Forget Survivor with it’s exotic locales.
How about putting a bunch of WASPS in the heart of Bronx, a crack ridden neighborhood, keeping them electronically tethered to a specific locale, equipped only with food stamps, nugget jewelry and their wits.
More fun than a box of ferrets.
Paranoia
Candid Camera meets the Twilight Zone in this new reality show where a normal Americans become the star of their very own paranoid nightmare! Phone taps, hidden cameras, mysterious trechcoated pursuers, furniture and other household objects moved around while they sleep, their radio and television interupted by snippets of strange “phantom” broadcasts, stange lights and noises in their apartments, incredulity from everyone they know, all culiminating in a late-night kidnapping where they’re taken to an abandoned warehouse, strapped into a torture chair and told to “reveal what they know” then after a couple of hours of this, everyone they know jumps out and yells “Surprise!”
Oh the hilarity, especially if the person chosen is alrady mildly delusional to begin with!
I’m thinking Gorgon Heap’s idea of “America’s Most Drunk” would be really hilarious.
Oh and slight hijack - I read about these up-and-coming reality shows in Reader’s Digest, and one of them was - get this - “Real Life Beverly Hillbillies” or something like that. A real backwoods family moves to a mansion in the big city!
How low can we get?
I also heard there’s to be a “Real Life Green Acres” with a rich family moved to the boonies.
Can a “Real Life Gilligan’s Island” with an actual ship’s captain and his first mate, millionaire and his wife, college professor, movie star and country girl stuck on an island and forced to work together to overcome whatever retarded obstacles the producers can throw at them?
ATTICA: THE FIRST YEAR
Follows the adventures of a lovable “boy next door” type as he tries to adjust to life in prison. He has to go through those stressful newbie phases like making new friends, knowing which clubs to join (“the Aryan Nations, the Brotherhood, and the Nation of Islam are all having membership drives… who do I pledge?”), that awkward first date (“will he call after he rapes me? Do I give him a pack of cigarettes or does he give me one?”), and conjugal visits with special guest star Bea Arthur. At the end of one year, he’s given the choice of remaining in prison or being released into Bea’s company.
CANNIBAL: THE SERIES
Ten volunteers are stranded high in the Andes with no food, no water, no phones, and a fully stocked gourmet outdoor grill and complete spice rack. How long can they make it?
THE ROBERT DOWNEY JR. SHOW- follow the antics of RD in Anna Nicole style as he enters into zany adventures with his dealer, Bruno, probation officer Marsha Warfield, and personal assistant Gary Coleman.
WHO WANTS TO SLEEP WITH AN EX PRESIDENT?
IDENTITY THEFT: THE SERIES
REAL WORLD XX: SPAHN RANCH
Changes that would make current reality series more interesting:
JUDGE ROY MOORE - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama (aka "the T’Alabam) most famous for his 10 Commandments statue and for dissing lesbian moms by quoting scripture gets his own court show in which everything is “by the book… of Exodus, that is!” It’s Sharia-Dixie Style as spectral evidence is allowed but evolution is not and when he says “an eye for an eye”, he means it!
Actually, here’s an idea for an X-Rated show:
WHEEL OF PORN
Naked fine looking 18-30 year old contestants (most of them former Real World/Road Rules stars) answer questions for the chance to spin a wheel. The wheel tells them who to have sex with and what positions to do while an audience receives prizes from host Rosie O’Donnell.
or… just add live sex shows to Elimidate.
STALKERS
A game show in which three people are given wearable cameras and the name of a celebrity. They have to return with a hair sample and an item of the celebrity’s clothing.
PAINTBALL MAFIA
Four “families” are assigned districts in New York (actually Toronto- it’s cheaper to film). Each weak they have to “battle” for new territories by performing physical stunts, answering trivia questions, or by wiping out all the members of the other team with paintball hits. The winning team is the first to wipe out the heavily guarded dons of all the other families. (You can advance in the family by orchestrating a hit on your own don, but he doesn’t count toward your kills UNLESS you pull out and start your own family.)
WHO WANTS TO MARRY A MORMON FUNDAMENTALIST?
The beauty of this one is that he doesn’t have to pick just one.
I was just watching Tarrant on TV and caught a glimpse of a real program on Russian television called Interceptor. The rules are that the contestants have to steal a car – really steal a car – and evade police capture for the duration of the show. If they successfully escape the police until the end of the show they get to keep the car. If they don’t, they go to jail – really go to jail – for several years for car theft.
Tarrant didn’t go into too much detail of the logistics of this, but given that some of the footage shown was from cameras in the police cars themselves there’s obviously some form of cooperation with the authorities, and presumably the show pays off the car owners should the contestants win. Any way it works, this is a pretty disturbing idea.
SPOOFE, have you seen Cirque du Soleil: Fire Within? It’s a reality series on Bravo that follows the backstage exploits of the performers in the latest Cirque du Soleil production. It follows the rehearsals, and what happens when everyone goes home afterward, as well as all the interpersonal sniping (and other interpersonal activities). And at the end, you can go see the real show, Varekai.
I can’t tell you how much I love this idea. I’ll get my people on it immediately.
Celebrity Firefight!
Join six everyday Americans as they try to save a beloved celebrity’s home from man’s most cunning and dangerous foe - fire!
This week: Will Willem Defoe make it out of his picturesque Alpine villa alive? You’ll have to watch to find out!
How about " America invades Iraq" Sadamn in a cage paraded through the streets of Wash.D.C,. Bush on a white steed with a gold crown on his head and an old second world war German Generals batton in his hand waving to the " coalition of the willing". The spoils of war{barrals of oil} stacked up on the White House lawn…naa…no one would believe it!
“ROADIES”
A contestant works for “Great White” (or another burned out second rate 70’s band if they are in prison) for one year as a roadie.
At the end of one year, if he is still alive, he is given a check for 1 million dollars.
In Real Survivor, 16 people are depisited in random spots on a small tropical island for 6 weeks. They may kill each other at will, and receive a $1 million bounty per head. At the conclusion of the contest, all the survivors split a $16 million pot. So the question is; do you go it alone, or do you trust someone else enough to team up with them and become a killing machine team?
which eating hideous insects nets you cash and prizes.
“starving for dollars”
20 people in one house. The person who can go the longest without eating gets a check for 10 million dollars.
This whole genre is parody proof. It’s sad really.
No matter how outrageous you think your idea for a reality show is, wait 2 months and the networks will top it.
“ooh ooh! how about Digit Survivor, where viewers around the country vote off a finger every week? See which one lasts the longest!”
:two months down the road:
This Summer, coming to FOX: Who wants to have sex with Lenin’s body?
“JOHNS”
20 women are put on the streets of a large city (locations change every week). They have hidden cameras .
After 10 weeks, whoever turned the most tricks gets a check for 5 million dollars.
“Dealey Plaza”
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, 10 people live in tents on the grassy knoll.
When voted off, they are made to take a ride in a black Lincoln Continental driving slowly on elm street while the others shoot at the backs of their heads with paintball guns from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
I mean 40th anniversary.
“SDMB, SMBD”
The 10 people with the most posts on the popular “Straight Dope Message Board” are put into a house in the San Fernando Valley where they engage in sick sexual acts AND have to keep up their post counts.
Moderators from the board vote them off (banned).
The winner gets a check for 300 dollars.
Heck, I’d watch that, if only to see what handy is like in real life.