The Worst Shows On Television

Art Rosch

Copyright 2014

         

          There is no worst show on TV.  There are a plethora of disgusting, heinous, exploitive and dishonest shows.  Trying to chose one is like sticking my hand down a fairground Portapotty.

          I won't do it.  I have neither the courage nor the desire.  I've watched some shit, to be sure.  I've watched TV shit out of curiosity, morbid humor, a sense of snobbish superiority.  I've watched TV junk for a lot of reasons.  I wanted to bring a report back from the Front, from the cesspool of modern broadcast entertainment.

          I can't do it.  I descended the circles of Hell until my nerve failed.  I watched HOARDERS.  I watched the inane chatter of The Kardashians.  I watched as America's fixation on puke, pee and poop exploded out of the Big Screen and landed on my defenseless psyche.

          I watched Rob Dyrdek's RIDICULOUSNESS in which teenagers addle their essence by launching themselves into tricks that crunch their skulls and explode their scrotums. I watched kids do the "don't try this at home" stunts purveyed by Johnny Knoxville (and don't get me wrong, I laugh and wince too).

          The veil between television and internet is very thin.  Youtube weirdness ends up on Daniel Tosh's hilarious show.  Uploaded videos are all over the television landscape, pockmarking  the Cable Universe with ridiculousness.

          It seems as though the Lowest Common Denominator gets lower all the time.  As the world's population explodes so do the number of niche market Reality TV shows, most of which are carefully scripted and engineered to stretch fifteen minutes of content across an hour of commercials for smartphones, cars, cosmetics and fast food.

          I quailed at watching MY 600 POUND LIFE.  I feel for Melissa's situation.  I know about weight problems.  But I couldn't watch the show. It was transparently exploitive.  Let's just give the "Worst TV" ribbon to HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOO and stop there.  I'm not sure why this boring insipid show is on television and the fact that it gets renewed for another season makes me sad.  Very sad.  Maybe we have been hypnotized by Big Mama's cross-eyed gaze, as she fixates on the progress of the giant zit at the bridge of her nose.  I don't know what it is.  People watch it.  They love it!

          God help us all.