Take a deep breath … ok … shake it off …

I’ve been stupefied for months, whimsy-eviscerated, and slogging along in fear of a future I had hoped my children would not know. Stupefaction acknowledged, and malaise, paralysis, demoralization slightly sluffed aside, I’m determined to bring the Cogitator back to life, because, why not?

So, let’s start with “stupefied”, a handy word indicating befuddlement and the inability to think or feel properly. I first encountered the term as I first encountered most sophisticated concepts, in a comic strip. I learned a lot from Walt Kelly; Pogo offered wry satire as the anthropomorphic characters in the Okefenokee Swamp batted fairly large ideas around. The denizens of Al Capp’s Dogpatch, however, were for the most part caricatures of rural Southerners (i.e. Moonbeam McSwine, Sadie Hawkins, ), although other vivid characters also thrust their way into the public eye – Evil Eye Fleagle, General Bullmoose, Jubilation T. Cornpone, Pantless Perkins, and … Stupefyin’ Jones … a female character identified as “A Walking Aphrodisiac”. The slightest glimpse of this character caused men to be frozen in place, rooted to the ground, incapable of speech or gesture.

Stupefied.

So, it hasn’t been THAT bad around here, but bad enough to have forestalled following up on a subject suggested by my daughter, a world-class inventor of generative questions. She remembered an assignment I’d given a writing class years ago. I had challenged them to describe an imagined museum they would like to visit and to describe its collection in detail. I hadn’t intended the assignment as a means of profiling character, but some of the results did reveal more about the writers than they might have intended; I did not linger in the “Museum of Mistakes I Wish I could Forget”, for example, or do more than scan the “Museum of Things I wish I had Not Eaten”. A visit to the “Museum of Missing Memories” was interesting enough, but the inspiration for the assignment had come from a museum encounter of my own, years earlier, a completely unexpected tour of the “Toaster Museum” in Bellingham, Washington.

I’ve written about the museum in an earlier post, so I’ll spare the reader my gushing appreciation of the varieties of toasters assembled in three fairly large exhibition spaces. Cool toasters, but what struck me most forcibly were the Polaroid photographs of the curator/toaster fan with toasters he had admired but not been able to snag for the museum. 

I found myself in an unvarnished celebration of toasters, and, from my point of view, a celebration of whatever it is in the human spirit that responds to the call of beauty. I haven’t been doing nearly enough celebration recently, so I vowed to respond to my daughter’s latest challenge – Holidays that don’t exist but should.

The rules of engagement preclude reference to any of the widely unrecognized celebrations already on the calendar. I guess Polar Bear Day has gained some clout as bathers apparently do find themselves taking a plunge on January 1st; International Polar Bear Day, however, is right around the corner – February 27th. Saturday, January 27th, was Chocolate Cake Day (missed it!), only a few days before Data Privacy Day, but a full month before Public Sleeping Day (?). I have plans for Drive-In-Movie Day (June 6th) and Thrift Shop Day (August 17th), but I’ll give a pass to Rice Krispie Treat Day (September 18th) … too sweet for my taste.

So, what’s left to celebrate? 

Terrible TV Shows That Are Actually Kind Of Great Day

Terrible is in the mind of the beholder, and tastes differ, but when a show is palpably off-putting to even the most undiscerning of viewers, we have a winner. There are some concepts that ought to have brought a network some concern; were no execs sitting around a table when My Mother the Car was pitched? Shows don’t appear without a platform; someone said, “Sounds good. I’ll write a check.” No accounting for taste,but these are BUSINESS decisions. We’ll consider performances and “scripts” in a minute, but let’s take a look at a few concepts that seem questionable in retrospect. 

Concepts that actually weren’t that great –

Networks can be forgiven for leaping at pilots that feature an actress such as Patty Duke, recent winner of an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress as young Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. Compelling, intelligent, radiant, a young Patty Duke must have seemed perfect for any role played by a teen actress. Producer Sidney Sheldon, who would later get away with an equally outlandish but successful concept in developing I Dream of Jeannie, was keen enough an observer of human behavior to notice that Duke often presented two distinct sides to her personality. His pitch? The Patty Duke Show, in which Duke played two IDENTICAL cousins. Get it? They look exactly alike (as cousins do), but one’s a “normal” flighty teen aged girl, the other a sophisticated “European” cousin. They are identical because their fathers were identical twins. See? There’s actually a third “identical”, a southern cousin, played by Duke in a blonde wig. 

Pastry Duke was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Just to put the truly terrible conceptual category to bed, we have to consider a show that most of us never had the chance (Thank God) to see:

Heil, Honey! I’m Home.

Produced in 1990 for the British Satellite Broadcasting and released (one episode) on Galaxy, Heil, Honey was a spoof of American sitcoms (particularly I Love Lucy) in which the Hitlers in 1938 find themselves living next to Jewish Neighbors, and comic hijinks ensue. Seemed like a good idea? The unscreened later episodes featured a cartoon intro patterned on the opening of Bewitched. Probably didn’t help much.

It is interesting to note that The Producers, Mel Brooks’ first film, is widely appreciated although on its release The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann observed that, “…Springtime for Hitler does not even rise to the level of tastelessness”. It helps, I think, that “Springtime” is a Jewish writer’s gag within a gag within a gag, ridiculing Hitler, and clearly intended as an overblown tribute to tastelessness. Brooks knows tasteless; it’s his stock in trade. Pretty sure Heil,Honey is more than one step beyond.

So, what I’m heading to belong in the “Guilty Pleasure” category. I’m happy to admit I’ve watched most episodes of Gilligan’s Island, Green Acres, Family Affair, The Munsters, Batman,The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and many more intentionally vapid amusements. No, I’m about to drop into the nether regions of “reality” tv to endorse two absolutely unredeemable  shows that held me captive for most of their run.

There’s reality and then there’s reality. The major network versions include several shows that fall for me into the “Don’t Miss An Episode” category, most notably Survivor, Top Chef, The Great Pottery Throwdown, Alone, Next Level Chef, The Amazing Race, Taskmaster, The Big Brunch, and The Great British Baking Show. None of those, by the way, made the top ten in terms of viewership last season. Both iterations of Below Deck, on the other hand? Solid fan base.

• Side note: Jury Duty belongs in the “reality hoax” category and is one of the most engaging, inspiring, satisfying, and restorative shows I have ever seen.

The guilt that accompanies my less widely reputed favorite reality shows derives from what philosophers would term “the sleaze factor”. I have watched far too many unpleasant versions belonging to the “Celebrity” category, “celebrity” being a term that is used extremely loosely. No kudos here for Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab, Rock of Love with Bret Michaels, or Flavor of Love starring Flava Flav. Dance Moms? The Mole? Higher quality, but meh.

The two widely and properly undigested shows that remain indelibly in my memory are Meghan Wants a Millionaire and Tool Academy.

I have no memory of any of the other matchmaker reality jaunts, but Meghan’s search for love sticks with me, not because she (Meghan Hauserman who had washed out of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels) was a compelling or vivid character, but because the show only aired three episodes before it was discovered that one of the contending “millionaires” had murdered his wife and committed suicide in a hotel room in British Columbia after the show had filmed. 

There’s nothing extra goopy about the show when placed against the backdrop of other “mating” reality shows, but I can’t watch any subsequent shows pitting aspiring mates against each other without wondering if one of them bought a wood chipper and Googled “How Long Before A Dead Body Starts To Smell.”

Tool Academy stands on its own merits. The premise was that long suffering girlfriends sent their bad boy partners to this relationship boot camp. The insensitive, exquisitely crude louts were properly labeled as ‘tools’ in need of remedial socialization. In challenges designed to test their … humanity? … the tools learned to appreciate qualities the producers deemed essential. The tools had been given blazers when arriving, but had to earn the badges that moved them from tool to healthy romantic prospect. Each challenge offered a badge to be won: Honesty, Humility, Communication, Trust, Fidelity, Maturity, Commitment, Dedication, Appreciation, and Modesty. 

Not bad.

In fact, I can think of no higher praise for a show that I am reluctant to mention in the company of educated men and women.

Not bad.

So, the bells ring and the trumpets sound! It’s Terrible TV Shows That Are Actually Kind Of Great Day!!