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ROYAL RUMBLE: (From left) CNN's Larry King talks to former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and George Harrison's widow Olivia Harrison. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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WHEN an institution meets an institution, that surely has to make my Kicka** TV Moment of the Week.
Larry King, CNN's master interviewer, lined up Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, the latter two being the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison respectively, and made it look like an almost-Beatles reunion on Wednesday.
They gathered to mark the one-year anniversary of Love, the Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas based on The Beatles' music.
The occasion was institutional because their combined ages added up to 337 years, with 147 of those supplied by King, 73, and Ono, 74.
The funniest moment came when King announced that his guest the next day would be freed jailbird Paris Hilton and he turned to McCartney with his trademark remark - 'You may have heard of her' - whereupon the former Beatle shook his head disapprovingly as Ono giggled.
John Lennon, if he was around today, would probably have had a really big laugh at that.
I am going to see that heirhead episode and give you a rundown about why you need to be historical like King to talk, oh, so casually to living legends 50 times more famous than you.
In the meantime, I want to discuss dirty laundry.
It happens on a show called Family Forensics, an obscure series screened after midnight on Sundays on Channel 5.
Call it CSI meets Oprah Winfrey.
A trio of specialists - a detective, a forensic expert and a family therapist - cordons off homes with yellow police tape and sweeps them with a fine-toothed comb as if they were crime scenes.
They scrutinise the dirty laundry, garbage bins, bedroom drawers, private journals, letters and e-mail, embarrassing body fluids on bed sheets as well as the skeletons in the garden and closet.
Samples are collected and the evidence analysed in a mobile lab van.
I thought I had seen it all but this reality series shows that in the United States, everything, even your underwear, is up for examination.
The forensic specialist declared in one episode: 'Red panties, clean', concluding that its owner, a hot chick, is not having sex that her parents are not aware of.
The way to a tranquil family life, the show suggests, is to treat every member of the family like a criminal, expose their secrets and reveal their fears so that they can confront the truth about each other, which will bring them closer.
Fingerprints, hair samples and handwriting styles are taken from the families under scrutiny and interesting findings emerge. Mum, for instance, with her prints all over the booze bottle, is counselled to stop drinking secretly. Dad is advised to control his bad temper and, hey, it emerges that the son in one family is planning to marry his girlfriend without anyone else knowing.
Man, that really soured the dinner at the hotel the family was staying in.
Those folks are at the hotel because initially, except for one family member who sets them up, everybody else thinks they are on a reality vacation show called Family Getaways, instead of starring in something which totally violates their privacy.
I watch it with the fascination of seeing a car crash.
I tell you, I am stashing my fake DVDs and bikini magazines far, far away because those invaders really barge in good with all the passion of zealots on the hunt for heathens.
Why, you ask, would anyone submit themselves to this abject violation?
I proffer some reasons: One, it is the numbing acquiescence that comes from the Patriot Act.
Two, public exhibition outstrips personal embarrassment as Americans are suckers for the Oprah-size group hug even if it is instigated by strangers who have basically overturned their homes.
And three, would not everybody want to know if their Dad is a closet psycho in his spare time?
So far no serial killer, housewife-hooker, sex pervert or CIA mole has been shockingly exposed.
Actually, it has been pretty tame.
This 2005 series did not unearth a Norman Bates and that is probably why it contains only six episodes and over here, only two are left.
Still, I will be watching.
I am an incorrigible busybody, especially when it comes to other people's innermost secrets.
Conversely, a guy appropriately named Bear Grylls also reveals secrets - useful survival secrets.
He is a former elite soldier of the British Special Air Service (SAS) on Discovery's engrossing new series, Man Vs Wild, which teaches you how to survive if you are stranded alone in popular wilderness destinations where tourists often get lost.
The man, an affable chap, could also be certifiable.
In the first episode, he parachutes into North America's Rocky Mountains, where he lives off the land for five days (including munching on fish raw), builds a shelter with branches and grass, drifts down a dangerous river and, most strenuous of all, runs like mad from an unseen grizzly bear.
His stay-alive adventures will also take him to, among other places, the Costa Rican rainforest, a desert, the Alaskan mountains and an active volcano in Hawaii.
I have been a fan of such Rambo shows ever since I bought my handy SAS survival guidebook, which is what this series brings to life.
Jungle survival skills, I realise, extend even to the front door.
The guy tells you to hang food up in the trees to prevent it from being snatched by hungry animals.
If those investigators from Family Forensics come to ransack my family, I will be hiding all my dirty magazines up in a tree.
stlife@sph.com.sg
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