My Strange Addiction & Toddlers & Tiaras
I finally had the time to watch My Strange Addiction last night. My mom promised me cookies and pie if I watched with her so I got sucked into a TLC marathon of My Strange Addiction and Toddlers& Tiaras. Lets start with Toddlers & Tiaras. $50K in 8 months for pageants which have one $1000 winner? Seriously? Dresses that cost $600 which will only be able to be worn like once before the child gets too big. Madonna cones on a two year old? This was my first time watching the show and I was pretty much horrified. I knew what was going to happen kind of, but I did not know it was going to be quite like that. It was like the kids were animals and were given sugar to perform and sugar to be quiet while moms and one crazy dad pulled and prodded and put fake eyelashes on their toddlers. Crazy. Oh, and the previews for next week. The woman who does some kind of bird call at her kid. Wow. Oh, wait, wait. The line of the night. When Ava's dad said people are just sitting around eating potato chips while messaging about her kid. Umm, I don't think he has missed too many potato chip bags himself.
As for My Strange Addiction, I feel so bad for the woman who eats household cleanser. Not only because she was abused and molested as a child, but because she had to remember to keep saying household cleanser instead of Comet or whatever the heck it was that she was eating 10 times a day. Hard to watch. Not as hard as watching the woman in the ads for next week eating her hair, but still hard. The tanning girl? Her mom looked younger and was 20 years older. I also have decided they must film these things in one day, maybe two because the cleanser eating woman was wearing the same clothes for her talk with her daughter and visit to the therapist and dentist too? For sure the therapist. The woman with the cats? She is allergic to them an she has to work 3 jobs to take care of them?? What happens if she can't work? How bad do you think her place smells? I see a future Hoarders show. It is because of that woman they are having the animal hoarder show.
I watched my Strange Addiction a couple of weeks ago when it was about the girl who ate toilet paper and the one who needed to sleep with her hairdryer on and beside her. Interesting addictions, but a boring show. I think I'm used to Intervention, which is presented much better. Strange addiction seems to be trying to capitalize on the popularity of Intervention, but it's not done as well.
ReplyDeleteAs for Toddlers and Tiaras, I can't watch that shit. I will want to slap every mother who puts fake eyelashes on a child and brings her up to believe that vanity and superficial crap will get her far in life. Just NO.
I just cant with toddlers and tiaras (though the name always makes me equally grimace and laugh at the same time)
ReplyDeleteAs for My Strange Addiction-maybe Enty and I were watching at the same time and had the same horrifyed thoughts because this is exactly what I wrote late last night on facebook:
ReplyDelete"jesus TLC- way to scare the crap out of me. I plan on avoiding the following people, those who are addicted to: chalk, hair eating, household cleaner/ajax, tanning, cat collecting (despite being allergic to cats), and finally a ventriliquist who can't leave home without her puppets (shiver).
If you spy these people run,... dont walk. Yikes"
I can't watch toddlers & tiaras either. Watching where future coked out strippers/porn stars come from is just too depressing.
ReplyDeleteThe pupper girl scared me the most. I work in times squqare I will have to keep an eye out for her.
Enty, I am still very disappointed in you for not watching 'The Soup!' You would have seen all the glory of 'T&T' by now if you did. And don't try to tell me that you're trying to avoid E! because of the Kardassians, because we all know you have an unhealthy obsession with them. :)
ReplyDeleteI couldn't stop watching T&T when I was hungover one weekend.
ReplyDeleteAll I could keep saying was "red bull?? Red bull for your 6 year old?"
T & T just saw one full episode. Too much. Those kids are prodded and cajoled and tanned etc and no one really looks like they are having fun.
ReplyDeleteSaw 1 episode of the S.A. show, I couldn't watch the household cleanser one-barf!
"Comet, it makes your mouth turn green -- Comet, it makes you [I forget the lyrics], Comet, it makes you vomit, so get your Comet and vomit today." I wonder if that childhood rhyme was a factor in the subject's addiction.
ReplyDeleteHow does eating household cleaner not kill or poison you? There's a reason you're supposed to keep that stuff out of reach from children.
ReplyDeleteOh and Toddlers and Tiaras scares the poop out of me.
^ I thought it was Comet, it makes your teeth turn green, Comet, it tastes like vaseline.
ReplyDeleteAt least that's how we sang it at camp stick and stump.
I watched all of the above shows last night and am so happy you wrote about them. I was thinking the exact same thing about her saying "household cleanser" a million times. LOL! I just can't believe that her teeth are the only part of her body damaged by the "household cleanser."
ReplyDeleteI, too, loved the lady with the puppets. Your fiance left you because you chose the puppets over him!!! YIKES!! It reminds me of Chuck & Bob from Soap, but this is an actual person. That said, she truly is an amazing ventriloquist!
I'm disappointed in the tanning girl because they already had one of those and they looked exactly alike. The girl that eats her hair folicles is gross, but one of my best friends has done the same thing her whole life. Bald spots everywhere and used to paint her scalp with mascara to hid them.
They should feature me and my addiction to Internet blog sites! LOL!
Oh...and Ava's father is about one plum short of a fruit bowl! I mean...when is he going to wake up and realize and accept his gayness??? He sews costumes and loves Louis Vuitton bags....hello...has his wife not noticed?
ReplyDeleteThat and the fact that while the girl is certainly cute and all, she has absolutely no talent or stage presence. He is so obviously blinded by his pride in her to realize what he thinks the judge's don't. Wake up dude.
I don't think I can do the Addiction show b/c I have a bad gag reflex. The girl eating toilet paper trailer almost sent me over the edge.
ReplyDeleteI had friends that did pageants when they were older & I was always amazed at how much money they spent on their gowns. For basically not much more than a trophy. I find the parents/kids in the toddler pageants uber creepy.
On T&T,The cones on the Madonna costume were just all kinds of wrong. I couldn't believe it. How could the mother not think this costume was so inappropriate??
ReplyDelete@timebob, I totally agree with you!!!
I avoid TLC when "T&T" is on....because I just can't stop watching it. I was just saying to someone on FB this morning how the show horrifies me, but I just can't look away.
ReplyDeleteLike someone pointed out, it would be fun and cute if it seemd like the pageant kids were having fun doing it, but they don't. They're little, but they take themselves far too seriously already, and it's all mostly done because of the mom who feels she missed out on something when she was a kid. And the BEHAVIOUR of some of those kids! If I had yelled at my parents like that little bitch who lost her binky the other week, I would have gone ice cream less for a LONG time.
Our version was, "Comet, it makes your teeth turn green, Comet, it tastes like gasoline"...
ReplyDeleteI watched the T&T marathon that was on over the holidays. I had never watched it before and I could not turn it off.
ReplyDeleteThe freaking 4 year old with a pacifier??? And the way they let her behave? wow
The one where the mom let her kid drink an "energy drink" and they tried to hide it from the cameras by having her drink it in a sippy cup!!!! OMG I feel guilty when I let my kids have too much candy, but a freaking energy drink that even cracks me out?? NO WAY!!
We may see some the "toddlers" as grown ups on either Intervention OR My strange addiction in a few years....
ReplyDeletei can't with this. It is child abuse.
When does Mad Men start up again? THAT is some GD television!
I watched one pageant show where the parents would have the kids wear "flippers", fake front teeth because they are growing children and lose their teeth naturally. There was only one judge who hated that practice and the others were all ok with it. This show is some kind of wrong.
ReplyDeleteA little ashamed to admit it, but I did watch a few minutes of Toddlers and Tiaras last night. My jaw hit the floor when that idiot mother admitted she'd spent $50,000 in 8months on pageants. I kept thinking: mom, you're fool...if you had invested that money, your daughter would have her university education paid for before she was even out of elementary school. I fail to see how pageants will give you the life skills to make it in the real world, unless you're dream is to become a professional drag queen.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of queens, Ava's dad has issues....
"Chuck & Bob from Soap"...sigh.
ReplyDeleteI miss that show.
oh gosh. I watched these two last night, too. Ava's dad is so gross. Ugh! He is going to make his daughter have serious issues--hell, they all are! I agree, that these girls don't have a shot in the dark at growing up to be normal, well-adjusted adults. Effing crazy.
ReplyDeleteT&T is a disgusting parade of whore-mongering pimps. And not just the show itself, but every Pageant parent of a toddler or young girl. They are hand-feeding their kids to pedophiles.
ReplyDeleteAs for Strange Addiction...I missed the latest one but I really felt sorry for TP girl last week. Like she said, HOW will she be able to get away--and stay away--from the source of the addiction? It's not like she can avoid TP like she could if it were drugs or alcohol! (and I loved her sister...funny gal, but I think she really cares).
Anyone else try to eat a piece of TP after that episode? I did! And I truly do not know how she has enough saliva to choke it down, much less THAT much, all day long!
Oh, and that mom with the blow dryer should be jailed for potentially harming her daughter, getting her hooked on it too, like that.
ReplyDeleteThat was bullshit, IMO, and she needs intervention to stop the kid from going there. Seriously.
Ent - you have read my thoughts. It was my first time as well. I still feel dirty about it. I wondered about the $50G as well. I kept thinking, what do these people do for a living in order to afford this? *And* Louis Vuitton bags?
ReplyDeleteI found Ava's dad the least offensive part of the show. He'd make a good costume designer. I wonder if that's how he makes his living.
And that puppet woman - egads.
My cousin calls this "horrifyingly awesome" tv.
The tanning girl lives by me - I used to work in Woodhaven and know those places where she tans and its an upper middle class/middle class town. Redford is kinda downtroden, but I did feel sorry for Comet lady
ReplyDeleteI remember the song as
Comet makes your mouth turn green
Comet tastes like listerine
Comet makes you vomit..
Love this game. I remember it as ...
ReplyDeleteComet, it makes your mouth turn green.
Comet, it tastes like gasoline.
Comet, it'll make you vomit.
So get your Comet, and vomit today!
I just can't watch either of those shows. They make my skin crawl.
ReplyDeleteI don't get premium cable channels cause I am too cheap to pay for anything but basic cable--so I don't get TLC anymore. I've seen them feature T and T on ET and I don't get it. Most of these kids are at best cute...but nothing so extraordinary that you are stunned by their beauty. Why are these things even legal. I just want to slap the mothers, the judges and the promoters every time I see one of these kids prancing around like mini adults in fake eyelashes, wigs and more make up on their faces than they sell at a local drug store, while their mothers encourage it.
ReplyDeleteI missed the hairdryer episode and was wondering if someone could tell me why she says she sleeps with a running hairdryer. Strange.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agree with audieh in that the kids aren't all that great or talented. JonBenet was obviously the exception to that rule. Strikingly beautiful and extremely talented. I truly believe that little girl had the it factor. I have always wondered if a jealous rival parent killed her and set it up to look like it was the Ramsey's. I dunno.
But there's basically 50 people in a small conference room at a 2 star hotel competing for rediculous oversized trophies and the possibility of winning $1,000.00. Really? What a waste of time and effort.
Oh yes, Chuck & Bob! I remember them!! After reading all this I am thankful I don't see these shows. It does sound like they're feeding the prosti-tots to the pedophiles indeed. I know folks who dressed their 8 year old up in spaghetti straps. They take her to dance class for hours every Saturday. That is her whole source of entertainment outside watching TV and going to school. Poor kid is a prosti-tot in the making. I guess they can't wait to get her up there on the pole. Just sad.
ReplyDelete@IceAngel - she liked the heat on her hands/face and the sound of the hair dryer running. It tuned everything else out and had a calming effect.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with selenakyle, it was revealed she put one on her daughter's bed to help her sleep, too, and she's now addicted to the sound and heat. Her husband left her because it was such a necessary part of her nighttime ritual. Awful to drag her daughter into it.
T & T show is ridiculous, but I can't help watching either. I think it's funny to see the parents sitting around in those small hotel conference rooms in shorts and T-shirts, while the tuxed announcer and little girls are all decked out in their formal finest. Just bizarre!!
ReplyDeleteHere's why I have ZERO sympathy for the household cleaner mom: Because no one knew about her addiction and she chose to confess it to her teenage daughter. Don't dump that shit on your kid, dump it on a counselor. Your role is to protect and care and stress out over what your kid is doing not the other way around. The only thing her daughter should have on her mind is getting good grades and what dress she'll wear to the prom. Now she gets the huge weight on her shoulders of worrying about her mom, not being able to fix her, wondering if she's out a dance if her mom will ingest too much and die and she wasn't there to save her, hiding the cleaners, trying to keep her mom away from cleaners, etc. etc. etc. That's what your girlfriends are for, don't drop this shit on your kids. Terrible.
ReplyDelete@ChasingHeaven- While I agree with you to a point, this woman held her secret, including molestation, inside herself for over 30 yrs. I believe part of her healing was to share this with her family, and her daughter was hardly a child. I think family is about healing and I counter that there should be some reciprocity here in regards to maybe the daughter helping with that. Is it the daughters job to counsling and heal solely? Of course not. However I think cluing in her offspring with this news was a positive first step. Doing it in front of cameras was not the best thing but I think the show probably helped push the woman to admit publically what was going on and seek professional help.
ReplyDelete