Because I Am a Connoisseur of Really Bad Pop Culture Trash . . .

. . . I'm going to watch Cavemen and Carpoolers tonight so that you don't have to. I imagine that it's a task best left to professionals, but I'll endure this experience as an object lesson on what corporate America thinks will entertain the average American male.

How stupid do they think we are? The only way to know for sure is to watch this stuff, if I survive, I'll post about it later this evening.

UPDATE:

That's 22 minutes I'll never get back. It's crap. It's the crap that crap would crap if crap had a digestive tract. Actually, it's the crap that crap's crap would crap if crap's crap had a crapper.

(how's that for a review?) A review of Carpoolers to follow, along with a lengthy thought exercise on what these programs mean with regards to representations of masculinity in current American pop culture (or not).

UPDATE, Part II, The Quickening:

About Carpoolers, OK, that was just crap, but not what crap would crap if crap had a digestive tract.

About what this means for perceptions of masculinity being foisted upon folks by TV writers, they hate guys. They hate family men, they hate them with a passion. They view them as a collection of neuroses and driven by a constant fear of not measuring up and are perpetually one incident or comment by the women in their lives from being utterly emasculated. To be a 'man' on a sitcom, is to be completely and utterly dick-less and ball-less. All sitcom men are Ken dolls, with smooth plastic areas where their sex organs should be. I don't get it, I don't understand how they think this kind of programming should be attractive towards men (the advertising for this craptacular hour of 'comedy' pushed it as a "Mandate"), and I don't understand where this contempt comes from.

It's unfunny, uninteresting, and unfortunately, unsurprising. If advertisers wonder why they can't find the coveted 18-34 year old male audience watching this stuff, this is why. Belittling your target audience isn't a formula for success. No wonder your target audience for this crap² spends their time playing Halo 3 instead.