When I’m not reading the complete works of Tolstoy or teaching my kids Latin I might be found watching a few reality shows.  Just a –cough- few…. COUGH COUGH….Scuze me,  I must have choked on a piece of organic fruit leather.

I got sucked into Jon & Kate Plus 8 by my girls, mostly cuz it’s one of the 3 shows left on TV that you can watch with children in the room. 

As I totally called earlier this season when Jon stopped working, “A-ha! The show is making more money for them and now he’s around the house all day.”  That’s about the time the show morphed from being a fly-on-the-wall-style reality show about a mom dealing with 8 little kids to a series of cheesy boring photo ops for these parents and their set of twins & sextuplets.  Jon takes the boys for haircuts. Kate makes cupcakes in the kitchen with the girls. The Gosselins put on a dress-up show. Kate goes and gets some “me time”. Staged interactions.  Nothing like the early seasons had been. Then, to take the Obligatory Reality Show Photo-Op to a new level (see ‘Improptu’ Dinner or Cocktail Party at the end of EVERY Real Housewives season),  the TLC Trip Machine goes into overdrive.  They go to San Diego, Hawaii & the Outer Banks (within like 8 weeks) and swim, hula, zoo, shop, museum, paint, and every other festive verb in between, all of course in matching outfits.

Ah- but as with any ‘reality stars’ (using the term loosely here cuz they are situated on the reality “star” continuum just above Ross the Intern from “The Tonight Show” but just below Richard Hatch from “Survivor”),  we start to hear in the gossip mags some negatives about them; specifically that Jon has been photographed out at a bar by himself and rather tipsy hanging on tons of college girls. 

Of course once I heard this, I did what any Cub Bloggist (and snoop with too much time on their hands would do)- I searched for more dirt on them online… and found out — ALLEGEDLY—that they have a personal chef, a full-time nanny, Kate is as bossy as she seems on tv (and that Jon had actually moved out when the photo-scandal hit, instead of the plot line where he was helping his mom after foot surgery).  Also, I found out Aunt Jodi’s sister has had a blog about them going all along as a slam for making the kids into a little cottage industry. Also, Aunt Jodi has been cut from this year’s show cuz the producers offered to pay her to be a “cast member” and Kate didn’t want that. Note: Once you start thinking of yourself as a “cast member” on these reality shows, instead of a Family, Cheftestant, Designer, or Neighbor, you are teetering, you and that mic pack strapped to your back, on shakey ground. “Where is my CastMate Aaden?”  Uh…He’s your four year old son.

So, last night I intrepidly watched the hour-long Season Finale (at the very risk of my marriage, too, cuz Jer was not pleased that I skipped watching ‘24′ with him) & I came up with some findings.  Of course they are now in their new phat pad.  Kate now wears cuter shoes and jeans and has some nice fitness machines in her basement.  Jon’s day consisted of loading the car to go see The Harlem Globetrotters (thank goodness they finally ditched those potty seats) and mentioning his Allstate agent—quick cut to Allstate’s homepage on Jon’s computer–; that’s when he was allowed to speak.  At the end of the episode, after 174 commercials and too-many-to mention TLC “trouble’s a-brewing” teasers, Jon gets around to lamely & evasively addressing his gossip mag foibles by saying, “I did something dumb. I’m known now as Jon & Kate Plus 8, instead of just getting to be Jon.” 

To recap: There’s trouble in paradise. He’s out doing questionable things and she’s rocking the spray tan and the icon hair and they mention their Allstate agent casually in conversation. (I’ve seen more subtle product placement during the ‘Sayin Grace’ scene on Talledega Nights.)  Yup, the fame has indeed gone to their heads. So, are they done?

Jill

Heck no! By reality standards, they are just ramping up!  “Cat fights” and “Feuds” are the next Reality Show go-to tools when just watching the “cast” walk around gets boring (this is usually somewhere after Season 2).  TLC should move “17 Kids and Counting’s” The Duggars across the street and Michelle Duggar and Kate could have an on-going and highly-publicized-never -missed-by-the-cameras faux cat fight over who stole who’s recipe for organic lasagna featuring (quick glance & wink at the camera) Bertoli pasta.