In days of old, before there was electricity, before there was Madison Square Garden, or even the internet, people went to the circus for entertainment. As they traversed the Midway, they saw an array of clowns, jugglers, and, more importantly, freaks.
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No matter how bad your life is, from lowly serf to underpaid factory worker, few things lift the human spirit more than making fun of someone with a problem worse than yours. Freaks excel in this capacity, because their physical deformities are so blatantly obvious. |
Most of the talk show web sites are respectable.Sometimes you find yourself asking if they're about the same shows. |
Today, as we enter the information age and watch Lance Hendrickson and Jack van Impe panic about the coming millenium, we like to delude ourselves into thinking that we're more sensitive to the emotional needs of others. We wouldn't think of going to a freak show and looking the bearded lady or midget in the eye.
That's not politically correct.
More importantly, it's not convenient.
Thanks to 50's technology and 90's sensibility, we can do all of this from our living rooms. The thoroughly modern Talk Show, enables us to enjoy freakdom without having to feel guilty about it or even leave the couch.
Now that the internet seems poised to kill TV as we know it; it's only reasonable that the Talk Show phenomenon would spill over to the web.
To a certain extent, it has.
But not quite in the way you would expect.
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Most of the talk show web sites are respectable. Sometimes you find yourself asking if they're about the same shows. Only the Ricki Lake web site give you any kind of indication of the show's true nature. |
Other shows, like Montel Williams, don't even have a web site. [Although a fan thought highly enough of Montel to create an Ate My Balls Page. -Ed]
There may actually be a good reason for this discrepancy.
Since the Talk Show is a place where there's more Show than Talk, the web does not provide a good vehicle (yet) to display the fist fights in their 30 frames per second glory.
Even the most devoted Jenny Jones fan couldn't stand a 20 minute download time to see a distraught housewife "confront her man."
Since this article covers unique
and various shows, we've developed a sophisticated piece of technology
called the Ricki-matic. [And it works as a cheap interface gimmick.
-Ed.]
Use the Ricki-Matic to guide you through all parts of this article. [The Ricki and Jenny Jones sections will be posted by Friday. -Ed.]
The Ricki-Matic
Talk Shows in CyberSpace
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![[ Ricki ]](ricki06.jpg) |