We watch... so you don't have to.
Step Aside Tori, There's A New Boob In Town
Tori Spelling, this is your lucky day.As faithful readers well know, we here at the ol' TeeVee site have carved out a bit of a reputation in the electronic world for our well-nigh fanatical zeal in persecuting just about anything smudged with the manicured paws of Beverly Hills 90210's rangy leading lady. In the past, we've cast aspersions at her family, hurled slander on her movies, poked fingers at her bug eyes, and modeled small alps after her jawbone. Naturally we drew the ire of Tori disciples on two continents, who leaped to defend their queen... giving us the chance to extend our contempt into a fifth area, heaping abuse on Tori devotees.
And for what, you might ask. At first blush, this fixation probably seems a remarkable waste of energy, not to mention rather unhealthy. Eventually Daddy Meal Ticket will pass on, leaving Tori to the only other job for which she's qualified, running daddy's company. Why then the never-ending stream of invective aimed at the fruit of Aaron and Candy Spelling's loins? Shouldn't we be training our guns on someone who really deserves it? Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, for instance.
It's pretty simple really: because in the target-rich environment that is TV, Tori's bleached, elephantine bean has been the easiest to hit.
Until now.
The other day, one of our frequent contributors, noted funny man and resident Lutheran Philip Michaels, got it in his head to point our little TeeVee community to an article) in the San Francisco Chronicle titled "Jenny McCarthy, Dazed and Disrobed." Phil, in what can only be attributed to an unfortunate encounter with bad clams and a debilitating fever, called the story "laugh out loud funny." I, on the other hand, found it to be so much more. An epiphany, a calling, if you will....
A new mission in life.
But more on that later. First, a quick recap. For those of you who don't get Newsweek, world leader in news of no consequence, Jenny McCarthy is the latest freak of nature to storm our nation's TVs. And like any good twister, she's left a trail of bodies, carnage, and suffering strewn from here to NBC. A former Playmate of the Year, the flaxen-haired McCarthy has parlayed her impressive charms -- lo about mid-chest, just below the shoulders -- into two tours of duty with MTV (one as a hostess on the criminally stupid Singled Out and another as the ringleader of a band of idiots in the accurately-titled Jenny McCarthy Show) and a new sitcom this fall on NBC, Jenny.
Even more impressive, she's accomplished this despite having no appreciable talent. Funny as an aneurysm and twice as annoying, McCarthy has made up for this otherwise fatal hole in her performer's repertoire by digging deep into the same bag of tricks that you and I did when we stood before a camera at, oh, age six. Which is to say, she screams, she makes screwy faces, she burps, she sticks her tongue out, she picks her nose, she sniffs her armpits and generally makes an ass of herself.
Of course, in her defense, it did land her a gig on NBC....
By now The Story of Jenny has been told enough times to qualify for biblical entry. A college dropout with no appreciable talent, Jenny did what so many college dropouts with no appreciable talent have done before her: she gave the rough-'n-tumble world of modeling a try.
Alas, fools that they are, the agencies dismissed her without realizing what they had. "You're too short," they said, dismissing her without realizing what they had, "too busty, too hippy. Plus, you have no appreciable talent. Why don't you give nude modeling a try?" And so Jenny ended up at Playboy. The rest, as they say, is history. Jenny dropped trou, the world swooned, and we've been paying the piper ever since.
And that brings us to the aforementioned Chronicle story. In a fit of historical revisionism that would do Ollie Stone proud, Jenny now claims that something akin to an out-of-body experience made her do it. That from the time she first left a Polaroid with the good folks at Playboy, to the time they called her up and said "Jenny, we'd like you to pose for us," to the time she first appeared at the studio, that during this -- what? -- six, seven months, all this time her inner voice, her conscience was saying, pleading, nay begging, "Jenny, no, no, no."
Or in Jenny's words: "A larger force, and I call it destiny, brought me in the door, moved my mouth, took the robe off and did it. The next thing I know, I'm looking at these incredibly airbrushed pictures of myself going, 'Oh, my God!'"
Worse still, her rush to fame came with an unforeseen price. For one thing, "I was so humiliated." And who wouldn't be? I mean, you try waking up one day to discover that, unbeknownst to that little pea rattling around inside your skull, the rest of your corpus went and got naked for some leering shutterbug who just happened to work for a world famous rag that just happened to be in the business of printing exactly the types of photos that the leering shutterbug just happened to take. And then, to discover that your stupid, stupid corpus went and did it again several months later for the Playmate of the Year layout! You'd be red behind the ears too, let me tell you.
For another, Jenny says nobody in Hollywood wanted to hire an ex-Playmate... which is actually pretty consistent if you think about it, since nobody in Hollywood wanted to hire her before she was a Playmate either.
What, pray tell, is a poor girl to do? In Jenny's case, apparently, play along. The bawdy, infantile, unfunny -- well, heck, let's use Jenny's term -- "bathroom humor" of Singled Out, The Jenny McCarthy Show, countless magazine covers and talk show appearances? All an act. Just Jenny pandering to MTV's demographics, being "as goofy and weird as possible, in order to get their attention." The screaming masses of testosterone-crazed males on Singled Out who raised Jenny, over her fierce resistance, to pop culture icon status? Ham-fisted dolts.
Oh Jenny, Jenny, Jenny....
I know what you're thinking. "C'mon Ko, so she's told a few fibs, stretched a few truths, spun a few lies. So she's reinventing herself, because she finally realized that sharp whistling sound wasn't her many fans crassly showing their appreciation for her spectacular hooters, but instead a much-deserved backlash whipping through the air. Big deal. It's not like she's the first celebrity to conjure up a story to suit her purposes. Why rake Jenny through the muck when there are other, perfectly good celebrities who deserve it so much more? Demi Moore, for instance."
Why? I'll tell you why. Because it's such a crappy load of lies.
Look, I have no problem with Jenny McCarthy's glaring lack of talent, or at least no more problem than I have with any other famous person's like, say, Tori Spelling. Nor do I really have a problem with Jenny as celebrity. This is America. It's not that hard. Kill a fashion designer and you can be a celebrity too. And, truth be told, I couldn't even care less how many lies Jenny tells. It's not my soul that's on the hook for eternal damnation.
But what I do have a problem with is when some celebrity puts forth such an obvious load of bunk. I mean, c'mon, put some effort into it for God's sake. "I call it destiny"? "A larger force"? "I was so humiliated"? Good grief, does she actually think we'll buy this nonsense? How stupid does she think we are?
Pretty damn stupid, apparently. And it's that lack of respect that I can't accept.
So I'm here to announce that, as far as I'm concerned at least, Tori Spelling can relax. There's a new whipping post in town, and her name is Jenny. I won't rest until her show is canceled, her image is ridiculed, and her name is mud. Sure it's not nice, sure it may be mean- spirited. But dem's the breaks. Dis me, I always say, and you're crusin' for a brusin'. Who's with me? You? How 'bout you?
Oh well, I can always go this one alone...
