For 20 Years, a Pleasure So Guilty It's Criminal

Guy gets pulled over by a cop. He steps out of his car. He's wearing a white T-shirt, bluejeans, a baseball cap and a goofy grin. The cop asks if he's been drinking.

"A couple of beers," the guy says.

Ah, the old "couple of beers" gambit. In traffic-stop America, everybody has imbibed only "a couple of beers" -- a couple being loosely defined as somewhere between two and 387. This cop's not buying it. Now , he's getting a goofy grin.

"Something leads me to believe narcotics might be involved," the cop says. "Any guess what it might be?"

"No."

"Have you smoked any pot tonight?" the cop asks.

"No."

So the cop reaches over and plucks out the joint that's tucked behind the guy's right ear, sticking out from under his baseball cap for all the world to see.

The guy's goofy grin wilts. "I didn't even know that was there," he says.

"Amazing how that happens," replies the cop.

It's just one of a thousand magic moments from "Cops," the reality-TV police show that proves, pretty much every week, that the phrase "criminal mastermind" is an oxymoron.

"Cops," a pioneer of reality TV, is celebrating its 20th season by releasing a two-DVD greatest-hits compilation that includes many of the show's most memorable perps. Like the guy with the joint behind his ear. And the shirtless midget who tried to flee the cops by shinnying up a light pole. And the woman who attempts to talk her way out of getting busted for dope-dealing by calmly explaining that she's not in that line of work. "I don't sell crack," she says. "I'm a prostitute."