Tuning in to the Guilty Pleasures channel

‘Date My Mom’
I like to picture the boardrooms of television studios having big magnetic poetry whiteboards with words like "date, marry, bachelor, mom, dad, millionaire, midget, Rick Santorum" and every once in a while the execs shuffle the phrases to come up with the next reality flop. It's the only way I can explain the existence of "Date My Mom," MTV's latest foray into that most vile subgenre of guilty pleasure television, the dating show. "Date My Mom" puts a deliciously Oedipal twist on the concept: instead of trying to hook Mom up with some hot doctor stud, the show pairs some virile young buck with three different moms to decide whose daughter he should then ask out. Just when you thought MTV had lost all shame.

Unlike more prurient dating shows (I'm looking at you, "Blind Date"), our hero doesn't have to deal with three catfighting moms all at once, but rather gets some time with each to try and learn some more about their daughter. It's fun to watch the bachelor try to tease out some of the more shallow details without actually coming out and asking "Is she hot?" While I have to admit to rubbernecking this trainwreck, the show's production quality is pure trash. Is it too much to ask that the contestants at least try to deliver their lines with some grace? Some of the bits of dialogue are so obviously canned as to be cringeworthy, especially when bachelor and daughters meet. Of course, the embarrassing quality of such an embarrassing concept is what keeps this show in the closet with my other skeletons, buried even from my own mom.    —Jim Ray

KRT file

‘Elmo’s World’
I grew up watching "Sesame Street," but before Elmo became a character on the show. So my first exposure to the little red monster came this year, when I discovered the joys of both fatherhood and the Noggin cable TV channel. I didn’t really expect to like Elmo. All the toys you see in Toys 'R' Us make him seem cloying and annoying. And he is all that, but ... “Elmo’s World” is also pretty darned funny. Every show, he asks a baby how to do something. And the baby doesn’t answer, and Elmo laughs. He teaches that laughing at a baby is OK! (If he tries laughing at mine, though, the fur will be flying so fast that even the other monsters won’t be able to save him.) He sings songs at the end of every show that repeat one word over and over to the “Jingle Bells” tune (like “The Feet Song.” “Feet-feet-feet. Feet-feet-feet. Feet-feet-feet-feet-feet.” Try getting that song out of your head now.). And even the really dumb jokes, like “it’s Mr. Noodle’s brother, Mr. Noodle” crack me up. Of course, that could be the sleep deprivation talking.    —Craig Berman

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Living the Guilty Pleasure life

Living the Guilty Pleasure life Tuning in to the Guilty Pleasures channel Now playing at the Guilty Pleasures cineplex A Guilty Pleasure beat, but can you dance to it?   Add Gulty Pleasures 2005 headlines to your news reader: