For the chapter in Robin's book "Why Collagen is Your, My & Cher's Favorite Friend":
Jell-O is COLLAGEN!

stinkylulu, working in a soylent green mention in the Dr. Phil thread is brilliant...KettlePorn, your titles are excellent...perhaps one of the chapters could be entitled 'Phil Phirst?'

For those interested in the show where the 2 kids are missing and the dad's in jail and won't say where they are, there was an update in the Kansas City Star today. The Star article is more detailed (and I think you have to register to read it), but there's a smaller article here

Could just be him messing with everybody again, but who knows.

Now the missing kids show is one that really raised my hackles. The whole hour was like water torture, watching the smug, blowsy women pluck wings off of the mom who was contorted in agony. This program was nearly as bad as the one where PT McGraw yelled,"Stop! Don't show the film we shot! It is too horrible! Look away everyone!" Reminds me of my old high school principal who stood in front of an assembly and French kissed a monkey puppet to discourage intimate contact in the halls. Worked. No one dated chimps.

So will Kitty's book have startling revelations as all celebrity and celebrity WANNA BE books usually do. You know, everything was gravy in my youth until Uncle Chester fell dead onto my birthday cake, or my parents split up for a week after a fight about mousetraps, or the older boy I liked showed me his pinky in the hedge. God, I hope not. Save the tragedy for the day a puffy psych student with a shimmery head hauled into the driveway and asked if she were pure enough to be McGraw. Gives US nightmares.

Please let the McGraws face some misfortune to teach them about absolute power. Not, you know, House of Monaco misfortune, but more like David Lee Roth misfortune.

Also, his audiences are getting more vocal, more fawning, more in lockstep with our Lil Phil. KP is skeered.

Where are the .1 percent of the US that doesn't have Dr. Phil? I think that's where I want to live.

Indeed! I live in the boonies. My nearest neighbor is a mile away, nothing around us but cows. And I get Dr. Phil.

maybe the Mormons. The really weird ultra fanatical ones.

Like the ones that Jay visited?

Speaking of those Jay visited, I was reading in the paper that the main guy Warren Jeffs is in some trouble for arranging a marriage between a teen and a married guy. Of all the things the guy is thought to have done they go for this? Alrighty then.

Thanks for the update, Esser. I feel so bad for that mother. Of course it seems he killed them and now is just torturing her more. Hope there's a special place in hell for that man. Very sad.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we've got a tentative title for Kitty's book: "The Heart of the Home." Could it be more soppier? Yuck! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and do some gagging.

Oh, God. Wasn't that what the Poltergeist psychic called Carol Ann's closet?

Kettleporn, you owe me a new keyboard. "This home has many hearts." Bwah!

Right behind you, mutya!
I know exactly where Kitty is going with this - we all know the heart of the home is Mother (insert hearts and flowers) and Father is the leader of the home and women must submit to their husbands and oh Yuck! is right.

Dr$hill's being credited with helping to resolve the Transman Custody Case.

I betcha Kitty doesn't like all this talk about "gender identity" (or "gender" even). 'Spect it's all about "sex roles" in Kitty's Closet...if -- ahem -- you forget about the "faux 'naner pie."

I love how Phil remains steadfastly married to that age old truism,"The better looking you are, the more important I consider your problems."

NM! I suck...

Careful, katymo - one of $hill's producers might contact you about appearing on a "Self Esteem" episode!

Hearts and flowers, that's exactly what I thought of when I read the title! I think you're right about the whole father is leader, mother must submit bullcrap. Me is kinda scared now, because you know that there will be Kitty adoring $hill loving women who'll take her advice and turn into little robots... Did anybody check if Kitty's real name happens to be Claire Wellington?

Anyway, are there any psychologists here who can explain to me why I like to torture myself by watching:
1. Oprah talk about poop .... errr, no comment
2. $hill talk about Postpartum Depression ... IMHO, anyone and/or anything without a vagina should shut the *f* up about PPD, PMS and other women things especially if their name is $hill or Tom Cruise. Or women like Kitty... like a great columnist (whose column I can't find back) once wrote: I don't wanna embrace menopause, I wanna embrace chocolate. Well... WordyMcWord to that!
3. BBJ's hairy white legs in shorts and sneakers with white socks... Me thinks that's almost as yucky as Kitty's tentative booktitle.

Speaking of the BBJ show, the ratings are going up, this week close to a million people watched, andbody from a far far away country (well for me) wanna take me in for a while, since the people here have officially gone crazy...

Actually, judging by Kitty's age and mental bandwith, I'd say her personal femme ideal was Marabel Morgan, author of the 1970's tome "The Total Woman" and early proponent of yielding all of one's desires, talents and intellect to The One Who Hath Sack and doing it in Babydoll nighties and go-go boots, clutching a pitcher of martinis. I'll bet that book stuck in Kitty's mind since her mind is a pretty nondescript and empty place. And this was the only book she ever read that was not sold in a Hallmark store.

As far as Phil being an expert on all things gynecological, well I find it dear. Especially since he prefaces his rather grisly remarks with,"I'm no expert..." and then goes on to explain how Kitty trooped through all manner of biological hell without so much as a whimper loud enough to interrupt the Spurs games. Then he sort of makes his "Aw,shucks!" face and tells us all that men are knuckle-scraping beasts who understand nothing of women's trouble in the life-bearing department but needless to say it isn't advanced calculus, so why bother?

I think his message spreading to the far corners of progressive, enlightened Europe is nothing to fear. After the sheen rubs off, there will remain the obvious sight of an over-fed, aggrandizing American male who knows much about nothing, telling the same moral tales that end with biscuit and kitten metaphors and trying to hawk thigh cream and diet licorice (the answers--along with complete silence on the wife's part--to a long-lasting union). Right now, think of it as a barge fire. Riveting, but ultimately, down it'll go.

My vote would go for Phyliss Schlafly, who was the leader of some women's moral Right-Wing organization in the 70's--still is a right wing icon of womanhood, I think. She was the one that said you should meet your legally-wedded husband at the door wrapped in Saran Wrap. Which is hard to do without looking like the 8" Italian Meat Combo at WaWa.

Yes, but dear Phyllis used all of those big words, and her hair looked a fright. Besides which, she had a law degree, didn't she? As Kitty would giggle,"Girls don't go to law school."

Hee, Tunia, do not give them any ideas my friend! What I was gonna post is a link to my city newspaper that talks about how a lot of Elgin, TX citizens are left kinda bitter that they were just left in the cold after all the hype. The link wouldn't work and I gave up. Did anyone not expect that from $hill?

katymo - kisses and apologies! Never would I throw a fellow TWoPer to the $hills intentionally - just givin' yer a warnin', in the vernacular of Big Tex.

Gee, Monday was a relief. $hill was pre-empted here on the right coast by Wacko Jacko's verdict. It was much more fascinating than $hill could possibly hope for. Who knew?

Edited.

KettlePorn

That's all fine and dandy, KettlePorn, for the people in Europe, but what about the couple hundred people in the USA that find this guy, his family, his philosophy, his MOVEMENT, terrifying?? (Hilarious paragraph, BTW!) It seems that many of us Americans are more than happy to blindly take the word, and adopt the philosophy, of the powerful people on our tellies. (Hey, where are all those WMD??) When asked directly, under the bright lights of Hollywood, about women's roles in society, $hill says the right things, but when he's left to his own devices and blathers on endlessly, he seems to start talking about 'gender roles' that, if it weren't for the editors being on his side, would quickly morph into 'the womans place is in the home', or even 'keep em barefoot and pregnant'.

What really scares me is that the we have anointed this guy as an American Cultural Icon. When the rest of the world looks to us to see what makes us tick, they look at our ACI's. This year, they are looking at our marble statues of Dubya, $hill, and Oprah. How embarrassing! But then again, I guess I'm a little left of the right edge of the planet.

You must remember that the huge presence of one Morton Downey Jr in the 1980's led some to believe that the universe as we knew it was about to flip inside out, flinging decorum, intellectual inquiry and lawn tennis into the vast garble of space. Morton--god rest his beleagured soul--was not the anti-Christ, nor the anti-Diane Sawyer. He was just the flavor of the month.

It is all cyclical, you know. Phil Donahue once beseeched women to listen to Betty Friedan and put down the Miltown and the milk money and run for their freakin lives. Today it is the corpulent, clueless Phil who wants to believe that--given enough money and plastic surgery--any woman would be content to forget everything she ever strove to be and make a life out of carpet stains and pilates. Lucy Ricardo was thrilled with a fucking tea hat, so why not us?

When the pendulum swings back, it will hit Phil and Bill O Reilly and the dessicated carcass of Phyliss Schafly with such a thump they'll start writing checks to PBS without understanding why. Like the decade that followed the 1950's, all hell will break lose and a hard rain is gonna fall. Please make sure, in ten years or so, to look for The E True Hollywood Story that will trace Phil's rise from young pig farmer to Hollywood powerhouse to scandal ridden has been to Todd Bridges's valet. Watch closely as they explain the part where Kitty leaves Phil for a dogwalker named Mike, or a matured Ricky Schroeder. I think that although his roar is annoying, it behooves us to enjoy the show. As far as Phil Jr taking over his dad's reign...nah. I think Jay will go ass over harnass attempting to climb the World's Bustiest Supermodel and put us all out of our misery.

What's a "tinker's dam"? Is that a Texas saying? 90% of the time, I think Phil just invents words. Anyone up for compiling a Dr. Phil Dictionary?

A 'tinker' was a metalsmith, of sorts, back in the days of yore. A "tinker's dam" was a small bit of metal used to block a hole in a metal cup or mug. The tinker would heat up a spare ('spare', implying that it would be thrown out unless it were being used right at the moment) piece of metal, melting it, and then blocking up a tiny hole with it. Thus, "not worth a tinker's dam" implies, as we have used it, that something is worth about nothing. I believe the phrase originated in Europe hundreds of years ago.

This is about the first time I've ever gotten to pass on this definition. How ironic ---- some could say that this little tidbit of triviata is, itself, not worth a tinker's dam!!!

Thanks, mootermutt! I've never heard that before. Does that make Phil smarter than I am? (shudder)

I've heard tinker's dam a lot living in central TX, plus I hear the Texas Justice judge say it sometimes. Personally I'd never say it though. I'm seriously impressed with your explanation!

The eating disorder episode disturbed me again the second time around, especially the diet pills girl. The twitches and tremors would be enough to freak me the hell out. Yipes.

It WAS Maribel Morgan who wrote the book that wanted us to greet Hubby at the door in nothing but Saran Wrap!

Yes, I remember Total Woman quite well and how I tried to call in to the, then Dayton based, Phil Donahue show to gripe about it when she was on. I saw the Real Phil at a Dayton function at around that time and he said "hi" to me. It's my heart felt delusion that if I had been more responsive to that "hi" he would have married me and not Marlo and we would have lived happily ever after.

KettlePorn -- great post. I actually laid awake worrying about the state of the nation last night. Thanks for reminding me that it's all in the cycle of life or something. I shall happily return to not giving a tinker's dam.

Maybe Phil missed his calling. Instead of drilling addicted housewives about their crack habit and staging interventions with teenagers and fat towns in Texas, he could have been one of those history re-enactors who visits the public library. You know, buckskin, coonskin, head like a foreskin, telling Johnny Appleseed tales and showing how to make hardtack and pemmican in the buckboard.

Yes, I know that it doesn't have anything to do with the profession for which he trained. What? Well, I know that he would then be more entertainer than instructor. Huh? Oh, well, I'm sure that re-enactors barely make enough to put a down payment on a Jaguar brochure let alone...Oops. Never mind.

Ha! Yeah, it is calming to be reminded that this too shall pass. In fact $hil's light is burning out fairly quickly in the great scheme of things. Oprah had a longer run, but she's on the downslide too. There are rumblings across this country of dissatisfied people fed up with all of this conservative crap. The tide is turning and I, for one, couldn't be more pleased.

Take it from a non-american: don't be embarrassed, really, don't. Your ACI's, they'll come and go, they're (temporarily) a small part of a bigger picture that's errr... not really good anyway. So, really, don't be embarrassed about the ACI's. Just don't. (BTW, every country has got their weird CI's. I'm just glad I life in a small, insignificant country, so the rest of the world does't know the dutch CI's Now THAT would be embarrassing)


In the netherlands we have subtitles, but I don't read them. Usually, I'm fine, but while watching $hill I just don't understand half of what the guy says. I think it's because I was thought British English and not uhm... Texas English. So a $hill dictionary would be a really good idea. Can "that cat won't lick the goat" (???) be added? I actually read the subtitles, but it was transalated literally, so even the pro's don't know what that means. I have to say that watching $hill thought me a lot when it comes to sayings and phrases. Although British english, a british/dutch accent and texas sayings don't really seem to go together that well. But, who knows, one day it may be usefull. Just like when I actually used my hungarian name calling knowlegde, you never know, you never know...

Another Phil-phrase I've never got was "Lick log". There was a guest who was either an alcoholic or a drug addict, can't remember which, & she told Phil she wanted to "get off the lick log." Any takers?

Please, please, please let my cable have E! by that point. 'Cause this? Would be awesome.

Delurking to let you all know that you are totally hysterical funny.

From The Free Dictionary:

Noun 1. tinker's dam - something of little value; "his promise is not worth a damn"; "not worth one red cent"; "not worth shucks"
damn, red cent, shucks, tinker's damn, darn, hoot, shit
worthlessness - having no qualities that would render it valuable or useful; "the drill sergeant's intent was to convince all the recruits of their worthlessness"


I couldn't find anything specific for "lick log," but I've inferred that it is similar to a salt lick, therefore quite addictive to animals - like alcohol is for humans? Just a guess...

mutya:

Thank you, mutya, for not lumping $hill's English along with the rest of the USA's English! I've lived in 3 of the 4 corners of the USA (never in the Southeast), so I've been exposed to a bunch of different regional 'cultures' and I still run into all kinds of $hillisms that I don't get. I figure he's speaking either:

a) Texas English, as you say mutya, or:

b) Dr. Phil English. Sometimes some of his whitticisms are so 'out there' that I figure he's just making them up as he goes. I figure he pulls a few 'country bumkinisms' together ('corn pone', for example, or anything containing any form of 'dog'/'mutt') and ties them all up with a few random verbs.

Let it be known around the world though: Please, Please!!! Don't think that Dr. Phil-speak represents how the rest of the USA speaks!!!

(BTW, every country has got their weird CI's. I'm just glad I live in a small, insignificant country, so the rest of the world does't know the dutch CI's Now THAT would be embarrassing)

I know it's off topic, TwoP, so please don't ding me, but I just had to say, mutya, that my best friend is Dutch. I met him in 5th Grade (over 30 years ago) when he moved to the USA, and he couldn't speak a word of English (British, Texas, or otherwise). The first year or two were funny for both of us, because he didn't understand 'Amercanisms' in speech, and he often used 'Dutchisms', literally translated, believing that they were common to both cultures. We'e grown up and live 3,000 miles apart (two opposite corners of the USA), but we still talk on the phone after all these years. Anyway, Dutch people and culture ROCK!

Ah, the lick log. I believe we discussed it when the episode aired originally.

From the Texas Monthly's "Encyclopedia Texicana":

Q: What is the meaning of the expression "get right down to the lick log"?

A: The term, kept alive by such salty Texas writers as Molly Ivins, refers to a salt lick provided for cattle. Because salt is an essential requirement for animals (and tortilla chips, but I digress), to "get right down to the lick log" means to deal with the most important details of a matter. Okay, but what exactly is a lick log? Western novelist Elmer Kelton, of San Angelo, theorizes that the expression harks back to days when cowboys would hollow out dead trees to serve as troughs and fill them with plain ol' granulated salt.

My husband lived in Texas for about three years. He says "y'all" and "fixin'" (as in "I'm fixin' to get some lunch") sometimes, but he does not recognize most of Phil's sayings. I've never heard my husband refer to a tinker's dam or a lick log, but then again, he's not a genu-ine Texan.

Amen! And let it be known that Dr. Phil's twisted value system does not represent all of America!
And from katymo:

I've taken some diet pills - not 24 in one day, but the regular dosage, and the side effects can be really scary. Some, like Trimspa, don't do much except give a little caffeine buzz. Others, like Lipovarin, cause some really scary things. I have heart palpitations and headaches that began around the time I took those damn things. Oh, and I didn't lose any weight.

*most of this post is completely off topic, please don't shoot me*

No problem, I've met quite a few Americans through a job I had, and I had no problem understanding them. Now I'm not sure if I met people from Texas, but if I did, I understood them, so I guess that $hill English would be the right term to use.

1. I'll spread the word throughout europe.
2. Like I said, I've met some Americans, really nice folks (see! a word $hill thaught me) they did not fit the stereotype (loud, obnoxious, in-your-face, yet very conservative) at all. *unlike cough $hill cough* Just to be sure, I'll spread the word on that one too.
Very common for Dutch people to do that, that common it's mentioned in a (hilarious) book about Dutch culture, the undutchables:

Ahhhh, mootermutt987,me loves you now! Americans rock too! (exept for the ones that get on my telly and annoy me to no end.) Anyway, could you tell your friend that: "hij de groeten krijgt uit Nederland" ? :P

*goes back to wondering why she seems to be incapable to make short post*

RE: re run of one hour disguised infomercial for Family First book.

Wow, Kitty hasn't changed much in 20-some years. Boy, she looks good and I really don't think it's all plastics. She would look more "worked over" and she looks fairly natural. Although we know she's really a top=of-the-line android.

Anywho, don't know if anyone noticed this the first time that show aired (if not, I should get this thread's Citizen of the Week award) but in old Halloween pictures with BBJ and Jordy, Kitty was actually DRESSED AS A KITTY!!!!!!!!! Prophetic or what?????

Boy, Shill became a "Foreskin Head" (tm Kettle Porn) early on, didn't he? Maybe his hair rubbed off by all that falling off a turnip truck.

As Phil "Fokken" Mc Graw would say,"If you want to know how deep the manure is, ask the guy wearin' boots." Phil wears hip-waders. Gucci, custom fitted hip-waders, but waders nonetheless. He's so full of fertilizer it's a wonder he isn't growing hair on top of his head.

And that, my European friends, is why he keeps revving up the antiquated folkisms as current as nickel matinees. He's dropping turds and calling them corndogs, hoping to bury his real message in the slang. Let me translate what his core message really is, since I've cracked the code. If you take the first,third and fifth letters from the words possum, porch, granny, kitten, biscuit, ditch, ole boy and mywiferobin, translate them into latin and then use mirrors--upside down-- his message reads: Power. Money. Worship me. Paul is dead. I own you. Men rule and women drool. Boy that Brad Pitt sure is sexy. I'm outta my depth--let me fire an underling.Diet shakes? Squee!

So enjoy him while you can. The zeppelin thing didn't work out, but we're glad we could send this great puff of gas over for your pleasure. He's a bit larger, but the concept's there.

NoFatChicks and loudfan, thank you very much for clearing up the lick log controversy!

I always do enjoy hearing about Kitty's undying love for the Christmas nutcrackers- but I have to ask, why no faux-nanner pie in yesterday's ep??

Am I the only one here who is, er, "lucky" enough to get the LIFE magazine supplement in my Friday newspaper?

First thing in the morning, I was greeted by an enormous full-color portrait of Shill, BBJ and Jordan with the headline "Why I Love Being A Dad."

The show doesn't air in my town until 3 PM. I'm not used to dealing with Baldy before I've even eaten breakfast.

I get it too, although I was forewarned in my Thursday newspaper of what I would find. Thank God I had time to mentally prepare myself.

wow- what is with that mullet on the bad tempered woman??? It is SOME mullet.

Phil just used the phrase "tinker's dam" again.

I got it too. The McGraws may not be the most boring family in America, but they're definitely in the top two! I especially loved the quote where $hil said (paraphrasing) that their boys weren't too academically inclined, had to be tied to a chair to read a book, but all is well because now Jay's written 3 books. Ghost-written is more like it.

I got it also. I think Jordan is a really cute kid, though. He seems like the Marilyn Munster of that family.