The production company behind Hell's Kitchen doesn't think you should have to read a book to gain enough superficial knowledge of a subject that you can convince other people of your expertise in everything from wine-tasting to home financing. They're partnering with publisher John Wiley & Sons to bring the For Dummies series of books to television.

These are the yellow "how to" books. The orange ones are The Complete Idiot's Guide series. There are over 1,000 For Dummies titles in print, and the television development plans aren't limited to some TLC one-off. These guys are thinking empire - games shows, reality, scripted programming.

A spokesman for the producer A. Smith and Company told Variety, "Whatever topic you can think of, there's a Dummies book for it. There's such a plethora of information, and these are books -- not pamphlets." That's right, A. Smith, a book is more than a Wikipedia entry.

I just can't wait to see how they translate the For Dummies titles on Endometriosis and Robot Building to television.