When we're visiting Corrie's family I occasionally surprise her sisters with my uncanny recognition. I'll walk through the living room, say, and notice the television and say something like, "Oh cool, Stefano's back."
The other day, while checking the channels before a baseball game, I came across another television moment: I noticed Steve Wilkos has his own talk show.
Back in the dorms I had a bad habit of, well, honestly I had few "good" habits at the time, but the one I'm talking about here was watching The Jerry Springer Show. The head of security on a show that regularly had fisticuffs was a former police detective named Steve Wilkos.
When I flipped the channel and saw Steve hosting his own show I was surprised. Learning that his wife is an executive producer, and has been for years, on Jerry's show, helped fill out the bigger picture.
I stuck around and watched a few segments of Steve's show, to see how it would be the same or how it could be different than all of these other trash heaps they call daytime talk TV.
On a show like Jerry Springer or Maury (right, he's still on, isn't he?), it seems like, if I remember correctly, they bring poorly acting couples out on the stage and let them air their dirty laundry, embarrassing themselves for all to see. The hosts don't seem to do much more than facilitate the airing by asking leading questions and then standing by and letting the crowd boo as they feel necessary.
Steve's show doesn't really follow the same template. When he brings out the offending parties, he removes their chairs, so they have to stand. He also doesn't act a passive, objective mediator in their dirty laundry airing. He uses his police interrogation techniques to erode his idiot-guest's confidence and get to the truth of the situation, the kernel of it all.
It was like watching Bunk messing with people, by which I mean that for being trashy crap on the tube, it was almost fun to see police interrogation against over-matched jerks.
On another note, I saw a strange thing on the channel that presents Wilkos' show. It was during a commercial break. There were four commercials in a row for for-profit universities--four in a row.
They were UCI, the United Career Institute (not to be mistaken for the other local UCI, UC Irvine); Concord University; Everest College; and what I'm guessing now since my notes are scribbled poorly is the ICDC College.
Each of these universities had hip-hop themed commercials and pitch-folks with darker complexions. I've been wanting to write a post on for-profit universities and colleges for a while now, ever since I heard that they receive an unusually large amount of federal grant money recipient students; that and a large amount of college loan debt money is being spent on them.
The fact that daytime talk television is riddled with commercials for these for-profit schools motivates me even more.
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