idiot box's dirty dozen of prime-time TV shows, The

Human Events, Jul 24, 1998 by Bozell, L Brent

Every year at this time the Parents Television Council releases its lists of the most and least family-friendly shows on prime-time television. The Dirty Dozen may convince you to want to ban the Idiot Box from your home.

As you read through these descriptions, remember two things: Millions upon millions of impressionable youngsters are watching these shows on a regular basis, and executives in Hollywood continue to maintain their fare only "reflects reality." You decide if this is your reality.

How Hollywood 'Reflects Reality'

12. "Getting Personal" (Fox). It features raunchy jokes about birth control, erections, orgasms, along with standard-issue premarital sex as a standard-issue topic.

11. "Cybill" (CBS). Cybill Sheridan is an aging, twice-divorced mother; her best friend, Marianne, is a divorced, shallow, class-conscious drunk. Alcoholism, promiscuity and sexual intercourse are the favorite joke topics, while traditional family structures and familial relationships are mocked regularly.

10. "Veronica's Closet" (NBC) is set at a lingerie company, and the characters stand around making jokes about-surprise!-sex. The owner's assistant is suspected of being homosexual, but in the season finale we learn he's not. Turns out he had intercourse with an older woman so many times, she died.

9. "Mad About You" (NBC). This veteran offering focuses on silly jokes about-what else?-sex. Moreover, the show has a recurring lesbian couple to make it saucier, and by season's end, these ladies were making plans to marry. Now there's a cliffhanger.

8. "Ally McBeal" (Fox) was the toast of the critics this past season. In the "Seinfeld" mode of irreverence, the show's replete with ongoing jabs about penis size, oral sex, the differences between marital and nonmarital intercourse, and so on, ad nauseum.

7. "The Drew Carey Show" (ABC). If "Alley McBeal" is too refined for your taste, you could always opt for this program, which is set in a department store and where the subject matter is more blue-collar and couples videotape themselves during sex, har-har.

6. "Melrose Place" (Fox). This is the venereal disease of prime-time television. It's all about cheap sex, and it just won't go away. Surely you know what this stupidity is about; if you don't, count your blessings.

5. "Dharma and Greg" (ABC). Here we find a newlywed couple having sex. All the time, everywhere.

4. "Spin City" (ABC), in which you have a cheap sex-obsessed series that included in its raunch menu the promotion of the homosexual lifestyle as well.

3. "Ellen" (ABC). This show that was on life support until, on the heels of the most extensive public-relations push in memory, Ellen DeGeneres led herself out of the closet. "Ellen" blended the personal (her entry into the lesbian lifestyle) with the political (an ongoing homosexual-rights advocacy campaign), and while the star said she hopes to be remembered as somebody who helped change people's minds. about homosexuality, she apparently failed: ratings evaporated, and the show was canceled.

2. "Friends" (NBC). The No. 2 prize went to another long-running monstrosity, a wonderful show for the lobotomized. Six twenty-somethings (I shudder to call them young adults; they are neither) in lower Manhattan converse on the mysteries of condoms, premature ejaculations, pornographic cable channels and the erotic use of handcuffs. And then they have sex.

1. "Dawson's Creek" (WB). Bring out the gong bell for the winner: Though it premiered only in January, Dawson's Creek has already earned its wings as the most offensive, noxious, morally repugnant show on television. There is no pretense about this show being aired for more mature audiences; "Dawson's Creek" is a teen soap about, and for, teenagers. What will youngsters assimilate from the series? They'll learn all about raging hormones, penis size, masturbation and the like. This is no "Happy Days," folks. In "Dawson's Creek," high-school students have sexual affairs with their teachers.

Do Parents Care Anymore?

Logic tells you what innumerable scientific studies have confirmed for good measure: Television has an incredible influence on society. There is an undeniable causeand-effect phenomenon at play here in that society's youngsters venerate celebrities, and what these role models say and do on television, our children emulate. Hollywood knows this, and it couldn't care less. The problem is that tens of millions of parents seemingly agree, every time they allow their children to watch this garbage.

Mr. Bozell, a national syndicated columnist, is chairman ofthe Media Research Center, based in Alexandria Va