Howie Do It
Rating: TV-PG DLS
Network: NBC
Actor and comedian Howie Mandel
has become known to a new generation as the genial host of the clean and
inoffensive game show Deal or No Deal; but viewers expecting Howie’s
other prime-time show to be equally family-friendly should beware. Mandel’s new
hidden camera reality show Howie Do It frequently crosses the line into
tawdriness. The show seems deliberately designed to deceive at first glance: in
an opening prank, Howie may trick someone into giving away a credit card or a
piece of jewelry; harmless enough, viewers may think. But it is not until an
unsuspecting “mark” bursts into a fit of bleeped foul language that viewers
realize that Howie Do It is far from being another family-friendly Friday
night game show.
Since the show’s January 9th
premiere, Howie Do It has been inconsistently rated. Its rating has
varied between TV-14, to TV-PG with various content descriptors, all the way
down to TV-PG with no descriptors. However, the program has consistently
contained profanity and often sexual situations as well. In a scenario that has
been featured on the show multiple times in episodes rated TV-PG DLS, a married
couple is hired to act in a mouthwash commercial. The husband and wife are
instructed to kiss passionately in bed. However, the ad executive for the
mouthwash company doesn’t think their kissing is passionate enough and orders
the husband to get out of bed. The executive then gets into bed with the man’s
wife and kisses her passionately, licks her arm, and puts his leg on top of her.
Everyone, including the wife, is in on the prank -- except for her unsuspecting
husband. Later, the ad executive throws his underwear out of the bed and lies
next to the wife completely naked. The husband accuses him of trying to make a
pornographic movie with his wife; the executive tells the husband that he
doesn’t understand why he is upset. Yet NBC thinks that this kind of content is
acceptable is for young children to watch, with just a little bit of parental
guidance.
Howie Do It
is a far cry from Howie Mandel’s usual family-friendly fare on Deal or No
Deal, or even the type of content on previous programs that used a similar
concept, such as Candid Camera. After luring viewers with a supposedly
harmless premise, complete with a host who has a proven record of
family-friendly programming, NBC pulls the rug out from under viewers with foul
language, sexual content and incorrect ratings. Ultimately, Howie Do It‘s
biggest prank of all is the one it plays on its viewers.
If you agree that this program was inadequately
rated, please write to the TV ratings advisory board at
tvomb@usa.net and let them know that the TV
ratings once again failed to adequately warn parents about inappropriate
content.
For more information about the TV ratings,
please visit
http://www.tvguidelines.org/contact.asp.
