This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," May 27, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
Watch "The O'Reilly Factor" weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET!
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Miller Time" segment tonight, a big pop culture deal: "American Idol", another "Terminator" flick, and the stupid "Jon & Kate Plus 8" program we talked about last night. Ten million Americans watched it on Monday. Why? In that program, eight children are exposed to their foolish parents denigrating one another on national television. It's absolutely awful. And now some of the relatives are speaking out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JODI KREIDER, KATE GOSSELIN'S SISTER-IN-LAW: They're being exploited, and it's time for America to see the situation for what it really is, which is — unfortunately, there are no laws protecting children in reality TV shows. And it's time for the public to be aware of this and that these children are very aware of the cameras in their homes. Their home is their workplace, and this is not a healthy environment for kids to be raised in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: That's for sure. Joining us from Los Angeles, the Miller man. So you're a parent, and you know, you just heard this crazy Canadian professor, what he's putting out there, and now these reality shows. And it's the children that are getting hammered. And should society do something about it or do we just have to deal with it?
Click here to watch Miller Time!
DENNIS MILLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: First off, Officer O'Reilly, I want to preface my answer by saying that it's not nearly as textured and rich as it could be if I had led the life of a Latino woman! Right. It's my Sonia Sotomayor joke.
Let's see. As far as the parenting goes, I'm a different type of parent. My kids went straight from the baptism font into the federal witness relocation plant, so they would never have done any of this. But you know, this stuff goes way back. I didn't like it when Lorne Greene did it on "Bonanza." People forget that was a reality show, and Adam and Little Joe and Hoss and, indeed, Hopsing eventually outed by "American Wanted" for green card improprieties. It did damage to them, too. So I don't get why these parents do this. TV, by its very nature, an exploitive business. And it's probably best to keep their kids out of it.
O'REILLY: OK. But we're seeing a rolling trend of Americans accepting this kind of stuff. Look at the Octomom. We have real-live children in situations that are damaging to them emotionally. Now it used to be, when you grow up, Miller, tell me. In my neighborhood, if a parent was harming a child, I've got to be careful here, because it was a different time. I'm not talking about spanking or anything like that. But if a parent was harming a child in my neighborhood, the other adults would rally around and tell that parent to knock it off or they'd do something about it. It doesn't happen anymore. In the American community, we're not rebelling against the Gosselin family or the Octomom or this nut in Canada. We're letting it go. And therein lies the problem, I think. But I don't know exactly what we can do. Do you?
MILLER: Yes. We've got to bring back shame. We have to shun people from the herd. We don't do that anymore, because we don't want to step on anybody's toes. Now, I don't know who the Polynesian kid is there. Is he the oldest son, and — or is he the guy who's married?
O'REILLY: He's the husband. The Polynesian kid is the husband. They had six babies at once through in vitro. It's almost kind of like the Octomom thing. But the problem is that these children don't know what's going on there. Every other kid in the neighborhood knows their parents are loons. And wherever they go for the next 10 years, they're going to be freaks. People will be pointing at them and doing all of this stuff. And I mean — what is the responsibility of TLC? What is the responsibility of society for this?
MILLER: The responsibility of TLC is to look for a family with nine kids for next year. They're a constant. They're just going to do television. What we have to do as a society is very simple. All you can do is a one on one basis. If you run into these two, just turn your back on them and walk away. They should be shunned. We've got to start outing people from the herd when they do creepy stuff like use their kids to get a TV show. I don't know. We seem to celebrate people. They should be shunned.
O'REILLY: And we shouldn't watch it. And there's no excuse for watching it. If nobody watched it, it wouldn't happen. OK, now "American Idol," I don't care about this. Do you care about that AT&T slipped up a little bit and more people voted for one guy than the other guy? Do you care at all? I don't care.
MILLER: Do I care?
O'REILLY: Yes.
MILLER: I haven't slept a solid night since Ruben beat Clay.
O'REILLY: Was that in previous years?
MILLER: Yes. Listen, obviously, there are bigger things that happened in the world in Pyongyang yesterday. We got this demented little Chia-like guy who stepped up from the Daisy Air Rifle to the big Portabella (ph). So I'm not saying this is the biggest ticket in my life. Maybe we ought to turn it over to — up on the House of Representatives. Give it to old Wack-tack-tooie Waxman, who seems to be the commissar of the inconsequential. Let him hold hearings into this.
O'REILLY: I think you know what we can do to disarm North Korea. We can give this Kim Jong-Il a reality show. Look, we'll trade him. "You give us the nukes, knock it off. We'll give you a reality show. You can do whatever you want on it." I think that would work, do you not?
MILLER: Billy, that's brilliant. We can also get them when they're marching. You know, they've got that weird Rockette march, where they lift the leg up in the air. We perfect some GPS groin laser from space, fire a beam down, sever the groins down on the plant leg. Get it flapping around like a broken window shade. Bam, we're in on them. And you know their dogs are going to join in, because they've been on the menu for so long they're looking to get up and out.
O'REILLY: And while we're on the subject of groin lasers, you went to see "Terminator Salvation," right? I'm sure there was some dismemberment going on there. Now, No. 1, Miller, an educated person like you uses language that very few people understand anywhere in the world. Why would you go to see something like this?
MILLER: I like movies. I don't have that big a stake in movies like some people do where they're disappointed. I just like to spend an afternoon. It's fun for me. I thought this was pretty good within the confines of the PG-13 film, although that seems limiting. Once these films have been "R" in the past. I think you've got to go with that. It seemed a little fettered. And I didn't like the Christian Bale subplot. I think they should have just had it be the young kid and the older...
O'REILLY: OK, but Miller, here's my point on this. I'm happy you're going to the movies, and I'm happy you're having fun. And I hope you're not paying the senior citizen price, because you're not that old yet. I'm happy about that. But why do you want to tell us about the "Terminator Salvation"? Nobody cares. Half the people don't know who Christian Bale is. I mean, when Arnold was there, it was a little bit different. Because then you had this alien robot with an Austrian accent. I could never figure that out. But I figured maybe they have alpine mountains in outer space, wherever he came from. I don't know. But once Arnold left, then why are we watching this?
MILLER: Well, Arnold makes a cameo in here. He comes back. The Terminators are unionizing, and he tries to break it up, reminding them that they shouldn't have workman's comp for what are ostensibly indestructible creatures. It's kind of a microcosm for California right now. But as far as this topic goes, I begged eight times today to get out of this topic.
O'REILLY: I thought you wanted to talk about "The Terminator."
MILLER: Jeez, Billy, I knew you wanted to lay me out on this one. You lead a more valid life than me. I'm an insipid drip from the films. I begged to get off this subject. Da, da-da da, da-da da, da-da da.
O'REILLY: Miller, I can't let you work over the judge. I mean, it's just — she's not here to defend herself. You're making her look like Carmen Miranda.
MILLER: She's the one — she's the one — don't lean on me — she's the one who said out loud, "I would probably make better decisions than a white guy."
O'REILLY: She probably will, Miller. I mean, come on. You're putting her out as Ricky Ricardo's mother, and that's not fair.
MILLER: All right. She can go work on that. I'll go marry Xavier Cugat.
O'REILLY: A Charo reference. I got that.
Dennis Miller, everybody. And not only did he go to see "Terminator Salvation," he saw it twice.
Content and Programming Copyright 2009 FOX News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2009 CQ Transcriptions, LLC, which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon FOX News Network, LLC'S and CQ Transcriptions, LLC's copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox