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Humor Gazette Archive

'Reality TV' has lost touch with reality

By John Breneman

It's 2003 and TV has taken a turn for the weird. The hottest programming - so-called "reality television" - is not so much "real" as "surreal."

Fake, too, in the sad case of "Joe Millionaire." This show features perky female fortune hunters drooling over an uneducated hunk they are duped into believing has a giant wad of cash.

It'll sure be entertaining to see how shocked and humiliated they are once the cruel and outrageous lie is revealed.

There's another show, "Fear Factor," where iron-bellied freaks eat maggots for money, literally washing them down with pig intestine milkshakes.

Immoral and repugnant, you say?
Well, it's bound to get worse. Human depravity is a hot ticket on the boob tube these days. So don't be surprised to see the following shows on the fall (of Western civilization?) TV lineup:

"Hobo Billionaires" - Fox convinces six grimy bums that they've inherited $9 billion from a homeless half-brother of John D. Rockefeller, then yanks the rug out from under the disoriented ragamuffins once they start living the high life.

"Cannibal Island" - Dropped on a deserted island with only a can of Pringles and two jugs of Mountain Dew, eight contestants compete in outlandishly contrived tests of skill to see who gets flame-broiled on a spit and eaten by the others.

"Sleeping With the Enemy" - Eight bikini-clad harlots are asked whether they'd sleep with Saddam Hussein for $1 million. When they all scream "Woooooo!" and flash their assets, host Snoop Dogg keeps lowering the dollar amount until only one greedy bimbo remains.

"Joe Manslaughterer" - Shameless trollops try to snag a stud they are told is the wealthy Prince of Elbonia but who's actually a federal fugitive wanted for pistol-whipping a string of victims with a frozen cornish game hen.

"America's Funniest Groin Injuries" - Host Bob Saget cracks insipid "jokes" as he narrates knee-slapping footage of hapless fools getting whacked in the privates.

"Who's Your Daddy" - Eight voluptuous young women raised by adoptive parents are told that Regis Philbin is their biological father. Philbin goes along with the gag by letting the girls sit on his knee and giving them each a red rose and a DNA sample.

"Temptation Peninsula" - Great-looking male and female nimrods frolic in a tropical paradise while communicating only through double entendres and sexual innuendo on a phallic-shaped spit of land in the Philippines.

"Androgynous Love Scam" - A half dozen hunks and six hot chicks vie for the affection of an exotic, but sexually ambiguous model whose gender is not revealed until the explosive finale.

"The Bachelor's Degree" - Seven losers compete for a college diploma and the dream of having an actual life instead of scrounging to make ends meet in a Burger King suit.

1-24-03

That '70s punk quits Punk'd

By John Breneman

Celebrity nimrod Ashton Kutcher claims he is pulling the plug on his popular practical joke show "Punk'd," but no one knows whether to believe this or any statement uttered by the puckish pretty boy whose talent is dwarfed by his mammoth ego.

Kutcher first assaulted the public consciousness with his portrayal of a stupid, narcissistic punk on "That '70s Show," a role that catapulted him into movie stardom and led to an Oscar nomination for his performance as a moronic punk in "Dude, Where's My Hat?"

Eager to parlay his 15 minutes of lame into a career, Kutcher cleverly landed real-life roles as Demi Moore's boytoy and P. Diddy's fashionably dressed prank monkey. Then came "Punk'd," an MTV twist on the old "Candid Camera" formula.

There is some speculation that the merry prankster, whose victims have included Justin Timberlake, Beyonce Knowles and Moammar Qadhafi, may be leaving the show one step ahead of litigation, though Kutcher has denied rumors that he tricked bewildered rocker Ozzy Osbourne into flipping over an ATV.

Some critics argue that the show went too far, as when Kutcher fooled dim pop star Jessica Simpson into thinking she was related to O.J, or when he convinced actor Tim Robbins he was being sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be detained as an "enemy of the state." He also is credited with bamboozling Democratic presidential candidates Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich into thinking they have a chance to win the White House.

Kutcher likes to brag that he is too clever to be "punked" himself, but someone has apparently fooled him into thinking that acting like an obnoxious, arrogant jackass is entertaining.

1-8-04

Back to PAGE ONE

Cooper's shock rock on the sidewalk

By John Breneman

Rock star Alice Cooper received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today and celebrated by biting the head off of a puppy.

Wearing his signature garish black makeup, Cooper delighted a crowd of onlookers that included fellow rocker Rob Zombie by slicing his finger in a tiny guillotine and signing autographs in blood.

Now 55, Cooper recounted his early days in Hollywood when he and his bandmates didn't have enough money for their favorite breakfast of wombat entrails and vulture brains.

"We had to kidnap human infants, torture them and then return for ransom money just to make ends meet," said Cooper, chuckling about the inspiration for his 1973 hit, "Billion Dollar Babies."

The aging rocker recently hit #1 on the geriatric charts with a remake of his 1971 smash, "I'm Eighteen." Kneeling on the sidewalk next to his star, Cooper sang a few lines from the updated version.

"I got a baby's brain and an old man's heart
Took 55 years to get this far

Don't always know what I'm talkin' about
Feels like I'm livin' with a bad case of gout

Cause I'm 55
I get confused every day

55, I just forget what to say..."

At that point a puzzled expression came over his face.

"Welcome to my nightmare," he said a moment later, appearing to regain his train of thought. For his next project, Cooper said he has been hard at work stumbling around, slurring his speech and cursing to see if he can get a TV show like Ozzy Osbourne.

12-4-03

People magazine names Top 50 humans

People magazine today unveiled its first-ever special issue devoted to America's "50 Most Insignificant People." Topping the list is an California man who no one even knew existed until People's investigative team discovered him living in a shack made of popsicle sticks and chewing gum wrappers in the Mojave Desert.

John P. Doe said he hopes the recognition will help him achieve his lifelong dream job of pumping gas at a remote desert outpost.

Others making the prestigious list include Michael Jordan's hairdresser, former Vice President Dan Quayle and 47 Maytag repairmen.

The special edition was inspired by the success of the magazine's top-selling annual "50 Most Unusual Genitalia" issue, this year featuring Michael Jackson, Woody Allen and Spiderman.

In the coming weeks, People plans several additional top-50 issues: The "50 Most Intriguing Psychopaths" list is headed by Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake.

And the much-anticipated "50 Sexiest International Terrorists" cover features the smoldering West Korean evil-doer Saddam bin Arafat.

5-3-02
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