Updated every so often.

Reviewed today: Italian Television

Your cynical.com reporter has spent the last month in Italy, and is now facing a six-hour train ride. Therefore, we have decided to write a review of the myriad of commercials we have seen on Italian TV.

First, you must know, that phone-sex ads here are much better. Basically they use non-hardcore portions of porn films, and superimpose the phone number. They also dub over the sound with popular American music – Madonna, for instance. Let's be quite clear here. When I say "hard core" I mean that all they eliminate is the actual sex/penetration part. They don’t block breasts at all, genitals are mostly avoided by editing, but not entirely. Personally, we have never had the occasion to actually use a phone sex number, and we certainly would find phone sex in Italian baffling to say the least. But if you were going to call a phone sex number, and you have this light- to medium-core porn on the TV, on several different channels we might add, then why bother?

On a similar subject, and no, this is not a commercial, strictly speaking, but there is a great game show on Italian TV called "Colpo Grosso." We had difficulty figuring it out, but here are the basics. There are two contestants, a man and a woman. There are 6 "Cin Cin" (pronounced "cheen cheen") girls; what "cin cin" means is left to your imagination. Each of the cin cin girls has a fruit associated with her, lemon (limone), strawberry (fragiolla), etc. Now, each contestant chooses one of the girls. The chosen girls come to center stage and open their tops. The contestants get points depending on whether the girl they chose has a sticker on one of her nipples or not.

Next, the contestants bet a certain amount of the points they have on the match game (this is our name for it). They each arrange all the fruits on placards (corresponding to the cin cin girls). Meanwhile, the chosen cin cin girls are also arranging a set. The number of fruits in the contestants' configuration that match the cin cin girls' configuration presumably increases their score somehow, related to the amount they bet.

Next, there is what seems to be a rather complicated question, which the contestants also get points for. The contestant who answers the question correctly gets to choose one of three boxes, red, yellow and blue. The "superstar" (more on her later) opens the box and pulls out a number, either 3, 6, or 9. Then the host, Umberto Smiler, does some complicated math involving the contestants' previous score and the number from the box, and comes up with yet another number, usually between 2 and 5.

Now we haven't mentioned that there is yet another set of women. These are usually at least somewhat older than the cin cin girls, with not quite as nice bodies. There are girls for different countries, France, Germany, etc. The contestant who won the question then gets to choose which of these women he/she wants to strip. The number of women that are chosen is the number that Umberto came up with. Each of the women then do a dance and strip down to their hose and underwear.

This is the end of round one. The person who chose the strippers wins this round. The Next they read a letter from a viewer, then it's time for Caldo e Fredo.

Because its possible for a player to have not gained any points, or to have bet them all and lost them at the match game, if a player has no points he or she has to strip to get them. They get 5,000 points for each item of clothing. The men usually strip down to a one-piece t-shirt/boxer combination that's really funny on the skinnier guys. The women usually strip down to underwear and hose.

Fredo means "colder" and caldo means "hotter". The first player is shown a card with a woman on it, to which they then have to bet a certain amount of their points on whether the next card will be caldo (fewer clothes) or fredo (more clothes). Because its common for players to bet "tutte" (all their points), sometimes players who started out with points still have to go strip for more points to continue.

At the end of Caldo e Fredo, the player with the most points wins. That player chooses some more of the country-strippers to take their clothes off. Next, the winner can choose the roulette, or he can just continue to the next day, by saying "no." If he chooses the roulette, a roulette wheel is spun. The hostess brings over a tray with a card for each number on the roulette wheel. The contestant then has to answer 5 questions in 60 seconds to win the "Colpo Grosso." Which essentially is a trip anywhere in the world, plus, all the country girls who are left strip, and there is a special strip show by the superstar, who goes all the way to the full monty.

It's really very moving.

Okay I've written enough I'll actually get to the Italian commercials tomorrow.

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