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Time to purge. (Schurr)
Just for Laughs (8 p.m., ABC)
You know how certain crappy TV shows can still seem really funny when you're under the influence?
Just for Laughs isn't one of those shows.
Shockingly, I'd never actually sat through this half-hour Canadian import hosted by C-list comedian Rick Miller before. Featuring sketch pranks played on unsuspecting pedestrians in public parks, gas stations, street corners and parking lots, J4L is essentially Candid Camera-lite; a laugh-track-inducing way for us to watch normal people get punked.
And if you're the kind of viewer who finds men in wigs, seeing-eye dogs wearing glasses and TP stuck to shoes the stuff of comic brilliance, I strongly suggest you tune in. The rest of us will devote 8 p.m. to more entertaining pursuits, like cleaning the fish tank and brushing our teeth. Seriously.
Sketches included an empty car driving itself while senior citizens freaked out in the parking lot (it was an empty vehicle, moved by hidden actors) and a kid getting people to pay for his candy in a convenience store.
One gag made me chuckle in my head maybe once, but only because it involved poop.
"Just think," said Miller, smiling under his stellar puff-do, "if nothing's going your way today, at least you didn't get caught in any of the gags you just saw."
To think I would've had to tell some kid I wouldn't buy him candy! (Rozen)
WEDNESDAY
Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants (8 p.m., CW)
This is getting ridiculous. Wednesday's lineup was so full of shiteousness -- it's a word, look it up -- that the 8 o'clock block was almost entirely reality TV (thank you, Fox, for not making it a clean five for five). That viewing conundrum left my partner-in-crime and me to divvy up the tube droppings. He went with Supernanny; I covered the grenade that is Crowned. (We both considered calling the Camille Paglia hotline before we tuned in.)
Carson Kressley, the most irritating of the Queer Eye guys, lords over Crowned alongside sub-tier stars so insignificant they don't even merit a letter in the Hollywood alphabet. Kressley and Co. had a purpose, though: to encourage a gaggle of mom-and-daughter divas to be the best gosh darned beauty queens they could be. Last week's episode concerned the mastery of "The Smile" -- who knew it so nuanced in Pageantland? Let the record show that there are six distinctive turns of the mouth: The Swimsuit, The Evening Gown, the I've Got a Secret, The Natural, The Interview and The Closing Smile. Watch Crowned for 15 minutes, and you'll develop a newfound respect for that dear, misunderstood Miss Teen South Carolina.
I can't say the same of Redhead Bombshells' daughter Laura, a young lady so refined she politely asked her mum to "Shut the fuck up!" at one point. (Lest one think that team name lacks a certain finesse, flash back an episode or four to a recently ousted duo who anointed themselves, without a trace of irony, Silent But Deadly.) As the pairs took to the pedestal for one minute each, their competition attempting to break their grinning composure with "yo momma so ugly"-inspired disses, it was all but impossible not to smile in return.
Crowned boasts a lion's share of catty hilarity and waterworks, all under the auspices of some old-fashioned mother-daughter bonding. As another team was "de-sashed," courtesy of a velvet pillow holding a pair of jewel-encrusted scissors, I knew I'd be tuning in again to witness the remaining gals, these touchstones of beauty, brains and grace (don't forget the grace), take one high-heeled step closer to 100 grand.
"The only thing fake is both y'all weaves," a rival threw down in the preview for the next episode. To paraphrase Mr. Kressley, it's enough to make me barf fluffy pink cottonballs. (Schurr)
Supernanny (9 p.m., ABC)
Meet Jo Frost, a young, straight-shooting, British child psychologist who likes to masquerade as Mary Poppins. Why? Because she's gimmicky like that.
Her reality show, an hour-long behavioral-Gestalt therapy sesh called Supernanny, follows Frost as she meets, counsels and ultimately heals families with horrible children. It was such a big hit in England a few years ago that the host took her feel-good show across the pond where, I guess, her gimmicky accent could be exotified to its full potential.