Smart and Appalling

MENSA, that society of geniuses (Sharon Stone's a member in case you didn't know) who are so smart they have an acronym that makes no sense to my puny little brain have released a list of what they determine to be the smartest shows of all time
Top ten smartest shows of all time (in no particular order):

1. M*A*S*H
2. Cosmos (with Carl Sagan)
3. CSI
4. House
5. West Wing
6. Boston Legal
7. All in the Family
8. Frasier
9. Mad About You
10. Jeopardy

I'm assuming this is only an American list because the Brits had a game show called Masterminds which is wicked hahd. Also isn't Boston Legal just The Practice but with older stars and more zoomy camera work? Also The Simpsons I guess doesn't fit into their criteria but that is an incredibly intelligent show
Anyway
Almost coincidentally or by some divine stroke Entertainment Weekly has released a list of their own, of the most appalling shows in TV History, and with the exception of Kid Nation, which may have been the smartest show ever (remember that time they chose religious books over like go carts?) this list could be deemed the dumbest shows ever. In countdown order

Moment of Truth
Jail
Kid Nation
Britney and Kevin: Chaotic / Hey Paula!
The Anna Nicole Smith Show
The Swan / I Want a Famous Face
Temptation Island
Cheaters
Flavor of Love, Flavor of Love 2, Flavor of Love 3, I Love New York, and I Love New York 2
Keeping Up With the Kardashians / The Bad Girls Club
Shows centered around the concept of ''millionaires''
Wife Swap / Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy
Chains of Love
Big Brother / The Real World
The Simple Life
My Super Sweet 16
MTV's Entire Programming Slate
The Littlest Groom / Age of Love
The Bachelor
The Jerry Springer Show

(from Defamer)
The Littlest Groom? What's that? I'm assuming a little person is involved which probably makes it horrible and exploitive.
Of course we shouldn't be surprised that there are far far more appalling and dumb shows on TV than smart ones, after all we're Americans! We're dumb and we're not only proud of it, we're hostile to book learnin'
From The NY Times
"Joining the circle of curmudgeons this season is Eric G. Wilson, whose “Against Happiness” warns that the “American obsession with happiness” could “well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse, that could result in an extermination as horrible as those foreshadowed byglobal warming and environmental crisis and nuclear proliferation.”

Hmm,did anyone else see Idiocracy? because that's a smart movie...and it seems like that's where we're headed

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