Everyone has had one of those days: The ones where you feel sick and end up spending the day in bed. Or you could just be skipping class. Whatever your preference may be, this day involves a few things: Some hot tea, lots of closed blinds, blankets, and a television remote, because I refuse to move from this position for the next six hours.
Once you’re nestled in, you’ve got a large array of campy morning/afternoon television to choose from. So start surfing Socialites: It’s time for the best daytime TV shows.
1. Judge Judy
There is a plethora of judge and court shows to choose from, but no one rocks that gavel and robe like Judy. The fiery red-haired judge has gotten nothing but more entertaining over the years. She brings the justice with a flavor and cynicism that you just can’t get with Judges Mathis, Joe Brown, and Alex. You could say that the lawful vixen rains justice upon her subjects. That’s right, I went there. That raspy voice, those sharp facial features, and her dominance over the court all combine to turn me on in some weird, embarrassing way. Did I just come to the realization that I’m in love with Judge Judy?
2. The Price is Right
There’s an entire channel of game shows to watch, but The Price is Right deserves to be on this list by itself. It is the king of game shows. I’m still perplexed by how it turned into a cultural phenomenon, but people just love winning stuff I guess. There’s really a whole bunch of games contained in the one show, where guests are brought up as contestants. In the end, only two contestants remain and they battle it out by estimating the price of a crapload of stuff. I still don’t know the rules to most of the games, but I just shout out prices anyway because I can’t help myself. As an added bonus you get Drew Carey.
3. Maury/Jerry Springer/Steve Wilkos
These three shows all come in one package and I’ll tell you why: Each one approaches the trashy daytime talk show in a different way.
Maury is your fairly conservative version of the formula. He’ll have pregnant 13-year-olds, women who want to prove this guy is their baby’s daddy, and cheaters. Everyone is pretty civilized. If someone gets too riled up they just walk off stage and cry with a camera all up in their face. I love the respect for emotional boundaries.
Jerry Springer follows it up with the complete opposite: A wild adventure filled with fighting, hair-pulling, general anarchy, and girls in the audience showing their titties in exchange for useless beads! Normally there is a theme to each episode, but by 30 seconds in it doesn’t matter because that bells rings and rednecks just charge at each other. Most of the time it’s something incest related (My brother had sex with my mother instead of me, but we have a child!)
Steve Wilkos used to be Springer’s main bouncer…the guy who broke up fights. Now he has his own show, which is a kind of middle ground between the two extremists before him. People yell at each other, but rarely fight, and they’re always frickin standing. I think that’s actually a rule. People are more comfortable when they sit, so Wilkos aims to create as much awkward tension as possible by positioning people on their feet, across the stage from each other. He reminds me of The Thing from Fantastic Four. He’s also the most orange of the three (he spray tans that bald head of his).
4. Cartoons
When I was younger, there were default cartoons I’d go to: Rugrats, Dexter’s Lab, maybe some Pinky and The Brain, occasionally a little Captain Planet, and of course Looney Tunes/Tom and Jerry.
I’m completely lost on new cartoons. I don’t understand things like Sponge Bob or Chowder, and the closest I can get to something like what I’m used to on Cartoon Network is Johnny Test, which is kind of like a new-generation mangled Dexter’s Lab. There are two, tall, red-headed genius sisters, a little stupid blonde brother (named Johnny) who tests their experiments, along with his companion, a talking dog!
But if you scour the channels that digital cable hooks you up with, then you can still find the classics hidden among the rest of the junk.
5. Cops
When all else fails, watch Cops. It’ll remind you of how lucky you are to be in a house sitting comfortably, sipping on some tea, instead of getting arrested for DUI in Florida. At any given time during the day you can find a channel showing Cops, or a similar police-related reality series. G4 and SpikeTV run marathon blocks of the show, and I’m sure there are at least two or three other channels that run it, too.
Maybe you should check out Campus PD, too. It’s not as solid as Cops, but you run the possibility of seeing your school featured on there. Once in a while there’s a person with alcohol poisoning, which is actually really funny to watch if you don’t know the person.
6. The Occasional Wife Swap Marathon
Say what you will but this show is amazing. The people who decide which mothers switch have got to be working with some formula that knows what will create the most retarded drama. It’s such a brilliant concept: Lure in overachieving mothers who want to teach some kind of lesson to another family, and then make everyone involved look like incompetent morons. No one learns a lesson that isn’t part of the script; no one ever comes out looking more normal than anyone else. No one even makes any money from it! It’s just all based on value exchange, or lack thereof, and every single episode is a gem.
7. Discovery Channel/History Channel
You could go either way on this one; it’s merely a personal preference. Do you enjoy nature? Sharks? Bears? Tropical Frogs? Then you’re heading in the Discovery Channel direction.
Actually, nowadays Discovery shows a lot of fishing and lumberjack shows, along with the standard Myth Busters. So you could go for that. If you want nature, you’re probably better off browsing your cable box for the Science or National Geographic Channels.
If you’re a history or conspiracy buff, then you should definitely go to History or History International Channels. There are lots of shows about Hitler, UFOs, Hitler’s search for UFOs, and the like. Occasionally you’ll get something science-based like The Universe, which is always a plus.
8. The Weather Channel
This isn’t my thing, but I have friends who swear by The Weather Channel. When there’s nothing else, there is always weather. Normally, watching the forecast as some light jazz plays in the background is pretty boring, but if you smoke some weed you’ll start having fun real fast. Cirrus clouds! Whoa, brah!
9. Soap Operas
This also isn’t my thing, but there are people that love these tacky daytime dramas, so it has to be in here. All My Children, General Hospital, and As The World Turns are all classic Soaps (right?) that have the ability to prolong the drama FOR ALL OF ETERNITY. I seriously don’t know how they keep thinking up those ridiculous plot lines. There’s actually an entire channel dedicated to Soap Operas, so whether you’re actually into it, or just looking for a good laugh, you can access these shows any time of day.
10. Disney Channel
If there’s nothing else left to watch, there’s always the Disney Channel. Consider it an experiment: What is it that draws children to shows like Hannah Montana, iCarly, etc.? I’d say it’s probably bright colors and canned laughter, because I don’t see much else going on in some of these shows. But there is the occasional diamond in the rough: I’ve actually enjoyed an episode or two of Drake and Josh in the past.
11. Telemundo
If you’re extremely desperate for some entertainment, then maybe it’s time you turned over to one of the many Spanish channels. This isn’t fun if you actually know the Spanish language, but if you don’t understand a single word it can be quite a good time just to watch people speak gibberish. Light up a joint and that level of enjoyment increases ten-fold.
