Taste My Kids Presents: The Best And Worst Of 2006 (Part Three)

After much delay, we move into part 3 of our 8 part series. Today's focus will be the best and worst in television, a medium which may have suffered had it not been for YouTube. And believe it or not, there's also a submission. (!!!) (I do accept submissions by the way.) But first, TV...

TV Moments Of The Year
A quick commentary about TV in 2006... (the quickest..)

First of all, I watched a shitload of TV during the first 3 months of this year, which was then followed by not having cable for 9 months. However, thanks to YouTube, I was able to somewhat keep up. So if my results are not as on-target as usual, there�s my personal excuse.

Second of all, the advent of YouTube has made TV in 2006 different from every other year of TV that has ever existed. There�s almost nothing that will ever be able to replace the excitement of viewing an amazing moment on live national TV. Amazing TV moments are different from amazing clips on the net. Because of this, I�ve been forced to create a separate list for YouTube.

And third of all, people are idiots. Out of curiosity, I tried a Google search and found this TiVo survey to be the most widely publicized "TV moments of the year" list. As far as I can tell, only the moment at #3 seems significant enough to truly qualify, which would be Oprah berating author James Frey and humiliating him in front of her millions of loyal viewers. This moment is noteworthy not because Oprah was right (which she wasn�t), but rather because this dude�s reaction was very real. Beyond that, everything else on this list was quite ordinary. Faith Hill�s vapid TV moment was nothing that couldn�t be seen on an MTV reality series. Katie Couric shedding tears during her final morning broadcast is not going to expand the perimeters of TV. Unless something completely shocking and unprecedented happens on the final episode of a given series, it will not be enough to match up with Kanye�s desperate plea of "George Bush doesn�t care about black people," or Joey Greco getting stabbed on Cheaters, or Stevo drunkenly smashing Adam Carolla�s glass table. Unfortunately, none of these moments occurred during 2006. Fortunately, these did...

10. Borat high-fives Conan for "sex crime." (Late Night With Conan O'Brien, NBC) |Watch|Watch|
9. Stephen Colbert roasts George Bush and others at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. (C-SPAN) |Watch|
8. The puppets from Wonder Showzen end the war against their bootlegged counterparts by deciding to split the screen 60/40. A minute or two later, the bootleg half of the screen splits into 2 other shows, and a few cartoon Mexicans ask if they can put on their own tiny show in the upper left hand corner of the screen, resulting in 5 different episodes being shown simultaneously, and 5 separate dialogues colliding into an orgy of chaotic noise. (Wonder Showzen, MTV2)
7. Dethklok requires the assistance of a performance coach who rewards their self-improvement with banana stickers. The band eventually realizes they can buy their own banana stickers, and the performance coach is fired and fed to angry wolves who tear off his limbs. (Metalocalypse, Cartoon Network) |Watch this first|Then watch this|
6. Tom Cruise, R Kelly and John Travolta lock themselves in Stan�s closet. (South Park, Comedy Central) |Watch|
5. "To Catch A Predator" featuring host Chris Hansen, who somehow assumes he is completely uncreepy while confronting pedophiles. (Dateline NBC, NBC, MSNBC) |Watch|
4. Letterman tells O�Reilly, "Sixty percent of what you say is crap." (The Late Show With David Letterman, CBS) |Watch|
3. Only minutes into season 5 of 24, David Palmer is assassinated. (24, FOX) |Watch, except don't cos it's a lame version that some gamer thinks is funny|
2. Wonder Showzen turned out to be one of the few popular MTV series that has shown this decade any hope of being remembered fondly. The show�s second season sadly may have been their last, but at least they ended with an enormous bang: The last 3 episodes (all featured on the second disc of their second season DVD) practically define the phrase "pushing boundaries" in every imaginable way. The trilogy was highlighted by an episode titled "Mathematics," which MTV had advertised the previous week as following the same format as past episodes. Instead, it ended up being an entirely different show, a 20-minute Hee Haw inspired wake-up-call to Middle America titled "Horse Apples." (Wonder Showzen, MTV2) |Watch|
1. My "�highest hope for 2007" award goes out to a TV show that has only aired one episode, meaning that most people probably haven�t seen it yet. Its pilot debuted over the summer. I�d pinpoint the key moments, but it would only lessen the genius of this 12-minute epic. Do yourself a favor, and please watch this. Honestly, nothing else came close for me, because this was absolutely the best thing shown on TV all year. (Lucy: The Daughter Of The Devil, Cartoon Network) |Watch|

Honorable mention: Good-looking girls on daytime soaps
Second honorable mention: 4AM infomercials for Girls Gone Wild

3 Memorable YouTube Clips Taken From 2006 TV Moments

The UNO commercial where it sounds like they�re singing "You might get AIDS." Well, it's true.

Weather report interrupted by cochroach. I heard it's even better the 8th time.

Leprechaun spotted in Alabama. Somehow this is still amazing.

My Own Personal Favorite YouTube Clip Of 2006
Let�s Paint, Exercise, And Blend Drinks TV!! It's hypnotic, like a lava lamp.. seriously... ... ..

TV Moments That I Did Not Enjoy
I didn�t watch enough TV this year to claim these as the official "worst moments of the year," and so here is a random assortment of moments that I just couldn�t get into, in some assemblance of order that seems like it should work...

10. Kanye West rushes the stage, angry that he did not win Video Of The Year. (MTV Europe Awards, MTV Europe) |Watch|
9. "Our Country, Our Truck" commercial featuring the music of John Cougar Mellencamp. (Chevy commercial) |Watch|
8. 2006 debuted plenty of yawn-inspiring primetime gameshows, but none sleepier than the Millionaire/Deal Or No Deal knockoff which was hosted by the typically underutilized William Shatner. (Show Me The Money, ABC) |Watch|
7. Kirstie Alley appears on Oprah wearing significantly more than a bathing suit and still looks like hell. But just to be polite, everyone pretends that she looks a lot better than she did a year ago. So it ended up being a nice exercise in good manners. Thanks Oprah! (Oprah, syndicated)
6. Finally! It�s another show about stuck up rich girls, which merely exists to make stuck up middle-class girls jealous! It�s just the kick in the pants youth culture needed in 2006! You�ve done it again, MTV! (My Super Sweet 16, MTV)
5. Gene Simmons whores out his own completely boring family on a blatant ripoff of The Osbournes. (Gene Simmons' Family Jewels, A&E)
4. It would be very easy for Nick and Aaron Carter to create a truly phenomenal TV series. It�s very simple: all they have to do is sit down for 30 minutes a week and share stories about what it�s like to feel Paris Hilton�s vagina wrapped around your erection, or what it�s like to open your eyes during sex and see Lindsey Lohan�s tits bouncing up and down, or why Hillary Duff is probably really boring in bed. Or why it was a huge mistake to turn down Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson because you were dating Willa Ford at the time. This would be very compelling television. But instead, the show is Nick and Aaron Carter driving around with their boring sisters and talking about nothing, which is pretty much what everyone expected it would be. Tough break. (House Of Carters, A&E) Oh by the way, that's a really shitty name for a TV show.
3. A 19-year-old male kisses a 48-year-old woman, so that he can impress the woman enough to date her daughter. If you are not disturbed by this premise, you must do the world a favor and swallow a live grenade immediately. For the good of mankind, we�re counting on you, seriously. (Date My Mom, MTV)
2. A huge thank you goes out to all the desperately unhip parents who appeared on this show, for exposing this obvious coverup: REALITY SHOWS CANNOT BE SCRIPTED, HENCE THE NAME "REALITY SHOW." This show drowns itself in clich� after horrible clich�... "He�s wearing a pink shirt. That�s a sign of confidence, you know?" There isn�t a single 45-year-old mother on the planet who would say that unless she reads "Seventeen"... or possibly she was just fed lines by MTV, who probably thinks this show is morally correct for encouraging kids to discuss their slutty adventures with parents and convince parents to approve of the slutty adventures of children. (Parental Control, MTV)
1. We may have a winner for "worst new series of the year." A black voice actor uses falsetto (and sort of ends up sounding like a bad Michael Jackson impression) to describe street-smart concepts such as the "nigga moment." These are concepts which street-kids apparently understand. That�s all fine and good, but last I checked, Adult Swim shows were supposed to have funny jokes and are usually not laden with pathetic attempts at social commentary. Go preach elsewhere. Where�s Dethklok?? (The Boondocks, Cartoon Network) |Watch|

   The Most Horribly Compelling TV Moments
   05 It seems decently fun at first, but then about 4 minutes into the show, it hits us: This show is about absolutely nothing. It�s 2 dudes, and a dog. And that�s it. Seriously, that�s the whole show. Not kidding. (Rob & Big, MTV)
   
   04 Strangely enough, during the brief period of 2006 when I actually watched a plentiful amount of TV, I usually ended up committing part of my Saturday mornings to Weekends With Maury And Connie, because I thought the premise of the show was kind of fucked up and interesting. I especially dug when certain topics would rile up the pair enough to argue like an old married couple (imagine that), which I think was supposed to attract an older audience looking for a version of The Daily Show that didn�t require as much thought from the viewer. The show lasted less than 6 months, and somehow, this year�s TiVo survey wound up including Connie singing karaoke to "Thanks For The Memories" in the final episode, which is yet another example of a TV moment that gained popularity via YouTube and was not actually viewed by anyone when it initially aired, thus becoming an internet phenomenon, and not one of the best TV moments of 2006. So yeah, anyway... the show was a pile of shit. (Weekends With Maury And Connie, MSNBC)
   
   03 Misheard lyrics commercials have been shown numerous times over the last 20 years. However, "Block The Catbox" is probably the worst of these so far. This is probably the best reason why I�m dreading the day The Beatles� catalogue becomes public domain. (Commercial) |Watch|
   
   02 Mischa Barton�s character on The O.C. dies in a car crash. Unfortunately, the show jumped the shark prior to 2006, so nobody cared. I guess if Summer had died instead, that might have been sort of interesting, but I�m pretty sure Mischa Barton is a future has-been. (The O.C., FOX)
   
   01 The HeadOn commercial, shown often at the end of The Price Is Right. (Commercial) |Watch|

   "My Top Ten" by Jeff Bailey
   Think back to all the memorable events that were touched upon throughout 2006. Yeah, I can't remember them either. If you are thinking the world would have been a better place without 2006, you are probably right. But then the world would have missed out on these Ten (10) classic moments from the past year:

   10. Paris Hilton. A strange pick to start my list, yes I know. But she did bathe in shit during 2006, which has to count for something.
   9. Snoop Dogg. Homeboy went back to being a badass, and boy was he busy. Banned from the U.K. "for the foreseeable future" in May after a fracas in Heathrow airport; busted at John Wayne Airport for smuggling a collapsible baton in a carry on bag in September; caught in October at Bob Hope airport with possession of marijuana and a firearm; busted again for possession of Marijuana after a November appearance on The Tonight Show. Congratulations Snoop, you're the new ambassador to the LA County Jail.
   8. Jimmy Hoffa. Despite recent attempts to locate the deceased union head, he still is out there somewhere. If I was a betting man (which I am), I'd bet Hoffa will be found in 2007, probably somewhere in that meat pit Britney Spears calls a vagina.
   7. Dick Cheney. Great shooting, pard'ner. This actually was a precedent setting event. Think about it, when else has a lawyer accidentally been shot and not sued the shit out of someone?
   6. Mel Gibson. 2006 was not kind to the Road Warrior, which turned into good things for us. Sure, the antisemetic comments during his DUI arrest were nothing short of amazingly bad, but it was actually the unheard Mel Gibson story of 2006 which kept me captivated. Apparently, back in Mel's early years he was living in a station wagon, impregnating teenagers.
   5. This was a toss up between the FIFA World Cup and the Detroit Tigers. Detroit made their way into the World Series, which surprised everyone. Also surprising was the American public's reaction to the world's biggest sporting event: Hatred.
   4. Jackass #2. An all new high/low was set with this sequel, where we received horse semen drinking, dick branding, and leeches on an eyeball. If you have a strong constitution for sickout humour, check the deleted scene on the DVD of Steve-O bonging beer through the ass, defecating said beer into a glass, and ending the stunt by quenching his thirst with the anal cocktail. Mmm, tasty.
   3. South Park Episode 1012, "Go, God, Go." Pure genius, who thinks up prank calling the past? Kill the wise one!
   2. Sacha Baron Cohen. Not only does he share the name of a figure skater who scored a silver medal at the 2006 Turin Olmpics, but he also scared the rest of the world shitless after exposing the true underbelly of American society. High-five!
   1. Reh Dogg. This pretty much speaks for itself. Check it.

   Thanks Jeff!
   Seriously, if anyone wants to submit anything about 2006, I'll probably post it here. However, I won't be waiting up for its arrival. More 2006 ramblings are coming very soon.