Court TV

I am all for Professional Jurors-people who are paid a good wage for a good job. One of the little jokes they told us as they wasted our day at Jury Duty was that they could have gone out and got some homeless people who would be happy to have the two dollars a day-to which we all said-so do that. But after watching Judges on TV for several years-I am not sure it is a good idea after all.

I liked Judge Wapner, but he often got it wrong. Many of the Judges seem to have their minds made up from the get go and Judge Judy is an outright harridan who refuses to listen to anything. The last time I watched Judge Judy it pissed me off so much I have never watched it again. There were two guys who were customizing a car-1965 something or another with a Blue Book Value of a couple of hundred dollars. They had restored it and were going to sell it for several thousand dollars-Judge Judy awarded them the few hundred dollars that The Blue Book listed. This would be like awarding the value of a Tiffany Vase based on the current cost of glass.

A lot of The Court TV cases involve Weddings Gone Wrong-always a fun topic. I have a special interest in all the many cases of Photographers who ruined a Wedding and are suing because they didn’t get paid, or are being sued for not taking pictures of suitable quality. A shocking number of modern wedding photographers never take any portraits, they are all about the Photojournalist Style-which means random grab shots that look like virtually anyone could have taken them. In fact some weddings have gone the extra step and just give cameras to the guests and let them take their own wedding photos.

But the people on these court shows are always a little bit out there. They don’t know how to turn on their lights, they didn’t put film in the camera, they didn’t charge the batteries before the wedding, they were a bit late and missed the whole thing, but did manage to show up for a bit of the reception.

There are also a lot of Landlord issues-shocking since most people love their landlords, right? Also a lot of people who give money to friends and family, who are later shock that these people who loaned them money want it back. IT WAS A GIFT! Well, maybe-maybe not.

I don’t watch as much of theses shows as I once did, but like the Jerry Springer show, they seem to exist to prove that people are really, really stupid.

A few years ago there was a brief revival of the great 1970s game show Match Game, which was fun because of all the innuendo and double entendre. Flashes of wit and language that the modern generation can’t seem to understand.

Neil Carter was one of the guests on Match Game and the question was Judge Judy broke her gavel so she had to bang her ____ on the bench. Neil Carter answered that Judy Judy had to bang her bailiff on bench-which was very funny and embarrassed Neil as she said that was not what she meant.

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