If you thought nothing scarier could come out of the disturbed minds at TLC than their enlightening and terrifying Tiny Hos on Parade (I mean “Toddlers and Tiaras”) phenomenon, than you don’t have the capacity for horror that the execs at that network have. Get ready for their latest television travesty, “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.”
This new reality show follows the family of one of the most precocious tiny hos on parade, Alana Thompson, aka “Honey Boo Boo.” And I don’t mean precocious in a tolerable way. I mean precocious in the “if you can’t say anything nice” kind of way. The trailer for the new show features the bare, flabby bellies of many of Honey Boo Boo’s family members, flying leaps into giant pits filled with mud and arguments over the family’s “redneck” status – I’ll let you come to your conclusions on that one.
And the icing on the cake is that Honey Boo Boo isn’t the only one with a ridiculous nickname. Other than June, the matriarch of the clan, all family members go by supposedly endearing monikers. The man of the house is known as “Sugar Bear” and Honey Boo Boo’s sisters are called “Pumpkin,” “Chickadee” and “Chubbs.” And just to keep all stereotypes intact, 17-year-old Chickadee is pregnant. Rednecks? Nah!
Don’t you think it’s time TLC looked at changing what their initials stand for? Seriously – where has the learning in The Learning Chanel gone? Unless America is in grave need of intelligence on misguided, backwoods families and the dangers to which they subject their horrible children, I don’t see a whole lot of learning happening from gawking at this grave miscarriage of granting someone their proverbial 15 minutes. Any lessons seem nebulous at best, rather shows like this serve to glorify the superficial priorities of these sad examples of what’s left of the traditional, nuclear family that everyone seems so darn committed to “protecting” from interlopers with college educations and less than 20% body fat.
I’m just spit-balling here, but maybe TLC should consider something like The Licentious Channel or The Lost-Our-Minds Channel or perhaps The Lack of Scruples Channel.
Proud mama June keeps her beauty pageant terror hopped up on a concoction called “Go Go Juice,” which is Mountain Dew mixed with Red Bull. And you’ll find the six-year-old saying things like “A dolla makes me holla,” and you wonder why I call the show Tiny Ho’s on Parade? In an epidemic of obese and under-nourished children, Honey Boo Boo is the poster-child. TLC is veritably glamourizing what’s at best child neglect and at worse borders on abuse. But we want more? What this says about the viewing public makes me afraid, very afraid.
As if “Toddlers and Tiaras” didn’t already give us enough of chubby southern moms trying to live vicariously through the systematic dollification of their hideous and ill-behaved offspring. If people are watching these shows ironically then the joke is on them, because no one at TLC gets it. They think that people actually like the show and want more.
In an election year, especially, it frightens me that something like Honey Boo Boo and her family (whose proudest accomplishment is having all their teeth) is what the American people want. If this is the general consensus then we might as well just throw in the towel now. There is no hope for the future. And, unfortunately, it looks like resistance is futile.
I just hope the theme song for the show is R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World (As We Know It).”
Catch the train wreck when it premieres on August 8 on TLC at 10/9 CST.
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