"Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" (TLC) and "Killer Karaoke" (truTV)

Two new reality shows blazed new trails of idiocy. One capitalized on redneck stereotypes and a 6-year-old beauty pageant veteran. The other invited contestants to sing their hearts out while being zapped with electricity or dunked in a vat of snakes. In a TV universe swamped with reality shows, these two stood apart as groundbreaking, inspired and dismaying if for no other reason than they served as a reminder that each is merely a way station en route to the next extreme in outrageous crassness.

By AP TV Writer Frazier Moore.

Credit: TLC