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Before it got self-referential and started playing up its own celebrity, NBC Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" series was a distinct guilty pleasure. It did the heart good to see some genuinely depraved lowlifes humiliated on nationwide TV before heading off to prison where they'd no doubt meet predators more adept than themselves.

Meanwhile, with so many in Hollywood reaching out to defend confessed child rapist Roman Polanski, It was inevitable that some clever video editor would bring "Predator" host Chris Hansen and moviedom's most prominent pedophile together for a brief interview on YouTube (video after the jump).

The exchange hits all of the "Predator" chestnuts as, whenever Hansen ambushed one of these depraved disasters, there'd be excuses and denials galore. Sadly, Polanski outlived the real "To Catch a Predator" as lame lawsuits involving tired notions of due process and entrapment ruined the fun for everyone.

Chris Hansen and Dateline have become so embedded in the popular culture that even the people that get arrested talk about it. Tonight at 10 on NBC, Hansen and his crew go to Las Vegas for their "Vegas Undercover" investigation, and when a guy gets arrested, it turns out that he watches the show too!

[via PopWatch]

NBC quietly canceled the Chris Hansen-starring reality vehicle To Catch A Predator. Now it is planning to launch a similar sort of program in War Criminals which tracks down war criminals (obviously) and arrests them on camera.

Didn't these guys learn their lesson the first time around? Vigilante justice with a camera is still vigilante justice, and vigilante justice only works well in the comic books and movies. It works on television too, but only in the scripted variety and not like this.

Granted, prostitution with a camera is called pornography, but that's legal. It has a system to govern it and make sure it doesn't reach children or other inappropriate people (how effectively it works is another discussion). Even the government has expressed concerns about televised sting operations interfering in the legal apprehension of criminals.

While this may bring some short-term ratings to NBC, I don't see it lasting long. The last thing they need is another Bill Conradt-style lawsuit.

If you're like me (you have my deepest sympathy), you don't have a dog in this Sunday's hunt.

Thanks to the Arizona Cardinals' first appearance this weekend, my hometown team, the New Orleans Saints, will now be one of only five left in the NFL that have never made a Super Bowl appearance. Three if you don't count the expansion clubs.

So if you're a Cardinals fan and don't have the stomach to endure their slow, agonizing and inevitable defeat at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers, here are some alternative shows you can watch instead of the Super Bowl.

I've never been a fan of Dateline's "To Catch A Predator." Despite helping to put sexual predators behind bars, the series is tainted by egregious spectacle, and recently resulted in the suicide of one man in Murphy, Texas. Consequently, the district attorney has refused to prosecute the other twenty-four men who were caught in the sting.

Readers can discuss in the comments the value of one man's life over that of anyone else's, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. What I'm saying is, despite selling the show as some kind of humanitarian crusade, reporter Chris Hansen and the producers behind "To Catch A Predator" both want and need that moment of public humiliation for the show to work and for people to watch. They're putting out a fire, yes, but they're doing it by throwing manure on it.

This Just In has a new video up featuring some hysterical outtakes from Dateline's "To Catch A Predator" series.

Okay, it's not really Dateline, and that's not really Chris Hansen, but it is really, really funny. The swearing is bleeped, but you might want to be careful about watching it at work or church anyway. Also, you shouldn't bring your wireless laptop to church, that's just rude. Jesus doesn't come to your house and play his banjo* while you're trying to watch TV, does he? That's right, they don't**.

Anyway, I placed the video after the jump.

[via CC Insider]

*I belong to a religious sect that believes Jesus was in an folk band

**This sect also believes Jesus was made of several smaller Jesuses, like Voltron

Dateline NBC will add an extra element to its broadcast on Friday night, an online chat. It's fitting, considering the subject matter. The news magazine will feature its third report to scare the crap out of parents about sexual predators on the internet. Reporter Chris Hansen and members of the vigilante group Perverted Justice will lure sexual predators from internet chat rooms to a house in which they are hiding. When the predator knocks on the door, Hansen and a camera crew will be there to confront the sicko (they do these undercover reports on the local news here in Portland, and they're pretty darn terrifying).

During Friday night's broadcast of Dateline NBC, reporter Chris Hansen will be hosting a live chat to answer questions and tell stories about the sexual predators that didn't make it into the final cut. Of course, this live chat is only for the East coast airing of Dateline from 9-11 pm.