Two weeks ago, when I was sick at home with bronchitis, I was watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie.
I made sure I was alone at home, but you could have seen me sobbing when the Ingalls family is struck by fate or screaming at the TV screen in anger when Nellie Oleson is mean to Laura.
I don’t know why I watch this, but I do - not regularly, but if I happen to surf by it, I have to stop. I think it’s the smart-assery that appeals to me so much.
I like watching Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives too. I hate myself for it, because Holy Hell, Guy Fierri (sp?) is the most annoying guy on the planet, but I like shows that highlight good, local restaurants. A few times when I’ve traveled, I’ve gone to a place because it was on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, or Man vs Food, or something similar.
It must be a weird love/hate thing for the owners of these places. Yeah, it’s great to get that publicity, but you have to spend the better part of the day filming with that insufferable douche, listening to forty takes of him saying something is “money,” sticking his hands in the food while you’re prepping, and cramming his gaping maw with a burger directly over the food prep area (I guess it’s a good thing they probably don’t actually serve food to customers when he films the kitchen segments, because can you say health code violation?)
All of 'em.
My secret pleasure is to be stuck in a hotel room somewhere flipping through cable channels for hours on end (I don’t have cable at home). This weekend I drove 10 hours round trip to go to a friend-of-a-friend’s wedding by myself, but really the fun was in the 2 nights in an Econo Lodge with fantastic TV service.
I watched American Pickers, some house flipping show, Four Houses, Suze Orman, Prince$$ (on CNBC), Jwoww & Snooki, Behind the Music (T.I.), Big Ang, Restaurant Impossible, Hardcore Pawn, Storage Wars…and I think a few others.
Awesome weekend 
And a reassurance as to why I should not have cable at my house. I’d be the most unproductive blob in the universe!
Dad? You didn’t tell me you’d been sick! (It’s kind of funny how often I’ve “caught” my stepfather - former sailor and trucker and cabbie and all-around badass - watching LHOP. He always pretends he was just channel surfing.)
Yep…can’t get enough of this one for some reason. My favorite episodes are the ones where they watch infomercials, then make comments while playing with the infomercial products.
Maury
TMZ
Cops
You know, you’d get a much shorter answer if you asked me what halfway DECENT TV shows I watch. There’s like maybe one or two of those.
Court TV shows (well some of them). Judge Judy. Judge Pirro. God help me, but they’re addictive.
Storage Wars
Pit Boss
Hoarders
Hoarders: Buried Alive
Ghost Hunters (The guys from Rhode Island - TIP)
I Almost Got Away With It
I like the Fortean stuff as well. I found that “Mermaids” mockumentary very entertaining!
Ooh I forgot about Maury. That is some top shelf trash opera right there! And I do like Four Houses ok - I really like What Not To Wear but I really do like Clint and Stacy, not in any kind of ironic or “this is awful” kind of way.
Lord help me, I can’t stop watching Lizard Lick Towing. I know that everyone on the show is a caricature of a southern resident; I know the plots are not typical of a real towing company and that they’re totally rehearsed and outrageous. Heck, the people on this show might even be australian shakespearian actors who had no other choices if they wanted to work in the U.S. But I just can’t help watching. Also, I watched MXC on Spike when it was on. That was hysterical.
A lot of these shows, I don’t consider them ‘bad’. Bad compared to what?
I love Judge Judy. I don’t watch it often, just when visiting a relative who watches it. If I started watching JJ at home, I would become addicted and have to schedule my whole life around that block of time.
I’m absolutely ADDICTED to “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” which was incredibly horrible right from the start and jumped the shark two seasons ago but I can’t seem to stop watching it.
I also really like “Switched At Birth” which has a totally implausible plot–two girls switched at birth and nobody knows the difference until one of the girls gets her blood typed in a high school science class and finds out it doesn’t match either of her parents so the family sets out on this whole quest to find the daughter they SHOULD have had and switch them back. Only the other family ends up living in their guest house…yeah…like that’s not weird.:smack:
I watch this sometimes, purely for the cheesy value of seeing local places on cable TV. 
They seem to do a lot of filming in Bunn, and they’ve done some in Wake Forest – my mother got to see the trucks one day.
I consider How I met your mother to be bad TV because I hate every character except Barney, but by the time I realised this, I was halfway through the story. And it’s impossible to leave stories halfway 
How about “Scare Tactics”? Every once in a while, they run a marathon of this tacky show, I think on the Chiller channel, and I start watching, and just can’t seem to stop. Same goes with “1,000 Ways To Die” – I forget what channel airs it, but sometimes I find myself watching episode after episode of the show. Weird, wild stuff!
Same here, but the Pawn Shop is less than 45 minutes away from me.. It’s like Detroit is beckoning me.. :eek:
Recently, Call of the Wildman. The guy’s such a nut, he should’ve been dead about fifty times already.
I think the part I enjoy most is the graphic they put up after each job that tells the job and his payment, usually something like, “JOB: relocate giant snapping turtle. PAYMENT: ride in a NASCAR”. They remind me of the deals my dad used to make when he was younger. Like, he got our first satellite dish for $200 and shooting a dog (she was old and sick and the owner couldn’t bring himself to put her down).
16 and Pregnant. I think I watch it to make me feel better about my life. Plus I like thinking about the popular snobby chicks from high school suddenly stuck with babies and no money and no life.