MTV Time Fillers - Parental Control,
Date My Mom, Next
Station: MTV
When: Airs everytime you turn on the TV
by
Katie Luscombe
MTV's Date My Mom is based on the incestuous premise that dating
Mom will help you figure out whether the daughter is hot. Ugh.
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By now, we can all agree that MTV basically
owns the world. And
when you own the world, you can pretty much do whatever you want. This
is why MTV magically gets away with producing hours and hours of horrible
television, such as these three “dating” shows that draw
the attention of procrastinating college students like Kate Moss to
a coke dealer.
On Parental Control,
parents get the chance to pick out two blind dates for their kid in
hopes of convincing them to leave their obnoxious significant other.
The guys always hit on the mom, and the dad always makes a few creepy
suggestive comments to the girls, which is followed by an oh-no-you-didn’t
look from the wife. The winners take turns with the star of the show
while the parents and current boyfriend or girlfriend (why would
they agree to be on the show in the first place??) watch the date from
a TV in the house and ruthlessly insult and curse each other. At
the end of the show, the guy or girl picks who they want to keep dating
and then they make out on camera.
Date My Mom involves
three inappropriately close mother/daughter pairs who are competing
to win the daughter a date with a hot guy. He goes out with
each of the three mothers, learns all the daughters’ gross
habits and picks the one with the hottest mom or the sluttiest-sounding
daughter. He
always makes up some excuse to why the one with the ugly mom doesn’t
sound appealing, like, “Your daughter’s pre-med. She sounds
too busy to make time for a boyfriend.” As he eliminates
each daughter, they dramatically step out of a limo in slow-motion to
show the guy what he was missing. When the winner is announced,
the mom, daughter and son run down a beach holding hands, until the
mom lets go and waves farewell to the new couple. Then the kids
make out on camera.
On Next, the
guy or girl who is looking for a date has a five-person lineup watching
from a TV in a nearby bus. They spend time with each one until they
chose to say “Next!” and
send the next date in. The loser gets a dollar for every minute they
spend on the date. If they actually like their new date, the lucky
girl or guy choses to accept the money or go on a second date. If
this date actually occurs, we will never know, but we do know that they
at least make out on camera at the end of the show.
To try to make all
these shenanigans entertaining, the “writers” come up with
all these clever little sassy things for everyone to say to the camera
when they’re
rejecting the “weird girl.” They often rhyme and
they are almost never funny or original, but they’re quite necessary
because it is boring to watch people on TV who aren’t really doing
anything.
College kids watch
MTV no matter what is on it. There’s nothing better to accompany
sluggish Facebook-stalking and recovering from a drunken night than
watching slutty 19 year-olds whore themselves out for a date. Odds are
you’re not really in
the mood to actually make any use of your brain. MTV was also probably
on when you turned on the television and, hey, changing the channel
is a lot of work.
The MTV execs must
be just like those people in the cartoons who throw handfuls of cash
into the air and then roll around in it on their beds. These
shows are ridiculously inexpensive to produce. There is no host
to pay and the most money people win is about $100. MTV just
has to fork over enough to send them on a picnic, which they never finish
anyway. Then
they use them to fill every single time slot and bank like crazy from
advertisers who know that masses of impressionable youth are still glued
to the TV. And they say money doesn’t grow on trees.
