"We're going to the ball pit." -- Sugar Bear Thompson
"What does the pit got in it?" -- His daughter Honey Boo Boo a/k/a Alana
"A bunch of balls." -- Sugar Bear
This is the kind of dialogue preserved for posterity every week in TLC's apocalyptically popular show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. The dialogue has to wait until after June passes gas in the opening frame of each show and her daughters yell: "Momma!"
There's also cooking.
The title of this week's episode is "Time For Sketti!" Sketti is June's old family recipe of a tub of margarine, ketchup and pasta blended in a microwave. "I don't know what's in her special sauce," Sugar Bear muses, having seen said bottle and tub.
Roadkill isn't on the menu much lately, because "the deer ain't migrating like they used to," June explains. "So we're trying to make other foods like sketti." The family is fed on $80 a week. Honey Boo Boo's TLC catch phrases are sold for downloads. You'd think a ring tone could pay for a vegetable, but it's hard to over-parse a show with subtitles scrolling by as each family member speaks. Later, June makes lemonade with five pounds of sugar.
"The only time our family's not loud is when we eating." -- Sugar Bear
"Momma's cooking is the best." -- Honey Boo Boo
Alana's teenage sister Chickadee is pregnant, and the aunt-to-be is intrigued with the niece in her sister's biscuit. Or moon pie. She mixes up foodstuffs with body parts, unless I read it wrong. Either way, once the talk turns to hemorrhoids Alana states: "Birthin' babies are disgusting." She's been a bit of a downer since they took away her pig.
For a pick-me-up, her chalk miner father (could have read that wrong, too) takes her on a daddy/ daughter outing where it's revealed that Sugar Bear worked at a roller rink but can't skate. He then puts his daughters shoes on the wrong feet. Both of them finally give up on skating and run. No one else is in the rink. Either TLC rented the whole rink, or the Boo Boo family is misinformed as to whether or not Fun Factory is bona fide.
Alana buys a giant pink inflatable hammer. "I had fun." BONK. "Me too." BONK BONK. BONK.
Fun and games continue with "Guess whose breath?" Based on the flinching, the Boo Boo's are pungent. "I'll be honest with you, I don't brush my teeth but on special occasions," notes Pumpkin in a literal spoiler alert before puffing a noxious surprise at a blindfolded relative. Faulkner couldn't have scripted this level of shenanigans.
The teaser for next week starts out with a glamour consultant coaching Alana, who proclaims: "I farted!" Yes, it's a train wreck. Yes, we're in a country where reality stars need subtitles. But this oddly cocky family is not going away and you'd better redneckognize.
(Redneckognize available for download at The Learning Channel.)