One of the secrets of ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager might be its success. The show premiered less than four years ago, but tonight it celebrates its 100th episode, a huge milestone for a cable series.

And to celebrate, The Secret Life of the American Teenager is doing its version of Glee with a big musical production to celebrate Amy and Ricky's secret wedding (which may or may not have actually happened). In this clip, Amy's best friends Lauren and Madison (Camille Winbush and Renee Olstead) offer their wedding present, a flash mob performance of Bruno Mars' "Marry You" in the school hallway, complete with a troupe of back-up dancers.



Glee used the song back in season 2 when Kurt's dad married Finn's mom, but that is the only way the two are similar. The truth is that this video clip is so ridiculously absurd that it's almost genius.

I'm often forced to defend watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager to others because they think it's painfully bad. And my response is simple: Yes, it is. Secret Life (or SLOTAT, as I like to call it) is one of those shows that is so incredibly awful that it achieves a level of sublime brilliance.

Take this clip, for example. It's not good. The singing is awful and it feels so repetitive that it's physically impossible to make it through the entire song. Compared to Glee's polished production values, this performance is like a home movie shown on public access.

My love for Secret Life comes from a love of very bad things. Sure, sometimes the show is so bad that it circles past "so bad it's good" right back into genuinely bad again, but it's also capable of the kind of unintentionally hilarious genius that resulted in the show being featured and mocked on The Soup in three straight weeks. I don't think there's any other scripted series on television to hold that dubious honor.

So here's to 100 episodes of teenage weddings, divorces and miscarriages, arson, Internet prostitutes, female masturbation, tragic plane crash deaths, claims that the Fourth of July is a gay holiday and a guest appearance by Bristol Palin. And yes, all of those things have been featured on The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Let's hope the next 100 episodes are anywhere near as ridiculous.


(Image courtesy of ABC Family)