SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

As you all know, I can't get enough bad "reality" TV. I'm particularily partial to shows or documentaries about drug use and psychological problems. Intervention is my favorite, but only the first half of the show, when they explain how the people got the way they are and show them behaving badly. When it gets to the weepy intervention part it's a real snoozer. Although, if Jeff Van Vonderen is running the intervention I watch the whole episode because he is hilarious (especially knowing that he's relapsed a few times himself since the show began). Intervention is like Full Metal Jacket: I absolutely love the first half and then turn it off.

One of my favorite writers, Paul McGuire, is partial to another A & E show, Hoarders. While I find the psychological metaphor of their cluttered houses/minds fascinating, at some point during the show I lose my patience with the hoarders as they freak out because someone threw away some useless junk without their permission. I just want to reach through the TV and slap the shit out of them and scream "It's fucking filthy garbage! It has cat piss all over it! Throw it out!!!" Of course I understand it's an addiction just like any other, maybe even worse because you're not only telling the junkie to stop using, but you're throwing out huge piles of their dope in front of them!

The animal hoarders are the most compelling (and disgusting). The past season ended with a bang, including a bratty man-child rabbit hoarder, an insane redneck chicken hoarder, the requisite crazy cat lady, and my favorite, the rat hoarder. I had a pet rat as a kid, and they are awesome. Affectionate, clever, and mischevious. Although, 2000 rats running free in a house may be a tad excessive.

Nothing however could top the lady from last season with a year's worth of her own feces stored in platic bags in a back room of her house. It's all downhill on the cuckoo shock factor mountain after that. Not surprisingly I started losing interest (and the stomach) for watching Hoarders after that.

I have noticed something peculiar about the show. Many of the doctors, workers, and subjects seemed oddly familiar to me. I have a crush bordering on obsession with Dr. Robin Sazio. She looks like she'd be really mean in bed. I don't know why that would turn me on, but she has a certain look that I couldn't quite put my finger on, and then one day to my horror I realized that she looks like a hot Tonya Harding! That's when I realized why so many people looked familiar on the show: there are an inordinate amount of celebrity look-a-likes on Hoarders.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Professional cleaner Matt Paxton vs. Mystic River author Dennis Lehane

Hot psychologist Dr. Sazio vs. the woman who made figure skating a contact sport

Professional organizer Geralin Thomas vs. Laura BushPsychologist Dr. Michael Tompkins vs. funnyman Fred Willard

Rat hoarder Glen vs. Rhodes Scholar/songwriter of Me and Bobby McGhee Kris Kristofferson

I'll keep you posted as more look-a-likes come to light.