What The Hell Happened To Family Feud?

Being unemployed means having time to watch daytime television. Even if you don’t want to, you have to. You don’t have a choice. It’s a rite of passage of being unemployed. As a matter of fact, the longer you’ve been unemployed, the more rites of passage you have to go through. If I don’t find a job soon the next rite of passage I must go through is wearing a housecoat. And let me tell you, I’m really not looking forward to that.

Daytime TV isn’t too bad. I like that new show “The Chew” even though I thought it was going to be a bunch of guys dressed in overalls sitting on bales of hay talking about their tractors. The other show I watch is the new “Family Feud” hosted by Steve Harvey. I’m going to be honest with you. I only watch it because I’m usually waking up around the time it comes on, the remote control is too far away and I’m too lazy to get up and retrieve it to change the channel. Hey, I’m not proud of that but sometimes life puts obstacles in front of you that you’re just too bleary eyed to overcome.

I haven’t watched Family Feud since the D-Days. For the uninitiated, that would be when Richard Dawson used to host the show. Things sure have changed. Forget how politics are dividing this country. Forget about the whole pro-choice/pro-life debate. Forget about the 2012 presidential election. There is something more pressing we need to deal with and that is: What the hell happened to “Family Feud”? First off, they don’t pose the families like they’re in a portrait or have their names behind them in an old-fashioned embroidery style anymore. Now their names are just computer generated. It wouldn’t surprise me if the show was taped in Steve Harvey’s basement. And unlike Mr. Dawson, Steve doesn’t kiss the women hello when he greets them. Which in this day and age I guess is understandable. It would only result in sexual harassment lawsuits or a CDC nightmare.

Sadly, today’s version of “Family Feud” illustrates how stupid we’ve become as a society. Both the contestants, the questions they come up with and whoever they survey to come up with the answers to those questions must be a few watts short of a bulb. In the D-Days, there used to be questions like “Name something you might find in a living room” or “Name something you might find in a car.” Now there are questions like “Name something that rhymes with the word winner.” I am not kidding you. That was an actual question. And do you know what the contestant answered? Winner. It wasn’t up on the board even though I guess one could argue technically winner does indeed rhyme with itself.

The questions on the show have also gotten weird. On a recent episode, Steve Harvey asked “Name something a female dog might find sexy about a male dog.” Um, I don’t know. His cologne? “K-9 for Men. It drives the bitches wild.” What the hell kind of question is that? And who looks at their dog and thinks “I wonder what that female dog down the street would find sexy about ol’ Sparky here.”

Another question was “Name something a pilot would be holding while he is flying for eight hours.” One of the answers was his dong. It seems like “dong” and “junk” turn up a lot as answers on the board. Who are they surveying these days? Twelve year old boys?

It’s even worse for the fast money questions the winning family has to answer. Again, here is an actual question: “Name a word that begins with the word ‘butter’” which was followed by such answers as “utter” and “mutter”. No one seemed to grasp the fact that Steve wasn’t looking for a word that rhymed with the word butter but one that began with the word butter. Meanwhile, I’m on my couch yelling at the TV: “Buttercream, you idiot! Butterscotch! What the hell is wrong with you people?” But, hey, at least the show is interactive.

Another ridiculous question Steve asked during the fast money round was “Be honest, on a scale of 1 to 10, how cool are you?” Seriously? How can there even be a concrete answer to that question? I just picture a room full of drooling idiots and some poor production assistant standing up front asking them how cool they think they are. I can only imagine what questions they will come up with next. “I’m thinking of a number from 1 to 10. What is it?” or “I’m holding my hand behind my back. How many fingers am I holding up?”

Somewhere Richard Dawson (who I was shocked to discover isn’t dead—who knew?) is fuming in his soiled Depends wondering what they did to his precious show. Or maybe he’s just wondering if he was the one who bashed Bob Crane’s skull in. By now, I’m guessing it’s all pretty hazy.

Oh, well, the hell with it. I can’t reach the damn remote. Let’s play the Feud.