“What would I do if I couldn’t come home from a long, tiring day of school, lay down on my bed, open a bag of chips and watch Ricki Lake? Could I survive? I need talk shows. Where else could I see a man with 17 children from 13 different mothers, or a 19-year-old woman with five children or the sexiest man in America parading around in teeny, tiny, little, bikini pants? Where else could I watch hundreds of people laugh at the Grand Goblin of the Ku Klux Klan. You can find all of this, and more in the wonderful world of talk shows.
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about how talk shows are lowering the morals in American society and should be snatched off of the air waves. Every time someone tries to convince me that talk shows are not fit for television, they give me the same old tired excuses:
They set people up.
I say: Nobody is forced to be a guest on a talk show.
These shows only have ignorant, ghetto guests.
I say: That’s what makes them so much fun to watch.
They make blacks look trifling.
I say: No one represents me or my race. Besides, nobody can make you out to be anything you’re not.
Talk show hosts will do anything for higher ratings.
I say: You need to stop watching Richard Bey and Jerry Springer, they’re the worst.
Talk shows are dangerous. That poor man on the Jenny Jones show was killed for going on.
I say: The Jenny Jones show didn’t kill him.
For every non-educational talk show that is aired, there is an educational one. Talk shows have taught me many things: what it’s like to be a drug addict, a teenage mother, or handicapped. Where else could I learn how a child molester operates or how a kidnapper lures children?
If talk shows are taken off television, half of the other shows on television should be taken off too. “Baywatch” has to go. That show has way too much skin. “Martin” is inappropriate also—I think he said ‘damn’ one too many times. Every soap opera should be taken off—they show passionate kisses. “Married With Children” should have never aired—Bud and Al Bundy think about sex too much. We can’t forget “Barney.” He doesn’t wear clothes, so he has to go. Some people think that Burt and Ernie are gay, so Sesame Street is inappropriate. Let’s take the televised church services on Sunday morning off the air, since everyone isn’t Christian.
Let’s not leave out commercials. Those designer impostor fragrance commercials show a naked lady. Children might see something shocking.
My point is, if you don’t like a certain type of show, you don’t have to watch it. When you turn on the television and see something you don’t like, you can turn it off.”