Quality? Nah. Entertaining? Hell yeah.
I am a fearful snob. Anyone who knows me will know that. I routinely decry such television shows as: America’s Next Top Model, Pop/American/Canadian/Bangladeshi/Martian Idol, Big Brother I/II/III/IV/MMXCLI and so on. But I am coming to terms with my own weakness in this regard. My enablers? Spike TV and A&E.
What glorious, glorious trash these two broadcast 24 hours a day. UFC for instance: dudes in lycra hotpants kneeing each other in the face and elbowing each other in the nuts. Wrestling? That’s fake. This? This is brutal.
Pros vs. Joes: An absurd concept, but so satisfying. Former sports stars take on those annoying ‘I could have done better’ armchair athletes at various games. Watching these irritating, petty tossers getting buzzed by a softball pitcher, then throwing their toys out of the pram while the other jocks mock mercilessly – this warms my heart.
Casino Cinema shows occasionally decent films, and proceeds to pepper them with interminable breaks for adverts and a meeting with our hosts. On the one hand is Beth O, who seems to have decided the ditzy blonde stereotype is too deeply ingrained in the popular psyche, and that her only option is to embrace it. Although that may be awarding her too much of a rational faculty, and she is just a ditzy blonde. Her co-host is the spectacular Steve Schirripa. I think this guy was kicked off The Sopranos because he was too ‘Joisey’ – barrel-chested, chunky gold jewellery, fuhgeddaboudit accent and all. Together, they play casino games with 3rd-rate movie stars, and quiz them on inane details of their private lives. Excruciating. Fascinating.
Now Spike does have these three stellar shows in its stable, and is a strong contender in a competition between the two channels. But while A&E doesn’t have quite the same depth of line-up, it does have one spectacular trump card: Duane ‘Dog’, the Bounty Hunter might just beat them all.
Dog lives in Hawaii. He is a fiftyish guy, with a mane of blond hair, who favours bronze-capped cowboy boots, leather trousers and a leather waistcoat/vest over his naked, drooping man-boobs. Now, he may sound like an extra from a film featuring one of those seedy gay biker-bars, but enter Beth, Dog’s wife. While Dog may have man-boobs, hers are the real deal – she has a bosom one of Dog’s targets could hide out in for months. These two, plus their henchmen (basically Dog’s extended family), drive around Hawaii, picking up people who have skipped bail. Not that you care particularly about what crime these people have committed (petty drugs offences mainly) – you are only there to catch a glimpse of Dog and Beth’s 4 boobs jiggling in synchronicity as they chase their quarry down. In the end, most of the bail-jumpers turn themselves in, persuaded by friends and relatives to cash in their 15 minutes of fame. Using the twin cults of celebrity and television to catch criminals – sheer genius.
Signed,
A Proud Hypocrite