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Scott Baio Ruins Casual Sex for Everyone

By Luke Baumgarten
The Inlander | July 26, 2007
Rock of Love

VH-1 Sunday 9 pm

Scott Baio is 45 and Single

VH-1 Sunday 10 pm

At 9 pm on Sunday, Brett Michaels -- lead singer of hair metal gods Poison -- goes about finding a "serious, love of my life type" girl amongst 20 contestants who "understands [his] lifestyle," which he later confesses means a girl who doesn't mind him making out with other girls. All 20 seem okay with this.

Then, at 10, former teen dream Scott Baio (Happy Days, Joanie Loves Chachi, Charles in Charge) hires a life coach to figure out why he can't commit to pretty, saintly blondes who want nothing more than to make him happy. The coach makes him visit the girls he treated worst throughout his life. This leads him to form a theory: Hollywood has made him a commitment-phobe. By the end of hour one, we form a similar, less rose-colored theory: Scott Baio is a sociopath and dirtbag who doesn't want to give up using Playboy magazine like a mail-order catalogue.

Michaels rejoices in his ability to still get laid, coming off as morally vacant, but honest. Baio, affecting boyish charm while claiming victim status, treats his celebrity like a curse, complaining that the ease of cheap sex in Hollywood ruined his ability to craft meaningful relationships. He comes off as a self-serving charlatan and a liar.

The shows are close approximations of past VH-1 hits I personally despise, Flavor of Love on the one hand and My Fair Brady on the other. Taken together, though, these two provide one of the most nauseatingly frank denunciations of an era I've ever seen. Gays, feminists and liberals didn't ruin the traditional American family, Jerry Falwell. Los Angeles in the '80s did.

Tune in next week as Julie McCullough, the eight-episode Growing Pains veteran and Playboy playmate, tells Baio in her cute, jaded drawl, "Ah had mah first AIDS tehst because'a yoo."

I'm going to get sick of this in two weeks. Until then, don't try calling me on Sunday nights.

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Hogan Knows Best

The story this season is that the Hulkster is considering getting his ass a divorce. Selfless of him to wait to end his loveless 25-odd-year marriage until the popularity of the show could land his talentless daughter Brooke a record deal. (VH1; Sunday; check listings, it's on constantly)

Run's House

Probably the most stable family on reality TV, Joseph Simmons (Run of rap pioneers Run DMC) has a wife, skads of kids, and a fairly believable holy man persona. Originally airing on MTV, the third season is reairing on BET. (BET, Friday, 8 pm)
Tags: TV

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