You know, Dancing With The Stars, Celebrity Big Brother, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!
It’s always either has-been B list actors from 20 years ago (Verne Troyer), former sports athletes (Dennis Rodman), incredibly niche “famous” people (Stuttering John Melendez), or people who had 5 minutes of fame (Some celebrities mistress). I don’t think there’s even been active B list stars in those shows.
So who was the most famous person to ever been on one of those shows that wasn’t doing a single episode or the entire show was based around them?
The point of those shows, behind the scenes, is to employ those actors and performers who are seeing darker days and giving them a bit of a profile boost and a nice pay cheque. They’re cheap to make, easy to spread 30 episodes across a year to fill airtime, and are massively popular despite the cheese and low-rent stars involved.
Active B-list actors are plenty busy and don’t need the boost. It’s that simple.
No. They’re still celebrities, it’s up to you if you think they’re worth watching. If 90% of them you say “who the hell are these people?” then don’t watch. If 50% of them are at least people you recognise from their guest spot on Law and Order, then give it a chance. Or not.
Consider our own Celebrity Death Pool where we will list obscure second-tier football coaches as worthy of note. Personally I consider them celebrities if they have earned their own Wikipedia page with at least a screen-and-a-half of info on it.
You really don’t think Dennis Rodman is a “real” celebrity? What’s your definition?
I’ve watched DWTS for several years now, and I usually recognize about half the contestants. Sometimes I chuckle at how incestuous the Reality TV world can be. Many of the dancers gained their fame as Bachelorettes or Real Housewives or contestants on other reality shows. So yeah, the genre kind of feeds on itself.
Then there are the “internet celebrities,” which I used to not even know was a thing. Did you know you can get legit famous just by posting videos on YouTube? One kid on the show was a Vine star, fer chrissakes. You may argue otherwise, but these folks are indeed celebrities to enough people to care.
But sometimes you get people who are truly and undeniably famous. Anne Heche is going to be in the upcoming season. Florence Henderson has been on. Donny Osmond. Denise Richards. Gladys Knight. Gary Busey. David Hasselhoff. Dorothy Hamill. Drew Carey. Buzz Aldrin!
So it’s a mixed bag. Are George Clooney and Sandra Bullock going to do it? Probably not. That doesn’t mean those who do aren’t true celebrities.
I would think that Billy Dee Williams (Dancing With The Stars) counts as an actual celebrity. Sure, he was decades past his prime when he appeared on the show, but he was in two of the biggest movies of the past 40 years (Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi); was in one of the high-water marks of early Black Cinema (Mahogany); and has had a lengthy career in TV and film.
This will be the first season of DWTS that I don’t know any of the celebrities. Anne Heche was married to Ellen, right? But I doubt that’s what she’s famous for. And there’s another guy who was in the Backstreet Boys, the group who did that song that goes, “Backstreet’s back, all right!” That’s the sum total of what I know about these people.
Sometimes you get people who once were big stars and who haven’t been in the public eye for a while. It can be interesting to see what has happened to them. Like meeting a very old friend.
As asked repeatedly of the OP: “What’s a ‘celebrity’?”.
IMO it’s a name you recognize from some public spectacle, be that sports, entertainment, politics, or even big business.
Which leads immediately to the question of “Who is ‘you’?” IMO it’s enough individuals across the country to cause enough folks to tune in often enough to keep the sponsors happy enough.
If they had to depend on the “you” that’s celebrity-ignoring me, they’d go broke immediately; I’ve never even heard of most of the shows in the OP, much less watched an episode.
But for the folks who live for People magazine, for TwitFace-following anyone with an online retinue, damn near anyone who’s had 5 minutes of fame is monetizable and hence celebrity-enough.
If you’re not limiting it to the 21st century, the old Battle of the Newtork Stars had actual, currently or recently working, recognizable celebrities risking humiliation and actual injury to compete against each other in sports themed competition. (and the dunk tank). Check out the list of participants in the Wikipedia articles.
Going further back, they might not have called it “reality television”, but the original Home Run Derby had then-current MLB players competing for real money (not charity). Players even non fans would recognize.
Dennis Rodman is famous but I wouldn’t call him a celebrity since he was doing reality shows well after his NBA career and during his “laughingstock” phrase. My definition of a celebrity is a famous person people legitimately want to see, and not as a carnival attraction. Gary Busey is a celebrity who also quickly became a famous side-show later in life.
You are being to restrictive about what a “celebrity” is. A carnival attraction is a celebrity if everyone knows who they are. Celebrity is about how much name recognition someone has regardless of whether or not people would want to see them in a movie or a concert.
Heche was controversial in her day. She dated Steve Martin before dating Ellen Degeneres, and he was bitter enough about it to satirize her in Bowfinger; the downturn in her career has been attributed to the popular opinion backlash that she pretty much used both relationships to raise her profile.
But before all that, she was a soap opera star. She played the twins Vicky and Marley on Another World in the late 80s, early 90s and was very popular. There are probably a lot of DWTS fans who would remember her from that.