Reality shows far removed from reality

I never liked Donald Trump that much to begin with. Now I hate him.

I cannot imagine sitting down for an hour each week watching a bunch of climbers fighting with each other over mythical business tasks for the attention of “The Donald.”

But there it is, No. 4 on the TV ratings last week, none other than “The Apprentice” starring our favorite billionaire, Donald Trump.

I can’t remember who said, “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”

I think the strangely labeled “reality shows” prove that case, in case there ever was any doubt. Fakers on shows such as “Survivor” pretending to live on some island somewhere eating bugs and voting each other “off the island” to win the grand prize of a million or two?

This is reality?

I feel about these fake shows the same way I feel about the photos used by the fund-raisers regarding world hunger. There is usually some pretty but malnourished young child, crying and covered with flies. Now, you know as well as I do that the cameraman has a sandwich in his pocket or within arm’s reach. Why doesn’t the cameraman, the producer, the director and the other hangers-on give that starving child a meal?

Why doesn’t the producer, director, cameraman or best boy (whatever that is) give these “Survivor” fakers a ham-and-cheese sandwich so they don’t have to eat those bugs?

This is reality?

I never have watched any of these phony shows longer than it takes to recognize their content. I was forced by a higher power, Blue Eyes, to sit through “The Apprentice” a few weeks ago. It was the one where the obnoxious Omarosa got the ax.

I thought the show was totally dumb and could not imagine why anyone would watch longer than 3.5 seconds. I checked that week and saw it was No. 4, between “CSI” and just ahead of “Survivor.” I can’t watch that, either.

These “Apprentice” contestants, chosen from a audition of 2,000 Trump wannabes, are remarkably revolting. How can you root for any of them to succeed? They are nasty, manipulative, vain, greedy and remarkably shallow. I guess it would be worth something to get the supposed $250,000 job with Trump when you win.

These people gleefully jump through the silliest hoops, including selling lemonade and horrible art, as an artifice to give Trump the power at the end of the show to choose one of the contestants for the dreaded board room encounter and the now-famous phrase, “You’re fired.”

You won’t believe this, but some business colleges take the show so seriously that they are adding “Apprentice” classes to the syllabus. My new favorite associate dean is Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management. He said the weekly developments are more like “a gong show” than a management training seminar. He compares the weekly exercise to “musical chairs at Hooters.”

Maybe, just maybe if there were no baseball games, no “Friends” or “Seinfeld” on television and you were incapacitated after a horrible accident and unable to change the channel, you might sit through one episode. But why would anyone want to watch another?

I am blissfully out of touch. “The Apprentice” has close to 20 million viewers a week and has just been signed up for two more years. Trump is the biggest thing in entertainment and has won the coveted cover of Newsweek magazine. He now is doing a series of commercials, making even more millions.

If I was in charge of television (it could happen), I would say two things to Trump.

Get a haircut.

You’re fired.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@man.com.