[Bianculli here: Celebrity culture has never been more obvious or inescapable than right now, as TV covers -- blankets, smothers -- the death of Michael Jackson, with Farrah Fawcett's death in second place, Ed McMahon's death a distant third, the unfaithful South Carolina governor a rapidly sidelined fourth, and the poor protesters in Iran wiped off the attention grid almost entirely. So what does the celebrity of Jon and Kate have to do with all this? According to contributing columnist Tom Brinkmoeller, a lot...]
'Jon & Kate' Just Ate America's Lunch
How many times did Moe tell his Three Stooges partner Curly to pick two fingers, and then poked him in the eyes with the fingers he picked? How many times did Moe tell the bald Stooge to hit his hand, and then swing his arm in an arc to land his fist on Curly's head?
If you think the Stooges are history, think again. Television's play-callers are pulling the old Moe trick on us more often and more brazenly lately than its namesake ever did. They think of us as a collection of Curlys. And lots of us have offered our eyes as willing targets.
The largest offender, to date: TLC, for the way it has suckered so many into the spider web called Jon & Kate Plus 8. Maybe you remember how Moe would clamp a huge pliers on Curly
s nose and pull him around? See any similarity in the way TLC has been yanking us around?
With an amount of manufactured excitement its Learning Channel predecessor would have considered offensive, the unabashed new TLC used a giant stick to stir up the waters as it led up to Monday's D-I-V-O-R-C-E episode. Fresh photos of the telegenic parents with eight children got published. Unattributed rumors got printed. Clips showed up on the star-sycophant programs. Emeril Lagasse and the American Chopper comedy trio made guest appearances.
People who once sold pet rocks and mood rings must be the VPs of hype at TLC. They said, "Pick two!" and the viewing Curlys let themselves get poked in the eye.
Following Monday's melodramatic conclusion -- as the public response morphed into "How could anyone victimize those sweet children?" -- there's a lot of handwringing going on in some of the same fields where the first seeds of hype started growing a few weeks ago. Why isn't someone wringing TLC's neck, instead, for selling more sideshow tickets than Barnum ever dreamed of peddling?
More evidence of stink: The night after the momentous episode aired, it aired again. And now, as the series is on a so-called hiatus, the TLC schedule is amply populated with maudlin promos inviting viewers to revisit the better days, as the network works to make sure the upcoming reruns pull better ratings than the originals. Parent-company Discovery's e-mail list sent out an offer Wednesday right: Buy the Season 1 DVD of Jon & Kate and get the second season free!
This really awful series (is there ever a time when one or more of the children, or Jon, for that matter, isn't crying?) is not the first to play the manipulation game. Bachelors and bachelorettes, celebrity apprentices -- and of course those celebrities who should be left in the jungle -- do it, too. But these vapid competition shows don't make children into accomplices. So in the current tally, Jon & Kate is the worst.
Does the manipulation have to rise to the Bernie Madoff level before someone finally shuts it down? This isn't a regulatory thing, like banning cigarette commercials was. Nor is it like TV's 1950s quiz-show scandals, where government officials jumped in and created an entirely different mess.
This is one for the public to change simply by waking up and realizing they're being used shamelessly. We can reverse things, and not just by tuning out of these sickly shows (though low ratings hit networks in the most sensitive body parts). When large numbers tune out and sound off by calling this the scam trend it is, the garden slugs who come up with these shows will slink out of town before they're ridden out on a rail.
Curly, take the pliers out of that numbskull's hands and let him know you're the one holding the blunt object now. Don't be afraid to use it.
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Tom Brinkmoeller -- who wouldn't
be surprised if Kate and Jon were
Joan Rivers and Geraldo Rivera in
disguise -- remembers when the most
brazen thing on television was a
deodorant ad that showed an armpit.