s seeing STAR WARS once was enough for me and I never really followed the whole franchise even though I had friends who were totally obssessed with it.

 

Then when I was a teenager Karl rented the first three for me and I must say I really did enjoy them and I'm glad I DID get into watching them as an older person who could really absorb the plot and all (and BONUS: Harrison Ford was really hot masterbation material back then) Now around this time I heard people using "THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL" as the punch-line to jokes or in drunken debates ("It doesn't exist!" "Yes, it DOES!") and I DID sort of wonder about it, but y'know what?  I was busy doing other things (with pictures of Harrison Ford) by then so I sort of dismissed the whole thing.

 

Then as a grown-up I got a computer and thanks to meeting other people on message boards the subject got brought up again and again. And I always thought "Well, ONE DAY I'll find a copy of THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL and buy it and finally watch this 'masterpiece'". But as you know, "One Day" never comes because I find myself spending my money on other sh*t like THE BRADY BUNCH VARIETY HOUR and TINY TIM'S GREATEST HITS and WILLIAM SHATNER SINGS and such.

 

But today I finished a book I've been reading called WHAT WERE THEY THINKING: THE 100 DUMBEST EVENTS IN TELEVISION HISTORY By David Hofstede and when I got to the end of the book the #1 Dumbest Event listed was THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL. I finished the book and then I said "Well, okay. Today is The Day. I have put this on a shelf for thirty years. Today is The Day I see this STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL!"

 

My first instinct was to go BUY a bootleg online....but then I had a better idea. I went on YOU TUBE and, just as I thought, some people on there have the video and are being good enough to share (much to the chagrin of George Lucas, I suppose).

 

Mere words can not describe how insanely bad this "Special" actually is so I will take a moment here to tell you to do yourself a favor and stop reading this and go on YOU TUBE and check it out for yourself.

 

Now, for those of you who have stuck around anyway (Maybe you've SEEN the Special already?) I saw the condensed version. Some dude or dudette just compiled the most hoot-worthy moments and put it out there and so I watched that one and laughed my a** off, gratetful that I didn't have to lose any money and two hours of my life for the privelege of seeing it.

 

So here we get Han Solo (hot-cha-cha!) on The Millenium Falcon with Chewbacca who is b*tching in "Wookie" and Han is all promising he will get Chewbacca home in time for "Life Day" which is the Wookie equivelant to Christmas, I guess (although this takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away in a time and place where nobody has ever heard of Baby Jesus). Then we see Chewbacca's family (Who knew he had one?!) and they're all running around grunting and such. They're all sort of bumping into eachother and in scenes like that it almost looks like they're humping one another!

 

Now to kill time waiting for Chewie to get home they go on Picture Phone with Mark Hamill who - lucky him - gets the least amount of  screen time. This show was taped after Mark Hamill got into a car or motercycle accident or something and so he has a LOT of make-up on. To be blunt - he looks downright feminen! You will feel mild discomfort looking at him as he really is air-brushed b*tch pretty! ( Is it WRONG of me that at this point in time my mind started to wander and I started to think about how sweet it would be if Mark Hammil and Harrison Ford actually made out with eachother in this flick?! Dare To Dream! ) Later on the Wookies watch a video of Diahann Carroll who is all gussied up '70s-Version-Of-Sexy and acting like a phone sex operator from one of those Late Night "Are You Lonely? Call Me Now at 555-BUSH" commercials . Then we get a JEFFERSON STARSHIP video for a song we have never heard before (It's not Somebody To Love, Go Ask Alice, Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now, We Built this City....) The singer looks like he's singing into a dildo. ( And that gets me thinkin' about the kind of "Holiday Special" I would like to see Mark Hammil and Harrison Ford in. Oink oink oink.)  

 

Oh, I forgot to mention the guy who pops in to wish the Wookies well. He looks at Chewbacca's family and says "What's with the long, hairy faces?" I was rolling!When he says it the Wookies look at him like "Bad joke"- but really - it wasn't: It was pretty f*ckin' funny! 

 

Anyway, you think you have problems with your annoying relatives showing up during the holidays? That's nothing - STORMTROOPERS show up and try to mess with Chewie's kin!

 

Next up we meet Boba Fett. Now everyone who is really religious about STAR WARS always says that even though this special is really bad it has some merit because it introduces Boba Fett to the series. I was not impressed with Boba Fett. You know what impressed me? You know who this movie has in it? Aside from Mark Hammil, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford? Aside from Boba Fett? You know who comes then? That's right! And Then Comes MAUDE !

Bea Arthur is the owner of a space bar and when it's closing time she celebrates Last Call by singing AND dancing with her alien customers! It almost made a "bad" movie "good" for me, as I loooove Bea Arthur (When they make the movie of my life I want Bea Arthur to play me! My friends say Milla Jovovich is the obvious choice, but - No - I demand Bea!) 

 

Some other sh*t happens, Han Solo arrives at Chewie's treehouse and he kills a Storm Trooper (!)  and then with that little bit of unplesantness out of the way he grabs everyone and they all go to watch Princess Leia SING! Now I don't know if Carrie Fisher was capable of singing at the time and I don't know if she was capable of putting down the drugs at the time ( And that's not me being mean: Carrie acknowledged her drug dabbling in POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE so it's common knowledge now ) but it seems that Carrie decided to marry the bad singing WITH the drug taking at the time of filming this and so we get an off-key hymn about Life Day with little snippets of STAR WARS music sampled in, lest we forget that we are being bludgeoned with a STAR WARS-themed show.

 

I'm sure the people who made this (Don't blame George Lucas, he's not the one behind it) thought people would just EAT THIS UP, as STAR WARS was a HUGE  phenomenon in those days (and still IS, come to think of it).  I would guess there are some people who loved this special as kids and even some people who are serious STAR WARS fans who STILL stand by it, but for the most part A LOT of people diss this holiday Hell-ride, as they should! 

 

So check it out!

 

RCKY'S ROOM : When my daughter was little we watched all these showes that were aimed at little kids. A lot of people think BARNEY is the worst one. A lot of people are wrong. RICKY RHINO is A Poor Man's BARNEY. An even cheaper, cheesier (Yes, it's possible! RICKY proves it!) show with an even more sickeningly annoying troop of kids. Ricky is someone in a big rhino suit (I forget what color it was. Orange maybe?) and the show started with his flock of slave children singing merrily "It's time to play with Ricky........" .

From the very beginning to the very end RICKY was a flat-out rip-off of BARNEY: Kids sing, Ricky shows up, kids cheer, Ricky teaches lessons about learning and manners, the kids and Ricky sing and dance, they all tell eachother they love eachother, I throw up, the show ends.

As bad as RICKY'S ROOM  was, I NEVER missed an episode. It was so bad it was good! I would sit there with my mouth hung agape in shock for twentyfive minutes: Was this some deliciously horrible dream? How could a show this bad ever make it to television??? It was The Worst Show I Have Ever Seen (A phrase I throw around often, but RICKY'S ROOM may actually be "IT", Folks!)

Another qualm I have with BARNEY and RICKY is they were always preaching to the kiddies, telling them to eat their fruits and veggies ("Healthy snacks!") and to get a lot of excercise and meanwhile both RICKY and BARNEY were phat phucks!

 

BAD SHOWS I HAVE NEVER ACTUALLY SEEN BUT ARE SO BAD THAT THEY WILL FOREVER LIVE IN INFAMY:

 

WHO WANTS TO MARRY A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE: A bunch, and I mean a WHOLE BUNCH of women (No foolin': There is enough of 'em here to have a whole MISS AMERICA pageant!) strut their stuff in order to win The Dream Prize: A wealthy husband.

 

They don't know who the guy is or even what he looks like, but they are willing to marry him just to get their 15 minutes of fame on television and get thier hands on some of his money.

 

So, like they are in a beauty pageant, they strut around in different outfits and then give sound-bites telling why they should be the one that Richie Rich picks to wed.

 

At the end of the show the "multi-millionaire" picked blonde looker Darva Conger. Darva was thrilled......until the wealthy bachelor she had just promised to marry walked out and he wasn't Donald Trump or Mick Jagger. It was Rick Rockwell! Who? Rick Rockwell! Rick Rockwell was a small-time comedian who had been in a few ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES movies and just barely eeked onto the "millionaire list" with the just to-the-penny amount that one would have to have to be considered a millionaire. Like maybe he had one million or two million. But no more. And he lived modestly in a house that was smaller than mine. And he was NOT good looking. In fact, just saying he was "not good looking" is being kind. He was sort of creepy lookin'. He had "crazy eye". He also had a police record for beating up previous girlfriends. A real "prize" that Rick Rockwell, huh?

 

The show ended with Darva looking like she was about to throw up and the audience at home yelling "Serves ya' right, ya' gold-digging b*tch!" at the TV set.

 

JOE MILLIONAIRE: A similar premise here...Only the girls actually get to meet and see the "wealthy" bachelor they are competing for and they don't actually have to marry him, just go on a few dates with him so they can stretch out their 15 minutes of fame.

 

The "prize" the girls are fighting over here is Evan Marriott, a real dumb-a**. He isn't ghastly and appalling looking like, say - Rick Rockwell. In fact, he's the kind of guy you would probably let buy you a drink in a bar. Then after talking to him for 15 minutes you would be like "This guy is a jerk!" and tell him you had to go home to take care of your sick cat.

 

So these girls compete with eachother for at a shot at Evan, even though he's clearly no prize. This isn't even because they want Evan, it's just that they cant bear the thought of losing out to another woman. ANY guy could be the "prize" and they would fight eachother tooth and nail just to get picked by him. (Don't believe me? Then watch FLAVOR OF LOVE!)

 

At the end of each show Evan does an elimination round where he picks the girls he wants to "keep" on his "maybe" list and ships all the other ones off.

 

There is also a "twist" at the end of the show: Evan really wasn't a millionaire. He was just an Average Joe. 

 

Come to think of it, there was also another show like this called AVERAGE JOE! 

 

THE BACHELOR (Followed by spin-off show called THE BACHELORETTE): I don't know which one came first and who ripped off whom here, but THE BACHELOR is sort of like JOE MILLIONAIRE in it is a bunch of women fighting eachother for a crack at what must be the last available, single man on Earth.

 

So about twenty women trot out and meet The Bachelor and all decide that he's Da Bomb and that they will do anything to win his fair hand. (Isn't it funny how no one ever meets "The Bachelor" or "Joe Millionaire" and says "Hmmm...he's not really my type"?)

 

Same as JOE MILLIONAIRE, The Bacheler hangs out at fancy digs with these chicks and they all take turns making out with him. Every week he throws a few "losers" off until he is left with two chicks and then he tells one to go to Hell and goes off with the other one so they can live happily ever after. Or do they?

 

In one irritating  instance the show succeeded in hooking up an annoying "perfect couple": Trista and Ryan,  who went on to prolong their 15 minutes of fame and our agony by allowing their courtship, engagement, wedding planning and -yes- THEIR WEDDING- to be taped and broadcast  on television. Did I mention they were annoying? They were the kind of couple that talks like this:

Ryan: I love you.

Trista: I love you more

Ryan: No, I love you more.

Trista: Nooo, I love yoooou more!

Slap!

 

When last seen THE BACHELOR was upping the ante by offering to set love-starved women up with a Celebrity Bachelor! And who did they pick? Charlie O'Connell. Who?! Charlie O'Connell. Who the Hell is Charlie O'Connell? Actor Jerry O'Connell's brother.

 

 

I barely know who Jerry O'Connell is, let alone Charlie O'Connell!

 

THE LITTLEST GROOM: As if WHO WANTS TO MARRY A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE and JOE MILLIONAIRE weren't tasteless enough, next came THE LITTLEST GROOM, an exploitation show about a midget who is looking for a bride.

 

So they trot out a bunch of female midgets (What? I'm not making this up!) and he gets to know 'em and decide, like JOE MILLIONAIRE, which ones he wants to keep and which ones he wants to publically disgrace by putting on the "loser" list and shipping out.

 

Ah, but here is the "twist": After the little bachelor got to know the little bachelorettes they added in a bunch of "real size" women! So now the little guy had to decide if he wanted a little midget woman or a six foot tall leggy blonde!

 

Which one did he end up picking? I can honestly say I don't know and probably never will because the show got cancelled after about one or two episodes.

 

MY BIG, FAT, OBNOXIOUS FIANCE: Okay. Are we yawning yet? These shows are all pretty much the same damn thing except with some minor "tweaking". And I'm pretty sure they all ran on FOX!

 

Well, anyway, in MY BIG, FAT, OBNOXIOUS FIANCE this well-to-do, stuck-up, blonde beauty has to convince her parents that she has fallen into a whirwind love affair with this big, ugly, rude, disgusting, fart-machine who looks sort of like Bluto from ANIMAL HOUSE, but fifty pounds heavier. She can never let on that the whole thing is a hoax and that she is only going through a fake wedding ceremony that- if no one objects - will win her a huge cash prize. (Why did she need it? Her family was already wealthy!)

 

Apparently, her family is never aware that they are being punked even though there are tons of video cameras around recording their every move! (Whose being played here: Them or us?)

 

This show had a "twist" too: The Big, Fat, Obnoxious Fiance ended up being the one who told the family the nuptials were phony, the girl seethed and the family all sighed a collective sigh of relief. 

 

The "Big, Fat, Obnoxious Finace" can now be seen in commercials for HUNGRY MAN TV dinners and HERTZ rental cars.

 

TEMPTATION ISLAND: This one features a bunch of couples who have reached a cross-roads in their relationships. Do they wanna take the next step and commit or should they just break up? I, at home, thought "If you have to ask that question then you already know the answer!" 

 

So they all get shipped out to some fantasy resort where they are all gonna walk around next-to-naked and try to seduce eachother. AND the show actually spiced things up by adding in a group of  "professional tempters" whose job it was to make the contestants want to stray. (Ummmm...here in The States we have a word for that: Prostitution) Whoever can resist all temptation goes home with their relationship in tact and I THINK they got prize money.

 

COMING SOON FROM FOX: WHO WANTS TO MARRY A 13 YEAR OLD FILIPINO PROSTITUTE?

 

THE SWAN: Whoever said "Beauty is only skin deep" didn't know jack sh*t!

 

A bunch of self-proclaimed uggos go on THE SWAN  and prepare to be in a beauty pageant. But wait- They must first go through pain-staking plastic surgery and lipo!

 

All the while there are therapists onhand to keep them sane while the rest of the staff of the show drills home how ugly they are, how better off they will be once they are maimed from head to toe and how only the "beautiful people" deserve to be loved and put on a pedestal....and win cash and prizes!

 

THE SIMPLE LIFE: Someone somewhere thought it would be a good idea to give talentless Paris Hilton her own TV show. So Paris and her best friend at the time Nicole Richie pack up their skimpiest outfits, thier Wonderbras, their best hair extensions and their chihuahua and go live on a farm where they make rude "jokes" at the expense of the locals and the nice families that have agreed to house their skanky a**es.

 

Scenes, that I have to believe are at least PARTLY scripted, include Paris and Nicole walking through pastures in stiletto heels and Daisy Dukes, Paris and Nicole fighting over which one of them has to milk the cow, Paris constanly saying "That's hot" and Paris making what WOULD be jokes if they WERE actually funny: "What is WALMART? Do they, like, sell wall stuff there?"

 

Dissing people who shop at WALMART? Where I come from thems fightin' words!

 

FLAVOR OF LOVE: A dating show where trashy-looking "ladies" (And I use the term loosley) fight (No, really: There is hair-pulling and spitting!) for the chance to have a crack at Their Dream Date. It's cat-fight-o-rama!

 

WHO are they all competing for? PUBLIC ENEMY's butt-ugly, seemingly mentally-challenged, definately ON SOMETHING, annoyance Flavor  Flav!

 

And who wouldn't wanna date HIM???? Where do I sign up????

 

MAKING THE BAND: P DIDDY (Damn him to Hell!) is responsible for this one.

 

It's sort of like AMERICAN IDOL because it features young and "talented" wanna-bes who audition to be part of some fabricated "Super Band".

 

To be in this "band" you don't even need to know how to play an instrument! You just have to be trained on the right ways to sing, dance, bust a move, pose and, if need be, lip synch.

 

 At the end of the show we get to see the finished product and then.....we never hear from them again!

 

Whereas AMERICAN IDOL at least gave us KELLY CLARKSON, who has had a handful of hits I can remember the titles to (Miss Independant, Breakaway, Since U Been Gone) MAKING THE BAND has given us such "super groups" as O-TOWN and EDEN'S CRUSH. Can you remember any of their "hit singles"? Cuz I sure as sh*t can't!

 

I WANT TO BE A HILTON: In this short-lived show Kathy Hilton, mother of Paris and Nikki, teached us how to be classy, demure  and well-mannered.

 

Hello......? Lady, it is time to practice what you preach and start teaching grace and dignity to your own kids!

 

RICH GIRLS: A show about a bunch of spoiled, vapid, rich kids you don't know. This time it is the offspring of clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger and some guy named Gleicher ( I have no idea).

 

 Who are these people and what did they do to deserve their own show?

 

GASTINEU GIRLS: A show about a bunch of spoiled, vapid, rich people you don't know. This time it is the daughter and x-wife of ballplayer Mark Gastineu (I guess he's still supporting them).

 

Who are these people and what did they do to deserve their own show?

 

PRINCES OF MALIBU: A show about a bunch of spoiled, vapid, rich people you don't know. This time it is the two sons of Olympic runner / star of THE VILLAGE PEOPLE movie CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC / Plastic surgery junkie Bruce Jenner. Their mom's fed-up new husband that they live with is going to throw their lazy, spoiled a**es out and teach them a lesson using Tough Love.

 

A lot of people suspected that most of PRINCES OF MALIBU was scripted. I myself wondered why these guys didn't just pack up their sh*t and move in with Bruce Jenner if their step-father was such a hard-a**. And why Bruce Jenner didn't punch this guy in the f*ckin' face for being a b*stard to his kids!

 

Oh, and by the way: Who are these people and what did they do to deserve their own show?

 

LAGUNA BEACH - THE REAL O.C.: A show about spoiled, vapid, rich kids you don't know. An episode my husband watched had the kids from LAGUNA BEACH sitting on a couch at home watching an episode of THE O.C. I said to my husband "You DO realize that you are watching a TV show about a group of people watching a TV show, right?" He woke himself up, said "Oh" and turned it off. Then he turned to me and said "Who are these people and what did they do to deserve their own show?"

 

CHASING FARRAH, BRITNEY AND KEVIN: CHAOTIC and BEING BOBBY BROWN: These shows all came out around the same time, when anybody who was stupid enough to agree to let a video camera follow them around was allowed their own Reality show.

 

CHASING FARRAH was about aging sex symbol and plastic surgery junkie Farrah CHARLIE'S ANGELS Fawcett and her "legion of fans".

 

Ummmmmmmmmm.......What was the last memorable thing Farrah Fawcett was ever in, aside from a drug-induced state of confusion on DAVID LETTERMAN? CHARLIE'S ANGELS in the '70s? THE BURNING BED in the '80s? The woman hasn't put out quality work in years, unless you want to count her PLAYBOY video where she showed us how she paints with her a**, which I don't.

 

In segments that people thought looked suspiciously staged Farrah's fans recognize her and chase her down the street and Farrah is nothing but gracious.

 

Snoooooore.

 

In BRITNEY AND KEVIN: CHAOTIC Pop singer BRITNEY SPEARS attempts to answer the question we all want to ask her. "What the Hell does she see in Kevin Federline?!"

 

Brit walks around with a hand-held video camera that constantly shakes, making watching the show give you a headache and / or motion sickness. Britney follows her crew around asking them embaressing questions which they are compelled to answer cuz, well, she's The Boss. She also shoots footage of up Kevin's nose . And she confesses, while in yesterday's caked on make-up and unbrushed hair, that she loves Kevin cuz "The sex is gooooooood".

 

Even Britney's fans hated this show and are still not quite sure what the Hell she sees in gold-digging nothing Kevin.

 

BEING BOBBY BROWN follows stardom's most obnoxious couple WHITNEY HOUSTON and BOBBY BROWN around.

 

This show has been called a "train wreck" time and time again. It is supposedly so ghastly that you can't believe The Browns (The Houstons?!) actually allowed for themselves to be taped!

 

They are a dysfunctional family all the way around.

 

Missing though is the footage of Whitney locking herself in the bathroom to smoke crack for three days in a row.

 

MY MOTHER THE CAR: I have never seen this one, but I would have to think it's sort of like MR ED.

 

In MR ED a fool named Wilbur had a horse that talked to him and only him (Unless it was being a smart-a** and making crank phone calls). The main charactor in MY MOTHER THE CAR, Jerry Van Dyke, has something that talks to him and only him: It's the spirit of his dead mother. She has been reinCARnated and has decided to spend eternity in his car's chassis.

 

She speaks to him through the car radio, much like Kit used to talk to David Hasselhoff on KNIGHT RIDER.  She speaks to him and only him. Of course, this leads to "riotous situations" and "mayhem ensues".

 

Thought by many to be the absolute worst TV show to ever hit the small screen. At least until PINK LADY AND JEFF.

 

THE BEST BAD SHOW ON TELEVISION:

 

GO, BABY!: This isn't really a televison show, it's a five minute segment they wedge in between cartoons and morning kid shows on THE DISNEY CHANNEL. It is about a baby named "Baby" (!) and his "adventures". We follow Baby as he does such thrlling derring dooh as picking an apple, blowing out candles on a birthday cake or visiting his counterpart female baby Sophie.  As he does all this crap the grown up man-child voice of SPIN CITY's Richard Kind coos such things as "See Baby? Help Baby pick the apple for Sophie". When Baby CAN'T do the task he shrugs, pouts and makes what my friend Maureen would call "a boo-boo face". But when he CAN do the task: Look out! Cuz Baby then starts to dance and, boy, can he bust a move! The narrator encourages us to get up and dance too. Because of this a new catchphrase has been coined in my house :"Dance Like An Idiot For Baby!" (I am thinking of getting "Dance Like An Idiot For Baby tattoed on my left arm and Shut Up, Craig tattoed on my right). Even though both me and my child are waaay too old to be watching GO, BABY! there is something oddly hynotic about it. We keep a blank tape near the TV at all times so we can tape it whenever it comes on. We would gladly pay for a GO BABY Special Edition Box Set! So what are you waiting for? Dance Like An Idiot For Baby!