Armed and Famous

On Wednesday and Thursday night, CBS debuted its latest reality series, Armed and Famous. On paper, the concept sounded like something that I could easily skip: hijinx ensue when five celebrities train to be on the Muncie, Indiana police force, then they go on assignments with real officers. I probably would have skipped it, except one of the celebrities turned out to be former seven time WWE Women's champion Trish Stratus (pictured above, kinda), so I was on board. I was just hopeful that she fared better than Chris Jericho on that celebrity singing show (he was robbed and you know it). The other participants were Ozzy Osbourne's son, the short guy from the TV series and movie Jackass, Ponch from the 80's series CHIPS, and what appeared to be Latoya Jackson's grandmother.

The show started by introducing each celebrity, showing their background and explaining why they wanted to become police officers. Shockingly, none of them mentioned "to get some valuable exposure on national TV". I was surprised that the training footage only lasted about a half hour. I thought that would go on for about two episodes. The trainees learned how to shoot guns (Jack Osborne said nothing was more terrifying than standing next to Latoya Jackson holding a gun-- I imagine her Poppa Joe with a gun would be a tad scarier), went through field training and self defense techniques. They even got shot by the taser. Nothing's funnier than seeing people got shot by the taser "just to see how it feels" and go screaming in agony. Even the other celebrites were laughing. If somebody created a show called "Tasers" that just showed people getting shocked by tasers for an hour, they could put it against Monday Night Football, WWE Raw, 24, I Love New York, and G-String Divas and I would still watch it. So after the training, the celebs went to a ceremony to get sworn in and take the oath and they were off. Highlights and observations:

- The most surprising person was Wee Man from Jackass. I thought he would be obnoxious and I didn't expect to like him, but he took the job seriously, did a good job and turned out to be the coolest one. On the other hand, Latoya lived down to expectations of being the crazy one. At the beginning she called home and spoke to "Jackie" (i.e. the dial tone) and told him not to tell anyone, including mother! Woman, you're about 75 years old! Is your mother going to put you on punishment? Then of course, there was the expected random craziness like asking for a tablecloth at a local restaurant and asking if the grocery store in Muncie had caviar. The capper though was that she was afraid of cats. Cats! She wouldn't go into one house because there was a cat in there. She ran back to the police car in fear. Can you imagine just one day in the Jackson household? People running away from cats, walking around in veils, randomly showing one boob and such. Anyway, she went through some therapy and is no longer afraid of the little fellas.

- Everyone that got arrested by Erik Estrada was just sooooo happy to see him. They offered no resistance at all; they were just so giddy! At the start of the second show, they nabbed this guy in a domestic disturbance dispute and you have never seen a black man so happy to go to jail. Which got me to thinking, this could really catch on. Put yourself in the suspect's place if they were being arrested by a 70's or 80's TV star. Lets say that someone was robbing a bank and got caught as they were walking out. Of course, they would put up resistance and deny it, even with the bag in hand. "I didn't do nothing! You need to be out finding real criminals! Mind your business! You ain't gonna....Michael? Are.. are you Michael from Good Times?! Man, where have you been? Yeah, man I took this little money from the bank, but man, let's talk about you! Remember that time that dude had stole your lunch money and you brought him home and he had looked like Prince....". This would go on all the way through fingerprinting and the issuing of the orange jumpsuit. No more billy clubs and resisting arrest-- criminals would walk in calmly and be happy to do it!

- Erik Estrada broke wind on national TV. Never thought I would see that.

- On Jack Osboune's first night side by side with a real officer, as they were driving down a bad part of Muncie, he locked the door (force of habit I guess). The officer howled.

- Trish was solid. She consoled victims of a fire AND caught a prostitute. When the lady denied giving oral gratification for a mere twenty bones, Trish reached in the lady's pocket, pulled out a folded up $20.00 bill and said "What is this then?" Busted! That lady's pimp is going to be furious.

Those were the major things, although I fell asleep on about the last twenty minutes. The show was better than I thought. I hope it does good ratings and catches on so that Trish can get more mainstream exposure and get an even better gig on a bigger show like Flavor of Love or something.