The beauty of being a never at home kind of girl is that I often miss out on the real drudge that is prime-time television. But on this very rare Monday night at home I discovered what has to be one of the most painful side-effects of the writer's strike--a reality show called
My Dad's Better than Your Dad. Here is the premise...heartwarming children and thier proud papas work as a team to defeat each other in feets of strength, skill and agility. This disaster of a show offers viewers several inspiring reasons to watch.
- The earth shattering look of disapointment on a pre-teen's face when they realize dad made a collosal error in judgement in front of all their friends back home.
- The look of pained restraint when dad is trying very very very hard not to yell at their kid for not being the best kid performer.
- Proof that stereo-types are right. The cross-cultural competitors worked hard to verify all the stereotypes. The Asian team wins the smarts portion. The oversized guy wins the stregnth portion. The rocker/skaterboarder combo looks good but doesn't excell at much of anything.
- Evidence that when it comes to quality programming NBC spares no expense. They went all out and bought 4 flat-pack desks from the discount mart, 3 kettle-style grills and navy collarless button up shirt straight from the racks at Goodwill to make sure the host is never ever confused with Jeff Probst.
- A couple of windows, a frying pan, a tennis racket and 2 hockey masks to protect the dads from nerf missles.
On a serious note there is something precious about watching the kids berate their dads in their role as sideline "coach." I'm sure you can find clips of this disaster online, but do yourself a favor and just watch an old episode of the Andy Griffith show instead. Opie's "Aw, paw...do I have to" comes much closer to reality than "That's ok dad, you're still the greatest."