Untruth is Stranger Than Fiction on TV

The "reality" phenomenon on television debuted in 1948, the same year during which Firstwife and I encountered, in rapid succession, the stunning realities of love, cohabitation, overhead and almost instant fertility.

The pioneer TV "realist" was Alan Funt, a rather annoying gnome who was long on confrontational chutzpah, but a tad short on couth and sensitivity.

His show, then and now entitled "Candid Camera," caught ordinary people in extraordinary situations, using either him or hired hams as facilitators to confuse, tease and/or torment victims, all of whom were unsuspecting of hidden agendas and concealed cameras.

The result was, for the most part, innocent merriment, both harmless and, on occasion, highly entertaining.

Remarkably, Funt remained active with the show until he died in 1999, even more remarkably without ever tasting any of the knuckle sandwiches he had so clearly deserved.

There followed his success a succession of home movies and videos, most of which popularized the comedic value of such mishaps as people getting hurt, domestic animal attacks, women having wardrobe malfunctions and men taking vicious shots in the area of their maximum discomfort.

Fast forward to the present, wherein have been spawned a gross overpopulation of bastard mutations of Funt's funfests, glutting (and sometimes smutting) the airwaves.

They are called "reality" shows, although the only element in them qualifying for that designation is the fact that the principals are real people.

Well, a few words of qualification are needed here: Physically, the players are all of the genus homo sapiens, but with a great dollop of doubt regarding the sapiens (wisdom) part.

Conceding that these people are undeniably real, the situations are certainly not, and there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of men and women willing - nay, downright eager - to expose themselves to humiliation, danger, physical harm and shameless exploitation, in exchange for as little as free travel and a few minutes of questionable glory.

Okay, okay, there are the rare exceptions who snatch a brass ring and go onward and upward, but the same kind of happy happenstance befalls a scant few buyers of lottery tickets and all Red Sox fans (I'm just kidding, folks, honest!).

From the standpoint of TV producers, these slices of non-life are a bonanzaic balm of relief from the crippling cost of shows requiring professional talent, which is why the networks are awash in the former format.

More difficult to understand is why the public has bought into them with a fervor one would have thought reserved for diversions like decadent desserts and free love.

Admittedly, my investigation of reality shows has been limited to very brief samplings, each just long enough to confirm my distaste for bad taste, which had earlier eliminated me from the fan clubs of rhubarb, castor oil, gangsta rap and Howard Stern.

In most cases, I didn't review certain shows at all, content with my built-in aversion to human beings eating inedible substances, wallowing in filth, swapping spouses, faking romances, lying, cheating, backstabbing, publicly undergoing plastic surgery, betraying friendships, living like animals, airing their immoral laundry, sharing honeymoons, suffering, seducing, spouting bleeped obscenities - and, in one inexplicably successful example, bussing the butt of an egomaniacal real estate mogul with the people management skills of a mule skinner.

Neither do I need to observe, in order to abhor, masochistic survivors, licentious tempters, the slumming safaris of slutterly rich girls, the inner non-workings of the totally dysfunctional Osbourne family, or the Jerry Springer parade of low-life hillbillies and urban misfits.

The good news is that, while the output of this sort of garbage shows little sign of abating, the forward march of new offerings has encountered a banana peel of public acceptance, suggesting that viewers have had enough of an ersatz reality that doesn't resonate with their own lives.

Few of us can relate to people and situations like those portrayed in the "reality" shows that have attacked television like a swarm of libertine locusts.

Granted, the sitcoms, dramas and variety shows of yore were contrived and somewhat removed from most of our life patterns, but they were entertaining and had at least a faint whiff of believability about them.

Until they come back, our best defenses are judicious use of the remote control, revisitation of reruns or a return to such semi-obsolete alternatives as reading and conversation.

Were we to do that in large numbers, the TV tycoons would quickly learn what real reality is really all about.