Ted Haggard is the evangelical preacher whose career got upended when it turned out he paid for gay sex and crystal meth; Gary Busey is an imbalanced psychopath who will pull your endocrine system out of your body and put it in his briefcase with all the highlighters and loose change. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the GREATEST WIFE SWAP IN HISTORY.

Ted Haggard is going on the celebrity edition of ABC’s Wife Swap reality show … and will swap partners with Gary Busey. Haggard still has a wife—despite the fact that he admitted paying for meth-fueled sex with a male masseuse in 2006. The probably-bisexual pastor now runs a nondenominational church in Colorado, and Busey is apparently a good match for him: The born-again actor is involved with Christian men’s organization Promise Keepers.

However, Busey bizarrely has no wife, just a girlfriend with whom he has a child. Producers haven’t said whether she’s the swapee or not, People notes, but the Colorado Springs Gazette reports that she is. [Newser]

The reason Busey is still unmarried is because America’s puritanical laws keep him from marrying his one true love, a badger named Candace. They argue a lot, but the sex is incredible.

Alicia Guastaferro, an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant who was featured on ABC’s “Wife Swap” with her shallow parents, is suing the network for $100 million. In preposterous number form, that’s 100,000,000 American dollars. From the New York Daily News:

[Guastaferro] says she has panic attacks and suicidal tendencies because of her 2008 appearance, in which she memorably berated her mom and sniffed, “I do feel sorry for people that are not gorgeous people.” The suit accuses ABC and parent company Walt Disney of staging scenes to “maximize [Guastaferro's] public embarrassment.”

The show… made Guastaferro the object of ridicule among her western New York peers and forced her to transfer schools, the suit claims.

No, I think it’s safe to say Guastaferro made Guastaferro the ridicule of her peers. Keep reading for more ridiculousness, plus the jaw-dropping clip of the show that features her awful, awful family.

In a clip from her episode, Guastaferro was introduced as the “princess of pageantry” as pictures flashed of her in a tiara and pageant gowns. ”If you don’t have the best clothes, the best hair and makeup and the best tan, you’re not gonna win the pageant,” she haughtily said in a trophy-filled room.

The suit says producers ordered Guastaferro to “act a little more spoiled” and staged scenes, including one in which her dad spray-tans her legs. They allegedly even manufactured scenes to make her look bratty, highlighting how her mom supposedly does her homework… Guastaferro claims she has gotten death threats and been assaulted, and went from the honor roll to being a special-ed student after the show aired. [But her mom didn't really do her homework! - Ed.]

How are these people even intelligent enough to dial a phone and find a lawyer? “HURRRRRR, I didden knowed that the reality show people would SHOW what I done on the TV!”

Oh, and there’s this little nugget from PopEater:

Another motive for the lawsuit may be the financial woes of the family.

Last November, Ralph and Karen Guastaferro pleaded guilty to felony money laundering charges stemming from a Canadian telemarketing scheme. Karen is also in hot water for not declaring wages at the family’s glass-tinting business. According to a Buffalo News report, she faces up to 16 months in jail, while he could spend up to 57 months behind bars.

I like that. Jail for the parents, and whatever happens to Alicia happens. A new career as a stripper, suicide, Overboard-style hijinks in which she learns humility — all of its better than who she is now. Although I do agree with her on the feeling sorry for not-gorgeous people thing.

Richard and Mayumi Heene, the “Wife Swap” alumni who orchestrated the Balloon Boy hoax in October, were sentenced to jail last week. Both received four years of probation, while Dick got 90 days (of which 60 will be work-release) and mama-san got 20. Unfortunately, Christmas will come a little late this year, as the jail terms don’t begin until January 11th :(

David Lane, Richard Heene’s attorney, said he thought Schapanski delivered fair and “thoughtful” sentences but nonetheless questioned whether the rulings — especially the jail sentence imposed on Mayumi Heene for a first offense — mistook vengeance for justice. [Denver Post]

Wait. Are vengeance and justice not the same thing? *puts away pipe bomb*

Lane also said the restitution requirement [which could be $47,000 or more] would be difficult for the Heenes to uphold. As part of the sentence, the Heenes are barred from making money off the hoax.

I’ve got a foolproof plan for them to be able to pay the restitution that I think will be satisfactory for everyone. They have life insurance, right?

“Balloon boy” was found alive, as CNN reports, which left a lot of us wondering if this was a hoax costing taxpayers a buttload of cash.  The answer is probably yes:

Wolf Blitzer: Did he hear you screaming out “Falcon, Falcon”?
Richard Heene: Um, he’s asking us, Falcon, did you hear us calling your name at any time?  You did?  Why didn’t you come out?
Falcon Heene: You guys said that we did this for the show.

Then just watch the parents squirm and backpeddle.  Ah, schadenfreude, my old friend, we meet again.

[via buzzfeed]

UPDATE: Video got pulled. Instead, enjoy this music video about the Heene boys being “not pussified” from the same episode of “Wife Swap.” (via Buzzfeed)

Holy crap! I go offline for 90 minutes to interact with other human beings, and the Internet gets taken over by a six-year-old boy named Falcon floating thousands of feet in the air over Colorado — which, according to people near TVs, has already come crashing to earth (with no six-year-old boy inside, so it’s either a hoax or he’s dead).

Anyway, in case you’re wondering if the child floating in a balloon alone 8000 feet in the air is the result of responsible parenting, I direct you to this clip from an episode of “Wife Swap” last year, in which the boy’s father, a storm chaser, goes off the rails in a clash with a replacement mother who cares about some gay-ass subject called “safety.” Whatever that is.

UPDATE X 2: Bonus insanity below!

The description of that “Wife Swap” episode from film.com:

“When the Heene family aren’t chasing storms, they devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm. In this ultimate swap, the Heenes swap lives with a psychic mom who speaks to the dead and can control the weather, her husband and her children — who believe they are destined to be stars. This show will feature aliens, punk rockers, past-life regression and, for the first time ever, the children from the two families will face off in a kids’ table meeting. “Heene/Silver,” the 100th episode of Wife Swap, destined to become a classic!”

And how.

Remember the “Bacon is good for me!” kid from “Wife Swap”? Of course you do, there hasn’t been someone so annoying about being correct since that cop said my alcohol is why I ran a red light and hit a pedestrian. And now it’s been remixed into a fun little song with cool accompanying images. And get this: NO AUTO-TUNE! It’s the Internet remix surprise of the year. Although now that I mention it… I kinda wanna see what Auto-Tune the News can do with this.

[Buzzfeed]

So, here’s the clip from “Wife Swap” that’s surging all over the Internet: a tubby little jackass gets pissed off that his health-conscious replacement mom throws away his bacon. And while the kid has a point — you do NOT throw away bacon! — he’s a fat whiny chump with a stupid haircut, and the mom is a sexy lady with a big rack. Winner: the hot mom. I’d let her throw away my bacon as long as she… ya know… take your pick of meat innuendos: pork sword, roast beef curtains, sausage, tube steak, furburger, etc. And don’t forget hair pie for dessert.

[Buzzfeed]

I don’t watch “Wife Swap” because the title describes something that should be way more sexy than the reality of the show, so I missed the recent episode in which the liberal-elite Stephen Fowler of San Francisco traded his life-coach wife for Gayla Long, a well-meaning Missouri simpleton. Fowler, a British expatriate, brow-beat Long to the point of tears, calling her dumb, fat, uneducated, and so on. He also managed to insult almost every subset of American culture and come off as an ignorant, elitist prick.

The resulting fallout from Fowler being King Dickhead of North America has forced him to apologize, and his wife admitted that he needed “professional help.” Yeah, professional help caving in his skull with a claw hammer.

Wait. Did I just offer to kill him for money? So I did. That was a mistake. I’ll do it for free.