During World War II, Americans channeled their civilian energy into war bonds, scrap metal drives and USO volunteer efforts. Over fifty years later, our country is again in peril but we choose to take our minds off of combat with a different kind of distraction: gross-out television. In honor of this shift in wartime priorities and the upcoming Halloween holiday, Movieline has compiled some of the creepiest TV shows on basic cable today. While scanning through this article instead of reading about this weekend's Baghdad bombings, consider which is worse: knowing that pedophiles in the Southwest are pleasuring themselves to TLC's Toddlers & Tiaras or at this moment, a Discovery Health camera crew is staging a reenactment of an Arby's bathroom birth?
9. Verminators (Discovery Channel)
No bug or legion of bugs can freak me out more than the idea of having to work in the pest extermination field. Sure, crab fishermen have to deal with death, but at least they can talk about their job in mixed company. Set up like any low-budget police procedural, the verminators pull up to a client's house underneath ultra-serious voiceover: "Mike is on the other side of town, facing another rat infestation." While an ominous soundtrack plays, Mike carefully assesses the customer's evidence of pest crime (rat droppings) and comes up with a plan of attack: "This is going to be a trapping situation, we shouldn't do too much baiting." All for what payoff? To see the verminator trap the house and then brandish a few dead rats at the end of the half hour.
8. Pawn Stars (History Channel)
Cringing with boredom is a phenomenon usually reserved for visits to nursing homes or the DMV, but Pawn Stars has the ability to make viewers yawn in fear that somehow this might be a commercial-free episode. "Pawn shop in Vegas reality show" might have been an easy pitch in the room, but having to watch uninteresting people haggle over musical instruments is quite difficult. Those loggers/transcribers scanning the raw footage should be given hazard pay or a jar of amphetamines.
7. Intervention (A&E)
As if sitting through your own friend's intervention was not unpleasant enough, A&E has mined an Emmy-award winning program out of America's fascination with others' pain. The series has covered every addiction from alcohol to video games, with sufferers ranging from meth-addicted former athletes to crack whore daughters. The outcome is not always pleasant and there is a 75% chance that viewers will end up crying along with the on screen family members in between footage of the loved ones shooting up in an abandoned basement. Intervention is the epitome of Rubberneck TV. (Note, we also considered Hoarders but did not want to pile on.)
6. Man V. Food (Travel Channel)
It is bad enough that we have to endure 20 minutes of faux comedic and faux intelligent takes on food as the show builds to the ultimate hot wing challenge, but when Adam Richman doesn't complete the objective it feels dirty on a very deep level. But even when he wins, we lose, so it's not like a completing a 6 pound cheesesteak makes it all worthwhile.
5. Toddlers & Tiaras (TLC)
Just when we thought that TLC could not delve any deeper into kidsploitation programming (Jon & Kate Plus 8, 18 Kids and Counting), the network tracked down the only parents more desperate to whore their children out for cash and fame. Following a few families each season, camera crews document the bizarre lengths stage mothers go to give their seven year old daughters that extra "something," from shaving her legs in the kitchen sink so that her "tan will take," to demanding flirtatious winks while the heavily made up girl stares dead eyed into the camera.
4. Sex...with Mom and Dad (MTV)
In Dr. Drew's latest transgenerational communication endeavor, Dr. Drew helps families discuss those risque Myspace pics discovered because of a privacy setting glitch or those birth control pills your mom found in your sock drawer. The program combines the awkwardness of a first therapy session with an OB-GYN meet and greet ("How many partners have you had? What kind of protection did you use?") with full fornication disclosures from children and their parents. For added fun, Drew sends each family on scavenger hunts to learn where your 15-year-old daughter lost her virginity and where her parents last made whoopie. Aren't some things better left unsaid?
3. Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee (Food Network)
Sandra is pleasing to the eye and she knows her way around a crafts store, but the food at the center of her tablescapes might be why America needs single-payer health insurance. While Rachael Ray is no stranger to bacon grease and chorizo pairings, Sandra Lee takes easy artery-clogging recipes to the next level by piling cheese and mayo on nearly ever prepackaged food Lee's recipes demand. Just read this preamble to her Bacon Wrapped Cheese Corn recipe: "As if butter-drenched corn on the cob weren't irresistible enough, wrap a strip of bacon around it, drizzle it with cheese and watch its popularity soar... A four-cheese and mayonnaise sauce makes it picnic-perfect."
2. Tool Academy (VH1)
About 40% of television seeks to reward bad behavior so that viewers at home can judge the individuals on-screen, but any show that gives face time to guys who are terrible boyfriends turns that judgment off-screen to the women who love them. We all hope that inside of our loved ones is a much better person, but when they have to be thrown onto a show on VH1 to discover that a human being underneath that Ed Hardy shirt and tribal armband ink, the only person who should not be feeling sick is whoever sells the "Tools" Axe body spray by the gross.
1. I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant (Discovery Health)
Capitalizing on America's fascination with that small percentage of women who don't realize they are pregnant until their 8-lb. newborn is crowning in a rest stop bathroom, I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant combines confessionals with highly dramatized shaky cam reenactments of these birthing miracles. Explaining each woman's complicated menstrual cycle, Discovery Health's most sickly intriguing program answers all of your questions ("Now that I think of it, I guess it was morning sickness. But at the time, I just thought it was the flu!") while detailing each too-good-to-be-true-but-is story ("I went into the ER with stomach pains and realized that I was in labor....with TWINS!"). Enjoy one of IDKIWP's most popular clips!