People are boring. For the most part, well adjusted normal people are utterly dull. Sure, everybody has their story, but most of them are dreadfully bland, and sometimes vaguely annoying. So how can we explain popularity of reality television?

Avoid normal people. MTV stumbled on to the fact that arranging roommates in such a way as to guarantee Jerry Springer Show-like free-for-alls means big ratings. It must have seemed like a great idea (after the fact) to stick a young, angry, black poet and playwright in the same house as a clueless, earnest, hick-girl. But they learned a valuable lesson; in fact they learned it so well that they had the great fortune of an alleged attempted rape by and subsequent eviction of one of the participants in the very next season. Obviously under a great deal of pressure to follow that up, they paired up an HIV positive man with a live-action Beavis.

So, if you find yourself casting a reality show remember to pick groups of people who aren't likely to get along. But if you're stuck with a bunch of uninteresting "normals" you can always stick them in an RV and force them to go on an absurd scavenger hunt of some kind. Or force them to eat a pig's cock. In any case, putting regular folks in dangerous, embarrassing situations seems to work pretty well.

MTV, the godfather of the modern reality program, scored another coup by casting a crazy person for a gig in a reality show, but they dispensed with all that nonsense about him being just like you and me (which is to say, totally unknown). No doubt about it, if you want a really successful reality show, get yourself a crazy celebrity! I'm sure it started out as a joke, but it lead to the redemption of Ozzy Osbourne.

Expect the knock-offs to come hard and fast. Already, the most dangerous network on television (no, not the Fox News Channel), E! has unleashed a "behind the scenes" look at Anna Nicole Smith. With it's catchy theme song, and opening graphics lifted from the ill-fated Jenny McCarthy show, it succeeds in making a joke out of it's hero. The biggest surprise when it comes to Anna's show is not that they let the word "shit" passed out of her mouth unbleeped, it's the fact that she signed off on the show's existence.

In the first five minutes, I found myself asking a few questions like, "Is she high?" and, "Is she retarded, maybe?" and, "Did she just wake up, like, five minutes ago?" The only time that I ever found myself stringing together these three questions (with the addition of, "did she have a stroke?") is whenever I see Joan Rivers. which isn't a bad thing.

Let's face it, why not jump right to the top of the crazy-ass celebrity pile and have a reality show about Joan Rivers? She's everybody's favorite clothes obsessed, elderly aunt with a weird, unhealthy, Bette Davis- characteresque, mother-daughter relationship, isn't she?

It would answer so many questions, like, is she just slightly more lucid when talking to her cats than when she's talking to Art Mann? Does she ever just sit down in quite retrospection, or does she just keep talking until she passes out? And, most importantly, does she meet with the Devil every day in order to reaffirm the pact that made her famous in spite of a crushing lack of talent? If we're lucky, these questions could be answered in our lifetime.

If she doesn't want to do the show, we could always petition E! to show "Real Celebrity Tantrums, Hosted by Elton John"

-B. C. Silvia