10 Reasons to Watch Armed & Famous

I was shocked and amazed to enjoy Armed & Famous so much. I laughed the entire hour. Take the name itself. Much like Dancing with the Stars and Skating with the Stars, A & F is liberal with the term famous. We’re not looking at Meryl Streep or Katie Couric become cops but it’s still fun. I’m partial to reality shows and Cops, so this puts two of my favorite genres together. It worked for one episode but could wear thin over time.

ABC’s A & F follows Erik Estrada, LaToya Jackson, Jack Osbourne, Jason “Wee Man” Acuna and Trish Stratus as they join the Muncie (Indiana) Police Department. The joy of the show is the fish-out-of-water element. I mean does LaToya really need a tablecloth at the Roadhouse-esque restaurant. The look of terror on the recruits’ faces when they realized they would have to perform all of the duties of real officers was funny and genuine.

With that said, here are 10 reasons to watch A & F:

Stun guns

The brilliance of using a stun gun in Indiana as a police officer is that you have to know what it feels like to be shocked in order use it legally. LaToya nearly fainted like actress in a 1950s melodrama complete with a little sigh as she slid gracefully to the floor.

Ponch

You will have a great drinking game if you take a shot every time Erik Estrada is called Ponch or touches his hair. In all fairness, he looks great for his age. A little bloated but still good. Even the 80-year-old drug-dealing granny with no teeth tried to pick him up during an arrest.

England Meets Midwest

Jack’s British accent and sensibilities are interesting. He didn’t seem so odd on The Osbournes but that was L.A. He just seems downright peculiar in Muncie.

The Buddy System

I pity the fool that got saddled with LaToya. Her police partner is a woman with much patience. LaToya wasn’t as bad as you think she’d be but she was playing with my nerves.

Van Wilder Lives

Watching Wee Man party with the local college kids instead of doing laundry with his fellow rookie cops was priceless. He rode the mechanical bull with cute blondes while Latoya tried to jam her dollar in machine that only accepted exact change at the laundromat.

Wrestlers Don’t Make the Best Counselors

It was a bit awkward watching WWE wrestler Trish try to counsel a woman that lost her house in a fire right before Christmas. It’s hard to take advice from a perfectly painted celebrity cop as you’re huddled on the sidewalk with your four kids, wearing your only change of clothes and many months pregnant. Her sunny philosophy might have missed its audience.

Celebrities with Guns

Terrifying and ridiculous. Turns out, Jack is an accomplished marksman and LaToya received a passing on her shooting test. Of course, this was after missing the target all together and nearly taking out two of the other recruits.

LaToya, LaToya and LaToya

She counts for three. Not only is she the most intriguing of the Jacksons, she’s also the most open with the public. It was bizarre to hear her call her brother Jackie and explain what she was doing. There was silence on the other end. It got even stranger as she named all of her siblings and told Jackie not to tell any of them. We grew up with these names Tito, Jermaine, Michael and Jan (Janet). Bizarre. She has this little girl voice. Her plastic surgery is so extreme, she looks like an alien. I’m not exaggerating. For all her family’s money, her hair looks eerily like a horsetail.

What do you think of A & F?