By John Johnson, on Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
My daughter was born in the spring of 2000. That summer, as many new parents with infants do, we found ourselves around the house quite a bit, learning the ropes of parenthood. As it turned out, lucky for us, Summer 2000 was also the summer that network TV discovered reality TV game shows! With the launch of Survivor and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, my sleep deprived wife and I could get our nightly Regis Philbin fix and watch the exploits of nude Richard on the island (“the tribe has spoken”) without having to think at all!
Strangely, that summer launched the reality TV genre. More than a decade later—where it seems the majority of TV is reality—I have found my own personal obsession…the bad reality TV game show. Who needs American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, or the Amazing Race? (I can hear some RP readers already saying—aren’t those bad reality TV shows? Not compared to the rest of this list!) Bad imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Or, Rule 1 of Bad Reality TV Game Shows: If it is cheap, and it might draw any summer ratings, rip off the idea!
To that end, I offer my pop culture tribute to 5 worst reality game shows of all time. (A side note for the analytic amongst the RP Nation: “Reality” TV probably has a more precise meaning, but in my world, it is a broad genre encompassing any show where contestants compete as themselves in some less than realistic setting…)
5. 101 Ways to Leave A Game Show. The only one on my list that is still on TV…though not sure how long it will last. How can you beat a show where in one episode, contestants were eliminated by being: 1. dropped off a barge going 30 mph at sea, 2. sent to the bottom of the ocean by an anchor around his leg, 3. dumped into a river with dead fish, and 4. ejected off a 10 story platform from a bed face down into water. Purely sensational…even down to the smarmy host cackling the whole time. I call that must see TV.
4. (tie) the Joe Schmo Show/ Joe Millionaire. Double the Joe for the average Joe. Joe Schmo was a guy from Pittsburgh. They created a fake reality game show for him (The Lap of Luxury). Hire 10 actors to fit every stereotype…the blond bombshell, the gossip queen, the quack doctor, the retired army general. They create a fake world, completely get the guy to buy in for several weeks. After playing with the guys emotions, getting him to embarrass himself repeatedly on TV, they reveal everyone was actors and he was a total mark! But, they justify the whole thing because they gave him the prize money…and play up what a special, trusting person they had to find to make this all work.
What’s worse than that? How about a reality game show where you can find “true love” with a millionaire? But after you think you’ve found the one, you find out he’s not a millionaire. I hate when that happens. Rule 2 of Bad Reality TV Game Shows: Deception is ok as long as you get money in the end.
3. I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
I think someone should have filed a lawsuit for false advertising…because there were no celebrities here. Unless you think Bruce Jenner, Melissa Rivers, and Robin Leach are celebrities… The premise is simple. Dump a bunch of C-level stars in the jungle. Make them do stupid stuff. Someone leaves every night. Broadcast live every night. Someone wins. Poor mans survivor meets Ed Mcmahons star search. Bad! (Another side note: In checking the web today, I found NBC is actually remaking this show again. Wow. See Rule 1 of Bad Reality TV Shows Above).
Read the rest of… John Johnson: The Five Worst Reality Game Shows
While the RP is enjoying his week-long vacation from all things politics, there’s one group that he strongly believes should stay immersed in politics: the supercommittee designated to tackle the country’s debt problems.
Washington dysfunction and hyper-partisan politics have crippled Congress’s ability to meet the major challenges of our day. You need only to look at the S&P’s justification for our recent debt downgrade as case in point. As such, the 12 members of the “supercommittee” must forgo their annual August respite, come back to the table and begin the hard work to stave off what could potentially be a financial and budgetary catastrophe.
The financial unrest and subsequent Wall Street roller coaster created when intransigent Republicans and Democrats failed the American people was a preview of what we can expect if the supercommittee fails to reach consensus on a debt reduction package of at least $1.2 trillion, triggering abrupt and irresponsible across the board cuts to federal programs.
Economic decisions of this magnitude will require sacrifice from both sides. With divisive partisan politics in Washington at an all-time high and compromise viewed as a four-letter word, it is going to take time and sincere bipartisan cooperation for the members of the committee to put everything on the table and make the tough but necessary choices to restore our fiscal sanity.
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Aug 15, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET
If there’s anything that unites Americans more during this summer of our discontent, it is that we all hate politics. Politics have moved beyond simple ugly sport; politics almost brought our country to its economic knees.
That’s why starting today, and going through this Friday, we are challenging the rest of the country to join us in a Politics-Free Week. For seven full days during the doldrums of August, we’ll take on the latest controversies in sports, film, fashion, parenting — anything but politics.
If you needed yet another reason to hate politics…
A political firestorm erupted in the tiny rural hamlet of Fancy Farm, Kentucky, last weekend when a scandalous speech delivered by Governor Steve Beshear received universal approbation from political insiders and the capital press corps.
One wag opined that the governor “may have stepped onto a political land mine.”
Another mocked Beshear’s “bizarre choice of oratory on the state’s biggest political stage.”
Maybe this brief of hiatus will recharge us for an ugly fall filled with supercommittees and presidential campaign bickering. Maybe it will provide us a slight window of sanity to remember what is truly important.
Or maybe, just maybe, we’ll be like George Costanza, in that episode of Seinfeld in which he takes a temporary vow of abstinence, and his previously sex-obsessed brain opens up to deep social, cultural and scientific awareness.
Check in often during this week of political abstinence. See how your politically-obsessed mind can open up to new possibilities. While we can’t promise a Costanza-like transformation, at least you’ll get some temporary relief. And maybe you won’t hate politics so much when Labor Day rolls around.
Oh, and consistent with this theme, our Weekly Web Gems will not focus on “The Politics of…” the various subject matter categories. Instead, with a salute to my cousin, Steve (or should I say Maurice?), we will concentrate on the much more important subject of “The Pompatus of…” love and other subjects.
Before we dive into a Politics Free Week (check out our cool new banner above), the RP got in a few last minute political interviews in the Northwest and Great White North media.
Oregon Live interviewed him about the super-committee tasked with helping to fix the country’s debt problems:
“There was an adult conversation missing” from the debt ceiling debate, said Jonathan Miller, a co-founder of the group No Labels, which wants to restore bipartisanship. The public agrees, according to polls. But with elections approaching and positions fixed, Miller asks, “Will the pressures be too great to present a bi-partisan agreement?”
And later, the RP engaged in his regular gig with CTV News, Canada’s CNN. This occasion, he commented on the weekend’s Iowa straw poll, and other developments in the GOP presidential primary.
Last month’s launched of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau might never have happened were it not for the inspiration of contributing RP Andrei Cherny.
Read this excerpt from Politico‘s “On The Media”:
Elizabeth Warren first laid out the idea for the agency in an essay in the summer of 2007 in the journal “Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.” Jake Tapper flashed the issue during an interview with Warren earlier this week, during which Warren marveled at how far the idea had come in four years.
“Of all the ideas that get published in academic journals like that, not so many make it into law,” she said.
Andrei Cherny, now the journal’s president, was co-editor of the publication at the time, and had known Warren from his work with John Kerry’s campaign in 2003 and 2004.
“I was talking with her about some of the ideas that she had put forward, and this is something that was in its beginning stages, so we asked her to write it up for us as a proposal,” Cherny said.
As the dog days of August trudge onward, there’s one universal truth:
We are all sick to death of politics.
So, beginning next week, and proceeding the week after, like any good politico, The Recovering Politician will temporarily change its format to reflect the prevailing public mood. But unlike too many politicians these days, we are also soliciting your help.
Next week — the week of August 15 — we will be celebrating Politics-Free Week at The Recovering Politician. There will be no talk of anything policy or politics oriented, as we focus on everything else under the sun.
And you, the RP Nation, are invited to join us. If you are game, please send us your best Top 5 pop culture list by Saturday night, August 13 to Staff@TheRecoveringPolitician.com.
Then the following week, the week of August 22, we will dedicate the site every day to what’s wrong with politics and how it can be fixed.
Of course, we want to hear from you as well. Please send us your essays on how to fix the American political system — one specific part, or the whole darn thing (1500 words or less) — by Saturday night, August 20 to Staff@RecoveringPolitician.com.
August may be dull, hot, and humid. But with your help, The Recovering Politician will experience a cool breeze of fun dialogue and fresh ideas for the nation’s future.
Yesterday, the RP appeared as a guest again on “The Daily Wrap” with Michael Castner on Wall Street Journal radio. The RP shared his insights on the market crash that was transpiring in real time, talked about his Huffington Post piece, “Credit Downgrade for Dummies,” and bemoaned the state of American politics.
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Aug 9, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET
Maybe it’s the fact that Mrs. RP and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary this past weekend. Or perhaps I’m just getting a little tired of the hot and muggy weather.
Whatever the cause, my bow to pop culture this week reveals the Top Five Romantic Screen Scenes in the Rain.
I’m not sure of the precise scientific link between romance and precipitation, but it’s real; it’s widespread, and it’s soaking wet. There’s just something in the water…that makes a love scene so powerful and/or tear inducing.
So here goes–the top five screen love scenes that are all wet:
5. Casablanca
The granddaddy of all romantic rain scenes loses a few points because both Bogie and Bergman stay inexplicably dry amidst the gray, foggy drizzle. But aaaahhhhh, the romance…Humphrey Bogart’s cynical Rick risks his own life during WWII and makes the ultimate sacrifice: providing safe passage for the woman he loves and her Resistance hero husband. And as “As Times Go By” plays solemnly in the background, the Kentucky Derby of movie scenes (the most exciting two-minutes in film) packs in three of cinema’s greatest lines: “It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”; “We’ll always have Paris”; and “Here’s looking at you, Kid.” Watch it here, and then play it again, Sam:
4. Spiderman
As we await the latest reboot of this epic Stan Lee franchise, it’s important to remember that the Tobey Maguire/Kirsten Dunst trilogy stood out less for its supernatural feats of strength and power — C’mon, it was Tobey Maguire, for goodness sake — but rather for the aching, unconsummated three-way romance among the forlorn Peter Parker, his alter ego Spiderman, and the beautiful ingenue, Mary Jane Watson. The climax of their romance comes in a kiss: As Spidey hangs upside down on a building’s edge in a dark, dreary alley in the middle of a rain storm, a dripping wet Mary Jane removes just enough of his mask to reveal his lips, and then plants a sloppy one on him. Watch it here, and just try not to gush.
3. The Notebook
OK, gotta admit: Didn’t care too much for this click-flick schlock. But I had to throw it in here for the RPettes, for this is the scene that will define their generation’s vision of young romance. After seven years of waiting for each other, the two lovers stand in a wholesome field…Rain Pouring…They exchange sorrowful shouts…He lifts her in his arms…Draws her closely to kiss…They lock lips…BLECHHHH!!!. At least it has inspired a fairly funny satire about cell phone use during the previews of pretty much every movie I’ve seen this summer. OK, you young’uns out there in RP Nation, here it is:
Read the rest of… The RP’s Five Most Romantic Screen Scenes in the Rain
My daughter was born in the spring of 2000. That summer, as many new parents with infants do, we found ourselves around the house quite a bit, learning the ropes of parenthood. As it turned out, lucky for us, Summer 2000 was also the summer that network TV discovered reality TV game shows! With the launch of Survivor and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, my sleep deprived wife and I could get our nightly Regis Philbin fix and watch the exploits of nude Richard on the island (“the tribe has spoken”) without having to think at all!
5. 101 Ways to Leave A Game Show. The only one on my list that is still on TV…though not sure how long it will last. How can you beat a show where in one episode, contestants were eliminated by being: 1. dropped off a barge going 30 mph at sea, 2. sent to the bottom of the ocean by an anchor around his leg, 3. dumped into a river with dead fish, and 4. ejected off a 10 story platform from a bed face down into water. Purely sensational…even down to the smarmy host cackling the whole time. I call that must see TV.
4. (tie) the Joe Schmo Show/ Joe Millionaire. Double the Joe for the average Joe. Joe Schmo was a guy from Pittsburgh. They created a fake reality game show for him (The Lap of Luxury). Hire 10 actors to fit every stereotype…the blond bombshell, the gossip queen, the quack doctor, the retired army general. They create a fake world, completely get the guy to buy in for several weeks. After playing with the guys emotions, getting him to embarrass himself repeatedly on TV, they reveal everyone was actors and he was a total mark! But, they justify the whole thing because they gave him the prize money…and play up what a special, trusting person they had to find to make this all work.
3. I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
