Kennedy: Slugs the size of Hostess Twinkies

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Getty Images

In most families, the smallest person controls the TV remote.

This is certainly true in our house, where we are more likely to watch a rerun of "American Ninja Warrior" than, say, "60 Minutes: The Stormy Daniels Edition."

Our 11-year-old son has veto power over the TV. I was trying to watch a news report on Syria the other night, when he scolded: "Daddy, I don't like that."

Indeed, the news report featured children in peril and wasn't appropriate for young eyes, so I quickly flipped over to "American Ninja Warrior" where a dairy farmer from Maryville, Tenn., was cartwheeling into the drink.

photo Mark Kennedy

It's a shame. An up-close and personal video clip had just showed how the farmer trained for the show by cutting the handles off his feed buckets and carrying them around with his fingertips. Oh, well. Maybe he should have milked the cows with his toes, too.

The only program on TV that consistently holds our whole family's interest is "Survivor." It's hard to believe that it's been a network mainstay since 2000, when Richard Hatch - a classic heel - won Season 1 while being a weirdo and playing the game almost completely naked.

Early episodes of "Survivor," you might remember, included gag-inducing scenes in which contestants had to swallow sea slugs the size of Hostess Twinkies.

"Survivor" has something for everybody. For kiddies, there are those gross-out moments and elaborate obstacle courses. For post-adolescents, there are shirtless guys and women in bikinis. For adults, there are shifting alliances and double-crosses that make excellent training for office work.

We play at game at our house in which we try to pick the eventual winner of "Survivor" in the opening minutes of the first episode of the season, before the contestants even utter a word.

My picks, which often survive deep into the game, are based on my deeply held belief that in a true meritocracy, people should be judged on the quality of their character. Consequently, I wait for group members to smile and pick the contestant with the best teeth.

I also enjoy watching people lose weight from week to week on the "Survivor" diet of a daily ball of rice and a sardine. It's a reminder that millions of people in the world get by on precisely this caloric intake. Getting tanned and thin is the consolation prize for "Survivor" losers.

Recently, my family has also been hooked on an app called HQ Trivia. Evenings at 9 o'clock, the phone dings and we lean in to play a multiple-choice game that's a cross between "Jeopardy!" and "Hollywood Squares."

View other columns by Mark Kennedy

Typically, about a million or more players join in to vie for several thousand dollars in prize money. If you make it all the way to the end - about a dozen questions - you might get 10 bucks deposited to your PayPal account. After a time or two, our 11-year-old announced that playing made him nervous, so he bowed out.

I still play occasionally if I get tired of TV.

The questions start out easy - How many kids were in "Eight Is Enough" - and progress to impossible - "What does an isosceles triangle smell like." OK, I made those up, but you get my drift.

I have never won HQ Trivia, but I have consistently vowed to never play again after succumbing to trick questions. Like, who knew that the U.S. government in 2011 ditched the "food pyramid" for something called the "food circle"? And why was this government overreach not an issue in the 2016 presidential election?

In my view, the government shouldn't be allowed to change the whole geometry of food without a constitutional amendment. Too, the old food pyramid contained at least trace amounts of butter and bacon. The food circle looks like the produce section at Whole Foods.

If a pyramid was good enough for King Tut, it is good enough for us.

Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.

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