A Baby/Wedding/Dating Story. Trauma in the E.R. I mean, Junkyard Wars? Have any of you people seen this??

Discuss "TLC: Life Unscripted" here.

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001

Answers

So. Um. Does this mean you don't like Junkyard Wars? Cuz me, I love me some Junkyard Wars. I guess it helps to be a techno nerd, although I don't weld. Yet. My husband, his brother and father should be on that show. They can weld.

How about Extreme Machines? That can be pretty cool, um, if you're a techno nerd.

I love Trauma: Life in the E.R., but hardly get to watch it because everyone else in the house is either too young and impressionable or too squeemish. Oh, the drama! The wacky hijinks late at night!

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001

My old hairdresser, James, is due to be doing the Makeover Story sometime this month at Beaucage in Boston. Y'all keep an eye out.

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001

I loved Wedding Story before I got married. Now I don't care because let's face it wedding planning is the 6th circle of hell.

I've never seen Baby Story but I know the woman who plays Carly on As the World Turns was on it last year when she had a baby (with her husband who played Andy on ATWT). I can't imagine what brings people to want the whole world to see them in that place. Birth is beautiful but, really, it should be by invite only.

Never seen Dating Story. Sounds too much like that show where the guy used to say "We'll be back in 2 and 2." Um, you know, that show.

Actually, I don't think I watch anything else on TLC. Do they show Hometime? I like Hometime with the ever revolving fake wives.

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001

I saw one episode of Wedding Story and refuse to watch again. The couple got married on horses. Literally, ON HORSES. They road up the aisle on horses, the preacher was on a horse, the bridesmaids and groomsmen were on horses.

Not to mention, in agreement with Slickery, wedding planning is hell, although I would put it on a lower circle. I think that when planning a wedding, you should stick to a 2-1 or, maybe, a 3-1 ration of planning to fun. If the wedding/reception is going to 6 hours, the planning should be no more than 18 hours.

Stop laughing.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

You worked that out on a Spreadsheet didn't you?

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

C'mon, Chris.

I think A Wedding Story is great because of all the unbelievably tacky weddings - great because those people are so happy. I mean, it takes all kinds. People might think me wanting a bluegrass band at my wedding would be tacky. Of course, they'd be wrong, bless their hearts.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

If we actually do get Elvis in a yarmulke for our wedding, I want TLC there. Especially if he'll perform "Can't Help Falling in Love" in Hebrew.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

Oh, wedding planning. I have no desire to watch that TLC show, at this point. I'd rather deal with my own fiance. "Hawaii!"

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

My favorite Wedding Stories are the ones where the do the whole Ren Fair thing. I mean, it's your wedding, do what makes you happy, but it never fails to crack me up seeing all the guests and the bride and groom all decked out in their Renaissance garb in some VFW hall in South Jersey.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

The Ren Fairs are the BEST!! Not only are the outfits usually homemade and hilaaaaarious, but they all speak in this made-up Ye Olde Engish, calling each other "my lord" and "my lady."

It kills me.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

This is probably for another topic altogether, but I've been a huge Ren Faire fan since I was 11. Get me on a dusty ex-campground with a turkey leg and a bunch of people addressing me as "m'lady," and I'm a happy girl.

Apparently the people who work at Ren Faires get more play -- from each other and from visitors -- than you or I ever could. At least that's what I hear from, um, someone who played a pirate off and on for a number of years. Not that I'm dating him now or anything.

But I would not have a Ren Faire wedding, because I know Scadians and they'd likely show up and critique me. Plus, he'd kill me.

A rockabilly wedding, now . . .

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

A Dating Story is always so uncomfortable. I mean, who (besides the wannabe L.A. starlet skanks of "Blind Date") wants to go out on set-up at ALL, let alone with cameras? One of my favorites was this couple in D.C. and the guy's brother set them up. The guy was a cutie but his brother was HOT and he said he'd met this girl in a bar and knew she'd be "perfect" for his brother. Really, what I'm sure had happened was that he picked some single chick up in a bar, his wife busted him with her number and he was like, She's for Tommy! She's for Tommy!

But the guy on the date had an obsession with orange. He always had to wear something orange and that was his test for women, if they liked the color or not. Needless to say, Mo was in love with him.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

"Trading Spaces" makes me want to buy a house so I can do all those cool home improvement prospects. Plus, Amy Wynn Pastor is one good- looking carpenter.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

I don't watch the Wedding show. Actually, I try to avoid spending too much time reading or thinking about weddings at all. Right now, we have a nice, simple plan to elope, but the desire to put on a big tacky show could overcome me at any minute.

Trying to stick with the plan: married at Graceland then on to the not-yet-decided-upon honeymoon. There may be rhinestones and blue eyeshadow involved, but I'm not going overboard. I swear it.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

Aw, c'mon, y'all... I LOVE those "story" shows! They're the height of comedy!

What could be better than watching the uncomfortable first date where the guy takes the high-maintenance girl to a POTTERY KILN and tries to re-enact that scene from "Ghost"?

Or the Wedding Story where you can tell it's a special day, because all the guests are wearing their Good Jeans - you know, the ones with the white lines on the creases, and no Skoal ring on the pockets.

Or, my favorite, the Baby Stories where the woman gives birth in the wading pool in her bedroom, with her ENTIRE Ladies' Bible Class in attendance, as well as her 4-year-old daughter? Or where the woman has a plaster cast made of her pregnant stomach and boobs and hangs it over the fireplace?

Classic, I tell you. After my divorce, I thought those shows would depress the hell out of me, but I can't stop laughing long enough to be sad.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

I loooove the Makeover Story shows. And I love them for a totally catty, bitchy reason. I have yet to see a single episode where the subjects come out looking better than before the make-over began. One episode in particular springs to mind...two totally normal girls in their early 20s who both work for a radio station sponsoring a Dixie Chicks concert. The TLC peeps take these two fine girls and "glam them up" for the concert. It was heinous. These poor things had to show up at a radio station promo party looking sooo bad, you could just tell by the looks on their faces they were mortified. And the DJs talked on air about how good they looked, but it was a big 'ol lie...and they knew it.

Love that show.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

Oh, and one time they had these twins and they were making them over for their 25th birthday. One of them looked GREAT and the other one ended up rather unfortunate looking. You know she had to be pissed.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

I loved Wedding Story before I got married. Now I don't care because let's face it wedding planning is the 6th circle of hell.

Oh my god. You just described the past 24 hours of my life.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

I need to stop watching the real life shows, but I can't get enough of Labor & Delivery and Maternity Ward. Nevermind that I'm now way too scared to ever have a child, but there you go.

They make me cringe, make me cry, then make me cringe some more. Still, I have to watch them.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001