"how can he be clean that is born out of a woman?"
-- job 4:4

that's a pretty funny one.

the obvious truth is that everyone born out of a woman is pretty filthy. television offers the viewer with a wide spectrum of baby cleanliness.

the highest occurance of clean babies occur on network tv sitcoms. true, they don't actually show the baby being, uh, birthed(?) but the next thing you see is the doctor is handing the baby wrapped all cute in a blanket, clean as a whistle to mama.

on medical dramas (also network tv) the babies tend to have a grittier look to them. i once read that on ER, that former hit nbc medical drama, that they spread jelly (i like to imagine it as raspberry preserves, seeds and all) all over the babies, and when i say spread i really mean slather. they slather those babies in raspberry preserves to give those netowrk tv babies that straight-outta-the-womb look.

by far, the most realistic babies just born can be found on pay cable. the home of ass and nipple shots is also home to babies who look like a complete mess. these pay cable shows love to show a scene where the slimy, slimy baby (raspberry preserves and molasses, perhaps) is cut from the umbilical cord and crying! oh, the crying! then there is a shot of the mother in a purely anguised, happy, teeth-baring smile (if she survives the child birth, that is) and the doctor says "let's get that baby cleaned up!"

network tv babies are the cleanest, hands down.