'BUCKWILD:' 'Jersey Shore' & 'Boo Boo's' Baby

Well, OK, that was ... pretty much exactly as expected.

MTV introduced the world to the beer-swilling wannabes of "BUCKWILD" on Thursday, and the show about wild young rednecks in West Virginia did little to hide its inspirations, playing like the bastard child of "Jersey Shore" and "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," with a little "Jackass" thrown in for good measure. (As a fan of the Darwin Awards, I suspect the network's "Don't try this at home" disclaimer about "wild and crazy behavior" won't do much to prevent a thinning of the gene pool.)

"When you ain't got much, you gotta get creative," one of the participants (they're pretty interchangeable) observes at the outset, endeavoring to explain their sillier ways of passing the time.

But "creative" left the barn ages ago. "BUCKWILD" is simply "Jersey Shore" in a different locale, from the drunken girlfights to the night-vision hook-ups to the excuses to get everyone wet and naked or nearly so. (Salwa, a late arrival to the festivities, quickly gets topless, so she's someone to keep your eye on.)

If the show has a poet laureate, it's Shain, who needs to be dubbed into English half the time. And if "Honey Boo Boo" is any guide, people -- especially in the South -- will eat this up.

Yet the real truth is even if these kids aren't acting, they damn well know by now what's going to garner attention and screen time. The only problem is as titles go, "BUCKCALCULATED" is kind of a mouthful.