9. Fear Factor Couples
Relationships are hard. Relationships stressed by jumping from helicopters or bobbing for chicken feet while buried in live rats are soon to be history. If you really love your partner, I can't imagine placing them in such a disgusting and doomed situation. Watching a husband cursing his wife for letting go of a rope while being dragged behind a vehicle through the desert is enough to make me very embarrassed for them, and glad that I'm single.
8. Temptation Island
The couple self-abuse continues with this show. I love you. You love me. Let's go to a tropical resort and cheat on each other while being videotaped. Why? For a free vacation, of course.
7. Meet My Folks
This show extends the embarrassment to the whole family, and again, for a free vacation (to Hawaii). Parents allow themselves to look like fools. Their child looks like a slut (whether male or female). The three potential suitors expose all their past failures. Are people really that hard up for a free trip? Evidently.
6. Average Joe
Less than average looking men expect a better than average looking woman to overlook their looks and see the real man inside, while seeing nothing but how good she looks. If there is nothing wrong with looking "average", why is everyone fighting over one attractive person? It's a shallow group made even more shallow when "the hunks" show up. We are all attracted to beauty in some form, so accept it and don't make ugly appear noble simply for being ugly.
5. Joe Millionaire
Does she love his model looks or big bank account? Is she so shallow that she would dump a guy who turns out to be poor or because he lied to her about everything for weeks? Why are men such dogs? Why are women such ho's? Why do people find this crap entertaining?
4. Who Wants to Marry My Dad?
Great idea. Let's choose our next mother by giving dad away as a game show prize. Let's make the whole family look like idiots on national TV. Let's not and say we did, okay?
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
wKen, man are you preaching to my choir! Great job - the exploitation involved in these is reprehensible and viewers are complicit in making that exploitation viable. I am also sickened by the unreality of the purported "reality" shows.
2 - TDavid
Color me braindead on this one but I actually like My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee, and that didn't even make the cut here.
The first season of The Osbournes was good, but it has sucked since. Joe Millionaire was probably the best of the lot but the follow-up to that with the Euro-Trash was lame. Temptation Island was ok. Anna Nicole kept about 5 minutes of my attention and the rest of the list I didn't bother TiVOing.
You missed out on the show with the dudes with masks that Monica Lewinsky hosted, that one was pretty, er, interesting.
Fox has outdone themselves on some of these series and the sheer amazement of it is how anybody would sign up to do a show with them knowing they were going to be totally scammed. It shows how low some shallow people will go for the possibility of making a few bones, I guess.
They should do a follow-up on some of these shows to see how they spent their money. I'd wager that in 99.9% of the cases the money is gone within a year and the couples are separated.
3 - wKen
Remind me, TDavid, is braindead red or blue (and why is everybody copying my online identity with the initial in front of the first name)?
I liked the first season of the Osbournes too. That's why it's being pimped in the Amazon links. I also thought the Big Fat Fiance was funny.
My list is the most "degrading" shows, though. Sometimes degrading TV is very entertaining. I'm just not so sure that's a good thing.
4 - TDavid
Copying you? How long have you had this naming convention online? I've used this name since 1995, though not officially in business on the web until 1999 :) If you go back further than that, then yup, I copied you.
;)
5 - Eric Olsen
"oEric" - doesn't have the same ring.
6 - wKen
1989, but not just on the web. The lowercase w is short for my last name (williams), and is silent.
Everybody wants to be me, so I'm used to it. If Michael Jackson isn't angry with Justin Timberlake, then why should I complain. No harm. No foul. ;)
7 - Joe
I've gone by aJoe for a while, but the a is invisible and the J takes on the Spanish pronunciation.
8 - TDavid
Well, actually the uppercase "T" Is not for my last name, it is for my first, so sorry, I guess you'll have to keep looking for a more suitable clone.
I googled your name and find 17,600 results. Google me and find over 29,000. Keep at, grasshopper.
;)
9 - wKen
That makes me more rare, right?
Eric, Dawn never says "oh Eric"?
Joe, you crack me up.
10 - Doc
I nominate the entire Fox New Channel for most degrading 24 hr reality TV.