Rewind: Talk Show Burnout?

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.

Let’s face it, folks – television is not what it used to be. Reality television SUCKS and the daytime talk shows are just a revolving door of SUCKAGE. We can’t watch two seconds of any daytime talk show without flipping the channel for something else . . . anything else . . . even commercials! Back in the early eighties, there were only a couple talk shows like Donahue and Sally Jesse Raphael. Then Oprah conquered the airwaves which brought a massive influx of semi-celebrities trying to duplicate her success. Then hosts like Maury Povich, Jerry Springer and Jenny Jones came on the scene and television was officially swirling the drain. We’ve often marveled at the people in the audience, especially Springer gawkers and wondered why the hell they’d want to be in the audience and watch this bilge in person. Surely, they must be paid to sit through these crapfests. Which brings us to our article published on December 22, 2006 where we speculate on the very real phenomenon of professional talk show audience member burnout. Maybe folks at The View will cover this important issue in a future show.

Professional Talk Show Audience Member Burns Out

Marla Donnelly, a professional audience member for talk shows ranging from Maury to Dr. Phil has resigned from her position citing exhaustion. She is the third professional audience member in the last three weeks to quit her position. Larry Dawson quit in early December and Kathy Corcoran quit last week.

“I just couldn’t do it anymore,” said a sullen Donnelly. “I mean that last Oprah’s Favorite Things giveaway was grueling, but then Ellen had her 12 Days of Giveaways. I mean a person can only get so excited about a cappuccino maker. I don’t even drink coffee so it was really tough screaming like a banshee when I saw it. Then we were asked to have an orgasm over towels from Ye Olde Hardware Shoppe. Towels for Pete’s sake! I just couldn’t be a screaming Mimi anymore. I had to get out of there.”

Dawson agrees with Donnelly. “I had to take time off because I just couldn’t fake enthusiasm when inside I felt like vomiting. I was doing the Maury show last month and I’m telling you, after the tenth failed paternity test, you just stop caring. Come on! The woman’s a slut if she can’t even pick out the father out of ten guys. These women are worse than Paris and Britney combined. And don’t even get me started on Springer. If I never see another love tryst between a redneck, his three hundred pound wife and his transvestite lover, it will be too soon.”

Corcoran said, “What did me in was the Rachael Ray Show. That rotating platform made me nauseous. Plus we had to applaud every time she added a pinch of cayenne pepper or dash of oregano. I’m sorry, oregano just isn’t that exciting. Not only that, Rachael was just too damn perky. No one’s that perky. Not even Katie Couric was that perky. At the end of one of her shows, I was ready to kill and I sing in my church choir.”

“It’s not surprising,” said audience member manager, Fay Goodman. “It’s not easy these days being an audience talk show member. Back in the old days, there was just Donahue. Then Oprah came on, then Springer, then Jenny Jones. Then everybody and their brother were getting talk shows. Remember Tempestt Bledsoe’s show? Or Charles Perez’s show? Thankfully, most of us have forgotten those timewasters. Now there are so many different shows on so many different networks. I know several of these women rush from Emeril to Martha and then over to Montel. It can really be quite grueling.”

Donnelly however didn’t rule out a return in the future. “I know I’m tired of the routine now but you never really get it out of your system. I know that sometime in the future, I’ll be watching Oprah and I’ll instinctively jump off the couch and start screaming like a howler monkey and send my seventeen cats up the draperies. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Rewind: Bush’s Pinocchio AG

The Trump impeachment inquiry grinds onward but last week, the 2nd worst president of our lifetime, George W. Bush, a.k.a. Dubya, reappeared in the national arena when a football broadcast showed talk show host Ellen DeGeneres palling around with ol’ Dub Dub, who supported at one time a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, at a Dallas Cowboy’s game in luxury seats. This has sparked much controversy, some celebrities being supportive of Ellen’s new buddy and others, like Mark Ruffalo, not so supportive. Given how much we’ve griped about Dubya since 2003, we tend to agree with Ruffalo’s statements. In fact. we say Bravo!

We’ve noted before about the recent normalization of Dubya’s clusterf*cked administration now that Trump is in office. Make no mistake, Bush was awful! His administration tried to undermine rule the law just like Trump is doing now because. . . you know . . . that’s what Republicans do. Dubya lied repeatedly to the public and his Attorney General Alberto Gonzales did for Bush what Bill Barr is doing for the orange haired, megalomaniac man child in the White House. Remember, Gonzales tried to fire federal prosecutors back in 2007 for political purposes. He also had a litany of other controversies, which eventually led to his resignation. That’s just part of the Republican’s eternal blue print to destroy government regulations (or laws!) and privatize everything for the good of the plutocrats of corporate America.

We recommend that everybody review the history of these conservative Republican con artists from the Bush era. They should be held accountable but instead people choose to forget. We like Ellen. But it’s too bad that she is so willing to look past Dubya’s war crimes, because he should be held accountable for them. But, in true conservative fashion, Bush has not apologized and will never apologize for his transgressions, because in his mind, conservatives never make mistakes and to admit a wrongdoing is a sign of weakness. Sound like anybody currently occupying the White House?

Well, in America, we guess when you’re a rich celebrity, money trumps everything else. Who cares if you tortured people and started a war on false pretenses that screwed up the entire Middle East. Let’s enjoy a football game together in luxury seats because we’re famous and wealthy. What Ellen should have done was to offer up her seat to one of the many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who lost limbs or who are suffering from PTSD. Better yet, why don’t Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and all those other millionaires and plutocrats who profited from those wars pay all the medical costs for those veterans who are now suffering. Nope; like everything else, we the people end up paying for everything while the wealthy skate away with their money without a care in the world and without accountability.

Here’s photo-toon featuring Dubya and Fredo ‘Pinocchio’ Gonzales from our June 26, 2007 issue.

President Bush continues to support his embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, despite calls for his resignation from both Democrats and Republicans, following his dubious testimony during the Senate's investigation into the possible politically motivated dismissals of eight federal prosecutors last year.
President Bush continues to support his embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, despite calls for his resignation from both Democrats and Republicans, following his dubious testimony during the Senate’s investigation into the possible politically motivated dismissals of eight federal prosecutors last year.