Cable networks often adopt names that cut to the heart of what they want to show to audiences. Animal Planet is like a whole damn world full of alpacas and monkeys, Comedy Central is right in the heart of hilarious. Spike TV is the epitome of what people with the intellect of a 12 year old think is manly, and so on. You’d think the Learning Channel would be an easy one to figure out. But you’d be wrong, because the Learning Channel teaches less than an alcoholic high school art teacher during the last class before spring break.

Little People, Big World – This show is not about midgets, it’s about little people. Little people in a big world. And not the little people from the Small World ride, as those may be children or just tiny hellspawn. Just regular little people in our world that is, to them, big. You see how size is important here? It really is. Big time.

Because reality TV has no guidelines whatsoever and any shit that can be framed by a camera is fair game for being put on air, it’s hard to fault the little folks for taking advantage of this. They just live their day to day lives and someone films it. If you’re not riveted yet, welcome to the party. It takes about five minutes to realize the life of a little person is the same as the life of billions of other people, just a couple feet lower to the ground. So as interesting as it would be to watch your neighbor fill a pot with water, this show lets you see the added step of someone getting on a footstool so they can reach the tap first. Holy shit, it’s amazing! Now it’s clear why midget porn is such a huge industry, they do everything more awesome!

What was learned here? Watching a small man drive to work, watching his wife making dinner, watching the kids kick a ball; the accumulated knowledge couldn’t choke a midget into unconsciousness if it was forced down his windpipe by some vindictive attacker crouched down over their tiny frame, hell bent to leather on seeing them pass out with legs and arms all hilariously Munchkin-like and akimbo. However, the “who gives a shit” ratio is way up there.

Miami Ink – Notable for giving the world Kat Von D, and allowing me to use not one but two photos of her in this article which is a good and wonderful thing, and also showcasing some talented artists, it’s hard to besmirch the good name of Miami Ink. But we’re gonna do it anyway.

For all the coolness, it’s hard not to notice that every douche hole who ambles into the studio has to have a story about their tattoo. And frankly it’s rather sickening to listen to some collar popped ass hat prattle on about how his Uncle Jim saved him from a pack of wild dogs when he was younger and taught him how to kiss with tongues and then died in a tragic accident down at the taco meat plant so now he’s getting a Darth Maul tattoo on his back to remember him.

What was learned here? More than anything Miami Ink teaches us to keep our loved ones away from Miami, as it seems everyone who goes to this shop is there to remember a dead relative or friend. Worse yet, it seems as a result of losing this person, good taste has a 50/50 shot of being lost with them resulting in an epically stupid memorial tattoo that causes home audiences to get misty eyed.

Trading Spaces – This show may have spawned every other half-assed home décor show that has come since in which upper middle class Kenny G fans redecorate the home of a friend of neighbor who returns the favor in what amounts to the most cramp-inducing drooling borefest of television since CSPAN stopped airing wet T-shirt contests.

Left in the hands of some manner of decorator who employs the “real folks” like slave laborers as their fashionable changes are slapped on walls like feces in the monkey cage, whole teams of scientists with equipment borrowed from NASA would be hard pressed to find the educational value of anything presented here. Trading Spaces teaches viewers about two things, jack and shit, neither of which require a degree to fully comprehend under normal circumstances.

What was learned here? That your best friend has shitty carpeting. Or you do. Or your bedroom looks like it is the illicit spawn of a 70’s porno and a Denny’s dining room and needs some throw rugs and candles. Is any of this considered actual knowledge? It’s really hard to say, but the fact remains the show has gone on for 8 seasons of doing the exact same thing over and over again. Apparently the audience for this just really fuckin’ loves to learn.  That aside, the host of the show, Paige Davis, can apparently be caught on camera showing her ass at charity events, so that ain’t bad.

What Not to Wear – Taking learning to depths not often plumbed by the average human, this show basically takes the entire populace of people who keep the sweat pant market in business and tells them they look like shit. So really, there’s the learning aspect in a nutshell. If you look like the people on this show, you look like shit. So you just learned something, didn’t you, shitty?

An effete man who looks like he may have been created in a Starbucks lab and a shrill harpy of a woman who apparently have PhDs in how to dress make fun of the way a new, random stranger dresses every week. First on hidden camera then to their face. Then they throw all their clothes away and explain why they look like a bag of mangled anus and how they can improve on that look, and set them free in some stores to fix their fashion woes.

What was learned here? There’s something potentially satisfying in knowing all the world’s major problems have been solved such that, week to week, this show can drop thousands of dollars on new wardrobes for people whose appearance just doesn’t meet the standards of two people they’ve never met before. What’s that? We still have cancer and hunger and herpes? Well fuck.

10 Years Younger – Another show that wants you to know you probably look like shit, this one takes some poor sap and puts them in an actual box in front of strangers so they can be criticized for how they look. Like an actual, real fucking box. They’ll set it up right in the middle of an airport and invite people over to look at how crusty and pathetic you are and guess how old you are. And you know what they guess? They guess you’re fucking old. Old and decrepit. And if you have a penis, it probably doesn’t work. You suck.

The general idea here is that if you’re 30 and look 40, this kick ass show will give you some health and fashion tips to make you look a stunning 10 years younger. Which is to say they’ll stop the wizening process that has turned you into the heinous, shriveled scrotum of a human everyone else sees you as.

What was learned here? People in airports, when confronted with a stranger in a box, can be so cruel. Really, the actual message is horribly lost in here to all amongst us who have never found us in that natural circumstance that happens from time to time when we’re in the airport, about to enjoy a Toblerone, when just out of the blue we get trapped in that fuckin sound proof booth and all these people start guessing we’re octogenarians. For the rest of us this show, like so many others, is about as educational as the FOX network.