A bombshell blonde scarfing a bowl of cheese covered with maggots.

Random strangers locked inside a house together for several weeks, tortured by each others’ quirky habits. Hundreds of youth auditioning for the chance to become professional wrestlers. A traveling circus act, or a sadistic talent show? No. Its primetime television. And yes, the American public really digs this “reality TV” stuff. Over 40 million viewers tuned into the final episode of “Joe Millionaire,” in which Evan Marriott professed his love to Zora — and confessed a $50 million lie.

Over 26 million watched the debut of “American Idol,” as Simon Cowell bashed youthful hopefuls with no chance to make it big in show business.

And “Survivor: the Amazon’s” ratings are still staying solid at around 20 million viewers for CBS.

The stories are true. The people are real. But the settings are hardly normal: average folk dumped in a remote location in some random part of the world, like “The Amazing Race.” Or, like in “ElimiDate,” several members of the opposite sex battling for the affections of a good-looking stranger.

Reality TV shows, some more outrageous in plot than others, give viewers an unpredictable story no screenwriter can easily fabricate: true human emotions and real-life conflict.

Some of it is just plain fun. We couldn’t help but laugh when Kelly Osbourne lectured brother Jack about shooting his BB gun in their Beverly Hills backyard home, or cheer when Kelly Clarkson wowed the audience in the “American Idol” finals.

A lot of it is just sick. Most reality TV shows present a reality most of us could never imagine ourselves living: having our parents perform lie-detector tests on our dates (“Meet My Folks”), succumbing to lustful passions on a deserted island (“Temptation Island”), or blindly letting the public choose an anonymous spouse for us (“Married by America”).

There’s also something addictive watching the sheer anguish on a woman’s face as she loses “Fear Factor” on the final challenge: sliding down the Luxor building in Las Vegas.

Or listening to Cris Judd on “I’m a Celebrity- Get Me Out of Here!” as he discloses to his teammates – and all of America — intimate details about his break-up with ex-wife Jennifer Lopez. Or the sheer audacity of notorious faces like Tonya Harding and Joey Buttafuoco battling other social misfits in “Celebrity Boxing.”

Gaining pleasure from someone else’s pain isn’t new. The ancient Romans got a kick out of lions and prisoners dueling in an arena. The French made public executions a town event during the French Revolution. The bearded lady in a traveling sideshow wowed many a family in the days of small-town America — a forerunner of notorious daytime talk shows hosted by the likes of Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones and Ricki Lake.

Watching reality TV, for the most part, is like rubbernecking while driving by the scene of an accident: It’s nobody’s business, but it’s something worthwhile to look at until you pass it.

And it’s no surprise that in these troubled times, when the stock market is down and international tensions are up, that Americans are retreating into the fantasy of “reality TV.”

We aren’t flocking to “Meet the Press,” or “Nightline.” The reality on those shows scares us. Especially now.

But misery loves company. Or at least a good episode of “The Anna Nicole Show.”

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