Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
My Crazy Obsession (TLC)
Who Is This Now? Michelle.
Why Are We Watching Her? She's showing off her collection of 3,000 Troll dolls.
How Did She Get Here? She started collecting them when she was 10 and never stopped. (Perhaps it's because she's still playing with toys she liked when she was 10 that she still talks and acts like she's 10?)
What's the Grossest Thing We See? In an attempt to manipulate her husband, Dean, into giving up his "man cave" to make more room for her trolls, she offers to do gymnastics wearing her Troll-print string bikini. When he says no, she suggests doing a routine wearing nothing but her adult-size rubber Troll mask. Cut to: Michelle doing sexy pinup poses for the camera, wearing her bikini, with a Troll head.
What Have We Learned? I never thought I'd ever side, on any issue, with a person who has a "man cave," but here we are.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
Wife Swap (ABC)
Who Is This Now? Mark.
Why Are We Watching Him? He's being challenged to give up some of his treasured habits, and he's unhappy about it.
How Did He Get Here? His laissez-faire wife, April, has traded places for two weeks with Yelena, a rigid taskmaster.
What's the Grossest Thing We See? Tie: Mark letting one of his pet birds chew on his lips, or Mark walking through his neighborhood wearing nothing but a bath towel around his waist — but don't worry: "There's no perversion about it. I just enjoy being in a towel."
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
What!? I Think I'm An Animal (Logo)
Who Is This Now? Steven.
Why Are We Watching Him? He firmly believes that he is Shroud, an African leopard trapped in a man's body.
How Did He Get Here? Since he was very young, he has had intense memories of a past life lived as a leopard on the savanna — before, he says, he even knew what a savanna was. So now he considers himself human only physically.
What's the Grossest Thing We See? Steven lives with Timothy, who believes he is a raccoon; the two have been a couple for almost four years. That's all fine. As they're telling their story, we get a brief glimpse of a pornographic drawing of Timothy and Steven, in their animal forms, canoodling in bed. Someone at Logo has had to blur out what you can still kind of tell is a tumescent raccoon penis. That's less fine.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
Spoiled Rotten Pets (Nat Geo Wild)
Who Is This Now? Cynthia.
Why Are We Watching Her? She's letting us watch while her dog, Toto, meets with a unique expert.
How Did She Get Here? She's "a very spiritual person," and if she regularly consults with psychics, shouldn't her dog get the same kind of attention?
What's the Grossest Thing We See? Madrette, a "paw reader" who purports to tell the future by interpreting dogs' paint paw prints. I mean, honestly. Madrette. Look at your own life and please make some better decisions. THE OUTFIT ALONE.
What Have We Learned? I will never stop being shocked by the totally idiotic ways people waste their money.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
My Crazy Obsession (TLC)
Who Is This Now? The Best family.
Why Are We Watching Them? They claim to be the strongest family in the world.
How Did They Get Here? When father Nick was in high school, he was short and skinny, and apparently the emotional scars remain; he started seriously lifting weights about the same time he went through a huge growth spurt, and the rest is history.
What's the Grossest Thing We See? The Bests have also involved their young children in their weightlifting. Even though "experts" recommend that little children not lift weights heavier than a pound each, the Bests' daughter Jessica, who is 5 and weighs 46 pounds, can lift 100 pounds. Seems healthy.
What Have We Learned? Nick: "You've really got to hate yourself to make yourself want to hurt that bad." If you like yourself, you should have a cookie.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
My Crazy Obsession (TLC)
Who Is This Now? Chantal.
Why Are We Watching Her? She's telling us about her obsession: her 19 pet rats.
How Did She Get Here? "When you find your purpose in life, you know it," says Chantal, "and that was what happened to me, when I saw that first rat." OK.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
Hoarding: Buried Alive (TLC)
Who Is This Now? Louise.
Why Are We Watching Her? She has hoarded so much in her multiple apartments and storage spaces that they're past the point of usefulness.
How Did She Get Here? To hear her describe it, she has an extremely emotional attachment to every item she's collected; multiple times, she notes that she doesn't have children or pets — just her things — and that she takes the responsibility of taking care of them very seriously. Unfortunately, she also came into what a friend describes as "a great deal of money" about 30 years ago, when her parents died, which enabled her compulsive shopping. But now, even though the amount she inherited would have been enough for any normal person to live on for the rest of his or her life, Louise is nearly broke. And if she doesn't clean out her apartments and possibly sell some of her stuff, she will be destitute.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
My Strange Addiction (TLC)
Who Is This Now? Michelle.
Why Are We Watching Her? Not to put too fine a point on it: She drinks blood.
How Did She Get Here? When she was a teenager, Michelle suffered from depression, and self-mutilated. One day, she happened to taste her own blood, and she's been drinking it ever since.
What's the Grossest Thing We See? We see Michelle shopping for blood, cooking with blood (including mixing a Bloody Mary, which she makes with real blood), and drinking blood straight up, from a glass. But that all seems like kid stuff once we see her "feeding" from a cut on her friend Johnny's arm, particularly once we know how rigorous her screening process isn't: "I usually ask that people be tested before I drink their blood, unless they are a very close friend of mine that I have known for a long time."
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
Doomsday Preppers (NatGeo)
Who Is This Now? Mike.
Why Are We Watching Him? He's explaining the various ways he's preparing himself and his family to survive an apocalyptic event — specifically, the activation of Middle Eastern terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S.
How Did He Get Here? "I've always loved films, and Red Dawn was a huge influence on my thought patterns of terrorists and terrorist attacks." —Mike.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
My Strange Addiction (TLC)
Who Is This Now? Allison.
Why Are We Watching Her? She's addicted to eating rubber, and her fiancé has started to become concerned about its effect on her health.
How Did She Get Here? When she was a kid, she would chew and eat her Barbie dolls; later, she started eating rubber instead of chewing gum. Normal stuff.
What's the Grossest Thing We See? "Making sure [the rubber tire bits are] clean is kind of a concern for me, because I don't want to get sick from something that might have been on the floor," says Allison, because the prospect of developing a bowel obstruction from her undigested rubber bits, or cancer from the chemicals the rubber is treated with, is less of a worry for her.
What Have We Learned? Gum-chewing is not the most elegant of habits, but some things are even worse.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
Hoarding: Buried Alive (TLC)
Who Is This Now? Siblings Jimmy, Cheryl, and Aimee.
Why Are We Watching Them? They have come together after their mother Cynthia's death to clean out the hoarded house she shared with Jimmy.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
Doomsday Preppers (NatGeo)
Who Is This Now? David Lakota.
Why Are We Watching Him? He is showing us how he intends to survive if a tsunami should strike Kauai, where he lives.
How Did He Get Here? Knowing that most of Hawaii's food supply is imported, so that a tsunami destroying the coastline (and airports) would cause mass panic due to supply disruption, he's testing his ability to live off the land with absolutely no gear. But don't worry, David will know when a tsunami is coming. "He believes his mystical connections will alert him if a tsunami is poised to strike," the narrator tells us dryly.
What's the Grossest Thing We See? Oh, easy: David pees into a bottle and drinks it.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows. [Editor's note: This week, Tara presented us with four equally colorful characters featured on My Strange Addiction, and asked us to help her choose which one to highlight in her column this week. They were all so good, we decided to use them all! Welcome back, My Strange Addiction!]
My Strange Addiction (TLC)
Case no. 1:
Who Is This Now? Mark.
Why Are We Watching Him? He is "in a relationship with 15 inflatable animals."
How Did He Get Here? His mother wasn't there for him when he was a kid, so he prefers the company of inflatable pool toys.
What's the Grossest Thing We See? Though Mark describes his relationship with all his inflatables as "intimate," Lila the Dragon is first among equals. As Mark puts it, she's "like a wife": "If I could marry Lila, I would." However, the fact that he specifies that he doesn't have sex with Lila — "We keep our relationship clean" — forces the viewer to wonder exactly what he gets up to with the shark, the dolphin, and the rest of the menagerie.
What Have We Learned? I never thought there could be a kind of fetishist that even a RealDoll owner could look down on. I was wrong.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, with so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
Fatal Attractions (Animal Planet)
Who Is This Now? Marius.
Why Are We Watching Him? Not to spoil where this is going, but the series title is Fatal Attractions, so ... you know, he's no longer around for us to watch him. Instead, Marius's loved ones are telling the story of his close friendship with a hippopotamus named Humphrey.
How Did He Get Here? From a very young age, Marius developed close bonds with animals, starting with a horse named Lady on his father's farm. When Lady had to be put down, Marius took it very hard, and the experience seems to have rewired him to be extremely empathetic toward animals.
What's the Grossest Thing We See? After Humphrey breaks through a steel fence on Marius's property and menaces boaters in the nearby Vaal River, Marius becomes something of a local sensation, and starts doing press with Humphrey. The attention starts to go to Marius's head, and though it's clear from the archival footage that he does love Humphrey, it's also clear that when Marius decides to mount Humphrey and ride him into a dam that he's lost sight of the fact that Humphrey is a 1.2-ton wild animal. Marius refuses to stop his practice of swimming with Humphrey, even after Humphrey attacks Marius's beloved nephew Johan, skewering Johan's pelvis in his jaws and nearly killing him; Marius ignores warnings from wildlife conservationists that he must stop doing so, as his life is at risk. It's not even that Marius is treating Humphrey as though he were a golden retriever; everyone who knew him says that Marius referred to Humphrey as his son. This is just not a scenario that could possibly have ended well. (And it didn't: Humphrey eventually charged Marius, dragging him into the water, and killing him in front of Johan.)
What Have We Learned? If you need the love of an animal in your life, consider a cat.
Every week, television documentaries present us with so many unusual people, so many strange and/or disturbing problems, you might find it hard to keep up with all of them. That's where I come in! Here's an unflinching look back at TV's Week in Freak Shows.
Infested! (Animal Planet)
Who Is This Now? Mae and Harris Greene.
Why Are We Watching Them? They're telling the story of an unfortunate discovery in their new home.
How Did They Get Here? They decided to buy a house in the relatively rural area of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, which apparently is a haven for skunks.
What's the Grossest Thing We See? Given that the issue is skunks, and the odors that arise from same, it's less what we see than what we hear. We learn that catching eight skunks that have been living under the Greenes' house doesn't mitigate the stench in the house — which is so bad that it causes nausea and migraines in the house's human residents — so the original exterminator who'd caught the skunks from under the house recommends skunk specialist Jake Trujillo, who believes the cause of the odor is actually a dead skunk under the house. But when Jake sends his dog Carly, who's been specially trained to recover skunk carcasses, under the house … whoops, Carly gets sprayed by a skunk that's very much alive. Ultimately, Jake determines that the only way to get to the space under the house is to rip up the floor of the house, whereupon he and the Greenes discover "a labyrinth of tunnels under the floors," which have to be destroyed or else new skunks will continue to find them and colonize the house. In the process of breaking them up, they also find the dead granddaddy skunk that has been the cause of all the problems. Dead skunks are an issue because the stink they produce is "not just [from] the rotting flesh, but the perpetually oozing spray gland as well." PERPETUALLY OOZING.
What Have We Learned? Sometimes, humans can triumph over nature — but in the case of the Greenes' problem, doing so — by which I mean making their house livable — took nine months.
