Posted 11:32 AM by Blah blah

Joe Club: Joe Millionaire Blog. Why Do Smart People Make the Best Trashy Entertainment?

HAHAHA! Joe Club is a fan Diaryland site for the Fox TV show Joe Millionaire. The passion with which the members debate which girl has the fake boobs is infectious.

If I ever become a real TV producer, I should really try to help create a trashy show like this. It would be my legacy to all my years of education, to my dear senior English AP high school teacher, Mrs. Davis.

It's always amusing and ironic that the people who create these shows, called by snooty critics as the armpit of pop culture and a sign that Christ is coming back any day now, usually come from top schools and studied law and Shakespeare and read all those snooty writers. Here are the bios of Jean-Michel Michenaud and Chris Cowan, executive producers of Joe Millionaire. They also created the infamous Temptation Island 2. Hahaha!

And here's a profile of Elizabeth Bronstein (Philadelphia Inquirer), co-executive producer, which makes me chuckle with familiarity somehow. Before Millionaire, "Bronstein's previous job was as show runner of HBO's Emmy-nominated Project Greenlight, about a real-life contest [by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon] to pick an unknown filmmaker and bankroll his or her first feature. 'Yes, I went from classiest to trashiest. I told my parents, "I'm not going to win any Emmys for this one." ' "

Oh, but how much FUN it all sounds, Elizabeth! The people behind-the-scenes are just as gleeful as we are about how all this turns out. What I like about reality TV (as well as blogging) is that it IS still in the Wild West stage and that people can play and indulge their imaginations.

All of that elite education somehow helps you make better trashy (but SUCCESSFUL) shows.

Actually, do you notice this pattern of notorious or infamous people in entertainment who come from a conservative, well-educated, or WASPy background? Case in point: Asia Carrera, the Asian model student and geeky kid who became a famous porn star? Or Will Smith, who was accepted by MIT but turned it down to pursue his rap (and later TV) career?

Look at Jerry Springer's bio. You'll be surprised!

"Jerry Springer's life off-camera has had so many ups and downs, he might well have qualified as a guest on his own syndicated talk show. His parents fled Nazi Germany, escaping the Holocaust that claimed other family members, and eventually settled in Queens, New York. Fresh out of Northwestern University Law School, Springer served as a campaign aide to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and, following Kennedy's assassination, joined a law firm in Cincinnati, OH, where he eventually won a seat on the city's Council-at-Large in 1971. Although a blind date led to his 1973 marriage with a Proctor & Gamble administrative aide, something else led him to cross the Ohio River and procure the sexual favors of a prostitute in a Kentucky massage parlor. When vice cops discovered his secret, Springer resigned his position and came clean during a 1974 press conference. His honesty worked overwhelmingly in his favor, and he was elected mayor of Cincinnati in 1977, receiving the largest plurality in the city's history.

Springer stepped down as Mayor in 1981 and, after an unsuccessful bid for governor in the Ohio Democratic primary, joined Cincinnati's WLWT-TV as a political reporter and commentator in 1982. Two years later he graduated to news anchor and managing editor, becoming Cincinnati's number one anchor until he relinquished his post in January 1993. Springer launched his eponymous syndicated talk show from Cincinnati in 1991. The following year, he moved it to Chicago where it has flourished. He signed a contract that guarantees Jerry Springer Show junkies their fix through the year 2002.

A concerned humanitarian who has raised millions of dollars for charity, Springer suffered his greatest personal trial at the arrival of his only child, born legally blind, deaf in one ear and without nasal passages."