It’s perfectly reasonable for Matt to think that “Cheaters” represents the apex/nadir of white trash culture on television, but only because they don’t have “The Wally George Show” in Denver. Way back during the Reagan administration, Wally George hit the bottom of the trailer park septic tank on a nationally syndicated (which is to say, it aired on a bunch of UHF stations) political talk show that is simply the basest thing imaginable. Obviously, it’s must see TV.

Here in LA, they still rerun Wally’s show on a local station, just before an infomercial for phone sex called “Vegas After Dark.” Wally is an extraordinarily ugly man who wears his very blonde hair in the bowl cut/make you look like a walking penis style popular at the time among boy actors like Joey Lawrence on “Gimme’ a Break” and the kid in The Shining. There’s no question that it’s a wig.  The only question is, where the hell did he find such a wig? He sits at a desk, in front of an American flag and a picture of the space shuttle and next to “the hot seat.” The hot seat is occupied by a parade of strippers, struggling shock rockers, homosexuals and other un-American (and stupid) folk who trade insults with Wally for five minutes or so before Wally proclaims, “you’re outta’ here!” and throws them off the show.

Wally George is a dumb man. Imagine if Springer was hosted by one of the audience members and you begin to get a picture of what “The Wally George Show” is like. The last episode I saw featured an atheist. Wally’s final comments ran something like “You know who are atheists, doncha? The Soviet Union! So why doncha move over there with all you’re commie buddies because: You’re Outta’ Here!” Also, Wally smacks the table whenever he says anything. Hilarious.

Wally is dumb, but maybe not as dumb as the man he plays. According to his IMDB bio, most of the guests on the show were paid actors. There’s also supposed to be an “E, True Hollywood Story” about Wally. Jobless though I may be, I will pay anyone out there who has a tape of that show to make a copy for me. Please, please, please contact me if you have it.

Regardless of what Wally’s up to, his audience is dead serious. The crowd is a collection of the dregs Orange County. Even though Orange County is L.A.’s asshole, I never would have thought it could produce dregs like these. Almost all male, ranging in age from their teens to their late thirties, they are men who’ve obviously never had good jobs or free sex with anything more attractive than their couches. Sexually frustrated, boasting an average IQ of about 85, ugly, classless, uneducated: these men are limited in every way and want to take it out on somebody else. That’s the foundation of any right-wing movement, the reason for the success of and the source of all sorts of other evil. I wish I had a “Gas Them” button on my remote control.