What's Your Guilty Pleasure on TV?

I LOVE Family Guy! I can't get enough of that wacky family! Brian the dog and Stewy the baby just crack me up! The fact that it airs twice in one hour from 6pm to 7pm EVERY weekday just makes my day. I laugh and laugh and laugh. And I get all of their jokes!

I LOVE FAMILY GUY!

These are the TV shows that cause my husband to call me a dork.

1. Spongebob Squarepants. I'm a big fan of the cartoon genre and love Ren & Stimpy, Duckman, King of the Hill, Futurama and the like. I know, Spongebob is a kids show. And I don't have any kids. But just like the classic Warner Brothers cartoons of my youth, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and The Roadrunner, there's a lot in Spongebob Squarepants that appeals to adults. Plus, Squidward Tenticles is a fan of NPR!

2. American's Funniest Videos. I can't explain it, I'm an intellegent person, at least I think I am. But there is something oddly charming about candid video of people falling down, being attacked by farm animals and getting pantsed at a wedding. This is truly a guilty pleasure.

3. The Surreal Life. The series gave Flavor Flav a new life and spawned Strange Love with he and Brigitte Neilson. Surreal Life delivered one train wreck after another and I couldn't wait to see which fallen pop culture angel would be next to flounder around drunk in the hot tub.

American Idol! For sheer brain-deadness, nothing beats watching a bunch of 20-year olds try to "interpret" Beatles songs they've never heard before. Luckily they show each episode at least 3 times here so I never have to miss it.

There's also magical sinetron, a type of Indonesian sci-fi in which snake-demons and other evil spirits seduce humans into wicked behavior. There's often a climactic battle in the sky between snakes, scorpions, alligators, etc., featuring super-cheezy special effects. Then an Islamic wise man comes in and vanquishes the demons with verses from the Koran. Good clean fun! And I don't have to feel guilty because I'm "practicing my Indonesian."

Trish in Jakarta

I gotta go with Mythbusters. Adam and Jamie blowing stuff in the name of increased scientific and cultural knowledge. It's the best of everything.

Yes, a couple of the TV shows I watch each week aren't exactly examples of high quality programing. I routinely watch "Top Chef" and "Lil' Bush," that low-budget parody of the Bush administration on Comedy Central. But the real scandal isn't the quality of the shows I watch - it's the quantity. After I got hired at NHPR, I figured I could afford TiVo as long as I ate plain spaghetti every night. Now my evenings are filled with recordings of "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report," "In Treatment," "Lost," "Jericho," "Real Time With Bill Maher," and even a Japanese-language reality show called "Ainori," where a bunch of 20-somethings take turns confessing their crushes on each other as they travel around the world on a pink bus. Yeah. And if you think this is bad, ask the other producer on "The Exchange" what he watches.

Two words:

American Gladiators.

I was really upset to hear that my favorite guilty pleasure show, Pants Off Dance Off, is going off the air. TV Guide called it the "dumbest show on television," but I loved it. It's a pretty basic concept - the dancers, or "pancers" as they're called on the show, striptease in front of a blue screen showing some hot new music video. A couple years ago my girlfriend at the time got so into it she applied to be a contestant.

It's created by the same guy who started Pop-Up Video on VH1 (another favorite) and every few seconds the Pants Off VJ (my favorite is Jodie Sweetin, aka Stephanie Tanner and former meth head) pops up to ridicule the dancers, who are sometimes sexy, and sometimes midgets, old men, and burlesque dancers wearing unicorn heads. What's not to love?

I confess it is watching the most trashy B-movies that randomly appear when flipping thru marginal movie channels---The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All is but the latest example: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0197924. Seeing an actor like Treat Williams debase himself like this is really a guilty pleasure. I would be embarrassed to rent this sort of nonsense but on a Saturday afternoon while cleaning up my emailbox, there are few things better than garbage like this. Or Idiocracy...http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/. I am now shamed.

The Thirsty Traveler on the Fine Living Network.

I can't stop!!!

Where do I start? I'm a pop music fiend and can proudly say I know just about every pop music song from 1981 to present.

I live a double life, NHPR Executive Producer by day... reading papers, books and talking to the intelligentsia of New Hampshire and by night an unapologetic reality show obsessive...

I buck the demographic trends for shows on MTV and VHI from Flavor of Love to Rock of Love to I Love New York to Celebrity Fit Club and Real World Road Rules Challenges.

I make time in my day for the Bravo shows like Top Chef, Project Runway, Blow Out and Work Out (although I do draw the line at Real Housewives of Orange County)

I watch Intervention, Parking Wars and the First 48 on the A&E Channel.

But probably my favorites are on the Network Channels. Survivor has always been my favorite, American Idol a close second and I love America's Next Top Model and have lost half a weekend day watching marathons of seasons I've already seen. Rounding it out...Biggest Loser, Hells Kitchen and Apprentice are must sees.

I LOVE the game shows... Deal or No Deal, 1 vs. 100 and the Singing Bee (which I have to say I'm pretty good at).

The one bandwagon I have never jumped on is the Dancing with the Stars Craze.

Lastly, if you're a TV pop culture nut like myself, my favorite show of all is "The Soup", Friday nights at 10pm on the E channel (yeah, not much of a social life). There has not been an episode that I have not laughed out loud at least three times.

My two favorite TV shows are Cheaters and Reno 911. Cheaters is an investigative/reality shows that docuemnts folks cheating on their Significant Other; Sometines they capture some interesting hidden camera video footage like the suspect taking a wizz in a coffe pot and later we see his boss pouring a cup to drink,,. But the best part is during the confrontations where all hell can break loose; In one case the suspect got a paint ball rifle and started shooting off rounds at the whole crew. In one early episode, the host Joey Grecco gets stabbed; Top that Jerry Springer,,.

Reno 911 is formated as a paroday of the old Cops show, and has a lot of the elements of Monty python. But the real inside joke is knowing that there are (a few) folks that work in Law Enforcement who are just like some of these bozos. SD