IDIOT BOX SAVANT "Ugh. Enough cake. Me want consummate marriage now."

Thursday, January 29, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Idiot Box Savant: Go, fat man, go!

By Andrew Kiraly

Sigh. The last of the Little Debbie Christmas Cakes is gone, their delicious BHT preservative-coated frosting shells but a memory lining my colon with their pernicious free radicals. Yeah, that and the fact that both 10-pack novelty "Beers of the World" gift sets have been drank can only mean one thing: The holidays are officially over. Okay, there are some cherry cordials and gross chocolate liqueurs left, but nothing!--the Savant's fashion playbook says--is more unstylish than desperation. Except getting nominated to maybe be president and then revealing to the world with one thoughtless inhuman yowl that you are, in fact, a Thundercat. Nice going, Howard. Snarf snarf!

Anyway, I've found that if you squint hard enough, it's easy to imagine that Randi, the blond would-be bride of "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance" (Mondays, 9 p.m., Fox) is in fact Paris Hilton who's being psychologically dirty-bombed on this bumptious li'l nugget of reality TV. Kaboom to you and your ill-gotten riches, O mantis-woman draped in mineral wealth!

Seen this show yet? Premise: Fragile, finicky WASPette is told she stands to score a half-mil if she can convince her parents that she's gonna marry a man who resembles a sausage casing filled with Cool Whip; WASPette is told sausage-man is in on it, too, and he also stands to get a half-mil; but actually, sausage-man is a paid actor whose sole job is to turn wedding process into complete shitmare for oh-so-delicate WASPette. It's basically like forcing Jabba the Hutt and a freshly detoxed Elizabeth Taylor to pretend marriage in some LSD-dipped Shakespearean IMAX movie. The producers force the two to meet with wedding planners, tailors, sex therapists; while Randi's trying to avert a complete emotional meltdown, fiance Steve--who stands to gain nothing--is on a rampage, inhaling drinks and hoovering kibble like Dick Cheney on the South Beach Diet.

Now, lots of shows lately, from "The Simple Life" to "Average Joe," have pretended to make us question the beauty vs. ugly/rich vs. poor/snobbish vs. earnest dynamic that holds the world, particularly 12-year-old Ecuadoran girls in sweatshops, in its dark thrall. But if you think about it, they're really tilted in favor of the beauty/rich/snobbish hegemony that keeps us wishing we were all some genetic sea monkey-like variation between Michael Jordan, Bill Gates and Britney Spears. In the case of "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance," however, Steve--who, while around Randi, fulsomely channels the raucous disembodied fart that is the ghost of John Belushi--is in reality the sane, cool one, while the dyed 'n' dipsticked Randi is more brittle than Mariah Carey before shock therapy summer camp.

Steve's playing the high-ticket bizatch like a fiddle, and every candid comment from her to the audience features teary, suppressed-weeping avowals of O! I didn't know how hard it was going to be! and O! I can't go on like this! O! I'm not this kind of girl! Meanwhile, he's like, Oh yeah, that was fun...now watch as I get back into her good graces and then REALLY fuck things up!

I remember watching "I'm a Celebrity--Get Me Out of Here!" in hopes of the plushed-out getting brutalized by the rogue-cop-with-toilet-plunger that is reality, but the show never really delivered; the celebs somehow deployed these magical whine shields that protected them from the elements. If you really wanna see the comfortable utterly discomfited, check out this show. Hell, my only complaint is that Steve isn't mean enough. He's all like, "Gee, I sure hope she forgives me when this is over." No, Steve. You have been trained as part of an elite reality TV squad for one purpose and one purpose only: DESTROY!
"Ugh. Enough cake. Me want consummate marriage now."