This column has previously remarked on the Spike cable network’s program Blue Mountain State – its crass and crude references to and portrayals of sex; its incessant profanity; and most offensive of all, the conviction that these things are somehow funny. But the pea-brained viewers for whom Blue Mountain State is too intellectually sophisticated need not fear; Spike has provided them with the moronic excrescence that is MANswers (Wednesdays, 10:30 p.m. ET – available at all times on Spike’s website) – a program with all the smutty references and adolescent “humor” of Blue Mountain State, but without all those hard-to-understand plot points. For its devotion to the lowest-common-denominator demographic, MANswers is the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.

Following the format of programs like the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters, MANswers purports to answer questions of interest to men – although what thinking human being could come up with the “questions” answered by MANswers is a question in itself. (Actually, the answer is clear: whoever comes up with this sleazy content clearly isn’t thinking, except perhaps with a portion of his anatomy, and scarcely qualifies as a human being…at least, not one with opposable thumbs and capable of walking upright.) The program would be more aptly named were a single vowel added to the title; “MANsewers” is definitely more accurate.

In the February 17^th episode, this putrid program “MANswered” questions relating to kitchen products which can be used to relieve frustration; the effect of staring at objects on brainwave cycles; and the water-absorbent properties of various types of cloth. On Spike, of course, the questions were not stated in precisely this manner. Here’s how the mouth-breathing moron narrating MANswers phrased them:

“You’re horny and your go-to porn devices are busted. Don’t worry, dude! There’s always the fridge – and inside, the food the feels most like female flesh! What fridge food is the most bone-prone?”

“Jiggly juggs are great to look at – but it you stare at a chick’s cha-chas long enough, can they control your mind? Can you be hypnotized by boobs?”

“The wax is hot. The girls are hotter! And they know how to blow!! How can boobs wash your car?”

Yes – every cable and satellite subscriber in America is paying to support a show that features a car wash where bikini-clad women rub their breasts on the car (with endless close-ups of women’s wet, bra-clad breasts) and tells them how to masturbate using slices of veal (“reach for the meat that can’t be beat – when you beat your meat!” shrieks the show’s narrator hysterically). The episode also provided the dubious public service of telling viewers how many non-alcoholic beers are required to become drunk – a vignette charmingly followed by a scene of a man hosing down his friends with urine – and urged them to eat before trying to “pick up a hottie,” lest the unfortunate male be stuck dancing with a woman who weighs more than 80 pounds (a scene of a morbidly obese African-American woman stomping towards a man, accompanied by earthquake sound effects, was sensitively used for this scene). 

It is not only the disgusting misogyny and sheer idiocy of this program that offends – though there is more than enough of both. Rather, it is the completely crass manner in which the narration is couched. After an endless series of references to “flesh melons,” “cottoned cataloupes” and “bodacious bazongas” – not to mention “Mr. Fuzzy” and “women’s hot boxes” – even the proudest male chauvinist would change the channel. One is tempted to ask who could possibly watch this revolting program…until one considers the second question above. Clearly, some males with a permanently pre-pubescent mind CAN be “hypnotized by boobs” – as their devotion to the programming provided by the boobs running Spike clearly demonstrates.

MANswers serves as a perfect example of the gargantuan fraud perpetrated on subscribers by America’s cable and satellite companies. If the mega-conglomerates who run cable ever allowed viewers a la carte Cable Choice, nobody would pay to receive the slop Spike perpetrates. But by requiring every subscriber to buy a “basic tier” replete with such programming, the industry forces everyone to pay for shows they may find objectionable or offensive. The loser? The American people.

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