LAND O' LAKES, FL -- Okay, I know I should just ignore this waste of a TV show, but they came into our “nudist space” so forgive me if I write a few lines of commentary about it. The plot is very similar to the insipid Green Acres of the 1960’s, where an urban socialite was forced to live beneath her dignity on a farm. In the 2004 version, The Simple Life, the series stars socialite Paris Hilton, the great-granddaughter of Hilton hotels founder Conrad Hilton and beneficiary of the family's fortune, along with Nicole Richie, the clueless adopted daughter of pop singer Lionel Richie. The program's first season saw the seemingly dim-witted duo struggle with life on an Arkansas farm.

For Season Two, the socialites have been stripped of their cash and credit cards and are tasked with driving a trailer- towing pink pickup truck from Miami to Beverly Hills, forced to earn their food and gas money from the locals along the way.

The episode telecast June 23, 2004 was filmed at the Caliente nudist resort in March. The park is located about 60 miles north of Tampa Bay. At Caliente, Hilton and Richie cleaned rooms in French maid uniforms and attended a body-acceptance class.

Based on a late-night interview with David Letterman in mid-June, the Caliente folks feared Richie and Hilton would belittle them in the final editing. “She told Letterman it was awful, gross and a bunch of old people you wouldn't want to see naked,'' said one Caliente resident. “So we feared the worst.”

Walt Bartsch was surprised when he heard the disparaging remarks. Bartsch and his wife, Ruth, were at Caliente Resort when Hilton and Nicole Richie filmed the episode. He said he thought the women “had a good time.” In fact, Nicole said it herself on camera, “I loved it here.”

Despite the remarks on Letterman, hundreds of Caliente residents and members turned out for a “Simple Life”' viewing party the night it aired. Everyone involved in the show when it taped in March wore hot pink Simple Life 2 T-shirts or white "I survived The Simple Life 2."

Instead of the traditional “pixilation,” the Fox network used yellow smiley faces to block out certain body parts whenever a nudist was shown on screen. No matter, cheers erupted from the partygoers whenever they saw someone they knew on camera.

Other “lowlights” of the 30-minute telecast included Hilton waking up to see nude people walking, hiking, and biking and saying, “This is not how I wanted to wake up.” Paris asked if people had sex at the resort and seemed relieved to hear that the answer was “yes, but not in public.”

The first half of the show focused on the two women struggling with performing simple bed making and room-straightening tasks, with very little success. The camera caught them using a guest’s cell phone to order room service for themselves in a room, then requesting another maid because they did not want to clean it. They also were caught trying on a guests’ clothing and critiquing the wardrobe’s style. The two never removed any of their own clothing during the episode but they did use scissors to raise the hemlines of their maid outfits from the knees to mid-thigh (“We wanted to look more nude.”)

At the end of the show they co-mingled and danced in their sun suits with the locals. As the show closed, the voice-over announcer said the girls had learned the most important part of a person was what was inside, not the skin outside. Yeah, like I really believe Paris Hilton thinks that!

Most of the resort residents rested easy after the show clicked off at 9:30 p.m. "It was all done for fun. We don't mind. We're all comfortable with ourselves," said Carole Van Dusen, whose naked form appeared on the show.

However, amid the bubbling glass palm trees, swizzle sticks, pink balloons and jiggling ice, a few Caliente nightclubbers gave the show a “thumbs down.” Zhenya Nichols said the show used Caliente as a cheap backdrop. "For teenagers, everyone over 30 is dead. We are Jurassic for them," Nichols said. But Bruce, Mitchell and others said they enjoyed their brief stint in the limelight.

Several of the locals heard Hilton promise to visit again, next time without the cameras. So maybe her Letterman remarks were simply a publicity ploy to deflect criticism of her recent video escapades?

"They edited a lot of stuff for the episode," Bruce said as the dance floor cranked up with naked bodies. "But it was cool."

The coverage before and after the telecast by The Tampa Tribune, The St. Petersburg Times and Community News was fair and positive. But those "happy Faces" and the snickering episode description just reinforced the untrue stereotype that nudists are strange, sex-starved perverts. Sorry, but I have to give the show a thumbs down.

Residents quotes from St Petersburg Times articles June 24, 2004 by Geoff Fox and James Thorner.