The other big prize game show, Greed, is also a nerve-racking waste of time, but for a completely different reason -- it's hard for even straight guys to watch this without admitting that Chuck Woolery is a little bit fuckable. I even taped the show, paused it, and drew a little sailor uniform on him with a grease pencil. My friends say it was a mistake, but now they all get to watch their favorite shows, with a fun sailor theme. Even professional football is better when one of the linemen is dressed like Shirley Temple. And it only got better when I glued a lollipop to the TV and said, "Twenty bucks on the darling little girls!"

Who wants to be a Millionaire provided all the fun of watching a relative slowly die, but did it with all the stress of ritualistic torture. TV's Regis! gives contestants multiple choice questions the show's producers get asked by their kids that morning, showing that the deterioration of the education system finally caught up with our gameshows. There's no more of this Jeopardy shit where you need to go to faggy operas and have a doctorate in theoretical physics to win. If you got your socks on all by yourself this morning, you'll be fine. Regis will ask these people what last year's best picture was, and replace all the incorrect answers with names of candy bars. I once burst into a girl's room with 20 other people for a surprise birthday party, and she was having her dog lick peanut butter off of her vagina. But now that I look back on it, that's not nearly as embarrassing as missing a question on this show. My gardener can get all of them right and he doesn't even understand English. In fact, he doesn't even have ears or most of the top of his head. But even the people with their full heads intact and the education necessary to answer the tough "What color is an oreo cookie" questions are reduced to hysterical weeping after Regis constantly challenges them after every question with "IS THAT YOUR FINAL ANSWER!!???" Did he get his game show training from war prisoners? I heard the home version is just a second grade workbook and a cattle prod. The most amazing thing is that even though it's been designed by experts for maximum unwatchability, this show gets huge ratings. It might be our dream of watching an idiot win lots and lots of money, but it could also be because most Americans don't know what that strange arrow button next to the word "channel" does on their remote controls.

Other big-money ripoff shows are being made faster than I can type, and from what I can tell, they all suck. Except for the Telemundo version where the hosts are 20 girls in hot pants. Instead of a million dollars, contestants win bags of ground beef and 5 minutes in !El Sombrero Loco! All of the questions are product placement ads like "Senor, por que es Colgate muy muy fantastico?" There's no wrong answer, the contestant just has to sing the Colgate theme song with the audience while a strongman slides a midget across an oiled-up section of the floor and a hooker comes down from the ceiling on wires. Because Mexico doesn't give ulcers with their game shows like we do. They give us a good time and a little bit of syphillis.

If you ask anyone what was the most notable thing about 1999, they'll all say the same thing. Gallager. Where is Gallager? Or in some communities, "Hey, hey, hey! Where's Gallager, you stupid bitch?" Are we too sophisticated to watch a man in rainbow pajamas smash containers of yogurt with a giant hammer? If Gallager sensed this and went back to the stars, then who among us will pull down their pants and fart on things? Do we have to go back to watching grade school playgrounds for our comedy [instead of just our erotic fantasies]? No, we were lucky enough for Tom Green to enter our lives. He stuck a finger up his nose saying, "I will let the spirit of Gallager live within me." Then he reworded the sentence several times, each time screaming it louder and moving his face hilariously closer, finally raising one lip higher than the other one, falling down, and knocking over a lamp. Then he pretends to be electrocuted and puts a piece of poop on his head as if to say, "Checkmate, world of comedy. Check. Mate." America hasn't laughed this hard since their grandpa forgot to wear his diaper to dinner, peed on the table, and fucked the dog.

The Dixie Chicks, called "not really hot enough to make up for the music," by me every time they ask me to their prom, evidently sold a copy of their album, Wide Open Spaces, to 8 million people. And according to my own research, the Dixie Chicks either bought 7 million copies themselves, or someone's lying to us.

When asked what TV show, album, or movie summed up 1999, Dawson's Creek's James Van Der Beek said, "I really enjoyed the A&E Special [Biography of the Millenium] on the 100 most influential people. The No. 1 was the guy who invented the printing press." Did he think we were asking for his list of top lists? We wanted to know what album held all the hopes and ideals of our great country from the enlightened view of someone who's been on television. Why did he like the A&E thing anyway? It sounds like it sucked. I mean, I appreciate "the guy that invented the printing press" every Sunday when Family Circus teaches me how to laugh all over again, but I wouldn't call him influential. You didn't see other inventors following his example and putting letters on their devices. Did George Washington Carver attach letters to his invention, the peanut? When Benjamin Franklin created electricity did he mash it against paper until Dear Abby advised us to tell our wives about the affair? If A&E really wanted to praise someone for being influential, what about the Jackson 5ive? With all of the capes, green tuxedos, and one-eyed sunglasses in today's culture, it's clear that they were true fashion pioneers.

You want more proof of the Jackson 5ive influentiality? That's Jermaine Jackson with Police Academy's own Michael Winslow. Would he be hanging out with anyone less than a cutting edge superstar? Like Winslow himself said about the supermeeting, "Vooot! Vrooop! FART! FART!"

And the surrounding people were completely convinced they were passing gas and turning into robots. His sound effects are THAT good.

Ricky Martin replaced Hanson as the pop icon that would be clumsily referenced by comedians, as in: "Hey, have you seen this Ricky Martin guy?" or even just walking into a room and saying, "Ricky Martin!" followed by a drum sound effect.

Other people that have held this rank before are the New Kids on The Block, Marilyn Manson, and that one guy from Boyz 2 Men that looks like he has Down's Syndrome.

Carnie Wilson, named after her juggling, web-footed, bearded people, starred in a film called "Televising Her Gastric Bypass Surgery On The Internet." She's more than just the fat one in Wilson Phillips, now. She's a tremendous horror actress. In this film, there's one powerful scene where she enters an operating room and a surgeon yanks a baby calf out of a pregnant cow that swallowed a hand grenade.

At least that's what I think happened. I couldn't really follow it, and I puked so much I was even throwing up things you had for breakfast. But note the before and after photos (above left). Pre-surgery -- fat. Post-surgery -- still fat, but now everyone knows what she looks like turned inside out. I don't know enough about gastrointestinal stuff to know if that's a successful operation. Sorry.