betty hayes

Right now, I'm watching the Hayes family of TLC's Table for 12 chat with Regis and Kelly. It's not the first time we've seen them lately; since the second season of their show premiered, they've been all over the talk landscape.

We're definitely seeing them a lot more than when the show's first season debuted; in fact, TLC seemed to premiere the story of the Hayeses, who have two sets of twins and a set of sextuplets, on the QT last March. The relatively soft launch was a bit of a mystery to me, given the network's love of multiples. I mean, these guys had Jon and Kate beat by a mile, right?

But now that I look back at it, there were two things keeping TLC from really pushing the Hayes family back then: 1) Betty and Eric Hayes actually liked each other (read: they're boringly happy) and 2) Jon and Kate were still a couple. Now that J&K have exploded into a toxic tabloid mess, TLC needed someone to promote, and the Hayes' relative happiness seemed to be the perfect antidote.