Editor’s Note: We realize that ‘My Super Sweet 16: Exhiled’ is not a comedy in anyway. Regardless, Steve felt he had to say something about it. So why not. So here is a review for that mind-numbingly retarded show. If nothing else, laugh at these fucking people and their ridiculous behavior.

I’ve been duped. I’ve been had.  You got me, MTV. I fell for your smooth trickery.

For weeks, I had seen the previews for My Super Sweet 16 Presents: Exiled.  While the rest of the population saw it for what it was – a shrewd combination that exploits both spoiled rich bitches and poverty-stricken third world countries in order to bring us even more just-like-watching-a-bus-crash-you’re-a-worse-person-for-watching-this entertainment – I, for some reason, continued to believe that this program would have redeeming qualities of some sort.  I mean, think about it, what a perfect opportunity for MTV to do something culturally worthwhile.  They could have taken a News/Documentary approach and…oh…I dunno…TAUGHT US SOMETHING ABOUT FOREIGN CULTURES.

Instead, MTV takes a half hour (shocking, isn’t it, that it takes the same amount of time to show us the preparations of the ultimate birthday blowout as it does for one of these American princesses to acclimate to a completely different culture and lifestyle) to give us more formulaic dribble no more inspiring than an end-of-season clip show on the Real World. It goes something like this. Forgive me, I don’t remember the name of the girl featured in tonight’s episode, so I will just refer to her with pronouns such as “her” and “she.”  Here is a rundown of tonight’s premiere.

-    About five minutes of the family telling “her” that she is going to be sent to Africa.
-    What feels like an eternity of “her” spouting off “oh my god” and “no!” and “are you serious?” with statements meant to highlight her narrow-mindedness like “Will they have air conditioning there?” thrown in for good measure.
-    “She” prepares to go. “I’m bringing my jewelry just in case. And my hair dryer.” Yeah…I know…we get it…she’s dumb and selfish and doesn’t know anything about the world. But seriously. I’m supposed to believe she’d honestly think to bring a hair dryer to the desert?  Has she never seen what Africa looks like? At least one of those “dollar a day” save-a-child ads that they play all the time on late-night cable in between Cash 4 Gold commercials?
-    “She” leaves for Africa. Parents are sad to see her go. Tears are shed. Dad hurries out to buy a new Porsche to surprise her with when she gets back.
-    “She” gets to Africa. Hates it. Things are gross and different. “I have to walk four miles to get water?!” “I’m not touching cow poop!” “Agh! Ticks!”
-    “She” finally realizes, with about five minutes left in the show and a hasty denouement imminent, how to cope and find connections with the locals. Obviously, this means dancing and showing them her iPod and body spray, as opposed to any actual labor or work or cow poop.

What stood out here was Josephine, the eighteen year old African girl who served as “her” host and friend. I especially loved when the girl was griping about carrying a jug of water and saying that it “sucked” and was the “hardest thing she ever had to do,” and Josephine responded with a deadpan “Okay,” which I believe may be Maasi for “I’m gonna knock this white bitch out.”

At the end, Sweet 16 girl is treated to some sort of ceremony meant to celebrate her time spent there and the many lessons she undoubtedly learned. I was half hoping that it would turn out that unbeknownst to her it was actually wedding, and that she would forced to become bride of a warrior, live in a poop house, and stay in Africa forever. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Sure, it sounds like a relatively satisfying show…watch these spoiled rich bitches get their come-uppance when shipped off to foreign lands to learn a thing or two about what it’s like to work and suffer. I’d be a lot more satisfied if they never came back. Instead, MTV has just given these girls exactly what they don’t need. More television exposure and completely unwarranted and inauthentic redemption. Like I said. I was duped.  Then again…it’s my own fauly. Why would I expect anything of substance from the network that brought us Tila Tequila, Room Raiders, Date My Mom, Next, Ex Effect, Dance Life, The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, From G’s to Gents, Cribs, 8th & Ocean, Fast Inc, Rob & Big, Run’s House, Twenty-Four Seven, Laguna Beach, The Hills, That’s Amore,  Newlyweds, The Ashlee Simpson Show, Celebrity Rap Superstar, Cheyenne, Maui Fever, My Own, Newport Harbor, Pimp My Ride, Pageant Place, Taquita & Kaui, Tiara Girls, There & Back: Ashley Angel Parker, and Yo Mamma?

I’ll admit that watching a celebrity be roasted by the best in the business is great fun but when the roastee is also fellow comic and long time friend to the entire dias, I began to realize that I was watching something special. The Pamela Anderson roast is by far one of my favorites, and yet at times it appears that Anderson is only partly paying attention to the celebration. With Saget, it was like watching a group of buddies get together and screw around. There was no doubt that the former Danny Tanner was having a great time and would have loved to be nowhere else but on that stage.

Bridgette Nielsen, Farrah Fawcett, Courtney Love, and Tommy Lee all have something in common - they aren’t funny and they suck at reading live. For reasons unknown to me, those stars have all taken the podium at prior roasts and created what I believe to be the lowest point of each one. Well, watching Fawcett be out of her mind on TV is always good times. The Bob Saget Roast brought us what we’ve all longed for - a dias chock full of comedy professionals.

The professional that stole the show for me was Norm Macdonald. His very ballsy move to test his mastery of dead-pan delivery and timing with old-timey roast jokes - akin to what my 9-year-old has in his "101 Clean Jokes to Tell to Your Friends" book - had me in tears. Unfortunately, it seemed that the audience was split on whether Macdonald was a genius or an idiot. Already, I’m eager to get my hands on the DVD to hear the portions of Gilbert Gottfried’s roast that didn’t make the air.

I was very excited for this roast and did not disappoint. My only disappointment was the lack of Dave Coulier jokes. While John Stamos and Jeffrey Ross did dish a little heat Coulier’s way, nobody called him out on his continuing efforts to take his comedy on the road. Come on, Dave, cut-it-out.

Hosted by Micheal Ian Black, who is better known for his commentary on various VH1 shows, Reality Bites Back is a brilliant rip off of every popular reality show. Basically the premise is consolidating eight shows into one. And in the first episode they mock the so called hit Big Brother.

The contestants are all stand up comics, which makes the commentary ackward, well worded, and down right hilarious. But the thing that makes Reality Bites Back better than every reality show was the challenges. If the first two challenges are just the beginning, then this show is going places I might be scared to see.

For the first challenge the comedians had to walk into a dark room and attempt to seduce someone for a one night stand. What they didn’t know is that the people they were trying to pick up were their parents. Naturally when the lights came on, and the comics saw their mom or dad, their reaction was priceless.

To make things a little more strange, the second challenge was kinda like the game Newlyweds. The comedians and parents had to see how well they know each other, and if they got the wrong answer they were out. The questions included how many drinks does it take for the comic to get drunk, their preference of drug, and worst of all, whether or not the comedians had ever seen their parents doing the dirty. When the results differed between comic and parent, it providied hilarity at the comics expense.

Just like any other reality show, there is a winner of the challenges who in turn has to make a partial decision of who’s going home. The comic who won the challenges had to pick two people, and then the parents had to vote on who went home. I’m not going to ruin it though.

I’m definitely going to follow Reality Bites Back throughout the season. If the other episodes are like the first one it can only get better. But I do see the show taking turns into disgusting challenges. Overall it was funny, and I’m already looking forward to next weeks episode.

The premise is along the same line of Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock. Spurlock ate McDonalds for thirty days and got tests run on him while doing it. Doug Benson took the same approach with a catch. He had to quit smoking for thirty days and have tests run on him. Then the next thirty days Benson would smoke around the clock and have the same tests run on him while high.

The tests actually surprised me to an extent. One of them was a psyhic test, in which Benson had to guess the shape on a card he couldn’t see. When Benson was sober, he only got one of twenty five right. But when high, Benson managed to get seven of them right. Pot heads=Psyhics?

According to the results, pot actually made him smarter as well. While on his thirty days of soberity, Doug took the S.A.T. test and scored himself a 970. When he took the test nicely toasted, he got a 1030. Not much of a difference in terms of overall IQ, but it does make me wonder. Maybe Benson was made to smoke pot and do stand up for a living.

Naturally the film was shot in California, mostly because of the states liberal views on marijuana. And the film does a good job by informing the otherwise uncaring folk. It goes deep into the medical marijuana world. How it started, how it’s evolved, the stuggle between state and federal agencies over it, and most importantly, where to get it. Super High Me explains it all.

If your a fan of Doug Benson, Super High Me is worth checking out. It has something for everybody. Wanna laugh? There’s random tapings of comedy shows he does along with the project. And with too many guest appearances to name, I’m sure you’ll find at least three or four comedians mixed in that you like. Don’t have a sense of humor? Absorb the edumacation.

    There was even some good background music coming from the bar next door.  A band of seventeen year olds, The Blue Threads, were playing Zeppelin covers while drawing away the poetry crowd one by one until just the regulars were left to hear the old nose read his lines one more time just in case someone missed them the first time.

    We split to go back to my old friend’s pad for a quick smoke and memories.  We realized that we had been friends for over ten years now and haven’t physically seen each other in almost two.  Nothing really has changed except that our poems only talk about lost loves and not the bubbly young ones that we try desperately to remember their names while eating breakfast.

    He and thirteen other local Houston poets are doing the “Word Around Town” poetry reading beginning this Sunday and touring through Htown bars and coffee-shops until next Saturday.  Look it up online and plan on going one night…you won’t be disappointed.  Say hi to me if you see a wild haired drunk with a goatee dripping week old nacho cheese.

The show reminds me of Oddville, a show on MTV in the 90’s, which had odd acts perform their weirdness. It turned out to be a pretty good episode. The show has three judges, in the premieres case, JB Smoove (Curb Your Enthusiasm & ‘Till Death), Dave Navarro (Jane’s Addiction), and Andy Dick (A lot of crap).

The first act was a metal-ish punk-ish band, with a lead singer that looked like a anorexic Iggy Pop. They got gonged, and Andy Dick made a gay joke. The second act was a “magician” that had a rather bloody act. Everyone seemed to like it.

The acts continued, some weird, some strange, but at least mostly all of them were original. The judges were OK. JB Smoove was making horrible jokes throughout, and did not say one thing that was funny. Dave Navarro was his usually hippy, rock, laid back self. Andy Dick was ridiculous as always. It was pretty funny. He even tripped Dave Attell up with his outrageousness at one point. (It was kind of like Dick-in-a-box, but more like Dick-in-a-score-card)

The downside is Dave Attell doesn’t get much time to tell jokes. He was hilarious though with his comments to the judges and jokes about the acts. I just wish he had more time. Overall, it was an entertaining show. I seriously expected to be disappointed (Due to the acts & judges, not Dave Attell.) Those are the obvious variables however. If they can get decent judges, and decent acts, they have a decent shot.

The bases of the Comedy Central’s original series is Lewis Black reigning over a trial where two comedians argue what is the root of all evil. This weeks’ offenders where Oprah Winfrey and the Catholic Church. Comedian Paul F. Tompkins, of VH1 countdown fame, was arguing that Oprah Winfrey was the root of all-evil, while Comedy Central’s resident comedian Greg Giraldo, of little-to-no fame, argued that the Catholic Church was the root of all evil.

The show started with a short aside from the show’s host and namesake, Lewis Black. It was pretty entertaining, and good start to the show. Each comedian was then given time to present their opening arguments.

Paul F. Tompkins did a decent job. The moral of his story was that Oprah was what amounted to a cult leader. It was a decent premise, and he presented it pretty well. As I mentioned earlier, Paul F. Tompkins does a lot of work on the VH1 countdown shows, so I’ve become accustom to his comedic delivery, and it’s grown on me.

Greg Giraldo’s opening statements where hilarious and offensive at the same time, but more toward the hilarious. You have to put your personal beliefs aside sometimes with ole’ Greg Giraldo, but jokes are jokes. He presents them in such a way that’s funny, even if you do think he is batshit crazy on a lot of issues.

The 2 comedians went back and forth presenting their case, with the occasional funny interjection by Lewis Black. There were several quotable lines from each comedian, and they tackled the task well.

I think this will be a good forum for young comic talent. As bitter & old as Lewis Black appears to be, and actually is, he does have a pretty decent taste in comedy. This will be a good way for certain talent that might not get exposure normally, to get a bit more broader exposure to an accepting audience. It seems this will be a controversial type show, that will some times border on the ridiculous. The major problem they will face is keeping the theme ‘blank vs blank’ going without making it Jerry-Springer-esk.

With Lewis Black’s comic taste, and some luck that it will actually gain a following, this show has potential to hang on. I don’t foresee it being an incredibly high rated show, but will most likely have a dedicated cult following. If you like more edgy humor, and stupid,  mainly pointless arguments, you will probably like Lewis Black’s, Root of all Evil.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone yet again hold nothing back on the shows premiere. The show begins with Cartman in the doctor’s office getting a check up. Cartman is pissed to find out he has to have his tonsils removed. He was scared at first, until the doctor basically called him a pussy, then he got over it.

From the first scene you could tell nothing has changed. Cartman’s over-the-top ironically hilarious ‘wholesome child’ routine in the doctor’s office and hospital was a great start.

Cartman awoke happy that the operation passed by quickly with no pain. That was of course until the doctors informed him that due to a blood transfusion mishap, he now had AIDS. Normally mild tempered, Cartman for some reason flew off the handle. After a lot of cursing, the awkward yet horribly funny scene ends.

School-aged children are an odd breed. Things adults may take seriously, say for instance AIDS, a school child may laugh hysterically at. This was the case when Cartman’s best friend forever, Kyle, found out the … news.

Completely stepping out of character, Cartman decides to get revenge on his Jewy nemesis. He enlists the help of the Gomer Pile-esk character, Butters. They sneak into Kyle’s room at night, which Cartman has done “all the time”, and set out to get him back. Cartman did this by giving Kyle AIDS. Naturally.

Cartman’s ‘How dare he laugh at something so horrible’ routine was brilliant. The irony did not even escape the other characters on the show, which added to the funny. You could tell everyone was thinking ‘he deserves it,’ but was too decent of human beings to say that out loud. Unlike Cartman, who if the tables where turned would not hesitate to mock and exploit.

Kyle, being the smart Jew that he is, figured out Cartman was to blame, and beat him as unmercifully as a 4th grader can. After the initial fight, and the aftermath where Kyle smashes half of Cartman’s belongings, they set out on a journey to find Magic Johnson and find a cure for AIDS.

That’s right, Magic Johnson. “Magic Johnson has had AIDS for like 50 years and he’s doing perfectly fine!” exclaimed Cartman. South Park holds nothing back.

The pair end up meeting Magic Johnson and finding a cure for AIDS. Go figure. All they did was use the money that Magic Johnson had had lying around the whole time, and actually tried, and they found a cure. You can take whatever greater message you would like from that.

Overall, the first episode was more than I had hoped for. The interaction between the characters, specifically Cartman and Kyle, is perfect. The tension, anger, frustration, and back-story make for hilarious situations, whatever the storyline. The ability of Cartman to be utterly and shocking cold hearted and selfish has not changed, thank God.

Matt Stone & Trey Parker make comic gold out of whatever they touch. If I did not ruin the episode enough for you, and even if I did, I recommend you watch this episode as soon as possible. Make sure you leave your up-tighted-ness somewhere else, or you will not enjoy the beauty of this always-improving series.