Kudos to “Trading Spouses” for their casting in Friday’s episode — switching Alyce Hammond, a California mother of three who managed to fit the word God into every sentence she uttered, and tattoo artist Barb Girone led to some couldn’t-be-scripted drama.
Then again, switching Alyce with anyone — not to mention simply having a camera follow her 24/7 — would probably bring about plenty of action as well.
There really wasn’t anything funny about seeing Alyce lecture her husband-for-the-week Tim — a body piercer whose own ears were stretched much further than ears were ever meant to go to make room for enormous hoops — about how his sins were going to send him directly to hell.
It also wasn't so funny watching her real husband, the like-named Tim, nurture a computer addiction and neglect his kids because he’s clearly been browbeaten into a nearly comatose state.
But when Alyce happened upon the sight of a yoga teacher stretching atop a contorted Tim while he moaned in ecstasy? The thought of the special room in hell she must have been picturing for them was funny enough to make me laugh out loud — or at least make my ears stop hurting out of sympathy pain for Tim.
On “The Amazing Race,” the show’s most charming romantic couple — by which I mean the only romantic couple left, Rob and Kim — managed to bring some unintended hilarity to a Moroccan detour.
Really, is there anything not funny about watching a couple search through an enormous pile of tomatoes and fight over their relationship while being pelted in the head by the very vegetables they’re wading through?
Maybe it’s my evil side — is now the time to confess that I’ve been known to laugh when people trip? — but watching Rob toss tomatoes back at the extras while insisting that Kim find the damn clue was pretty much my favorite moment of the season.
And while there was nothing too amusing about the super disturbing family on this week’s “Supernanny“ — oh, did Jo have her work cut out for her there — the couple, despite Mom’s predilection for spanking and questionable parenting all around, did seem to truly
care for each other.
And their kids — while bratty to the extreme — happened to be adorable-looking. This of course made their 4-year-old Lily’s comments when she was being interviewed — like the toothless confession that she doesn’t like cleaning her room — all the more hilarious, and led me to wonder why there aren’t reality shows featuring all-kids casts.
“Trading Kids”? “The Amazing Race: The Kindergarten Edition,” featuring Jo waiting on the mat instead of Phil?
I know, Alyce, you don’t need to tell me. I’ll look forward to seeing Tim Girone and the rest of the sinners in hell.
Anna David has been on staff at Premiere and Parenting magazines and wrote a sex and relationship column for Razor. She’s done celebrity cover stories, first-person essays and reported pieces for The L.A. Times, Vanity Fair, Cosmo, People, Us Weekly, Redbook, Self, Details, Stuff, TV Guide, Women’s Health, Ocean Drive, Vegas, The Saturday Telegraph, Esquire UK, Teen Vogue, Variety, The New York Post, LA Confidential, Distinction, Calabasas, Tatler (Hong Kong), King, Fade In, Emmy and Maxim, among others.
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