Omg, A&E! There are certain unforgettable lights-on, slap-to-the-face “Wake up, stupid!” moments for all of us TV-watchers, right?
But what a shock to have recently learned that David Hester — a heavily featured, then suddenly gone, bidder — on A&E’s “Storage Wars,” filed a suit claiming that the show is a scam; it’s all just a set-up!
Say it ain’t so!
Ya mean that the storage center roll-up garages that the show has randomly stumbled upon for the past three years aren’t all stuffed with either useless junk — the kind no one would store — or abandoned treasures, including, as Hester’s suit noted, a BMW hidden beneath a pile of junk to create an extra-dramatic find?
Go ahead, man, break our hearts!
It’s all staged? That the hand-held camera and audio folks have the ability to capture all the bidders just as they bid — or decide to bid, or said something worth hearing — at the very moments they occur are not a matter of both good luck and clairvoyance?
Those brawls and arguments — the kind that the show’s producers, directors and camera/sound crews sense are coming even before the combatants — are scripted? Nooo! Those brawls and shoving matches that look so faked are, in fact, faked?
Hester has sued for $750,000 in lost pay and various damages for losing his place on the show. He was replaced by Mark Balelo, who did a 45-day stretch in a storage center with bars for a parole violation following a drug and weapons conviction. Credentials seem in order.
But perhaps the most depressing part of it all is that such self-evidently bogus “reality” shows are sustained and multiplied by an American public that can’t seem to get enough sucker-targeting TV.
The truTV network is infested with phony reality shows decorated with phony premises. Among them: “Black Gold,” “South Beach Towing,” “Storage Hunters,” “Hardcore Pawn,” “Full Throttle Saloon,” “Lizard Lick Towing,” “Operation Repo” and “Southern Fried Stings.”
A&E is closing in fast with “Storage Wars,” “Storage Wars New York,” “Storage Wars Texas,” “Duck Dynasty,“ “Hoarders” and “Parking Wars.”
Even the NatGeo (National Geographic) channel is making a run on the “reality show” nincompoop trade with “Taboo” and “Doomsday Preppers.” Its deep-sea fishing show, “Wicked Tuna,” now includes all sorts of unedited vulgarities — for no better reason than because it’s cable, and cable can.
TLC — it no longer wants to be known as The Learning Channel — has learned. Its reality shows include “Plastic Wives,” “Starter Wives Confidential,” “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” “Long Island Medium” and “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant.”
It simply does not matter that so many shows can’t meet the minimal standards of a reality stink test. They keep coming and coming and coming; apparently, Americans can’t get enough bogus reality. Heck, today TV could air “Gilligan’s Island” reruns and call it a documentary series.
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There’s nothing crueler than pitching miracle potions to the seriously ill, especially those who also suffer from vulnerability and/or desperation.
Local radio stations, including all-news stops, lately have cashed checks to air advertising for a medicine that claims to eliminate the symptoms of tinnitus.
Tinnitus is a dreadful condition, with no known cure. Its primary symptom is a ceaseless ringing in the ears. Normal, daily functions, including sleep, can become impossible. The severe depression tinnitus causes has led to suicides.
But not only do these ads promise relief from tinnitus, the cost of some remedies is more than $100 per bottle, thus reflecting the promise of relief, at last, from such an insidious, medically incurable condition.
But credibly written user reviews pan the miracle product as useless, even bogus.
Beyond that, if there were a product on the market that could successfully treat tinnitus, it stands to reason that such a product would make news on all-news radio stations, not just advertising.