What's your guitly TV pleasure?

[no name no slogan]

You know, that show that you know is really really stupid, but you can't help but watch it anyway?

For me, it has to be Jackass. Stupidest, lamest, most idiotic TV show of all time-- but I'll be damned if i don't bust a gut laughing at it every time.

what's yours?

[sakabatou]

1. Dragonball Z

[Lady Freedom]

28. The Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy

But Dragonball Z is in my top ten.

[mhr]

2. TV Free For Four Years Now.

eom

[Roon]

3. Haven't watched TV since may..

and I am loving it!

[Stanchetalarooni]

4. i KILLED THAT ELECTRONIC SOUL-THEIF THREE YEARS AGO

It filled me with guiltless pleasure.

[kikiek]

5. I love Reno 911.

[terrya]

24. That shouldn't be a guilty pleasure.

It's one of the funniest shows on television. Brilliant. :-)

[shugh514]

36. I agree, but the sad thing is

it's probably closer to reality than the show "Cops".
:crazy:

[lpbk2713]

6. Family Feud

Dumb I know but I like to play along.

[I Have A Dream]

27. I like Family Feud too. n/t

[Left Is Write]

31. I like Family Feud, but I don't feel guilty about it.

Sometimes I watch the new ones, but I mostly stick to Richard Dawson and Ray Combs reruns on GSN.

[njdemocrat106]

49. I like the Feud, and the rest of my family makes fun of me for that

I remember buying a used copy of a Family Feud game for Nintendo, and I was endlessly nagged by my brother for doing so.

Edit for typo

[fortyfeetunder]

7. OZ reruns

HBO on demand cable has a few episodes a month.

When it was on, was during the "how to get the kid in bed and keep there syndrome" Now I can get up about o'dark thirty when the kid is fast asleep and indulge on some prison drama.

[Clintmax]

22. I am an "Ozaholic" also!

I got rid of my digital cable and on-demand last month though...too much money going to the cable company!

I would have to vote for OZ as well!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

37. I confess, I'm a recovering Oz addict

I got rid of HBO a few months ago and am THIS far from dumping the rest of digital cable.

But the DVDs of the first few seasons are out :evilgrin:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. The line up of 1950s dramas on Goodlife TV

77 Sunset Strip (snap-snap!), Hawaiian Eye ("the soft island breeze, strange melodies"), and Surfside 6 ("young bachelors!").

I'm old enough to have seen them all when they were new and the hippest, most youth-oriented dramas on TV. It's a nostalgia trip, and I can sometimes catch glimpses of bit players who later became famous.

[Salviati]

8. Smallville

I know it's not the worst thing out there on TV, but with what little of it I watch on a regular basis, it has to be the guiltiest pleasure out of Stargate, TDS, and The West Wing...

[Archae]

9. Toon Disney

I especially enjoy the "Hercules" animated series.
James Woods is terrific as Hades.

[sakabatou]

32. I loved Gargoyles

[miss_kitty]

10. America's Next Top Model

I. Am. Bad.

[Rising Phoenix]

11. The OC, the shame

[hallc]

18. Me too!

I love it...I am in OC withdrawal right now...the new season doesn't start until November!

[Catchawave]

12. Sex and the City reruns.....

I never miss them! I swear they just get funnier.

[xmas74]

13. Survivor and Amazing Race.

A friend really wants me to make an audition tape for Survivor. She thinks that I'd be good at messing w/ their minds.
And, as long as I could last at least six days, the pay would be worth it for me.

[no name no slogan]

16. DO IT

I was a HUGE fan of the first Survivor-- even did some remixes of tunes and got them played at a local radio station thingy, too. i think you should go for it! then we could all sit around and say, "Yeah, I knew her when" :7

[xmas74]

17. That's what my friends say.

They think that I could outplay both Richard Hatch and Rob Cesterino(season 6).
They'd think of me as a Twila kind of person (single mom, mulitple jobs, unskilled-even originally from the same town). They'd think that I was a redneck hick they could manipulate. What they wouldn't realize is that I have a high IQ and I enjoy reading books about pysch-ops, just for fun.
Just have to start running again. Some weightlifting would help. And I plan on making my own fire instead of winning it.

[nytemare]

14. Reno 911 and MXC.

MXC cracks me up! I find myself rooting for these people, then, when they get clobbered by a wall, etc.. I say "oooooooooh".

[Cush]

19. "Right you are, Ken"

[nytemare]

23. I love that show!

It just tickles me!

[SKKY]

15. The Anna Nicole Show...

...I know, it's horrible. It's really like watch a train wreck in progress. But, I feel much better now that I've admitted it.

[Cush]

20. Dog the Bounty Hunter

[carpetbagger]

44. yup.n/t

[trof]

21. 700 club.

I love it.
Honest.
Really.
:sarcasm:

[DemGirl7]

25. I have to admit I watch it sometimes

I scream and swear at the things they say, or I'm laughing my ass off at it.

[Archae]

26. COPS

I'm watching it right now.

[Floogeldy]

42. Me too

And I get SO PISSED OFF AT THE BULLSHIT DRUG BUSTS, searches and intimidation.

But I like to see domestic violence perpetrators go to jail.

[no name no slogan]

46. "but officer, i jus' punched her the one time"

I LOVE COPS. you ever notice that all the perps end up losing their shirts somehow before they get cuffed and stuffed? that's fscked up.

the drug busts are depressing though...

[Floogeldy]

52. Yes

Cops use excessive force all of the time; even when people are obviously surrending. I HATE that.

}(

[Kat45]

29. Rock Star: INXS

I just can't help myself. :shrug:

[Corgigal]

35. Thankfully

i'm not the only one.

[Left Is Write]

30. My daughter got me started on Big Brother 6.

I never watched even a minute of the previous five seasons.

But...she used to watch BB6 with her boyfriend, and since their troubles began, she has asked me to watch it with her.

Sucked.right.in.

[MalibuChloe]

47. that's mine, too....Big Brother

but I have been watching it since Season 1. I don't know why I feel so compelled to watch it.

[Swede]

33. Anything by Joss Whedon.

Buffy,Angel or Firefly.

[WCGreen]

34. Justice LEague Unlimited on the Cartoon Network...

I have always been a comic fan and so when they started the JL a few years ago, i got hooked...

And then JLU came on and it was really adult oriented.....

Conspiracy and corruption and vigilantism....

[RoyGBiv]

43. Me too ...

I even record the things.

[WCGreen]

53. Me too....

I think this is the best comic book adaptation that I have seen....

[Cush]

58. why would that be a guilty pleasure?

I watch it as well, lots of adults probably watch

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

39. The Surreal Life and Celebrity Fit Club.

[misanthrope]

40. Goin' down the tubes

You don’t have to be a genius to see it. All you need is a remote control.

Add my voice to the overwhelming chorus of critics who decry television as the “vast wasteland” one of its pioneers tagged it decades ago. But, for me, the most heartbreaking aspect of its current state is the enormous potential it once possessed, the naïve wish for enlightenment it whispered in our ears. It stings deepest.

As a songwriter phrased it, “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?”

Some argue there’s no winning the war with the boob tube, that the technology isn’t as inherently benign as we might believe. They point to studies that show how brain activity ebbs as we sit in front of a television and how we slip into a state not unlike those induced via hypnosis.

Interestingly, one of the factors in this is the role played by eye movement. It seems there’s a link between moving your peepers around and stirring up your noggin. The eyes dart back and forth and the brain is automatically in the mood for processing information. Conversely, when they lock in to a spot, the senses all follow suit. So does your mind.

Most other art mediums don’t engage us like this. In a gallery, you’re looking around, checking out angles and distance. With dance or theater, you’re shifting your focus between participants, turning back and forth to different areas of the stage. Music finds you watching the musicians. Reading is essentially eye movement.

Even with film, you’re looking at a much larger screen, so much so that your eyes sometimes catch different things in repeated viewings of the same work.

Even with recorded music, the abstract quality of listening to art necessarily indulges our mind in its own reverie and reflections. The same applies for art forms over the medium of radio, the imagination is a required component of enjoying it.

But that television, boy let me tell ya’…

Now, granted, it’s not entirely garbage sailing our airwaves but that’s not new.

Even in television’s so-called “Golden Age” of Post-War America, there was a little of both wheat and chaff in there. The natural place for programmers to turn with the young medium was in the direction of the stage and so that’s what we got initially.

You had amateur hours and variety and game shows that sprang from similar fare at state fairs and vaudeville engagements.

But, you also had some first-rate theater that made its way past leery corporate monitors and into the minds of many Americans who might not have otherwise seen the work of Arthur Miller or Eugene O’Neill or Shakespeare. Not to mention the ephemeral nature of live television gave it an edge lost in the editing room.

Time moved on and programmers noted what worked. Little by little, they came to rely more on the surety those in sales sought. They went with what made money. It was a business after all.

Public broadcasting soon began, an attempt to create a haven for higher ideals.

Americans easily incorporated television into their raison d’etre. Some began to compare it to a drug epidemic but few listened. Everyone was too strung out on Gilligan and golf and the drama-gone-south that became soap operas to care.

Fast forward to today and what seems like endless hours of pointless and dull programming. Writers rely on titillation, hackneyed formula and recycled lines to fill space between advertising. We’ve got more channels than ever, but is any of it really more qualitative? A great deal of it heads straight for the lowest common denominator with plenty of the desired response.

Every now and again, an effort raises its head above the programming fray and tantalizes us, but it never stays for long and rarely spawns a wave of quality, just cheap imitation.

And that haven for arts and education? Well, it seems the public servants feel the public can do with less of it. Public broadcasting isn’t faring well and is beset upon by forces that see the marketplace as the only ideal. The coming decades don’t look rosy.

The average American spends five hours per day watching television. That’s five hours you could be actively engaged with another human being, gaining an experience, creating something of your own or actually learning something instead of merely existing passively.

And, sure, there are plenty of people who use television with wisdom, who only indulge in select things they feel certain will enhance their lives in some manner. But a great deal of viewers are doing little more than passing time, oblivious to what’s roaring past them.

But don’t mind me. Go right ahead and throw those wasted hours of your only life into the furnaces of time. It’ll sure burn ‘em up.

[no name no slogan]

41. right. so what IS your guilty TV pleasure, then?

:silly:

[misanthrope]

55. Let's see...

...weekly: two hours of Daily Show; two to three hours of HBO original programming. That's about it. So in the vast expanse of about five hours of weekly television viewing, I'd say I'm not ashamed of any of it.

Well, there is some college football I will watch in the fall, but that's only an additional three hours a week for only eleven weeks of the year.

I'd rather read, listen to music or create something myself.

[no name no slogan]

56. i'm pretty much the same

the tv is little more than a conduit for the cable/broadband internet and a monitor for movies and DVDs. Other than the Simpsons and Frontline, i don't watch much of it anymore myself.

give me a good book and a new record album any day. :D

[steely]

45. MXC - campy, but funny

I love the over-dubbed comments etc, and the semi-slapstick-like falls.

[njdemocrat106]

48. I got hooked on American Idol this year

I've avoided reality shows like the plague, but I caught an episode of American Idol at a relative's house this year (early in the series, too), and I got hooked. I don't think grown men are supposed to watch the show, but I know some dispute my being a grown man ;).

[ironflange]

50. Gilligan's Island

And Match Game (the Gene Rayburn years).

[everythingsxen]

51. I would say...

Grim adventures and or DBZ; however I consider them some of the finest programming on television and among my favorite shows.

For "guilty" pleasures, shows that I feel ashamed for watching...

It's O'Reilly. The fucking jizzbag he is.

[enigmatic]

54. Wrestling

WWE, TNA...

[6000eliot]

57. "Scrapbooking" on DIY

I don't scrapbook myself, and I never will. Watching this show is like watching aliens from another planet.

[Deja Q]

59. Match Game PM, Family Guy, the evening weather report...