Trio, home of bizarrely repurposed TV programming, is devoting this month to flops. Last night, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I subjected ourselves to the car-wreck horrors of My Mother The Car and Pink Lady and Jeff. MMTC wasn't so much bad as it was perfectly and relentlessly mediocre and unremarkable; if someone were going to make a pastiche of a wacky, high-concept late-60s living-in-denial sitcom, they'd probably come up with something exactly like this. Like reruns of Match Game from the 70s, MMTC captures its era so completely and perfectly that it's hard to believe it's actually OF that era. And there's some weird casting going on, too: one of the episodes last night guest-starred Charles Grodin (billed as "Chuck," and has he ever not worn a bad toupee?) and -- wait for it -- Lee Van Cleef as an evil lawyer. Yes, that Lee Van Cleef.

Pink Lady and Jeff, meanwhile, was simply one of the most hideous things I've ever seen. Words cannot describe its awfulness; I think I was able to keep watching only because my brain repressed the fact that it was watching it as I watched it, so I was continually amazed by its unmitigated awfulness. Suffice it to say that, if you think you have seen bad television, but have never seen two Japanese pop stars who don't speak English performing phoenetically-memorized comedy routines with the likes of Bert Parks and Sherman Hemsley, then you have not seen bad television.

Finally, I don't know what's worse: The fact that Pink Lady and Jeffis available on DVD, or that I added it to my wish list. If you don't get Trio, use the link below if you want to take the plunge.