Do you like getting kicked in the head by a donkey every night? How about sticking your tongue in an electrical outlet? Or maybe you prefer slicing habanero peppers and then rubbing your eyes.
If any of these appeal to you, then may I suggest applying for the 2012 version of the TV show "Wife Swap"?
Because I think an ass’s hoof to the head or a few amps to the palate or capsaicin in the sclera would be like nectar and ambrosia compared to that show. And some sort of threat of dire physical duress should be the only way you could possibly want to apply to the show at all, let alone for an episode where they are actually asking for people who are preparing for disaster in 2012.
Will I watch it? Hmmmm. Maybe. But like Odysseus, I may ask my family to lash me to the couch so that I may suffer without tearing myself to shreds. It’s the only way.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Why don’t you have Mrs. Bad Astronomer apply for the show? Then you can get really close to the donkey-face-kicking action…
August 18th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Something tells me that this is going to melt some people’s heads.
Or it could be a conspiracy by the royal global elite to “conditionate” us for the NEW YEAR ZERO, 2012, when the New World Order will start it’s ALREADY PUBLIC PLANS!!!!!!!!
Hmm… Where’s the “sarcasm” tag?
August 18th, 2008 at 10:14 am
AAARRRRGGGGG!!!!
*hits head repeatedly against wall*
(Okay, I feel better now.)
August 18th, 2008 at 10:25 am
The only reality show worth watching is “Rough Science” from BBC.
I’d love to see an American network remake that.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:32 am
@Dave Mosher
“Why don’t you have Mrs. Bad Astronomer apply for the show?”
Actually, that’s not a bad idea. It would be a great educational opportunity, assuming the producers take that editing angle. Plus there’d be the added ratings bonus of having an internationally beloved blogger on the show!
@Ibid
“The only reality show worth watching is “Rough Science” from BBC.
I’d love to see an American network remake that.”
I wouldn’t want to see an American network remake it. They have a tendency of taking a perfectly good program and ruining it. Just look what they did to “Coupling”. Just license the original and rebroadcast it, I say.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:46 am
My wife watched this show for a while, and after catching roughly 2 minutes of it, I was repulsed by the very premise of the show. I understand the voyeuristic nature of the lowest common denominator of the American populace fueling reality TV’s success, but intentionally putting people in adversarial conditions for the amusement of audiences, even if they agree to it knowingly, really just makes me angry.
I know this happens in many reality TV shows, of course… but what separates this piece of trash from the rest in terms of its vileness, is the regular, involuntary involvement of innocent children in the taudry exploitation of the families involved. How Social Services has not stepped in and challenged this practice is beyond me.
The only show on TV that’s more reprehensible, in my opinion, is “Moment of Truth”, which really makes my stomach turn.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:50 am
> Just license the original and rebroadcast it,
There’s not nearly enough episodes for my taste.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Please Phil DO NOT WATCH WIFE SWAP there is a real danger that your brain ( the brain that we your minions love and worship. I have an effigy of your brain that I pay homage to each night as the sun sets, lighting candles, burning incense, chanting and prostrating myself before it) will collapse in torment, try to eat itself, turn into grey goo and leak outa your ear! You have been warned!
@ Ibid
I couldn’t agree more. Rough Science rocks! Kate Humble and Kathy Sykes(smart AND hawt) Mike Bullivant and Jonathan Hare (equally smart and equally hawt) science entertainingly presented and loads of fun along the way. I wish the OU would do another series. Hey I’m an OU student! I’ll ask them
August 18th, 2008 at 10:54 am
My family and I applied for a show on Animal Planet a couple of years ago. During the interview process one of the producers offered us the opportunity to appear on ‘Wife Swap’ instead. “There’s more money in it for you,” was the primary pitch line (they quoted us $10K). To my wife’s credit she responded, “No chance in hell you’ll ever get us on that show.”
Now you know one of the many reasons why I married her.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Wait, I thought the homosexuals were destroying marriage. This modern world, it’s far too complicated for me.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Remeber one thing about tv producers they cancelled the original Star Trek bacause they thought it was unprofitable.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:56 am
OT, but I *love* the Python reference, BA.
Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have the kick in the teeth?
August 18th, 2008 at 11:01 am
This topic seems very astronomical.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:02 am
But it’s “Reality” TV? I thought you valued Reality? I agree, you and Mrs. BA should apply. I think it would be a hoot to have someone that isn’t making any special preparations for doomsday, just to frustrate the heck out of the other family!
@Celtic,
“Moment of Truth” is the most disgusting show on television, brought to us by the lovely folks at Faux network.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Phil is running out of topics to blog about.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am
It’s really a shame that the rights of Wife Swap was bought for Latin America by People+Arts, such a respectable channel that aired shows like Torchwood back on the days.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am
The only reality show I’m intersted in ever watching is Survivor: Turkish Prison. Contestents can apply by getting caught trying to smuggle heroin in to Turkey. Each week, the audience votes a contenstent in front of the firing squad. The winner gets to serve a life sentence without parole. Chuck “The ultimate game show is one where the losing contestent is killed at the end of the episode” Barris would produce it.
You know there’d be no lack of applicants.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:12 am
“But like Odysseus, I may ask my family to lash me to the couch so that I may suffer without tearing myself to shreds. ”
If you also get them to force your eyelids to stay open, you could experiment with the “Ludovico technique” of aversion therapy and conduct some real science while watching. On second thought, forget it. It didn’t work in A Clockwork Orange either.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:14 am
The comments on that “Reality Sandwich” announcement are. . . ahem. . . wow.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Apparently a short while ago Wife Swap was looking for a Pastafarian couple. The general consensus over at Venganza was a giant “No No No No NO! They will trap you with a Fundamentalist family and then make fun of you. No good can come of this!”
Project Runway is dressing drag queens this week. That’s my kind of reality TV!
August 18th, 2008 at 11:16 am
anyone else notice the garbled spume in the comments thread at that link? it’s basically a bunch of nimrods whining about how people don’t take their end-of-the-world bull seriously.
really? you have some BS end-times crap based on ancient mayans? and people have the gall to make fun of you? what a shock!
August 18th, 2008 at 11:17 am
2012! TEH WROLD ENDSS!!1! OMGWTFBBQ!!!
August 18th, 2008 at 11:21 am
@Nathan Myers how ironic.:-)
August 18th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Most TVs come with an “off” switch. I have no sympathy for anyone who complains about a TV show, unless like Alex in “A Clockwork Orange” they’re strapped to a chair, strait-jacketed, and their eyes forcibly held open. Just turn it off and walk away, dude.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Todd W. Says:
“Rough Science” from BBC.
I wouldn’t want to see an American network remake it. They have a tendency of taking a perfectly good program and ruining it. Just look what they did to “Coupling”. Just license the original and rebroadcast it, I say.
I agree. Having a cast of American actors recite lines verbatim from the original series left a lot to be desired–like a whole new show. The problem originated with Norman Lear: He lifted the concept of All in the Family from a BBC series, Till Death Us Do Part,” and made it uniquely American. How? He kept the concept only. The problem is most other producers are too lazy to take the next step and WRITE something. Lear and his staff DID write, and the rest is TV history. Nobody since has had the brains, talent or ambition to do what he did.
Davidlpf Says:
Remeber one thing about tv producers they cancelled the original Star Trek bacause they thought it was unprofitable.
It was.
I was about 14 when they cancelled Star Trek. The program had been shunted off to several lousy time slots, and the ratings were terrible. It wasn’t until the mid-70s after it went into syndication that any widespread interest began to really take off.
I think it was about 1974 that I first saw Gene Roddenberry speak to a group of fans He had his blooper reels and most of the reconstructed pilot. It was at the University of Utah Student Union Building and about 300 people came.
Three or four years later, He spoke again, this time at the old Salt Palace arena in Salt Lake City, and this time it was more like 10,000.
So it took quite a while for the Paramount and network execs to realize what they had.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
@AJWM:
Promoting bad science is something to be upset about though.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Dave Hall, thanks for the drink-to-screen-via-nose moment. Referring to Gene Roddenberry as “He”.
May the Great Bird of the Galaxy roost on your planet!
August 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Coupling was never going to be a success in the North American market because they’d already seen Friends, so they didn’t need a knock off of it.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
This is only going to become much worse as we approach that date, I can only imagine what the general 2012 television season will be like.
I worry about all those folks when December 22nd comes around that year and all their preparation and selling of their homes and worldly goods comes to naught and they get that sinking realization they have been duped. Some may not realize it immediately, but when 2013 rolls around the reality will set in. I suppose they will get what they deserve by this, but I am sure a whole lot of innocent children will have been dragged down by their decisions.
I just hope no one does the suicide thing or worse, the “Jonestown” method.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
@ AJWM
Hey, “dude”… can the poor kids that get sucked into the “Wife swap” mess turn their lives off? No. The show is junk and simply telling people “well then don’t watch it” is complacently accepting that its OK to exploit innocent kids because their parents are too greedy to know better than to expose them to this sort of thing.
Read the comments a little more thoroughly.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
CortxVortx Says:
Dave Hall, thanks for the drink-to-screen-via-nose moment. Referring to Gene Roddenberry as “He”.
May the Great Bird of the Galaxy roost on your planet!
If you ever met Him or Magel Barrett (Blessed be Her Name)in person, it was hard not to genuflect, tug at your forelock, avert your eyes and say “I’m not Worthy!”
Is there such a thing as a Freudian Typo???
August 18th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Instead of Wife Swap, why not have the Plait family host a flat earth believer who believes the moon landings were a hoax on an episode of 28 Days?
August 18th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
@Wildride
What doomed the American version of “Coupling” was not “Friends”, but rather the producers using the exact same scripts, with almost identical sets, and actors that looked very similar to the original British cast but lacked the chops to pull off British humor.
Had they gotten past that, the only other hurdle to overcome would be getting past the U.S.’s prudish nature, “Coupling” covering a somewhat racy topic, and all.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Wildride Says:
Coupling was never going to be a success in the North American market because they’d already seen Friends, so they didn’t need a knock off of it.
Its a little more complex than that. NBC ran Friends from 1994 to 2004, then tried to replace it with a reworking of Coupling. And I doubt that NBC intended to knock off its own series. Coupling(UK version) did run after Friends was on the air, but was more akin to Seinfeld than Friends. The plots were more complex than anything Friends offered and usually had several divergent substories collide at the end.
When NBC premiered Coupling(US), many people, myself included had seen Coupling(UK)and were seriously disappointed. Its main failure was the lousy cast and the poor attempt to recreate the very same episodes aired on BBC, but with an Americanized lines. It only lasted 4 episodes.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Todd W. Says:
@Wildride
What doomed the American version of “Coupling” was not “Friends”, but rather the producers using the exact same scripts, with almost identical sets, and actors that looked very similar to the original British cast but lacked the chops to pull off British humor.
Dang! Its like ventroloquism!
Oh, and you are right about the prudes. Two large network affiliates, one owned by Notre Dame, and one owned by the Mormon Church, refused to air Coupling (US).
August 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Okay, Phil, silly question. Don’t like it? Why watch it? Have them lash you to the couch so suffer without tearing yourself apart? Hmmmmmmmmmmm. I’m no fan of TV. If I see an hour a week it is a noteworthy record. It has to be good to draw me in. Average or mediocre? Forget it! I have beter things to do with my time. Turn the silly thing off. Just because they air it doesn’t mean you have to watch…………….
August 18th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Oooh, Phil! You should wife-swap with Sylvia Browne’s husband…
August 18th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Maybe Phil should make a reality show in which he brings all the astronomy conspiracy theorists and woo people, like moon hoax, astrology, and planet X, and have them duke it out. Hoagland is a must. Maybe Hoagland could be one of the judges, to “balance” the skeptics, or give “both sides” of the story. The winner will be declared as the craziest conspiracy theorist.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Reginald Maudling. ….that’s close enough.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
@BMcP
Not to worry. I predict (psychically! Really!!) that by the time 12/21/2012 rolls around, the charlatans will have modified their doom-and-gloom predictions to such vague “maybes” “mights” and “perhapses” (e.g. “consciousness shift” vs. “pole shift”) that no matter what happens (or, more likely, doesn’t), they’ll be able to claim victory even as they start concocting their next not-too-distant-future apocalyptic prediction. (In fact, from what I’ve seen the equivocation has already begun.) It’s the way the prophet of doom industry has worked for millennia.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
oh, I love “Unterschichtentv”
)
August 18th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Is Rough Science a show where they dropped a group of scientists somewhere secret and they had to use material at hand to find ways to survive and find where they are and get rescued. I seen a show like that a few years ago, but I cannot remember the network it was on or the title. I only got to see one episode. It that is the same show, I found it fasinating and would love to see the series.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
The Science Channel in the U.S. (IIRC) aired Rough Science for a while. It was awesome. It was the season where they were on an abandoned lime plantation in the Carribean. Wish they would have kept airing them.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I googled the show and it was aired on pbs. That is where I must have seen it. It was the first episode that I seen. I would love to see the whole series.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
@Coupling Talkers
I was living in England when the original Coupling debuted, and many critics there called it a lame rip off of Friends. I was surprised to find out that the most popular
shows over there were The Office, Friends, Ally Mcbeal, Big Brother, Sex and the City, Pop Idol, as well as American Idol.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Of course the world is not going to end in 2012. But on the other hand, what better reason is there to throw a seriouly big ass party? I think I’m going to throw a big party every single time the world ends. And you are all, of course, cordially invited.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Here is a little list of American television programs that are based on British originals:
All in the Family, American Idol, Cash Cab, Cosby, Coupling, Cracker, Dancing with the Stars, Dear John, Dog Eat Dog, Frontier House, Hells Kitchen, Men Behaving Badly, The Office, The Ropers, Sanford and Son, Threes Company, Too Close for Comfort, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Whose Line is it Anyway?, Wife Swap.
Suffice to say, it all hasn’t been Masterpiece Theater.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
A couple people on the Galapagos tour had t-shirts commenting on 2012, but I don’t know if Phil saw them. The shirts were gifts from me and my favorite fraudulent guru (http://www.masternashwan.com). I think we should have a massive woo vs. skeptic showdown on 12/21/12. Maybe at Stonehenge. All the skeptics have to do is sit and wait for nothing to happen.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Wive’s swap? Oh, well yes. They’re always swapping something, now aren’t they. Oh, well, heh, heh. Yes, yes. Er, what are they swapping this epoch? /end Mr. Magoo voice.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Err, “Wives swap?” Magoo indeed.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
I’m waiting for Fox to debut “Poking Developmentally Diasabled Kids With Sticks Until They Cry!”.
Sadly, it will be a huge hit.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Rough Science is on Netflix if you have it. I was always mildly disappointed by it. I’m not sure why. It was a great concept.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:26 am
The one episode of Rough Science I saw was great – they were testing the theory that anyone can make soap with animal fat and ashes. Oops! Not as easy as it sounds, and amusing to watch from a distance.
As for Wife Swap, no warning is necessary. I could smell that one from 4 channels away.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I have to confess that I did watch Wife Swap a couple of years ago when that crazy Christian woman who saw gargoyles and demons everywhere was sent to live with some new age Wiccany sort of folks. I mean, we actually got to see the devil posses her and make her start dry heaving. That’s entertainment!
August 20th, 2008 at 9:43 am
A family that I used to live around the corner from (and whose son has been friends with my younger brother since they were small children) was on Trading Spouses about a year ago. It was the only time I’ve watched the show. I’ve got to say, it was interesting to see how their editing process “changed” a family that I know really well.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:24 pm
A scientist from my work was on trading spouses a couple of years back. It was pretty funny.
http://www.dailycal.org/article/2439/five_minutes_with…barry_welsh_space_scientist_an