It's one of those rare things Billy Bush and I agree on. This Octomom stuff? Like he said, "It's gross."
Then again, Billy and his Access Hollywood pals had a field day with the whole Jon & Kate thing which I think might be as gross which makes Billy's view what, correct yet for him hypocritical? Then that places me in league with the gang at Newsbusters.org and ... ouch! ... that hurts.
Who would think how we feel about things that really should be done of our damn business would be so complicated. And create such strange bedfellows.
With Fox's announcement that they're testing the Octomom TV show waters with this two hour special that airs August 19 at 8, I can't help but think they're floating this special, culled from the RadarOnline.com footage, as a trial balloon and looking past it to possibly grabbing that UK-based Octomom series that's currently shooting in her neighborhood in La Habra, CA here in Orange County.
(No, I'm not gonna drive to La Habra to do my shopping hoping to run into her and the camera crew. Don't even ask. I wouldn't put it past Heidi and Spencer, though, they'd probably show up with Heidi's Playboy cover pasted to their backs. And fronts. And what God-fearing man promotes sexy pics of his wife to strangers, anyway?)
Back to other acts of TV exploitation ... there's a great article at the Telegraph UK from Saturday about how we Yanks have turned out backs on our poor Octomom. Including:
Life changed forever for the divorced 33-year-old Californian when she gave
birth to the world's longest-surviving octuplets in a Los Angeles hospital
in January. She already had six other children, aged two to seven, bringing
her total brood to 14.
But life has also changed the unsuspecting residents of Madonna Lane in La
Habra, the city 35 miles from Los Angeles where Miss Suleman chose in March
to make her home.
On the once-sleepy cul-de-sac, SUVs with blacked-out windows hiding their
cargo of paparazzi photographers are now a regular presence. Her team of
nannies in lurid orange uniforms come and go at all hours, while screaming
children provide a constant cacophony.
If the UK producer of the reality show paid the Telegraph to write such a story to warm a UK audience to the Octomom phenomenon they couldn't have gotten a better story.
To be truthful, however, it's not really turning our backs if we weren't ever facing toward her, is it? I mean, we didn't know her before she decided without a job or a home or husband to take the frozen semen of an ex and have a fertility doctor of questionable repute stuff her full of fertilized embryos.
(I'm trying to be as literal as possible about it because the last time I wrote about Nadya I got into a bit of an argument with a loyal reader about my tone.)
It would make sense from a business standpoint. Certainly the UK producer of the series, Eyeworks, wants a full commitment. This is a convenient starter, like trying the eggplant appetizer to see if you like it before you order it parmigiana.
Still, it's gross.
TV.com's Stefanie Lee wrote a piece last month about the new unscripted trifecta: fat people, rich people and a whole lotta kids.
She lays it all out at this link.
