Usually, when you watch a show with any semblance of regularity, there are conventional reasons behind it. Good writing, a certain main cast member, things like that. Even bad shows have a train-wreck factor. But sometimes you're going to have this reason to watch that the production crew never, ever intended.

For me, this would be Univision's Sabado Gigante, the network's seemingly flagship show. You see, I don't speak Spanish, so anything on my cable operator's obligatory Spanish Channel's going to be completely and utterly incomprehensible to me. This actually draws me in. I'll be watching the host, whose name I have determined to be Don Francisco (if I'm wrong, someone correct me), talk for a while, and then all of a sudden some shirtless guy is dancing around (this happened less than half an hour ago). The only things I can determine that they regularly do are:

*Singing contests.
*Give away cars.
*Hand $1,000 to random members of the audience for seemingly no reason.
*On occasion, they'll dress half the audience in shirts bearing a last name, and the other half in shirts bearing a second last name. Best I can guess is that they all have that last name.
*Random sound effects- think the SNL 'Pranksters' skits.

As I was writing this, the President came up. 30 seconds later, they had a rapping musical guest. I don't know why, and I wind up watching for large blocks in a futile attempt to get a handle on the situation, which I know will never happen, but I do it anyway.

Discuss.

I love Passions. Mainly it's because I can miss a whole month(and usually do) and haven't missed much of anything at all. How can you not love that?

I love anything on Univision and Telemundo. I took 4 years of spanish but have retained next to nothing of it but still, there's something about it that draws me in. It doesn't help that they just don't believe in putting ugly people on TV. They have the cutest people. I'm in love with the Family Feud(dont know the real name but that's what it is) host. He's just sooo sexy.

I am drawn to that Extreme competition show on Spike TV. I have no idea what the full name is but it's Japanese. The funniest thing about it is that they dub in random remarks by contestants such as " my thong is too tight". You know they're not really saying that. I just sit there giggling like a 12 year old when the contestants fall into the water.

I love the two Japanese guys discussing the contestants. It looks like they use the same clip with different remarks every show. I think one's name is Vic Romano.

MXC: Most Extreme Elimination! That show cracks me up...it's so completely random and bizzare.

It's one of those shows that I never sit down to watch deliberately, but whenever I am channel-surfing I will always stop and watch a little bit, because it just sucks me in. Also, Spike plays it 24/7, so between that and the James Bond marathons that they run, I watch and inordinate amount of SpikeTV, and channel that I should really dislike on principle.

I love to watch the local news beacuse the weatherlady sends me telepathic messages to my brain about the aliens that live inside of my shoes.

I know! I haven't watched Passions since March when we were on spring break, but I just saw Friday's episode and it's like I hadn't missed not one episode.

Also, even though I don't know how to cook, I don't have a need to learn how to cook, and I don't want to learn how to cook, I usually tune in to watch Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals. She's just so manic and chipper and out of control and it's like she's got me in this headlock where, if I miss an episode, she will invade my thoughts until I finally tune in to watch the next one.

My love for infomercials trying to sell gadgets knows no bounds, and I don't know why. I would never consider buying any of them; they clutter your home, and you can do the same thing with traditional tools/utensils. Yet, spending 30 minutes hearing why I should buy the Magic Bullet to be able to make homemade salsa in 3 seconds appeals to me. After all, everything is better with (ultra-quickly made) salsa.

Infomercials really have a way to hypnotize my brain. It must be the combination of bad acting, cheesy sets, and increeeeedible offers that have a pull on me.

Ron Popeil is definitely the king though. Infomericals for his pasta maker, food dehydrator, and rotisserie filled many a Sunday morning growing up.

I don't know if this fits the topic, but I only watch Walker, Texas Ranger for the spinning heel kick. There is usually one. Per episode. Later eps dropped it all together. So I won't watch them.

I'm addicted to CBS soaps because they're funny. I know they're not supposed to be, but they make me laugh. I mean, how can you take "Bold and the Beautiful" seriously? I saw Ridge fall into a furnace and burn to death, missed a few months, turned it back on, and he was alive and unscarred. It was awesome.

I will watch any Baywatch episode involving Inky, the giant squid. I crack up at his antics. They're just so over-the-top.

Morning Angel said:

Don't forget the spray-on hair. The spray-on hair was the best.

I used to watch Airwolf (Jan Michael Vincent) with the volume off just to count how many people would die each episode. You just knew if you were a guest on that show it was a one shot deal and you wouldn't make a return appearance because you were going to be in a plane or helicopter that flew into a cliffside.

I also thought it would be a great show to do bad or totally fake subtitles/translations to since they were always so dang serious.

The old episodes of Little House On The Prairie are fun, because you can count on any guest star never appearing again, even though it's Laura's "best friend," and also, you can play a drinking game where you take a drink whenever one of the characters does a Turn and Run Away. Extra drinks if the same character does more than one in one episode.

I'm surprised that "Sabado Gigante" hasn't shown up on Spike TV by now. Between the nonsensical contests and the enormous fake breasts, you'd think it would be a perfect fit.

Macy's alive! Macy's dead! Macy's alive! Macy's dead! Taylor's Alive! Taylor's dead! Taylor's alive! Taylor's dead! Taylor's alive!

It's too bad Ridge survived that furnace incident. He's so frickin' annoying. I used to watch B&B all the time, mostly because it was the only soap that seemed slightly more grounded in reality than the others (I know, I'm very stupid). I used to be a big fan of the Bridget/CJ relationship, but TPTB killed their story so fast. That always has pissed me off.

Oh, me too! My Spanish is rudimentary at best, so Sabado Gigante is awesome! They'll have some boy band from Uruguay, followed by a serious segment where Don Francisco interviews a couple of senators from the Mexican senate, and top it all off with some kind of talent competition where an enormous guy in a bear suit comes on stage to chase off the losers. And they have the commercials embedded in the show, like on 50s American TV, so the announcers will be all "Quaker Oats! Con mas frutas!" as a dancing instant oatmeal package skitters across the stage.

I watch the local station's news broadcast just so I can make fun of them. Not only do they get a lot of the stories wrong, but the reporters also do not have a firm grasp of the english language. Comedy gold!

You probably watch them for the same reason I do, just to pick apart their crappy logic. Like for "Restore 4". You notice how they always say that you can let the stuff sit, and it will work on its own? But during the commercial, they never have time to let it sit (even though the commercial isn't live), so they "help it out" with a steel scouring pad, and everything comes out shiny and new again?

I am going to have to find this program and watch it now.

Hunter brings on some excellent 80s cheese, but I'm also convinced that it was written into Fred Dryer's contract that he had to be shirtless at least once in every single episode. I'm catching all of the episodes on TVLand that I can to prove this theory, and I haven't seen one without Shirtless Fred Dryer yet.

Oh, Sabado Gigante ROCKS! A friend of mine and I acquired this addiction in high school Spanish and carried it with us through college. It's like a like combination of The Price is Right, Oprah, Meet The Press, Let's Make a Deal, and The Today Show, all rolled into one glorious show. I'm not sure if I'd love it nearly as much if it were in English. Somehow, not being able to really figure out what's going on makes it so much more enjoyable.

For the hatred, as an energy. I don't know why I watch Rachael Ray's non-cooking shows except for that. It's like the taste of bittermelon. You want the astringency.

I love Most Extreme Elimination Challenge!
I'm not a heavy watcher, but I do watch it if there's nothing else on at all.
Some of the comments the hosts make are just silly and juvinile.

When I lived in Nova Scotia, I made a point of watching the 5 o'clock ATV news on Fridays. The news out there is. So. Bad. There would always be at least one hunting accident related story. There would always be one story about children bringing joy to a hospital. The newscasters were exceptionally unattractive.

But the two BEST things only happened on Fridays. The first was how, for ten minutes, pictures of old couples celebrating their anniversaries would scroll by with things like "Congrats Harold and Midge for 47 years!". Then they'd have an award for "Maritimer of the Week" where someone would get a certificate for being nice, or being old, or whatever.

I like watching Slings and Arrows on Showcase, because there's a character that is ostensibly based on my father.

I also loooooooove watching the bad, non-subtitled Asian action movies that OMNI always shows at bizzare hours on the weekend.

Do you mean the Bollywood movies or more kung-fu-like movies? On weekends, every time I flip by OMNI 2, a Bollywood movie seems to be on.

Talking about OMNI 2, Yan the Wok cook? His show is such a trainwreck. His English makes it difficult to follow what he does. The whole show boggles the mind. The fun with that show resides mocking the novelty apron he is wearing. On many occasions, it contains glaring typos, but not in pun-like ways.

One of my favourite shows as a teen was Super Dave Osbourne, which aired on YTV at the time. I would watch only to know what stunt would get Dave injured at the end of the show.

Both, but mostly the action movies. I can't even count the number of times I've rolled home at 3AM on a Saturday, drunk and/or stoned, and became enthralled by some Hong Kong mobster extravaganza.

I also like to watch Forever Knight reruns on Space, because it is oddly satisfying to watch your ex-boyfriend's father play a vampire.

AS a flight attendant, I have the honour of watching bad TV across the country. Yes, in the maritimes, it's interesting (although not as bad as the RDTV News Crew. For Red Deer. Yes you read right), but once on Prairie TV (manitoba) There was a show about these people who carried around chickens ala celebs with small dogs (Paris, Britney). THey had little chicken underwear, little chicken diapers, little chicken carry bags. Just your random Winnipegger carrying aroung their chicken.
Prairie TV plays some really weird shit late at night.

CHeck this: I was fucking ON Sabado Gigante!!! I was sitting on a bench in Orlando and the Sabado Gigante people were there with their cameras and I didn't notice them and I looked up and the camera was right in my face and all of Spanish TV Land will forever (OK, stretching, I know) as the white chick with the deer in the headlights look on her face.

I watch those design shows where they make the people sell or toss their stuff. "That cowbell is not your dead Gramma!!!!"

Is Sabado Gigante on anywhere in Canada? This sounds intriguing. It reminds me of, well, every single show on TVA or TV5 or whatever it's called (the Spanish station that's in between MuchMoreMusic and TLC on the Toronto cable line-up). Every time I surf by the channel there are colorfully and scantilly clad Spanish people singing and playing game shows.


That's whack, yo. I think it's a given that, even in large cities, the local news can be kind of weird. Here in Toronto, I always watch the CityTV news, where everyday they will report a) a shooting b) a carjacking/other violent crime c) the fact that the city has no money to do something d) a story involving homeless people and e) something bad happening at a public school BEFORE they get to the touching human interest tales.

Come to think of it, all the touching human interest stories on the CityTV news must have some combination of children, old people, a relatively small ethnic group, singing, dancing, a church and/or a hospital.

I have no idea what's going on with Twin Peaks b/c I only watch it sporadically when I channel surf at the right channel at the right time. But I'm fascinated by it's strangness and the fact that it doesn't make any sense to me. Yes, I know I'm weird. No need to stare.

Is this the same show that ran on Fox for a little while under a different name (Banzai, maybe?)

I used to watch Too Close For Comfort because my cats were extremely attracted to the theme music. OK, I'd just run the credits, but that was more than enough.

"Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" is based on a Japanese game show that involves trying to storm a castle. "Banzai" was a British show.

In the days before satellite dishes my Saturdays always involved watching PBS cooking shows, one right after the other. I absolutely hate to cook and I never tried even one recipe, but somehow watching people cooking on TV pushed my happy button at the time. There was the grilling guy, the Napa Valley guy, Jacques Pepin and his daughter, America's Test Kitchen (my all-time fave!), Lydia, Yan... now I can see all that on the Food Network but I never feel like it anymore. I've never been able to figure this out.

I tend to get sucked into PBS's Hometime, with that gray-haired guy and his endless series of young female co-hosts.

It's surreal; they joke and bicker like a married couple, but you know in a year or so she'll be gone, replaced by a newer model, while he just keeps getting grayer and grayer.

Oh, my God. That? Was me! And I'm not compelled to watch the food network now either. My favorite PBS cook was Mary Ann Esposito on Ciao Italia. This woman, like, refuses to use a spoon. I remember one episode she spent talking and talking about hog casings. It was inexplicably awesome.

This is me now! I don't get the Food Network, but on Saturdays I watch the grilling guy, Jacques Pepin, and America's Test Kitchen. And like you, espie, I never make the stuff, just enjoy watching.

On topic, I watch a lot of crappy shows (CSI: Miami, e.g.) just because they come on at 10:00 pm, which is when I want to watch TV.

Mrs. Macc and I enjoy House Hunters because we really don't get to use the words moron and jack-ass enough during the course of our normal day. Fortunately, the house-hunters/realtors give us the much needed opportunity at exactly the right time in the evening.

Would that be "Takeshi's Castle"? Because that show is awesome. Especially in Britain where there's an great running commentary from that guy who was on Red Dwarf.

That's totally me. My parents actually made the rule that I wasn't allowed to watch informercials anymore after I spent a month and a half trying to convince them that we needed a food dehydrator. It's been 9 years since I watched that informercial and I still want one, even though I don't eat dehydrated food.

I did the same thing. I'd start out watching on Saturday or Sunday around 12 p.m. and go until the network primetime shows came on at 8 p.m. In addition to the cooking shows, there was usually This Old House and that painting show with the late Bob Ross. Sometimes, Bob Ross would be replaced by this odd painting show with an old German guy in a smock who talked about being god while painting. Or, at least that's what I thought he was talking about.

I was actually in the habit of preparing dinner while watching the Frugal Gourmet. I never actually prepared anything featured on the show, I just cooked along with the show.

My mom and I used to love watching the news in Tagalog on a San Francisco-based public station, because the woman anchor was very... boring, yet compelling. She spoke in a completely flat monotone in a language we didn't know, except for the few phrases in (completely unaccented) English thrown in every now and then.

I have the DVDs for Descendants of Darkness, but I still tune in every week on AZN Channel, because I feel it is the right thing to do to support the gayest cartoon on air. Even though the dub is god-awful.

Which Red Dwarf actor?

My cousin and I are both Jewish and when we live in the same city we do our Yom Kippur fasts together. To make the experience more intense, she has cooking shows running on the television all day long....

I lovelovelovelove Most Extreme Elimination Challenge!! I discovered it one night watching TV with my boyfriend while enjoying some, uh, herbal refreshment....yeah, well, anyway....that is some of the funniest shit ever. Especially when you're, um, not low.

I've seen them referred to as Dean and his Harem. That show sucks me in too. Joanne apparently wanted her own show, and still does bad decorating shows for some branch of the Discovery Channel, I'm not sure where Suzanne went, and I think Robin then stuck with the show to the end of the run. There was apparently another woman before JoJo, but I've never seen the season(s) she was on.

It scares me that I remember all of them.

oh. My. GOD. For years, I've been trying to find a way to explain Sabado Gigante to people. And now I have one!



Rockstar, you and my sister would get along famously - she (unbeknownst to my parents) called and got catalogs and free gifts from the Craftmatic bed and Contour chair/lounge people, and I think we somehow got a piece of the Civil War Chess set!

Bob Ross has this hypnotic quality about him. If I start watching for even a second, it's pretty much a guarantee that I won't stop. If he'd ever told me to overthrow my local government, I probably would have done it, so long as he painted a few "happy trees" as payment. He was just fabulous.

This guy? My high school art teacher was a big fan, and used his techniques in class. I think Bob Ross was actually a student of his. I'm pretty sure I remember him saying "happy trees" too!

There's this show on some Spanish channel where the audience is divided into halves: and one half wears green and the others wear yellow. They compete in crazy contests. I have no idea what the show is, because it's completely in Spanish, but whenever I see it I have to watch it for a while. I did notice that Maria Conchia Alonzo was on it once.

Bob Ross is gone? Oh the humanity. I love him!

Oh God, House Hunters is the most stilted and boring show ever. And yet, if I come across it while channel surfing, I will watch. Because it can't possibly be this boring, can it? Something interesting is going to happen, right? I'm convinced that if I change the channel, I'll miss the discovery of a raccoon colony in the master bedroom or shallow graves in the basement.

Aw, thanks, screamapiller! Usually people tend to give me the "Who farted?" look whenever I try and explain something. I'm glad it finally made sense to someone, but really, I think that's about the best way to describe Sabado Gigante.

Ohhh, I just love watching Bob Ross's show. I could give a rats ass about painting, but his voice is so relaxing. I turn it on and just lay down on the couch or the floor and zone. Honestly, he could be reading the phone book for all the attention I pay to the actual show.

On the other hand: I watch Semi Homemade with Sandra Lee just so I can make fun of her and point and laugh.