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Reality TV isn’t always real? The devil you say. Next thing you’ll try to tell me is that Milli Vanilli didn’t sing on their records, or that Martha Stewart doesn’t really shop at K-Mart.
1. Shady Deals on The Apprentice
Season One of The Apprentice featured a challenge called “Dupe-Lex.” The two teams had to refurbish a pair of New York apartments and then rent them out. The team that achieved the highest percentage of return on what they’d paid for the apartment plus their improvements would be declared the winner. The Protégé Corporation was declared the champion on the air, but the person who’d ultimately rented the newly refurbished apartment later admitted that she’d signed the lease before The Apprentice crew had even arrived. She also confided that the rent negotiations were a sham, as a price had already been agreed upon when she’d signed the lease.
2. Making up the Making Out on Joe Millionaire
Remember 2003’s Joe Millionaire? The FOX Network passed off Evan Marriott as a $19,000-per-year construction worker. While it’s true that Marriott worked for a construction company, he’d also earned some additional pocket change by modeling men’s underwear for print ads and appearing in a small role on the soap Days of Our Lives. A year after his stint as Joe, Marriott revealed to the press that much of the series was staged, and that he had made it clear prior to signing on for the project that he had no intention of getting involved with any of the potential “brides” on the show. He admitted that the famous “making out in the woods” scene was completely faked, and that the heavy breathing and other smoochy sound effects were all added in post-production.
3. Finally, Some Honest Casting Auditions!
So as not to quash everyone’s hopes for humanity, let it be known that there is a soupçon of honesty behind the casting of some reality shows, such as The Biggest Loser or Nanny 911. Shows like The Biggest Loser send production assistants out to troll the parking lots of Curves and Jenny Craig and similar establishments, where they place promotional flyers on windshields. They also frequent Usenet newsgroups looking for women who confess that they don’t feel attractive and are looking for a change. Representatives from Nanny 911 and similar shows will actually approach moms of out-of-control tots in LA-area toy and department stores to see if they’d be interested in appearing on TV.
4. A Reality Double-dipper Gets Carded
A few months ago, TVLand presented a reality series called She’s Got the Look, which was purported to be an America’s Next Top Model for the over-35 set. However, eagle-eyed reality TV junkies noticed after the series premiere that contestant Paula Thomas looked awfully familiar. Turns out she had appeared a year earlier on the SciFi Channel’s Who Wants to Be a Superhero as “WhipSnap.” OK, there’s no law that says you can’t be on more than one reality series… However, on the Superhero show, Thomas gave her age as 31. One year later, on She’s Got the Look, her autobiography listed her as being 36 years old. When confronted with the evidence, TVLand officials said simply that they trusted their screening process, but we’re thinking that they only shrugged off this potential controversy because they already knew that Paula had been eliminated from the contest.
5. Heavily-veiled Drama
Bridezillas is a guilty pleasure for married women. It sort of makes personal tantrums seem less severe when you watch the brides berating their attendants on TV for having visible tattoos or rolls of flesh protruding over a boned bodice. Sadly, it turns out that many of the hissy fits featured on the show are staged. For example, there was the incident of Lisa and Andrew, where Lisa objected to the plain wedding band Andrew presented to her during a Valentine’s Day dinner at a restaurant. Lisa declared it a “piece of crap,” and tossed it in his wine glass. This scene was not as impromptu as it appeared, however. The production staff had approached other diners in the restaurant ahead of time and informed them that a TV show was going to be filmed there, with a loud and possibly violent argument involved, and would they like to move to a different table? Also, the production staff informed the restaurant manager in advance that there would be a “cake-smashing” scene, and inquired as to where the best place to film said scene would be, since the restaurant had a carpeted floor and they were trying to minimize clean-up costs.
Now’s your time to ‘fess up – what reality TV moments are your favorites, and which do you suspect were faked?
Comments (29)
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I suspect that some of the “set components” in several of the Survivor seasons were made for TV. One location was the location of a serious naval battle in WWII, but all of the “plane wreckage” were cheep plywood and cloth bits tossed into the jungle…
But to justify my silly obsession, I still think the human drama is real…it’s totally a study in the human condition! Dang it…
posted by brucesquatch on 9-26-2008 at 10:22 am
in the first season of the simple life when paris and nicole had to work at sonic. thats the best moment in reality tv
posted by beth on 9-26-2008 at 10:46 am
I really like Nanny 911, I think it is just because we all LOVE to critique other peoples parenting skills… almost every other reality TV show I can think of seems over the top and staged to me.
posted by hannah on 9-26-2008 at 10:52 am
I am not really much of a “reality” show fan as the over the top drama is a bit much. I will however confess that for some odd reason I am drawn in to the ” Girls Next Door”….
anyways, I would love to read about more “reality” shows confessions…..How ’bout a part two????
=>
posted by Jennifer on 9-26-2008 at 10:53 am
I luv Gordon Ramsey’s two shows, but I always suspect that Kitchen Nightmares is manipulated. The owners are always resistent and upset until the last 10 minutes of the show when they see the light! Come on…some of them are still upset or where never mad in the first place.
posted by Marty on 9-26-2008 at 10:57 am
Marshall McLuhan declared television to be “a vast wasteland’ in 1966. I see no reason to update his view…
posted by Christoff on 9-26-2008 at 11:35 am
I’d always wondered about Bridezillas.
I agree with hannah about the “Nanny” reality shows. Fun to critique and gives that feeling of “Hey, we’re not *that* bad! & my kid’s an angel compared to those monsters!”
I always assumed that the music was pre-selected for “Dancing”. It’s all just to commercialized and consistanly awful.
I actually enjoy watching it occasionally, but prefer the professional ballroom competitions on PBS and the like.
posted by Nerak on 9-26-2008 at 12:27 pm
I have to admit that I’m hopelessly addicted to reality tv. It just cracks me up.
My favorite for a while was Wife Swap or Trading Spouses. Anyway — I always wish they would do follow up shows with these people. Not the reality stars that show up here and there, but all the forgotten ones.
posted by Karen on 9-26-2008 at 12:33 pm
My favorite reality TV moment was on the Sci-Fi prank show Scare Tactics. In this episode, a woman wants to play a trick on her brother. The woman is in a minivan with her brother and an actor who is driving. The brother and sister are sitting in the middle seat. They are supposedly going to a party in the middle of nowhere. As they are driving down a deserted road, the driver spots a planted car that he says looks like it belongs to a friend of his and concludes it must have broken down. The drive a bit further and spy a figure walking that the driver assumes must be his buddy. They stop to give him a ride. However, when the door opens, it’s not him. It’s some scary looking guy (also an actor) carrying a bag. He hops right in and thanks them for the ride. Not far down the road, scary guy says he needs to take a leak. Driver pulls over, but scary guy grabs the keys to keep them from leaving him. He gets out of the car, but leaves his bag. After a few moments of tense conversation, and against the wishes of sister and brother, driver decides to open the bag. In it is a human head. Right as they get it closed back up, scary guy returns and accuses them of looking into his bag. They protest and he becomes enraged. He pulls a knife and wrestles with driver and ultimately stabs him.
At this point, the moment I’ve been waiting for in all the prank shows I’ve ever seen happens.
Brother decides that it’s go time, baby. He jumps forward, forces scary guy’s head down and proceeds to beat the holy $#&@ out of him. Driver is pretending to be dead, so he doesn’t really know what’s going on. Scary guy is pinned and getting whomped, so it’s up to sister (who is MUCH smaller than brother) to prevent this from turning into an accidental murder. She jumps on her brother and has to pull him off so scary guy can recover and deliver the tagline “Are you scared? You should be. You’re on Scare Tactics.”
reCAPTCHA: Polka recognizes
posted by Anthony on 9-26-2008 at 12:39 pm
I also remember an episode of Scare Tactics that almost got out of hand. I can’t remember the premise, but an actor started to make like he was going to strangle this girl. The guy the joke was being played on, who had been relatively shy and calm throughout the scene, suddenly lurched forward and started to wrestle with the actor. Everyone one in the room immediately shut down and had to try to convince him it was all a joke. It was great AND it seemed real (hence – reality television).
I have to admit I can watch Bridezillas for hours, although now it’s nothing like the first season, which was about super-rich debutantes pouting because their Vera Wang dress wasn’t the right shade of antique ivory. Now it’s all about the crappy attitudes and man-child grooms.
posted by beth on 9-26-2008 at 1:14 pm
My guilty pleasure is I Love New York, I Love Money, A Shot at Love (with Brett Michaels), Flavor of Love (Flavor Flav), and all those other HORRIBLY wonderful shows :)
But, since these people are terrible actors, you can pretty much tell the real from the fake :)
posted by mor on 9-26-2008 at 1:26 pm
Is there really any reality in reality shows?
Once someone knows they are on camera, they are not going to act “normal”. Add in some producers who want ratings, and the potential for “reality” goes to zero.
Isn’t this news article, basically saying the same thing…oh, but your favorite show is real- I’m sure. :o)
posted by Morris on 9-26-2008 at 1:45 pm
To paraphrase the Winona Ryder movie, “Reality” TV Bites.
posted by Paul on 9-26-2008 at 2:20 pm
Hello, I am one of the Bridezilla from season 2, the year that it turned UGLY! It is true that scouts go to locations where they will find subject, ie: bridal shops where I was found.
Don’t you wonder how the shots are taken when people are walking into locations, we do it several times over whith different cameras heading out to different locations. The first encounter might not be the first. There was “suggestions” on what to do and I was pumped up several times by the main producer, “Don’t you want to be the “best Bridezilla, the one people really want to hate, I can make sure you are an all the promos.” I was told to pretend to shop for my gown to get in a fight, they tried to get my family involved by asking a lot of questions about divorce and how my Dad was acting.
I don’t regret it but I didn’t go as far as a lot of brides that I personally know that the actions were not faked…at all. It doesn’t hurt that they are all getting a free honeymoon out of the deal and I got nothing!!!
It’s all about the story!!
posted by Gretchen on 9-26-2008 at 2:22 pm
I’m not a big fan of reality shows but I have been known to ’sneak a peek’ when no one is around. I always suspected that they weren’t really reality shows, if they where, why would they have soooo many writers. (Just watch the credits at the end and notice the long list of writers)
posted by Carol on 9-26-2008 at 2:23 pm
I think it’s interesting that many people still don’t know that Randy, Paula and Simon (and new judge what’s-her-name) are actually the FOURTH round of American Idol auditions.
posted by Liz on 9-28-2008 at 10:14 am
mor…i think you just admitted you also watch a shot of love with tila tequila. it’s rock of love with bret michaels.
so what? i watch ‘em too. not so much tila. she is, in fact, gross.
posted by paige on 9-28-2008 at 10:22 pm
OK, so I started this post by saying that I hated reality TV except: Amazing Race, Nanny 911, Bridezillas… That´s when I realized that I am as hooked on this junk as anyone. It may not be real, but it sure is fun to watch!
posted by GTT on 9-29-2008 at 11:19 am
I think Big Brother on CBS has a lot of “programming” in the “reality”. I still like it, though. And I watch Super Nanny and the like just to remind myself why I will never have children and Bridezillas to remind myself that the wedding isn’t what’s important, it’s the marriage. People are funny.
posted by Chelle on 9-30-2008 at 4:14 pm
Thanks for the article. I catch Dancing with the Stars sometimes and I always wondered how they chose the songs! They are some of the worse songs ever! Seriously, the dance and the song are sometimnes not in the same drama (ie: rock with a Samba). I would rather see the dancers pick the song instead of some producer who has no clue on what kind of music goes with a type of dance.
posted by G on 10-7-2008 at 10:52 am
It was Newton Minow, Chairman of the FCC, not Marshall McLuhan, who declared television to be “a vast wasteland’ and that was in 1961.
posted by JohnnyRetro on 10-9-2008 at 5:42 pm
My favorite reality shows are NFL, CFL, and the NHL. These are the only reality shows that have any integrity. I must say though, because I have friends that watch them, I have seen a lot of reality tv. Ramsey’s shows are great, but the one thing I hate about all reality shows is the friggin’ intense music they have to have constantly playing throughout the show. It is so horrible. It’s like the audience needs audio cues on how to feel about the show.
posted by D-Hue on 10-15-2008 at 10:22 am
Snoop Dogg’s reality show, ‘Fatherhood’ is terrible!!!!! The worst I’ve ever seen: everyone in that show seems to be reading or guessing their lines, glancing at the director to see if their missed their cue, they don’t even seem to make an effort to act…I saw it only a couple of times, and I could not believed it.
posted by Cyn on 10-15-2008 at 3:43 pm
I’m addicted to Project Runway. This season (the second I’ve seen from start to finish) I started to catch on that the winners aren’t always selected by talent. If you watch closely, there’s a blurb at the end of each episode that notes the judges take into account the producer’s opinion. There always seems to be at least one controversial selection in the final three – no matter how many people hate them!
posted by Hastings on 10-23-2008 at 11:48 am
The only reality show I’ve ever been into is “Total Drama Island” on Cartoon Network. I’m surprisingly hooked on it.
For the record, I’m 25. :-P
posted by Joanna on 10-27-2008 at 2:12 pm
The WORST “reality” show nowadays is probably MTV’s The Real World. When it started, it was a novel concept and the people and their situations were (or at least appeared to be) real. Now it’s all about tramps and players getting drunk on alcohol I’ve heard is provided by the network, skinny dipping in the hot tub, and sleeping in each other’s beds as though there were a turnstyle at the door. To make things worse, a lot of these housemates have been able to extend their five minutes of infamy through MTV’s spin offs. It’s an exhibit of pathetic lives … but I have to admit that I watch it sometimes, if only to remind myself that my life is not so bad after all.
posted by TBUS on 11-14-2008 at 2:30 pm
I actually met siblings who were featured on Wife Swap. They came from a very artsy, liberal family. Mom and Dad were in a punk band, the whole family had “wild” hair styles, and they had a ton of people over all the time.
The show took it way too far, though. In one “scene” where they were hanging out with a bunch of teens their age, the production crew staged liquor around the room as though it was theirs. They also filmed lone scenes of empty bottles all over the house and yard….that THEY staged there.
The damage that this show did when it came out was unbelievable. People assumed the parents were allowing their kids to do whatever they wanted, and the kids looked like freaks and weirdos. They were lucky not to be visited by Social Services, and in fact did receive a call, not to mention the mothers who refused to let their kids around this family for a long time.
They knew the crew would embellish things, but had no idea they would go so far as to try and destroy a family’s reputation for ratings. Guess they thought too much of the tv world.
posted by Mags on 11-15-2008 at 12:17 pm
The only reality show that I’m heavily addicted to is “Survivor” and I have been a regular devotee since the first episode in 2000. It is disheartening to learn that a lot of the contestants are not ‘real’ people but rather actors/models aka ‘mactors’ who end up being really bad players in the game. Survivor: Palau and Survivor: Fiji were prime examples of this as nearly every contestant in those seasons was recruited based solely on looks. In Palau, most of these recruits ended up on one tribe, and most of them quit or asked to be voted off when it got ‘too hard’, which greatly affected the outcome of the game. Fiji was BORING as hell because of the mactors that were recruited…none of whom were interested in actually playing the game, but pretending like it was ClubMed.
The seasons where real fans and/or people ‘there for the money’ have been selected (like the current season in Gabon) end up being the most interesting and engaging to watch because these people aren’t going to quit. In a game based on numbers and social dynamics, even one contestant quitting ruins the strategy of every other player currently in the game, and thus adversely affecting the outcome. It also makes for disappointing television.
posted by Shann on 11-16-2008 at 1:54 pm
Re Hastings:
I too have noticed that on ALL competitive reality shows. It made me wonder for two years why they would take in account the opinions of producers when it’s a competition and it came to me-ratings. those people know from jump that they get compensated for being there and not to feel bad if you’re not “the chosen one”. (lol that’s funny to say aloud) Anyway, what bothers me the most is the fact that on these so-called “Love Shows” (vh1 famous for that whole concept…Flavor of Love saga, I Love New York 2parts, Rock of Love saga and the new ones Daisy of Love and Real Chance of Love-the brothers from I Love New York for anyone other than me paying attention:)) why do people do two and the segments to find love…it’s all about the promotions of their barely blossoming careers. it’s sickening but oh so deliciously entertaining to watch when your bored after a hard day at work. I just hope that it doesn’t come back to bite them in the behind when they do want to settle down and enjoy life’s offerings.
posted by Brianna on 12-31-2008 at 11:53 am