The Great Success of Texans on Reality TV Shows

As my one longtime reader may remember, I canceled my subscription to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the start of December. My reader may also remember that I had one or two things I liked to point out and make fun of in that failing newspaper that I thought were goofy or funny or both goofy and funny.

The goofiest and funniest one was over and over and over again in all areas of the paper, including editorials, I'd read verbiage along the line of this, that or the other totally ordinary thing in Fort Worth was making cities and towns and people, far and wide, "green with envy." There were variations of the verbiage, like it could be some lame thing in Fort Worth was the "envy of" cities and towns and people, far and and wide.

I don't have any idea if it is true, but I like to believe that it was my making fun of this embarrassing trait that caused it to end. It's been a long time since I have seen the "green with envy" verbiage. Now that I no longer read that paper, I hope someone out there is monitoring it close enough to report if there is a fresh outbreak of cities, towns and people being "green with envy" over some Fort Worth thing.

Click here to read some examples of what you in the rest of the country have been "green with envy" about.

One of the other things that always struck me as goofy was if there was even the most remote connection between someone in the news or on TV and the Fort Worth area, that connection would be part of the story. It could be that some person on a reality show lived in Fort Worth for 2 months when he was 4. Or someone on a reality show is married to someone who lived in Fort Worth for 3 months 12 years ago. I am not exaggerating.

So, yesterday, or was it the day before, I told you that the banished Fort Worth Star-Telegram had been slammed up against my front door. Well, I read it. Why wouldn't I?

In an article about The Bigger Loser, Michelle Aquilar, winning and being from Fort Worth, the Star-Telegram's TV writer, Robert Philpot had this to say...

"That Dallas-Fort Worth residents tend to get on reality shows isn't unusual, but their success this year---in which So You Think You Can Dance, Nashville Star, Last Comic Standing and The Amazing Race were all won by people who were North Texas residents at the time---has been noteworthy."

"That's the Texans," said Bridget Braxton, another Aquilar supporter at Boston's (a Fort Worth pizza joint were a Biggest Loser viewing party took place). "It's their competitive spirit."