If truth in TV titling were mandatory, “The Cindy Margolis Show” would instead be called “The Body of Cindy Margolis Show,” and it would be rated not by the level of violence or crude language but by her cup size.
It runneth over, and she weareth a thong, which is how the reputed Internet lingerie queen landed this new and stunningly stupid syndicated effort.
It places Margolis, like a poorly animated Barbie, on a Miami stage, from which she and her satin-covered self preside over quite possibly the worst TV program in the land — a vigorous competition that includes infomercials, Fox reality programs and Kathie Lee Gifford Christmas specials.
A particularly vapid hybrid of nightclub life, MTV Spring Break programming and venereal-disease-warning films (Do not sleep with people who look, dress or act like this!), it airs on Saturday nights (10 p.m., WPWR-Ch. 50), a time when, it must be said, the competition also is splashing around in the content cesspool.
Flipping through the channels during breaks from Margolis’ sad attempts at titillation this last Saturday, I encountered on WCIU-Ch. 26 the TV version of Mancow Muller’s radio show, featuring the Chicago-based host talking in his erudite way about sex and fecal matter, and, on WBBM-Ch. 2, “The Howard Stern Radio Show,” where the leering New Yorker was displaying his celebrated wit by having female guests bare their chests.
Is it too late to call for the return of some kind of broadcasting code?
These three shows all air concurrently on Saturday nights for the benefit of lonely, frustrated guys you wouldn’t want anywhere near even your ex-wife. If these shows are what loosening restrictions on TV fare portend, let me suggest that a little censorship might not be a bad thing. Just as you wouldn’t leave some teenagers alone in the house on homecoming weekend, we probably shouldn’t let some TV producers loose in these changing times.
This was just ugly, degrading stuff, leaving you so battered you didn’t want to show your face in public afterward for fear the bruises would show.
I am not, I should say, a prude. I enjoy a little “BN” in my HBO movies as much as the next guy, especially when the BN (that’s pre-movie warning-speak for “brief nudity”) is integral to the plot.
And I don’t generally get exorcised about language or sexual content. Language evolves, always, and TV’s new crudeness in that department reflects the way many people now speak, whether we &^%$ like it or not. Meanwhile, some very frank sexual content can be handled with cleverness, as on the sitcom “Friends.” Since sex drives much of human behavior, it is a worthy, even necessary, topic for television.
But shows like Stern’s, Muller’s and, now, Margolis’ are just throwing expanding freedoms in our faces, offering only the shock value. There’s not even the look-what-I-can-get-away-with glee of a series like Comedy Central’s “The Man Show,” which has the intelligence to mock itself even as it shows slow-motion video of bikini-clad women bouncing on trampolines.
The Saturday night strumpets are joyless and unaware, desultory things that make all of our knuckles hang just a little bit closer to the ground.
I’ve talked about Stern and Muller in the past, even found praise for the keen-for-a-local-effort production savvy in Muller’s show, if not the subject matter.
But as the newcomer of the three, the “Margolis” show merits more discussion here.
Margolis, for those who have remained unaware of her talents, is a former “Price Is Right” product displayer who claims to be the “most downloaded woman on the Internet,” and Yahoo! and Guinness back her up.
Her Internet work involves posting on her eponymous Web site cheesecake photos of herself that young men then download for more scrupulous examination.
Her trademark is that she does not get naked, keeping it at about the lasciviousness level of a Victoria’s Secret catalog.
And in numerous media appearances, she has tried to push the image of the beautiful-but-business-savvy girl next door, essentially wholesome but in no hurry to close her bedroom curtains as she undresses.
That image, modest by today’s standards, is why it is such a surprise that the show seems so trashy.
Then again, it is executive produced by Burt “Lowbrow” Dubrow, former EP at both “Jerry Springer” and “Sally Jessy Raphael.” Dubrow says in publicity material that he is trying to convey a “sexy and provocative” party atmosphere, but it is provocative only to decency and human dignity.
The Saturday show featured simulated leg humping, very real cheek baring and a whole lot of sledgehammer-dull innuendo.
The taped segment I saw was about “scammers,” Miami South Beach clubgoing guys who will do and say anything to get some. Laughably short and choppy, it told us only that they exist. Margolis then added, with typical insight, that she would not want to meet such men.
Taped live outside, like the MTV Spring Break idiocy that always inspires fear for the country’s future, the centerpiece of the Margolis show is a “Webkini” contest in which a handful of lithe women prance about in swimsuits.
The contest part, presumably, is that you vote for them at cindymargolis.com, although the show is none too worried about making clear their reason for prancing.
This is in no way a talk show. Although she clutches a microphone, Margolis chats little, preferring to let the trophy-wife matching undergarment sets in which she hosts do the talking. She doesn’t dance or sing, either, that I saw.
She will pose questions and challenges to “Webkini” contestants, like tell us your dream date or show us your best booty shake.
Margolis did, sort of, perfunctorily interview a Playboy centerfold named Devin, who seemed most animated when discussing whether her best feature was above or below her bellybutton.
The non-hosting host is accompanied by a “comic” named Lance Krall, who overstates the level of intelligence he projects by claiming in publicity material to be the show’s “village idiot.”
He seems mostly interested in appearing as much like a cartoon as a human can, reacting with exaggerated facial expressions to the host’s various forms of flesh revelation.
The third leg in this shaky tripod is “DJ Skribble,” presented by the show as representative of all things hip. His cool quotient is not immediately discernible to the casual observer. But you know he is supposed to be hip because when female participants in the show get on stage they talk, in that liberated-young-woman way that MTV has done so much to promote, about wanting to “do” Skribble.
Despite all the manic (desperate) energy of the camerawork and the enthusiasm (probably goaded by signage) of the crowd, it plays out like an overlong night in a nightclub
To the extent that this show is inspired by the nightclub experience, it is a reminder of what a slog of a life that is. If you genuinely love to dance, OK, but if you’ve got even half a brain, the whole posing and seeming bored thing grows old in about the time it takes get through the door.
Then again, compared to watching “The Cindy Margolis Show” on TV, it’s a great time.
