I have several of my own, including American Scholar: The Search for the Next Public Intellectual, a kind of PBS Idol where ordinary people try to be the next big sage, and The Minor Masters, where a slate of non-golfers between the ages of 30 and 40 take lessons for a week and then go into a match play tournament at Augusta National. For the really low-brow, I propose Geeks, where desperate people do dangerous and disgusting things for money… which comes not from the TV network, but from viewers who call in and offer them x amount of money to do those things. “I’ll give you fifty dollars if you eat a cockroach.” That kind of thing.
That already exists, it’s called Fear Factor.
My reality show would involve getting together everyone involved with creating and programming all the reality shows we have been subjected to and sealing them into a large building with no food. Then we get to vote who gets eaten first. When it comes down to the last contestant we just leave them sealed into the building and let them starve to death.
If that’s too cruel then we can just seal them in a building and then pump all the air out.
I was thinking about combining show themes; for instance Man vs. Beast and Fear Factor:
'Tonight, on Man vs. Beast Fear Factor! A man challenges an anteater to an ant-eating contest! Woman versus Aardvark in a termite-eating contest! Watch this brave man attempt to fling his poo farther than his gorilla challenger! And much much more!
I keep trying to pitch the idea for “Who Wants To Be My Freaky Love Puppet?” It would be kind of like “The Bachelor,” except at the end, instead of my proposing marriage to the winner, I would say, “So, uh, would you like to keep doin’ it with me?” If she said yes, I would win a million dollars and she would have the opportunity to keep doin’ it with me. If she said no, we would feed her to a pack of giant lizards. And I would win two million dollars to help me get over the rejection.
My idea is a show where people throw ducks at balloons and nothing’s the way it seems.
Beyond that, I thoroughly second Tiramisu’s suggestion!
The Bunker
A dozen-or-so people are sealed into a largish underground fallout-shelter type structure. No windows. No TV or radio signals from the outside. No clocks. They’d have to last…I dunno, a couple of months?
Slowly, you’d start presenting obsticles they’d have to deal with…like flooding, power failures, etc. Plus, you’d slowly start taking away amenities. Like reducing the amount of time they could keep the lights on, or even having the lightning permenantly fail in certain sections of the shelter. Rooms would “breach,” and become “contaminated,” and would be sealed off. The hot water would eventually run out. The refrigerated food would run out, leaving only canned stuff. Then dehydrated stuff.
Here’s another kicker…some people will get “eliminated” from the competition, but not all but one. Not even most of the contestants. Maybe…3 or 4, max. So you’d cut down on the scheming to eliminate competators, but not completely.
Think “Big Brother,” run by a grim sadist. Or I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, for prime-time.
Yeah, I got the idea from playing The Sims.
Ranchoth
(And fifty Quatloos says that I just killed this thread. I’m not proud of it, mind you. 
)
I had two. One involved two hip, single, unemployed straight guys move in with their successful, gay friend and the hilarity just writes itself from there. (He didn’t go for it).
The other was to have a bachelor show where a group of girls have to select from a group of eligible bachelors. THe catch - they’re all the same guy (one of our friends who’s a little sketchy).
I believe I am paraphrasing the late Bill Hicks here.
“Let’s Hunt and Kill… Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth.”
The Pitch:
It’s the hated Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth VS. a team-up of the viewing public fighting alongside selected members of the cast from the 1st season of The Apprentice. Contestants are dropped off by helicopter to some remote wooded area, handed their ordinance and instructions to ‘kill’ Omarosa, who’s attempting to make her way through the woods to a “Safe Area.” In addition to night-vision glasses and a number of traps, producers will provide contestants either paintball rounds or live ammunition, pending FCC decision.
The Most Dangerous Game
Set on a tropical island (at least for the first season), the contestants must hunt the most dangerous game of all - Man. Basically, all the constestants are placed on an island with a knife, a handgun with one extra magazine, the cloths on their backs, and maybe some rations. The one who survives the longest wins a million dollar prize. For later season, different terrain can be selected, and different weapon combo’s chosen.
quote:
“My idea is a show where people throw ducks at balloons and nothing’s the way it seems.”
Ducks??? :eek:
Okay, here’s my idea. I rent out my 13yo & 11yo to couples considering having children.
If they make it one week and still retain their sanity, not only do they win a fabulous, child-free 2 week vacation, they also get a certificate which states they are parent worthy, able to handle ANY situation (as my children are hell spawn).
If they bring the kids back early, or the kids manage to break them, they get therapy money, and the kids get $1000 each toward their college funds.
The New Twilight Zone had an episode called something like How Much Do You Love Your Kid?
I don’t remember details but I do remember a camera crew running up to some poor, unsuspecting woman and showing her footage of her son being kidnapped and then made her solve puzzles to get him back.
…combine it with evenings with my 2 month old who’s still not sleeping through the night, and I think we have a winner! 
The Bryan Boff
…in which aspiring lingerie models compete to see who can most effectively Boff Bryan. The voting elimination process will take the form of a catfight.
This would be really funny if they knew certain bits of information about the contestant(s) (he likes X, Y, and dislikes Z and Q) and all the snatches of information about each of his instances is true… lead the bachlorettes to form their own opinions about guy #1, guy #2 and guy #3, make them seem different enough so she will hate one of them, see where I’m going with it?
I saw a preview for a movie once that was basically a false reality show. The different contestants were required to kill each other. The last one breathing won the dough. They were scattered across a city full of civillians (or the whole country maybe? I donno) and had to seek each other out and kill. They were a very diverse group, some of which would be hard (psychologically) to kill… as in, one of them was (IIRC) a pregnant woman…
Anybody know the name of this movie? I want it.
MY idea was a texas-holdem poker game.
10 average schmoes who know little or nothing about poker or gambling in general are locked in a house with Amarillo Slim, who teaches them everything he knows about poker. The contestants are NOT voted off, but Slim selects the worst player (not necessarily the first loser) at each weekly ‘big game’ to be kicked out of the house. The winner at the end of the series wins an entry into the world series of poker ($10k value).
Now watch some slimeball at NBC steal my idea…
I really liked what I thought was the premise of Mad House on SciFi, but it turns out it’s a Fear Factor-like show. I wanted it to be just the 5 freaks put in the house Real World or Big Brother style. That would be fun.
My idea is simple, it’s called “Heartless”. Basically couples/SO’s are put at odds with each other and made to make truly difficult moral decisions that subject their SO to an “ordeal”. They win more money when they make the Heartless decision. High money “ordeals” are really humiliating and gross ala Fear Factor, minor ordeals are less so, but of course worth less. The catch phrase would be “payback’s a bitch!”. I suspect it would get really interesting, sort of a marriage passionplay!
Heartless©
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I’ve been thinking about a meta-reality show where applicants for another reality show have to compete against each other in silly contests and vote each other off. The winners get to participate in that other reality show, which will premiere a few feeks after the meta-show ends.