Oh, wait…there were 4 segments - in the 4th, the Mark (who was kind of a twit, actually) was made to think she had killed a ‘bubble boy’ by breaking his ‘bubble’ thing, then messing up the emergency routine.
So what will be the next stage in prank shows?
(cut to shot of a waiting room, filled with very tired-looking families)
(v.o.)
INS. Where thousands of people come every day with only one question: will they and their families be allowed to stay in America, or will they be arrested and shipped back where they came from?
We can break up their families, we can take away their jobs, we can ruin their lives. They have no rights, no recourse, no choice, and no idea what we’ve got in store for them!
So… HOW LOW WILL THEY GO?!?
(cut to various scenes: mom being told her 4-year-old has just been deported, man standing on a crowded street singing “I’m a little teapot” in his underwear holding a sign reading “Registered Sex Offender”, man in arab dress having to kiss a pig wearing a burqa, etc.)
Wretched refuse has never been so much fun!
‘INS and outs’, tonight on FOX.
The Reality TV boom has got to be near death. Each new series pushes the envelope that bit harder and I guess it’s time TV executives realize that not everyone is enthralled by their medium like they are. Some people will not do anything to get on TV, a jerk is still being a jerk even when they have a TV crew to back them up and they do answer to the same laws as the rest of us.
I find a lot of hidden-camera comedy shows nowadays to be pretty sick, in that they rely on a smart-alec presenter taking advantage of unsuspecting victims friendliness. The message they convey is that if you go along with the requests and bizarre behaviour of a stranger then you deserve to be laughed at, not admired for your open and trusting nature. And if you are old and maybe just not quick witted enough to realize that it’s a setup, well, you’re fair game. Get off the streets you old fool, make way for the new species of wired, in-the-know TVman! Look, I have a secret microphone, it’s my get-out-of-jail free card! I can do anything because it’s in the name of TV entertainment!! Trust no-one, less you be the butt of my wit!
Advisory: this post contains a metaphor that some folks may find, er, painful
This stuff will never go away. Not as long as there are morons out there who think being on TV is such a wonderful thing that they would willingly let someone shove an operating Weed Whacker up their butts if it meant they’d get a little face time.
Ugh, that’s so lame. That’s like when your friend tries to trick you and you say “yeah, right - I don’t believe you for a second”, and instead of admitting defeat, they just keep going on and on with the lie. Nothing clever about that at all. I’m glad they got sued. These shows escalate every year; each new show has to outdo the last show. Maybe the fear of retaliation will finally reign these people in. The awards need to be large; otherwise they’ll just consider lawsuits as a cost of doing business, as long as it’s less than the profit they make from the show.
I know a guy who got caught by an MTV show lying to women to look bigtime, and he signed off on the airing of the footage, just to be on tv. He had people recognizing him and scolding him at the mall after it was shown.
Duh.
Yes these shows suck (along with the entire humiliation-aspect of so many current shows, especially a lot of the reality ones), but the guy doesn’t deserve $390k for a bruise. I’m not sure which pisses me off more, modern tv programming, or modern sue-happiness.
One thing that unfortunately works in the favor of this reality shit is that it’s cheap. You don’t need writers or actors or sets, so the threshhold of money you need for profit is lower. That said, it sucks and needs to die.
I wish the guy had won more money. Genuine cruelty and humiliation on national TV isn’t fucking funny, it’s abusive.
The really really really scary thing is just how plausible that seems. Reality TV :rolleyes:
I always worry about some of the “fright” pranks played on random people on the street. I’d like to think that the shows shy away from pranking real elderly folk, but I’ve seen them scare really young kids, so I’m not so sure. And with the random victim pranks, you never know what shape a mark is health-wise. I can’t recall hearing about anyone having a heart-attack because of a TV prank, but I’d be surprised if it’s never happened. Does anybody remember such an incident?
I know some shows do a lot of research when planning an elaborate prank involving a particular mark. They contact the mark’s family and friends to find out about their personality, attitudes, patience and sense of humour, and (most importantly, IMO) their mental and physical health. These shows can’t do this for man-on-the-street pranks, which is why they should stick to rather innocuous pranks, like the black and white square joke someone else mentioned.
Canada’s Just For Laughs does some good street pranks. But they still left me grimacing when they did the “alien jumping out of the bushes” bit. The costume was laughable once you looked at it, but anything jumping out of the bushes while your casually walking down the street chatting with your friends is bound to cause heart palpitations. I still laughed at the hysterical screams it got from teenage girls, though. Sue me!
Anyhoo…
‘Just for laughs: gags’ is brilliant. It may be seen as a Candid Camera Rip off but it is very original and very funny. 