Ok, so we’ve gone from Survivor, to the Real World, Big Brother, Amazing Race, The Bachelor, American Idol, to Road Rules, Airline, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, The Simple Life, Who Wants to Marry My Dad, to the Pamela Anderson Show, Who Wants to Marry a Midget, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee, and now we have Trading Spouses, Growing Up Gotti, and Amish in the City.
Is the any reality show at all that the American public won’t watch?
Yeah? Ok, name it.
And I’ll post some initial entries:
NOTE: Bonus Points for full plot descriptions
Who Wants to Marry Tub Girl?: no description necessary
Balancing Checkbooks: a 13-week contest where 6 housewives and 6 househusbands live in the same house and eat, sleep, make dinner for each other, and talk to their spouses on the phone each night. They are each responsible for keeping their household accounts in balance. Once per show, they compete in exciting contests like “Algebra” and “Cookie Baking” to win bonuses like a computer with Quicken, and Online Banking.
I Watch More TV Than You Do: Summer replacement series, where 12 guys are given refrigerators full of beer, cupboards full of chips, and non-stop pizza delivery. They have no responsibilities at all. Winner gets an X-Box.
A reality show called **The Resort ** was shown on television here in Australia for about six weeks or so earlier this year. It involved couples who were taken to a tropical island and then had to renovate/refurbish a resort hotel within a certain deadline. I don’t know what the prize was. It might have been a proportion of the profits earned from the hotel once it was fully functioning. However, the programme didn’t spark many viewers’ interest and it was removed from air even before the end of the contest.
Assman: which follows, in graphic detail, the daily routine of a moderately successful proctologist.
6 Feet Under for Real Let me spell it out: Freshly buried corpse. Camera in coffin. Time lapse (30 days for 30 minutes). 36 episodes. Hilarity does not ensue.
$ewer Line Live footage of an actual sewer line leading from a Las Vegas hotel.
Mole Check Weekly series focusing on the skin exams and procedures performed by a nurse practitioner in a Dermatologist’s office
Vide Valedictorian! - Follow the top ten senior class members of one high school as they compete to see who will give the commencement address. Click on live web-cams positioned over their desk to watch them study at home. Bonus footage at the senior prom (hidden microphones in the lavatory mirrors to catch all the commentaries from their “friends”). Special episodes for when SAT scores and college acceptance/rejection letters arrive. Creativity and resourcefulness are encouraged, but actual bribery or blackmail of faculty not allowed.
I dunno, screech, that might actually be pretty interesting if the top 10 were catty enough.
Practice Makes Perfect: follow an aspiring musician as she gets ready for an upcoming audition. Can she play her Beethoven excerpt at quarter note = 126? = 132? <Gasp> 138??
How about:
Garbage Man: Tales from the Dumpster-ride along with the garbage truck every morning and see what exciting new “treasures” are found!
Ron Jeremy’s Bathroom Cam
It’s a Dog’s Life - UNCENSORED! Follow the family Fido through the day, thanks to a camera strapped to the top of his head. Watch the daily rituals from his point of view: wake up and yawn and stretch, “Oh boy! Dog food again!”, scratch on the head, watch mom take a shower and get dressed, chase the neighbor’s cat, run from the neighborhood kid with the fork, greet the UPS man with a crotch sniff (“Yup, same one as last week”), chase a squirrel, naptime, gratuituous self-licking, eat a lizard, catch Billy Jr. shooting up in the basement, chew up dad’s Bruno Magli’s, hork up lizard parts in the living room. And that’s all before 9 a.m.!
Very Special Episode: Going to the vet to be ‘tutored’!
You mean… they don’t have any video games? The horror!
My picks:
The Buffet - A fixed camera is focused on the General Tso’s chicken at a Chinese buffet. Watch what happens when it runs out!
Coma - The trials and tribulations of a man who has been in a coma since 1986. On Wednesdays they change his sheets!
Iron Groundskeeper - Up-and-coming handymen take on the masters.
Slaughterhouse Live - A day in the life of an abettoir front-line employee.
Ace Mechanic - Follow six auto repair shops as they compete for the title of “Ace Mechanic”. Challenges include “15 Minute Oil Change in 10 minutes or less”, “Rotate that tire!” (points lost for missing lug nuts), “Scavenger Hunt” (given only a door handle from a '66 Ford Falcon, rebuild the entire car), and the finals - “Dealing with the Insurance Representative”.
My Insommnia is Worse than Yours. Watch contestants toss and turn and stare at the ceiling, as they attempt to fall asleep. Any caffeine or other stimulant found during random urine testing is grounds for immediate disqualification.
Plumber’s Apprentice - Unclogging speed trials, toilet flushing contests, pipe mazes.
Hobo’s Apprentice - Travel the rails catering to the whims of a Master Hobo, to win the coveted position of Hobo’s Apprentice.
Old Folk’s Home - Like Big Brother but all over 80 years of age. “Only death will keep a contestant from winning the grand prize!”
K-Mart Security Guards - Like Cops except much less interesting.
Eating-Disorder Clinic - What really goes on between a bunch of depressed, anorexic/bulemic young women.
Who Wants to Marry My Dog? Does Fifi have what it takes to make Fido happy? Does Fido really want to settle for a mutt when what he really wants is a poodle? And what about that cute little pomeranian with the bow in her hair?
Who Wants to Marry a Bed-Ridden Morbidly Obese Man? - And be cooped up in his tiny apartment, taking turns sponge-bathing him and making him meals. The rivalry is bitter, and we mean bitter.
The Jennie Lee Harrison “TV Personality” Show - You’ve seen her on Three’s Company, and as a “TV Personality” on numerous infomericals – now, watch her in her daily struggle to not be forgotten forever by the public at large!
I Know What You’re Going to Do Next Summer - Psychics compete to see whose predictions come true the next summer for one random audience member.
Garage Sale - Follow our intrepid team as they discover hidden treasures and ‘junque’ in your own neighborhood. Who got a bargain? Who overpaid? Follow the hideous handpainted Thankgiving tureen as it wends its way from house to house via the surburban summer sales.
Twelve contestants live in the same house. Every week, one is evicted. However, rather than win half a million, the winner has to dig up the corpse of Irene Ryan (Granny on “Beverly Hillbillies”) or Fatty Arbuckle. And have sex with it.
Tom Greene hosts a show where celebrities paint the outsides of houses. Then see who can go longest without blinking, watching the paint dry.
Sensory Depravation - Each contestant is immobilized in a dark, sound-proofed room. Last one to go insane wins.
D
Do people go to her site? Then people would watch & someone would want to marry her.
I’m sure goatse has a special someone also.
It’s madness to truly think that any of these shows would not have an audience- maybe not a big enough audience to keep it on the air, but someone would watch each of these shows & be horribly disappointed upon their cancellation.
Funny, I was thinking of this one last night:
Cbawlmer Plays PS2 Games! – It would take place in real time, watching the process as I carefully select a walk-through online, print it out, then painstakingly play through each level, pausing to check my walkthrough and figure out what I’d doing every 90 seconds or so. Guaranteed to have more swearing than any other reality show!
I am the world’s worst gamer, but I have fun doing it my own way.
Anyone who could sit through a single episode is either a drooling idiot or the most pathetic person on earth.
3.CSPAN- Actually, this is nothing new. Just live shots of various government functions, mostly people milling around the Senate and House.
You forgot constantly covering the plumbers butt crack.
Are you kidding? Some people love Tragedy TV. You’d capture the the Springer Audience immediatly.
Actually, there was the “Anna Nicole Smith Show”, which ran for several season, so people probably would watch it.