I gave up on music television by the time I was about 10 years
old. This occurred when I was sneaking an episode of “Beavis
and Butt-Head” (which my parents didn’t allow me to
watch) and the show shifted into a music video. I groaned that this
was the worst part of every episode, yet at the same time my
evolving 10-year-old mind realized two things: One, this was the
only time I had seen music on MTV that night, and two, the
“music” portion of the show was its lowest point (my
first exposure to irony).
It’s no secret that MTV barely plays music. The
network’s schedule is dominated by shows like
“Next,” “Parental Control” and the
porno-sounding “Date My Mom,” not to mention dreck like
“My Super Sweet 16.”
Yet there is hope, and it comes in the form of Fuse, a rival
music channel. No, this isn’t a column about how Fuse is
better than MTV because it actually plays videos. Rather, I’m
more interested in how Fuse has combined music with an MTV-esque
gimmick to create something astonishing.
A few nights ago, my friends and I were attempting to watch
music videos when we saw that Fuse was running a show called
“Pants-Off Dance-Off.” Checking the info, we saw that
the show entailed people stripping to music videos.
Sure enough, the show had the most apt title this side of a
hardcore porn flick.
It’s exactly what it proclaims itself to be ““ a show
where people dance like strippers in front of music videos, and
then have fully clothed duplicates of themselves pop up in
different parts of the screen and give a personal tidbit of
information (for instance, Ron, a senior citizen who danced to the
Cure’s “Friday, I’m in Love,” likes to hang
out with his chickens). It’s like “Pop-Up Video”
meets “Girls Gone Wild.”
In just a few short hours on this show, some of the characters I
saw included the septuagenarian Ron, as well as a 38-year-old
dwarfish Elvis impersonator, a large woman dressed as a clown, and
another woman wearing what appeared to be a lucha libre wrestling
mask who called herself “Famous Bob.”
Upon a perusal of the “Pants-Off Dance-Off” Web site
(where you can watch clips of people dancing that are “too
hot for TV”), you will find that the show takes great pride
in having been called “the stupidest show on TV” by TV
Guide. The whole thing spirals into a pop culture Bermuda Triangle
when you hear who is hosting the second season ““ none other
than Jodie Sweetin, better known as Stephanie from “Full
House.” And she’s fresh out of drug rehab, too.
The second Sweetin comes on, I expect that a super-massive black
hole of pop culture kitsch will form beneath the studio, from which
not even light (nor Paris Hilton) will escape.
As we watched this show’s insanity unfold, my buddies and
I constantly questioned whether we were really seeing any of this
or if we were merely hallucinating.
You have to understand something about the viewing habits of my
friends and I. For us, a typical night involves attempting to watch
music videos because we adore the art form. However, we also really
like naked people.
After all, we do attend UCLA, where the cause that students as a
whole have gotten most up-in-arms about was the potential banning
of the Undie Run.
And this is exactly why Fuse must be run by Ozymandias, the
world’s smartest man from Alan Moore’s
“Watchmen”: “Pants-Off Dance-Off” is a
brilliant fusion of both music and a gimmick. Unlike MTV, it
doesn’t go for one extreme; it combines music and weird naked
people into a train wreck that you can’t stop watching.
Best of all, anyone can be on “Pants-Off Dance-Off.”
All you need to do is send in a picture.
People would say that with the advent of reality TV, we reached
a point where anyone could be famous. Well, we just went one step
further. Now any random person ““ as well as their Harry
Potter underoos ““ can be the No. 1 viewing choice for a bunch
of sardonic college students.
Humphrey can’t listen to the Cure again without
picturing a naked old man. E-mail him at
mhumphrey@media.ucla.edu.