This Week In Terrifying Hybrids 1. Nightline + Kirk Cameron + Atheists + the most provocative topic your 8th grade after-school debate club could come up with = Nightline Face-Off
Evidently, Nightline now subscribes to the Jerry Springer philosophy of television production: Just get some crazies, put them on a stage, let them act crazy, and eventually you'll have something compelling to put on TV–something like, say, two babymommies throwing chairs at each other, or in this case, two grown men disproving evolution by holding up a photo composite of a duck with a crocodile head.
Still, this incredibly well-planned, thoroughly reasoned, and not at all ridiculous debate on the existence of God did make me think. Not about the existence of God, but about what other vast, unanswerable, and provocative to people who have just learned to think topics Nightline will enlist "experts" to debate next. Maybe two opposing farmer factions could debate "Which came first: the chicken or the egg?" Or maybe a serious businessman and a zany hippie could finally argue "What is the meaning of life?" Or perhaps two 10-year-old girls could debate opposing sides of "Blue vs.Purple: Which color is the prettiest?"
Truly, these are exciting times. 2. Donald Trump + Meat – The part of the brain that can say no to developing personal brands = Trump Steaks
Yes. Trump Steaks. And they're sold through
The Sharper Image so now you can finally eat the "world's greatest" steak while setting your super-slim travel alarm clock.
Donald Trump won't be happy until he can ominously point at every known celebrity vanity product–vodka, water, cologne, steaks–and make his name appear.
Incidentally, that photo depicts the only known instance of someone ruining perfectly good food simply by pointing at it. 3. Improv-like comedy + TV + Shannon Elizabeth, Bill Bellamy, and a number of other "comic actors" you'd never think you'd see again + So much sweat = Thank God You're Here
If there was a direct correlation between number of overblown props and number of laughs, this show would sound like 8 laugh tracks played over each other at full volume.
As it stands though, the show is like Whose Line Is It Anyway? smothered with a blanket made out of silent desperation. Have you ever seen people dressed as fast food workers try so hard to be funny? It's like the jokes are stuck in the back of their throats, and they keep hacking and hacking and hacking to try and get them up.