Drawn Together. It is one of the most tasteless shows I have ever seen and it can clearly get away with things BECAUSE it's a cartoon (could you image a real life superhero betting to have sex with a mental challanged girl? or admitting and denying a homosexual relationship with at least 2 characters in almost the same breath?) Let us not forget the "sweet princess" (aka Disney character) that's a bigoted racist who then makes out with the lone black female character. The show is tasteless, without class and absolutely tacky and I make sure that I Tivo it if I can't watch it every week.

coffeegirl

She rants and raves about bad taste. Is she for it or against it? I can't tell, honestly.

One thing I can tell is that Heather must be more perfect than Jesus. She must walk on water and heal the sick. Because how else could a person have the right to point the finger of judgment at so many others, with such enormous wrath that my stomach goes queasy just reading her fiery words?

She has to be better than all of us, because she has the right to judge and hate anyone she sees on TV. So maybe she's the Second Coming of Christ and we need to call Pat Robertson over here to have a look.

The most tasteless shows on TV didn't seem to be mentioned: Wife Swap, Fear Factor, and daytime "train wreck" talk shows on topics like trying to figure out who a baby's daddy is just to name a few.

As far as I'm concerned Ms. Havrilesky is welcome to say whatever she wants about reality contestants, who must know by now that is part of the game, as is being edited to appear to be a certain type of character. Where she goes too far is insulting South Park. It remains one of the funniest, most relevant shows on television. I'd be impressed even if they didn't write and complete some episodes within just a week or two of an event happening that the show is about; which they often do. Yes social commentary gets well coated in juvenile humor, which is to be expected on Comedy Central and keeps people laughing and watching. As for Drawn Together, that one doesn't work for me either as the name seems apt -- just a bunch of random elements thrown, excuse me, drawn together.

As for Jeff Probst, I wonder if he really is pondering leaving Survivor now that his contract is ending, or if saying that is a negotiation ploy. He does have a great deal of sway on the show, and I can't imagine it continuing without him after this long. Surely he can pack up his idol and go home, financially set for life, and good for him if he does. Maybe his contract negotiations should be a reality show.

Note to A. Postate: That's what a television CRITIC does! and Heather does IT most tastefully.

I loved Project Runway. It's the show that got me to watch reality TV. I just hope this one can live up to the first one. It sure took em long enuf!

First episode of Survivor, first Tribal Council. Probst finishes the speechifying, survivors finish voting. And Probst says "I'll go tally the votes." Tally means to count, to add up. He's fetching the votes -- he doesn't tally them until he brings them back and starts counting. It's bugged me ever since.

As usual, Heather has this season's Amazing Race nailed. Like HH, I was also sorry to see the Paolo family get eliminated, which is a pretty sad commentary, indeed, on the quality of this Race's participants since the Paolo sons showed less respect for their parents than I show to my 3 Irish Setters.

Although the other Race contestants refer to the Weavers as the "Praise-Gods", a friend of mine and avid Salon reader came up with an even better name for them - "The Holy Rollers in Hot Pants". (Please God let this race be over with already and please don't let the Weavers win.)

Last week, I was forced to sit through a block of episodes of Drawn Together. Okay, it wasn't at gunpoint; I was just too lazy to get up and look for the remote and then look for something else to watch at midnight while I was doing some Important Surfing. My plan was to simply ignore the show so I didn't have to get up and turn it off or change the channel. (This strategy worked very well with that Man Show guy who follows Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on the Comedy Channel on weeknights.)

But instead of being able to successfully ignore Drawn Together, I kept watching it. Started watching it, since I wasn't watching what was on before that. I was kind of euuwwwww when Captain Hero ripped out Xandir's entrails in a misguided attempt to get his long-lost parents to love him, but by the time Xandir and Spanky Ham got Gay Married For The Insurance, I was hooked. I didn't want to be -- I mean, that Man Show guy is even the voice for Spanky. One of my most unfavorite things, part of this other unfavorite thing, all together. But here I was, rooting for Spanky to get the medical care he needed to survive the internet virus that threatened his existence and made him look like he was in the wrong parallel universe, where he already existed, so he was de-phasing all over the place.

Drawn Together is gross and offensive and wonderfully subversive. Its offensiveness is equal-opportunity, and there are moments of comic brilliance between eviscerations. I mean, didn't we all know that the Strawberry Shortcakes were really mass murderers underneath all that impossible cuteness? No one is safe -- not even the Survivor host.

By the time the block of shows was over, I was sorry to see it end. I wanted it to go on all night, so I didn't have to get up and turn off the tv and go to bed. It had an insidious influence -- the next thing on was an infomercial for Extenze (or Extendz, or some other clever spelling variation) -- to increase that certain part of a man's body -- and for ten minutes, I was pretty sure that it was a joke. (I kept waiting for one of the characters to say "Live, from New York..." or something like that.) Unfortunately, it wasn't. I simply didn't recognize one of the most famous porn stars ever in the hairy little guy in the Hawaiian shirt who was hosting the infomercial.

I missed Drawn Together even more.