# What was the first "Reality" series? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 13, 2004, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055 "2004-03-13T07:30:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/1 "2004-03-13T07:30:53Z")
Defining “reality series” loosely as an unscripted continuing series featuring non-actors as themselves, and discounting game-shows, talk shows, etc., what do you think would qualify as the first reality show? [An American Family](http://imdb.com/title/tt0211195/) was “a weekly documentary which followed the real life travails of the Loud family, a mixed up cluster of suburbanites… including an on-camera divorce demand …and the coming-out of one of the children who was gay.” It premiered in 1973. Can you think of anything that aired earlier? Ironically, the general basis of reality television appeared on an episode of I LOVE LUCY two decades earlier when a department store expressed interest in filming a TV show from the Ricardos apartment in which Lucy & Ricky and the Mertzes (and Little Ricky if he was around yet) would provide the cast. I’m not sure if such shows existed in early television. ---
**Author:** ![gooti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eb8c5e/32.png) [@gooti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gooti)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/2 "2004-03-13T07:33:43Z")
**This Is Your Life**? ---
**Author:** ![robo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a8b319/32.png) [@robo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robo99)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/3 "2004-03-13T07:42:38Z")
The Young Ones.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/4 "2004-03-13T11:51:42Z")
I’ve always considered “An American Family” to be more of a documentary, and think of stuff like “Battle of The Network All-Stars,” etc. to be more in line with what we call reality TV. Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/5 "2004-03-13T12:02:05Z")
The [“Up” documentaries](http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies/up_documentaries.html) that started in the 1960s, with ‘Seven Up’ following the lives of a group of children. They are followed up every seven years, and have tracked their lives in a compelling way. The latest series was called ‘42 Up’. ---
**Author:** ![TeaElle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@TeaElle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeaElle)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/6 "2004-03-13T12:10:02Z")
Drawing a distinction between documentaries (An American Family, Seven Up, etc.) single-day contests designed as promotional events (Battle of the Network Stars) and reality series wherein cameras were simply on hand to film a llimited course of events which were presented without narration written by the producers, I’d say that the first reality series was “The Real World” especially during it’s first four seasons, when there was no overt manipulation of the cast members’ interaction with one another vis-a-vis making them all work together in some fashion. That may have been the single longest run-on sentence ever written. ---
**Author:** ![UselessGit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/74df32/32.png) [@UselessGit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UselessGit)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/7 "2004-03-13T12:54:31Z")
Posted by TeaElle > [@](#): > > That may have been the single longest run-on sentence ever written. And an beautiful sentence it is. I believe a Mazel Tov! is in order… I have no idea who made the first “reality show”, but I thought I’d just add that whoever did is going to the same part of hell as **C&C Music factory**. And they’ll burn. My God, how they’ll burn. ---
**Author:** ![zuma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9c0ed/32.png) [@zuma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zuma)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/8 "2004-03-13T14:23:01Z")
Slight hijack. “An American Family” always leads me to remember Albert Brooks’s first film “Real Life”, a parody of the original show. It’s amazing how prophetic that movie has become. Brooks plays the producer desperately trying to inject contrived drama and storylines into the show. ---
**Author:** ![Gartog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/22d042/32.png) [@Gartog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gartog)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/9 "2004-03-13T14:32:52Z")
I’m not sure what the first one over here was, but the evolution seems to be from documentary series which gradually begin to introduce more personal elements of the subjects lives to the screen. So have we have show’s from the early 90’s like _Airport_, which purports to be a documentary, but has reality show elements, such as following particular flight attendant through their training. Or _Vet’s in practice_ again supposedly a documentary, but which introduced elements of the subjects personal lives, their relationships, weddings and break-ups etc. The trend then moved towards even more reality TV style programmes, with programmes which followed several members of the public through their daily lives (Dock green?) ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/10 "2004-03-13T14:55:51Z")
[Candid Camera?](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0040034/combined) ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/11 "2004-03-13T15:49:00Z")
You can’t watch any light entertainment shows these days without ‘reality’ aspects featuring. Games show now share with ‘reality documentary’ TV a demand that the contestant exposes their _entire_ life in the name of entertainment. Why we should be interested in this is a bit of a mystery. Apparently the viewing public need assured that the contestant is a boring, real-life person, just like them. Time was game shows were happy to introduce a contestant and then get on with it. Now we’ve got to be introduced to their entire family in the audience, followed up with continual and intrusive cuts to ‘mother looking tense’ throughout the rest of the programme. Really, you don’t get to go on these shows any more unless you can supply a background cast of close-relatives to cheer you on and offer banal responses to how they think you’re going to do. Major plus points if you can supply an under eight year old or grandparents who are still mentally active. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/12 "2004-03-13T15:58:03Z")
If we’re focusing on just the new-school reality shows (say, the past decade or so), then I’d nominate **The Real World**. It was that show that really launched this wave of reality TV, followed by **Road Rules**. ---
**Author:** ![hansolo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/22d042/32.png) [@hansolo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansolo)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/13 "2004-03-13T16:32:40Z")
Was/Is COPS a reality tv show or a documentary. I vote COPS as it was on before the real world ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/14 "2004-03-13T18:58:11Z")
The Littlest Groom? ---
**Author:** ![Gartog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/22d042/32.png) [@Gartog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gartog)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/15 "2004-03-13T19:57:13Z")
> [@hansolo](#): > > Was/Is COPS a reality tv show or a documentary. I vote COPS as it was on before the real world The line blurs genre classification, has never been and never will be an exact science. Which reminds me, I have _The Television Genre Book_ on my shelf, let’s see what that thinks. It has two distinct category’s, Docu-soaps. > [@](#): > > …the television documentary find of the 1990s. For the first time factual programmes, put out in prime-time slots could rival their popular drama counter parts - It then lists some viewing figures (UK) for these types of shows. And later on > [@](#): > > There are several series that are repeatedly named as the direct precursors of docusoaps, the most commonly named being _The Family_ (1974) or Watson’s later _Sylvania Waters_ (1995) and BBC’s _The House_ (1995) . . ._The House_ …explicitly paved the way for docu-soaps in general. - and paraphrasing: With the filmmakers taking a voyeuristic interest in crises, giving priority to drama over serious commentary. And on Reality Television: > [@](#): > > The precise use of the term … has shifted since it was first applied to magazine programmes based around emergency service activities. It has subsequently also been used to describe talk shows … and now ‘constructed’ documentaries such as _Castaway_ BBC 2000 \*\* In castaway, a group of volunteers were selected and sent to live on a self-sufficient remote Scottish island for a year, as a ‘psychological experiment’. And the answer to the OP? From the same: > [@](#): > > Reality TV is generally historically located as beginning in the USA with NBC’s _Unsolved Mysteries_ in 1987 (Kilbourne 1994 pg 426) followed closely by other networks’ imitation and reproduction of the form CBS’s _Real life heroes_ and _Rescue 911_ and the FOX versions _COPS_ and _Americas Most Wanted_ \*\* A comment on the show’s we now associate most with Reality TV _Big Brother_ (Endemol 1999) and _Survivor_ (CBS 2000). These show’s successfully mixed the Reality TV genre with that of the game show, creating a Reality TV competition in which contestants compete for a prize, again blurring the genre boundaries. A final note, there is now in the UK a satellite and cable channel devoted entirely to Reality Television shows, 24 hours a day. (Google tells me you have one in the US as well, I sympathise) The viewing figures for the latest series of _Big Brother_ were down compared to previous series, however _I’m a celebrity, get me out of here_ (A survivor variant) recorded phenomenal viewing figures. Wither Reality TV? \*Stella Bruzzi in The Television Genre Book \*\* Jon Dovey in the same ---
**Author:** ![Gartog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/22d042/32.png) [@Gartog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gartog)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-reality-series/234055/16 "2004-03-13T19:59:39Z")
sigh. Correct grammer in the above post as needed. [sub]Preview is my friend. Preview is my friend[/sub]