Celebrity-bashing ‘TMZ on TV’ tacky, tasteless

I'm not saying Harvey Levin is evil. But if Satan had T-Mobile, Levin would be at least three of his five myFaves.

For those of you blissfully unaware of Levin's work, he's the managing editor of the celebrity-bashing TMZ.com and the executive producer and host of the even more celebrity-bashing "TMZ on TV" (7:30 p.m. weekdays, KVVU-TV, Channel 5).

I hadn't watched the TV version much since it debuted in the fall, back when the only thing that really offended me was its low production values.

Then the show, and the site, got even tackier.

News that St. Louis Rams owner Georgia Frontiere was on her deathbed ran under the headline "NFL Owner Gets Two-Minute Warning." And in the run up to the Super Bowl, the show basically said Eli Manning's fiancee -- his cute-as-can-be college sweetheart Abby McGrew, who is nothing even close to a celebrity -- should put a bag over her head because she's not as hot as Tom Brady's girlfriend, supermodel Gisele Bundchen. (What's next, shoving a camera in pedestrians' faces, calling them fat, and then giggling about it?)

So I spent a week watching "TMZ on TV" to see if it really was as horrible as it seemed. For the most part, though, it was more lame than offensive.

The show is nothing more than poorly lit, unflattering footage of celebs, often accompanied by tacky, "Blind Date"-style graphics, that unnamed TMZ staffers -- Needy Blonde Girl, Clay Aiken Lite and Stoner Dude, along with Easily Excitable New Yorker, who appears via a low-rent webcam -- submit to try to make Levin laugh.

Here's what played out during a recent week:

MONDAY

7:30 p.m. -- Levin calls one of the Spears family's countless court dates "maybe the biggest hearing ever." Take that, Roe v. Wade!

7:34 p.m. -- Tom Cruise is a "spaceman." Mocking someone's faith is hilarious. All the cool kids are doing it.

7:36 p.m. -- Larry King signs a photo that was "probably taken before his seventh wife, Shawn, was born." Ha! Larry King's old! Just like that joke!

7:45 p.m. -- Vanna White is asked what she thinks of Britney.

7:46 p.m. -- Paris Hilton must be a lesbian, because she partied with the cast of "The L Word."

7:52 p.m. -- Sharon Stone, Marcia Cross, Juliette Lewis and, I swear to God, Cheech Marin are asked what they think of Britney.

TUESDAY

7:32 p.m. -- Cruise, who got a new motorcycle, is a "nutcase" and a "Scientolo-biker."

7:47 p.m. -- After a party, there's "just this total spontaneous ejaculation of celebrities," Easily Excitable New Yorker says. (Translation: Rob Lowe, Rosie Perez, producer Harvey Weinstein and Matthew McConaughey and girlfriend Camilla Alves are standing around on a sidewalk.) "It's unbelievable," EENY exclaims. "It's great video!" (It isn't.)

WEDNESDAY

7:30 p.m. -- Levin has breaking news. "OMG! Britney Spears released from the psych ward, then goes on a joy ride that makes the O.J. Simpson slow-speed chase look like something your grandma did." Yes, the 57-year-old Levin actually said "OMG!"

7:34 p.m. -- Because it wasn't unseemly enough the first time, Manning is asked "Would you rather have a Super Bowl ring or a supermodel girlfriend?" Viewers are then reminded that Brady has three Super Bowl rings and a supermodel girlfriend. Oh, snap!

7:35 p.m. -- There's a picture of Barack Obama's grandmother holding a chicken in Kenya. That's it.

7:46 p.m. -- Stephen Baldwin is asked what he thinks of Britney. He's praying for her.

THURSDAY

7:30 p.m. -- "So I'm hearin'," Levin says, "that Jamie Spears is worried that his daughter (Britney) is gonna die." Yeah? Who isn't?

7:37 p.m. -- Amy Winehouse is "crack-tabulous." Zing! Drug addiction is a hoot.

7:40 p.m. -- Needy Blonde Girl narrates a video in which a friend of David "Bud Bundy" Faustino can't get into a trendy L.A. club because he's wearing sweatpants and sandals. "It was really funny," she says at the end. Comedy Rule No. 37: If you have to say "it was really funny," it wasn't.

7:43 p.m. -- Donald Trump is asked what he thinks of Britney.

7:46 p.m. -- Larry Birkhead is accused of pimping out Anna Nicole Smith's daughter, Dannielynn, for "Entertainment Tonight." Proving that even TMZ has to be right sometime.

FRIDAY

7:39 p.m. -- The Rolling Stones look like Mount Rushmore. Get it? They're old. Like Larry King.

7:43 p.m. -- Did we mention that Tom Cruise is a Scientologist?

7:44 p.m. -- MC Hammer is asked what he thinks of Britney. He, too, is praying for her.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Mondays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.