The self-appointed watchdogs of "family values" who patrol the TV air waves are really missing the boat by going after such easy targets as Comedy Central's "South Park," which I find hysterically funny and one of the sharpest satires in the history of mass entertainment. (Doesn't mean I want my 12-year-old watching it.)

Surely more insidious than booger jokes and pointed sociopolitical commentary is the flat-out avarice on full display on pseudo-reality shows such as MTV's "Laguna Beach" and "My Super Sweet 16" and Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Orange County."

My high school senior loves these shows, and I admit I find them a guilty pleasure, even though I have a hard time sitting through a whole episode because I get so thoroughly disgusted.

Those "housewives" complain because they're bored with their 24-room mansions, margarita lunches and Botox house calls. One mom actually asked her daughter to dump her sweetheart of a boyfriend because he planned to be a firefighter and wouldn't be able to provide an appropriate standard of living.

The scary thing is that almost without exception, their spawn are worthless beings who continue to sponge off their parents because they can't cut it in college or because working for a living is too haaard.

These are our nation's elite? (I could so be a better rich person.)

Worst of all is "My Super Sweet 16," where parents shell out upward of $250,000 on birthday parties for their bratty, ungrateful teens who revel in excess on a scale that would make Caligula blush.

One particularly evil child who didn't miss a chance to berate her mother handed out "Moulin Rouge" invitations on feathered fans in front of the entire student body so she could witness firsthand the disappointment and envy on the faces of those who were left out. Another girl hired uniformed staff to deliver invitations with the caveat, "Don't come unless you bring a gift."

Where are the morals police?

Invariably, each teen is rewarded for mere existence with a new luxury car, even though many do not possess a driver's license.

Sensible viewers see these shows as cautionary tales of what happens when people with too much money abandon restraint and parental responsibility. Of course, the joke is really on the people on these shows. They are so self-involved that they have no clue just how inane they come across.

But I wonder how many young people watch and aspire to the same amoral, bling-bling lifestyle.

Whatever happened to "After School Specials"?

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.