By David Futrelle
Chuck Woolery is probably best known for two things: 1) being the host of the dating show Love Connection back in the 80s and early 90s and 2) his off-brand cartoon superhero head.
In the last several years, Woolery has staged a comeback of sorts, this time as a right-wing podcaster and Twitter provocateur with more than half a million followers. He’s especially fond of railing against the alleged evils of abortion.
Last night, he offered this deep thought on Twitter:
Why, yes, Chuck, it is. And that’s a good thing. It’s good that women can choose to have children, or not, on their own schedule and for their own reasons, rather than having such a major, life-changing decision left to the whims of nature and less-than-100-percent effective birth control. (Or some dude poking a hole in his condom to prove to himself that his boys can swim.)
The ironic thing about Chuck’s current stance on abortion and the sanctity of pregnancy is that, despite his recent comeback, his true claim to fame remains his former gig on a dating show whose original run ended a quarter of a century ago,
The Chuck Woolery incarnation of Love Connection — in which one shallow, attractive idiot chose another shallow, attractive idiot from a menu of three shallow, attractive idiots and went on a date with them — was basically all about enabling casual sex for cheap entertainment. Though they couldn’t talk about sex directly on the show — instead relying on salacious innuendo — so many of the contestants did have sex that the staff had a cutesy term for it: “boink dates.”
Which is fine, of course, but it seems a little out-of-whack with Woolery’s recent ravings.
In any case, with all that sex going on — the show ran through 11 seasons and more than 2000 episodes — it’s at least possible that some of the women who appeared on the show got pregnant as a result of their Love Connection dates.
If you”ve ever caught a rerun of the show, you know what a horrifying prospect that would be; these were lust connections, at best, and it’s hard to imagine that many of the, er, relationships that came out of the show lasted more than one or two more dates. This is exactly the reason why we need to protect reproductive rights in the first place: no one should be forced to raise a child spawned from a casual hookup — especially with someone from Love Connection.
Woolery has other, well, intriguing ideas about reproductive rights and politics in general, the most original probably being this take on the voting rights of babies.
I don’t know about that. But if we allowed babies to vote all of our politicians would probably be kitties. Or possibly big lovable monsters. I’m actually ok with that.
We Hunted the Mammoth is independent and ad-free, and relies entirely on readers like you for its survival. If you appreciate our work, please send a few bucks our way! Thanks!
With their attitudes, why can’t they just go and create their own slaves? That’s what they want, not wives – hell, they’ll even attribute Bible passage that it’s permissible, more permissible in fact to marry a rapist and his victim than it is to marry two individuals of one sex. I’ve had enough of this world.
Does James Woods know Chuck Woolery is stealing his bit?
I’m old enough to remember when Chuck Woolery hosted “Wheel of Fortune”.
Sure is! And it’s also a license for women *to* reproduce, if they so choose. I don’t see the problem here.
In fact, I don’t even see why women should require a “license”, or the approval of Z list celebrities, to make choices about their own bodies. And in the age of overpopulation and climate change, we ought to be encouraging everyone to make careful family planning decisions.
It’s interesting that so many game show hosts are conservative (Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek are two others who come to mind). My guess is that to be a game show host, you have to be male and paternalistic, with a soothing voice, a winner-take-all mindset, and an utter indifference to the suffering and humiliation of contestants. In other words, Ronald Reagan.
The right to free speech is also a license to shut up.
Wow, way to crack the code, there, Chuckles. You are right; “reproductive rights” does, in fact, refer in part to rights having to do with reproduction.
The only response my brain can conjure is that vine where the guy goes: “Road work ahead? Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does!”
http://youtu.be/6AYv6rV3NXE
But I’m reliably informed that millions of women are stealing sperm just to force men to do exactly that!
If we allowed infants to vote, there would be no democracy.
After all, the institution rests on the shoulders of mature, informed voters for a reason.
(And when people of legal voting age act immaturely and with poor information, we get Donnie, and Dougie, and dumbfuck cheerleaders like Chuck.)
In other news: water fucking wet. Like…what’s even the point of that tweet?
I can’t help but think that if our politicians were kitties it’d be about the same; nothing has been getting done for about a decade now anyway, plus some of the kitties would probably be more qualified for the job and be a lot more fun to watch on C-SPAN
He thinks it’s a gotcha, like we were trying to trick people into agreeing with us and implying “right to reproduce” and not “right to control our own reproduction and reproductive health.” It’s because they always make their movements into the opposite of what they actually mean (pro-life, right-to-work, etc) so they assume we do the same.
I talked with my friend’s baby about this, and it turns out he’s firmly pro-choice. Your move, Chuck.
Yep. I’m in a state that didn’t pass an abortion ban, so haha! License to kill! And that’s just how I like it.
Not that I think an abortion is killing a person, but since Chucky here wasn’t even clever enough to make the really obvious Bond joke, I had to do it for him.
So … what are everyone’s impressions after the Dem primary debates? I noticed a lot more female representation than in years gone by. There’s even an article about that:
https://www.vox.com/2019/6/26/18716212/democratic-debates-diversity-elizabeth-warren-kamala-harris-amy-klobuchar
Also a suggestion that women might be Trump’s Kryptonite:
https://www.vox.com/2019/6/28/19102590/first-democratic-debate-2020-kamala-harris-trump
Warren and Harris seem to especially be making an impression.
Wait, Alex Trebek is conservative too?
God damn it.
Woolery finds the idea of a woman not wanting to be a mother intrinsically weird and confusing – and therefore scary – and he can’t understand why any reasonable person wouldn’t feel the same way. That’s the logic behind the Tweet.
@Mels
That was my reaction exactly.
@Surplus
I basically root for a lot of Not-Bidens, but I admit I am super biased towards Kamala Harris because she is from my state and because she is a woman of color. It would just eat away at Cheeto Benito to be beaten by a woman of color. I might have a heart attack of joy.
“Reproductive rights is a license for women not to reproduce”
I mean, I thought that was obvious.
@ Big Titty Demon
It’s only a shame she’s a regular at the ol’ SWERF n’ TERF buffet. She’ll never have an iota of my support.
Alex Trebek is not out there beating the drum for the Green Party but he doesn’t seem like much of a GOP cheerleader either. The daily beast article pins a single GOP donation on him of $3k, unlike the other game show hosts in the story who have given tens of thousands plus done some outspoken advocacy.
(Three grand is a lot of money for most people, but it’s pocket change for the rich.)
@Dalillama
I knew the SWERF bit, haven’t seen the TERF part of Harris. But I’ve yet to see a SWERF that wasn’t also a TERF (and vice versa) so I’m completely unsurprised.
Alex Trebek claims to be an independent, but he has made comments supportive of the Tea Party and reportedly keeps a TV tuned to Fox News in his dressing room. I’d categorize him as leaning right.
Wink Martindale, Drew Carey, and Ben Stein are also pretty right wing.
Gotta ask: SWERF?
Essentially, “why can’t I enslave women and have them do what I want?”. As I’ve mentioned before, if they want that, they should just work on making sex bots and artificial life that is capable of being pregnant and making babies (and either leave Christianity or reform it to the extent where that is permissible). Leave the women who want an independent life alone.
@Buttercup: Ben Stein was a speechwriter for Nixon long, long before he ever had any kind of acting or game show gig.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Drew Carey being conservative is actually pretty surprising. Any idea about the political leanings of the rest of the Whose Line cast?