I was watching THE SOUP on E! last night and it gave a rundown of the various reality shows on television. I remember when E! had TALK SOUP which ran down the various stupidity that was present on talk shows during the nightmarish talk show fads of the 1990’s. (I remember Geraldo Rivera going on TV angry at TALK SOUP for mocking the talk show world. Seriously though, with the parade of freaks, oddities and obviously scripted and phony guests that many of these talk shows employed it would be pretty difficult NOT to mock talk shows) THE SOUP did do an effective job of essentially detailing what most people think but won’t say: reality shows are essentially programs that seek to make us laugh at people acting like circus sideshow freaks. Seriously. It isn’t drama or appeals to intellect that make a reality show popular. Instead, it is looking for meltdowns and immaturity that draw in audiences. No, this is not the case with all reality shows. INKED, for example, is actually kind of fun and heartwarming in a certain way. Gene Simmons’ laceName w:st="on">ROCKlaceName> laceType w:st="on">SCHOOLlaceType> had a number of valuable lessons presented in its format mainly because you could see Simmons really did love the work he was doing with the kids he was surrounded by. But, most of these programs are pretty much idiotic concepts that use the dopiest of dopey people to make fools of themselves (for little money) for the audiences’ amusement. Like I said…it’s a freak show.