Trashy TV's Enduring Appeal

Bad TV can be very therapeutic. Humor me here, there's got to be a reason why I'm glued to VH1 Classic all day. The producers of VH1's Super Secret TV Formulas seem to understand this. If you haven't seen it, the show deals with the cliches of old series television (oversexed hot babes; evil twins; the cute kid brought in to revive a dying show) with b-list celeb soundbites and clips. Basically in the mold of 'I Love the 80s', but with more fun and less snark - and thankfully Hal Sparks is nowhere to be seen. It constantly amazes me what the people on this show dreg up and discuss with startling authority - like the 'Lassie' where the dog gets bumped in the head and spends the rest of the episode in a fog of amnesia. Or the 'Head of the Class' where everyone goes behind the Iron Curtain. You get the idea.

Speaking of crap TV, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that reruns of Tabitha are among my TiVo's season passes. TV Land airs them at around 2 a.m. every weekend. 'Tabitha', you may remember, was the short-lived spinoff of 'Bewitched' in which the title character (played by Lisa Hartman) is all grown up and working at a TV station with Robert Urich. What ended up was a bizarre melding of late '70s jiggle comedy and the supernatural, with crass writing and zero continuity from its parent show. It's really awful. I love it.
Posted by mhinrichs at November 16, 2003 10:50 PM