Joe Schmo Finale

Cafe Society
#1

The Joe Schmo Show finale is tomorrow (10/28). How will Matt Kennedy Gould react when he finds out he’s been duped? If I were him, I would be royally pissed, not at the show for duping me, per se, but for letting myself be duped. The actors have been over the top bad. Matt should have suspected something was up. Maybe he has suspected it, but kept it to himself. Maybe he thinks they are all actors but he is reluctant to express his suspicions because the embarassment he would feel if he were wrong. He did state that he thought the TV exec was an actor. I do think he suspects something because I do not think that he is that dense, but I will think he will be shocked when he finds out that he is right.

The other possibility is that Matt is in on the joke and we, the audience, are the dupes. In that case, I would say “Good job, Spike TV. You knew I would give into my baser instincts and watch a fake reality show about a guy being duped. But the joke is on me. Ha, ha. Very good. You pulled a fast one on me. I have learned my lesson. I will be more careful about what I watch in the future. Every time I am in search of a voyeuristic thrill and want to watch someone get embarassed or humiliated I will think twice due to the time I got humiliated by watching Joe Schmo.” Given the other shows on Spike TV, I highly doubt this possibility though. They are the network that airs WWE, afterall.

Either case, it has been a great parody of the Survivor-Big Brother-The Mole-other reality competitions.

#2

Mr. singular and I had a great time watching the marathon Sunday, and we can’t wait for Tuesday nite! I hope he’s not in on it - that would really be a letdown. I think the producers really lucked out by finding such a nice guy, and I’d ate to find out I’ve been scammed into really rooting for this guy. Although now that I think about it, that whole chocolate thing was a little weird - who gags on chocolate? But then, all the actors liked the PG body parts of the stripper - oops, “model” - and Matt, the real man, went straight to the chocolate breasticles, like a real man!
Still, I can’t wait to se it!

#3

We’ll be watching it, but I’m astounded about Spike TVs choice to put it opposite the “24” season opener.

Kind of annoyed me, since I’m a big 24 fan.

#4

I’d be willing to bet large that Matt’s not in on the joke because it makes no sense to knowingly fool the viewing audience and then tell them they’ve been fooled. That violates every tenet of smart television production. The audience is always supposed to be in on the joke unless they willingingly “sign up” to be fooled. The problem with Matt being in on the joke is that the audience can’t appreciate it because now the show is over. If they did decide to go this route, they would try to pass it off as trying to fooling the actors, not the audience but it will still backfire. Reality show producer’s bank on the idea that what they portray as reality to the audience is actually reality. Even if they DO stage it, they don’t want the audience to know.

#5

The good thing about Spike TV is they’re airing it again 2hours after the first one started. (8pm and 10pm in CST).
Spike TV Schedule

#6

Matt is one of my favorite people. Just a good guy. I hope they make all this worth his while. He better get more than 100 grand.

#7

You need never worry about missing anything on Spike TV since it will be rerun again … and again … and again.

#8

Curse that SUV-Made-Out-Of-Legos commercial! Always tricking me into thinking the show is about to come back on!

#9

Anyone else think Ralph the Smarmy host is actually smarmier in real life?

#10

Yes. “I am not really a tool.” Sorry dude, kinda toolish.

#11

And what was all that “watch the first 15 minutes” bullshit? Gee, watch the first 15 minutes for a recap of the past six weeks? Thanks, Spike. Real cool.

Okay, I fell on the floor laughing when they re-ran the clip of Kip falling/jumping the pool.

#12

And I wonder if anybody believed they were ready to stop the show because somebody got a little weepy.

#13

Yea, I cringed every time they said that. “But, after careful consideration, the producer’s made the difficult decision to continue on with the show.”

#14

See, I have to wonder: what reason would this guy possibly have for suspecting that there’s an entire show built around just him? Nothing like it has ever really been done before; Joe Millionaire is the closest there’s ever been, but even that wasn’t deception on such a grand scale. Sure, the short length of the show might be suspicious, but hey, it would easily be explained by the fact that this IS Spike TV, relatively low on the cable totem pole, and they DID manage to stretch the actual show out this long. Besides, real people are even stranger than anything an actor could come up with, so frankly, I don’t think any bad acting (I really didn’t watch all that much) would necessarily be a clue.

I can definitely see suspecting a few people, but EVERYONE?

#15

Man, I was so nervous during the reveal! It really felt like any second they were gonna have Matt turn around and tell us he was a fake, too. It was so sappy and gooey, I was sure they were setting us up for that! I so glad it turned out the way it did - very satisfying, and I liked the way they finally uncovered the secret.
I wonder what going to happen to this dude now?
(and I loved the even-smarmier host!)

#16

I saw something a few weeks ago on, “E” I think, and it seems Ralph is actually a fairly big radio personality in California, so he’s smarmy for a reason.

And I had no idea Spike replays everything like that. I rarely actually watch it - in fact, I can never even remember what channel it is. There are very few things we actually go out of our way to watch in my house.

#17

To toot my own horn, from this thread:

…except that he didn’t seem very hurt by it, although the in the interview afterwards there was more than a bit of bitterness.

#18

Nobody likes getting fooled that badly- but he took it pretty good overall. Ending up with all the prizes helped a bit too I would imagine.

The fact that it was a bit of a well deserved love fest at the reveal probably helped matters along.

Hard to imagine they actually pulled off a varient of the Truman show and got it too work.

#19

Maybe I’m just trying to justify because I liked the show, but I thought perhaps the producers were spoofing yet one more part of the “reality TV” show. How they seem to drag you into a recap show by claiming new stuff will happen…etc.

The entire thing to me was almost a parody of every reality show out there. It was almost like two shows for the price of one in that sense.

#20

“The first 15 minutes” line might have been a cheap (smarmy?) attempt to draw viewers away from “24”.

I’m surprised Matt took it so well, but he’s still a bit dim. He’ll be drinking free in Pittsburgh for years now, though.