Questions about anything

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Not that I don't like Colbert, but as I said, I could do without THE LATE SHOW having increasingly more political humor.

I guess those are just the times we're living in, people want to know about what's going on politically in an easy to understand and more interesting way than the news. As evident with the rise of people like Colbert, John Stewart and John Oliver. Which makes sense now that the internet has helped expose certain political things and we've started having all these social upheavals in recent years.

 

[Drtooth]

I really don't understand that at all: nobody likes THE VIEW (or, I guess I should say, intelligent, self-respecting people don't like THE VIEW), so why do they keep cloning it? You said it yourself, THE CHEW is essentially THE VIEW for foodies, that's one clone. THE TALK is the most blatant rip-off of them all, only instead of staunch conservative women with annoying personalities, THE TALK consists of progressive liberal women with annoying voices. Now, Loni Love (whom I'm actually a fan of) is part of another rip-off that's essentially THE VIEW for women of color.

The Talk also goes for less controversial, a-political topics. It's...bleh. Sure, the woman who plays Lana on Archer is in it, but what's the point? YET, it's getting more buzz and respect and I think even viewers than the thing it ripped off. The View's been a joke for years. Their attempts to "balance" the series by finding a conservative woman for a counterpoint has been just...pathetic. Sure, we all remember the woman from Survivor who basically spent her time proving every stereotype about blondes true (and not because she was Republican, she would be just as big an idiot regardless of political affiliation). And yeah, we want our morality from someone who was part of a show people watch for the backstabbing, lying, cheating, and whatever it takes to stay in the game (very Christian). Then they had Candice Cameron who, at least she's not a terrible person claiming morality, but has the viewpoint of a sheltered, well to do, upper upper middle class mommy with a mommy blog. Still comes off less an unhinged, brainwashed wackadoo than her brother. Then I had the misfortune of switching on for a few minutes to see some woman getting pummeled with logic by everyone else for liking Trump and not even being able to back it up with reasons. There has to be some respectable, reasonable, rational conservative voice they can find. I can't blame them for stacking the deck with liberalism since the freaking producer of the show is conservative. Dumb and loud gets ratings. Simple as that.

The Chew is actually gaining traction the same way The Talk does. Talking about a-political points that at most urgent are still the first worldiest of first world problems. But let's be honest. The fact it is a cooking show is why anyone tunes in. And I have to admit, in the realm of cooking shows, you could do worse. It's no sophisticated, scientific study of cooking like "Cook's Country," but I've seen some straight up embarrassing crap (cough cough "Taste This TV"). Still, the hosts are freaking obnoxious! They're good at cooking, but... I don't actually hate Guy Fierie. A little of him goes waaaaay long a way. Chris Kimbal he is not. I don't find him as horrible as most people do (saying the guy who actually liked Jar Jar Binks when that movie first came out) , but the entire cast together is worse than a fleet of Guy Fieries! So...annoying....

Oh... and you'll love this. Even The Chew gets a ripoff series. Unsurprisingly, it's on Food Network (and to be fair, it's the first new actual cooking show on the network, since it's all competitions and aforementioned Guy now). The cast is even more obnoxious somehow. But at least it fits on the network. While I still harbor the same Soap Opera fan's animosity towards Chew, it's totally a better show than The View ever was. Even when they had qualified people on the show.

 

[fuzzygobo]

How and why is Maury still pulling them in? Six hundred bucks. That's your payday to sign up and embarrass yourself. Actually, about four hundred and change after taxes. That's enough to pay rent to the trailer park for another month.

 

[Drtooth]

I give Maury credit for some Adam Westing here and there in TV cameos and commercials. Other than that, no diggidy duh he's only in it for the money. His show is wildly unremarkable. Even Springer played up some camp factor, even though it's the kind of "so bad it's 'good'" that's actually harmful. Maury is just.. dull and uninteresting by any stretch of the imagination. Seriously. I SWEAR it's only on because it's cheaper than dead air to produce and to basically be there for the rich guy's argument for getting rid of welfare ('cept for corporate welfare, but that's another rant for another day). I mean what better argument than show a bunch of irresponsible, hormonal morons who do nothing but boink each other and have dumb kids they're way too irresponsible to raise that the mothers only keep to be some sort of passive aggressive emotional manipulation.

Then again, look at what Montel Williams wound up without his unremarkable but still better than Maury's talk show when everyone involved came to their senses and said it wasn't 1996 anymore. He's an infomercial personality who has a side job shilling for crooked payday loan companies.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Famous last words: "Maury, I'm one thousand per cent sure (fill in the blank) is the father".

 

[D'Snowth]

Maury's show used to have some variety waaay back when. That's not saying much, but what I mean is every single show wasn't always about paternity tests and such, it was almost more of an crazier and edgier version of Dr. Phil, in that sometimes you'd have people on accusing someone else of domestic abuse, or you'd have parents with out-of-control kids, or other guests like that . . . but, I guess somewhere along the way, that somehow became exclusive to baby mommas looking for the father(s) of their illegitimate kids.

 

[Drtooth]

Funny thing is years ago there was variety. In that they also threw in the occasional "My toddler is insanely overweight" episode. I actually sat through one of those once. They had three types of parents. The completely moronic and forlorn "I feed my kid a million calories a day, how come he's so fat?", the even more moronic, defiant "My baby's healthy" woman who feeds their kid ribs when they probably barely got their teeth in yet, and the one mother who's kid actually has a mysterious glandular problem that causes it to blow up. I'm sure TLC took the audience away from Maury to see circus sideshow quality fat people. I swear they also had a "guess who likes you" episode I caught years back, and, I dunno...was it true or an urban legend that on Jenny Jones that the "someone likes you" thing turn into a gay guy that wound up getting killed? Obviously Maury's was less controversial, but let in dumb fat jokes in the form of red herrings. Ugh.

That said, thing is most talk show hosts of that kind of talk show knew the writing was on the wall and ended well over a decade ago. And I really think those things are well obsolete (and the *&^%$in' judge shows), I don't see why they still have an audience. Sure, not everyone has the internet, but not in the way that it didn't prevent Blockbuster from going under. But it just baffles me that there's still an audience for this kind of thing, even with reality TV shows offering the same level of mindless smut that people only watch "ironically" (yeah...""""ironically""""). Then again if a D Grade CGI movie about wolves can get an audience, almost anything can.

 

[D'Snowth]

Why is it that when so many shows and movies are on DVD, and characters are singing, they don't even bother to subtitle the lyrics to the songs? They just always say "[Character Singing]".

 

[JT Yorke]

I am still quite new to this forum so excuse me if i did overlook it.

Is there a place (or does it already excist) to discuss The Muppet Movies?

 

[beatnikchick300]

What dose The saying "The past is the window into the future" mean?

Sounds like a kind of "history repeats itself" mantra to me...