Latest / Ridiculous History / A Ridiculous History of Reality TV, Part Two: Reality Goes Global

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A Ridiculous History of Reality TV, Part Two: Reality Goes Global · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody quick heads up. At the top of today's episode, Uh,
0:04
Speaker 1: we're getting frank, We're getting candid. We are just like
0:08
Speaker 1: the folks on the Real World, getting real, which means
0:11
Speaker 1: that there may be some language in here that is
0:13
Speaker 1: not appropriate for everybody in the audience today. Still, it's
0:18
Speaker 1: a wild ride and we can't wait to hear what
0:20
Speaker 1: you think. Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio.
0:48
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
0:51
Speaker 1: always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
0:54
Speaker 1: for the one and only Mr Max Williams. Nope, they'll
0:59
Speaker 1: accept our rose. Will you accept this rose? Max, Super
1:03
Speaker 1: I will always accept your rose. Well, no, I'll accept
1:05
Speaker 1: your rose. Ben, I'm kind of accept Ben's no what, no,
1:10
Speaker 1: no where. We're a unit. We're a complete We're a
1:14
Speaker 1: complete unit. That's our whole we're that's our whole thing.
1:19
Speaker 1: We're we're a package deal on every dating reality show
1:22
Speaker 1: we do, which might be why we don't win as
1:24
Speaker 1: often as we'd like well to be. Between the two
1:27
Speaker 1: of us, we both possessed traits that make for one
1:29
Speaker 1: entire human person. That's true. We add up, We've done
1:32
Speaker 1: the math. We add up to one decent guy. It's true. Uh.
1:37
Speaker 1: And speaking of adding up folks housekeeping note, this is
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Speaker 1: part two of a history of reality television. We are
1:48
Speaker 1: joined once again with a very special guest, mastermind of
1:51
Speaker 1: the I Heart Next Up initiative. You've heard her on
1:54
Speaker 1: the Daily Zeitgeist, which she runs. She is working extensively
2:00
Speaker 1: with other folks in the family like Will Ferrell, our
2:04
Speaker 1: pals from this is important. Uh. You can find Anna
2:08
Speaker 1: host in short pretty much everywhere on My Heart. She's
2:12
Speaker 1: super busy. But she's also our resident expert in reality television.
2:16
Speaker 1: So no, we knew we had to get an a
2:19
Speaker 1: on this if we wanted to do a justice right. Absolutely,
2:23
Speaker 1: let's get it right to it. It turns out whomever
2:27
Speaker 1: came up with the idea for the Bachelor, which you
2:29
Speaker 1: you know a ton about Anna, they were arguably also
2:32
Speaker 1: ahead of their time. Right now, I believe that Empire
2:37
Speaker 1: is one of the most famous, well known reality shows
2:40
Speaker 1: of all time. And this is this kind of like
2:44
Speaker 1: an underhand softball question. Slob in this your way, because
2:47
Speaker 1: I feel like your best equipped of the three of
2:49
Speaker 1: us to talk about this. Can you tell for anyone
2:52
Speaker 1: who somehow hasn't heard of this show, Can you tell
2:55
Speaker 1: us the basic premise and a little bit about the
3:00
Speaker 1: history of it. Yes, So the Bachelor, Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise,
3:06
Speaker 1: Bachelor Pad franchises were created originally by Mike Flice, who,
3:13
Speaker 1: if you know anything about him, not a good person. Uh.
3:16
Speaker 1: And and also Heidi Flice Hollywood, my dame's cousin. Interesting
3:21
Speaker 1: fact um grew up together in the southern California area.
3:25
Speaker 1: So Mike Flice was a bit of kind of like
3:29
Speaker 1: this hippie stoner character who worked in production. He always
3:33
Speaker 1: wanted to like create a you know, hit show with
3:37
Speaker 1: smoking weed in his office all day, and came across
3:40
Speaker 1: the show called Singled Out, which was with Chris Hardwick
3:44
Speaker 1: at the time. Yes, nerdus Chris Hardwick, can you believe
3:46
Speaker 1: he's been around this long? And Jenny McCarthy, famous anti
3:52
Speaker 1: vax model some modeling in the day founder True Collie
4:00
Speaker 1: in trying to keep people from being vaccinated. And so
4:05
Speaker 1: that show involved a group of people who were basically
4:09
Speaker 1: competing for one person's i mean attention love. One contestant
4:14
Speaker 1: was basically choosing between a group of like fifties singles.
4:18
Speaker 1: So the idea of like you're being singled out. So
4:21
Speaker 1: that was mid to late nineties, and that kind of
4:25
Speaker 1: led Flice to pitch the show Who Wants to Marry
4:27
Speaker 1: a Multi Millionaire, which was his original first series, where
4:31
Speaker 1: there was a rich guy who turned out wasn't really
4:35
Speaker 1: large and a bunch of women basically competed for his
4:39
Speaker 1: love to be chosen by him. Does not end well,
4:42
Speaker 1: if you guys, go look it up, it ends very weird.
4:45
Speaker 1: So he was able from that show to come back
4:50
Speaker 1: and pitch the concept of the Bachelor. And if you
4:51
Speaker 1: guys ever saw The Bachelor Season one with this guy Alex,
4:54
Speaker 1: who really felt like he didn't want to be there
4:56
Speaker 1: was a very interesting sort of dynamic. He was able
4:59
Speaker 1: to choose from about thirty women in like a mansion
5:04
Speaker 1: in Malibu where they would all kind of live and
5:06
Speaker 1: hang out. And so this guy Alex had the opportunity
5:10
Speaker 1: to talk and hang out with go on dates with
5:13
Speaker 1: either single or group dates with all these women, and
5:16
Speaker 1: by the end of ten episodes, because at the time
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Speaker 1: it was only I think, yeah, ten episodes, choose one
5:21
Speaker 1: of them, including being able to go television as wild,
5:27
Speaker 1: go to like a fantasy suite with them, like literally
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Speaker 1: like choose three of them to have sex, which choose
5:32
Speaker 1: four of them to meet their families. You know. Like
5:34
Speaker 1: so it's like this kind of breakdown process of you know,
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Speaker 1: eliminating these women to get to one at the end
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Speaker 1: where they had to they end up with two and
5:42
Speaker 1: they have to choose one. And so this was such
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Speaker 1: a like popular like just format that it really popped off,
5:55
Speaker 1: which allowed the Bachelor to then do the Bachelorette, which
5:59
Speaker 1: is then a woman having a bunch of men compete
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Speaker 1: for her love, which then led to Bachelor Pad, which
6:04
Speaker 1: was all these kind of cast offs from the season
6:08
Speaker 1: from the multiple seasons over the years being put into
6:10
Speaker 1: a house where they actually at the time had to compete.
6:13
Speaker 1: There was a bit of a game gamified process to
6:15
Speaker 1: it to uh somewhat big brother ish to like vote
6:18
Speaker 1: each other out. And also at the same time Fine
6:21
Speaker 1: Love that got canceled because one guy figured out, one
6:24
Speaker 1: guy who's been on this franchise like seven times, Chris,
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Speaker 1: he found a way to gamify the game in a
6:31
Speaker 1: weird like he broke the game and they the show
6:33
Speaker 1: got canceled, which then came around to elon Gail if
6:38
Speaker 1: any reality TV fans who know ep Elon Gail you
6:42
Speaker 1: will know because he has recently created the show f
6:44
Speaker 1: Boy Island. Um, genius concept. A bunch of guys don't
6:49
Speaker 1: want to be in a relationship on a dating show.
6:54
Speaker 1: You guys don't even know. There wasn't that actually a
6:57
Speaker 1: guess a joke show on like thirty Talk or something.
7:01
Speaker 1: But there was something eerily eerily similar to that that
7:05
Speaker 1: was a parody. I mean, he's can't make this stuff up.
7:07
Speaker 1: But yeah. So, actually, Fboy Island hosted by our one
7:10
Speaker 1: of our sister shows, Nikki Glazer show Nicki Lazer podcast
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Speaker 1: she hosts, so it's pretty great. It's great to see
7:17
Speaker 1: her on there killing it. So Elon Gale was originally
7:20
Speaker 1: a Bachelor producer who went on to create Bachelor in Paradise.
7:25
Speaker 1: So Bachelor in Paradise is they take all these cast offs,
7:28
Speaker 1: the most popular casts. Also, the show put them on
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Speaker 1: a beach in Mexico and basically have them fall in
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Speaker 1: love with each other. And um, it's actually more, in
7:37
Speaker 1: my opinion, like a better format than like Bachelor and
7:41
Speaker 1: Bachelorette because instead of everyone competing for one person, there's
7:45
Speaker 1: actually you can actually find love because you're meeting all
7:47
Speaker 1: these different people, and it's almost like a singles island,
7:51
Speaker 1: you know, like you're at Sandals, you know, a single
7:53
Speaker 1: Sandals sort of vacation, and you get to meet all
7:56
Speaker 1: these other of course, all hot people, because you know,
7:59
Speaker 1: we all have a problem in this country with showing
8:01
Speaker 1: anyone who's not like a six pack, you know, wearing
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Speaker 1: god um. And so then they all compete to fall
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Speaker 1: in love. And so that's kind of the through line
8:13
Speaker 1: of all the franchises right now. And yeah, of course
8:18
Speaker 1: Elon Gel eventually left a bachelor and started working. He
8:21
Speaker 1: was such a notorious sort of reality TV producer he
8:24
Speaker 1: was able to spin that off into his own shows now,
8:26
Speaker 1: such as f Boy Island, which if you've never seen
8:28
Speaker 1: f Boy Island, I recommendat. I've got some exes who
8:33
Speaker 1: think I've lived it. Actually. Yeah, just for the record,
8:37
Speaker 1: it was Milf Island that was on thirty Rock into
8:41
Speaker 1: Predicting the Future. I would watch Milf Island. I would that. Yeah,
8:48
Speaker 1: I speaking with things other things that people seem consumed
8:52
Speaker 1: with watching. We would be remiss if we didn't, uh,
8:55
Speaker 1: if we didn't ask you a little bit about the
8:58
Speaker 1: Real house Wives and fully ridiculous historians. Ana is not
9:03
Speaker 1: blowing smoke when she says she will instantly add a
9:07
Speaker 1: book about the history of reality television to her cart on.
9:11
Speaker 1: I want to thank you on air for hipping me
9:14
Speaker 1: to Not All Diamonds and Rose, the inside story of
9:18
Speaker 1: the Real Housewives from the people who live it. I
9:21
Speaker 1: had no idea this book existed, but I guess it
9:24
Speaker 1: makes sense. Real Housewives is different. I guess because it's
9:29
Speaker 1: not ostensibly a competition, right, even though the principles and
9:33
Speaker 1: the characters in there seemed to compete at various different times.
9:38
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yeah, it's more of like a social
9:41
Speaker 1: competition who's the richest and who is going to kind
9:47
Speaker 1: of be the center diamond, if you will, which that
9:52
Speaker 1: conceptually might be a little over everyone's head. But Not
9:55
Speaker 1: All Diamonds and Rose, written by Dave Quinn, is a book.
9:59
Speaker 1: Where are They interview Andy Cohen, the EP of all
10:03
Speaker 1: these shows and kind of Bravo mastermind and Scott Dunlop,
10:07
Speaker 1: the original creator producer of Real Housewives of Orange County,
10:12
Speaker 1: which is the first Real Housewives franchise to make it
10:15
Speaker 1: on air, And this was interesting and I kind of
10:17
Speaker 1: I gave you guys this info where, according to the book,
10:21
Speaker 1: the producer Scott Dunlop moved from l A to Orange
10:24
Speaker 1: County to this like basically very rich neighborhood. It's called
10:28
Speaker 1: Codo the Kaza. I don't know, I've never heard of.
10:31
Speaker 1: It's it's too rich for my ears, and so basically
10:35
Speaker 1: moved there in the eighties and he became very fascinated
10:39
Speaker 1: with with this like rich white woman archetype, which no,
10:43
Speaker 1: you were saying before the recording the tennis bitches. Who
10:47
Speaker 1: are these women who so conceptually it means like women
10:50
Speaker 1: whose husbands are very rich in work, and these women
10:52
Speaker 1: stay home and basically live lives of leisure. So throughout
10:56
Speaker 1: their day they have to kind of not to like
10:58
Speaker 1: die of boredom plan sort of you know, excursions with
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Speaker 1: other really rich women, and that includes playing tennis. And
11:05
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that is also dressing up
11:07
Speaker 1: to play tennis, because you know, tennis aesthetic is very hot,
11:11
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, they've got their kids who are like,
11:16
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of these other fascinating characters because
11:19
Speaker 1: they're just like kids of rich people. So there's a
11:21
Speaker 1: sense of like disconnect because they were either raised by
11:23
Speaker 1: a nanny or like, you know, they just are on
11:25
Speaker 1: their own path. There's less sort of supervision because why
11:29
Speaker 1: would you pay attention to your kid when you can
11:31
Speaker 1: just give them money and be like, go away, don't
11:34
Speaker 1: get in trouble, don't hurt the family reputation. To that end,
11:37
Speaker 1: I was also not familiar with the concept of boomerang kids.
11:41
Speaker 1: But you're kind of describing them. They're they're they're basically
11:43
Speaker 1: like kids that move back in or never leave home,
11:46
Speaker 1: and that's super common and these kind of compounds. You know,
11:50
Speaker 1: they don't need to get jobs because there's trust funds
11:53
Speaker 1: um some of them following their parents footsteps and run
11:56
Speaker 1: the company. But like, even so, they're still like deeply
11:59
Speaker 1: connected to or family and the family money. So our guys,
12:02
Speaker 1: Scott is in this uh, this place called Caza and
12:08
Speaker 1: he encounters what did you call them, archetypes, right, architects,
12:14
Speaker 1: and you would you would indicated to me on fair
12:18
Speaker 1: that he this guy originally didn't even think of this
12:21
Speaker 1: as a reality show. No, but he just it was
12:24
Speaker 1: just like all these characters of people to be like, huh,
12:27
Speaker 1: you know, actually it did in the book is as
12:29
Speaker 1: it reminded him of an American family that PPS Talk series,
12:33
Speaker 1: which was about you know, somewhat upper middle class people.
12:37
Speaker 1: So you're kind of seeing this like world of like
12:41
Speaker 1: exclusivity that you're not really able to get into. But
12:44
Speaker 1: it's like really fascinating to watch from the sidelines to
12:46
Speaker 1: be like what are their lives like? And that's kind
12:50
Speaker 1: of what led him to create you know, like a
12:52
Speaker 1: pilot basically surrounding one certain they call her a bitchy
12:56
Speaker 1: tennis wife, Kimberly bryant Um. Who what they they really like?
13:03
Speaker 1: And you know what, this is like an incredible thing
13:06
Speaker 1: because a lot of these women don't need a lot
13:08
Speaker 1: of direction. Like a lot of these people have lived
13:11
Speaker 1: in such privilege, in these like bubbles of wealth that
13:14
Speaker 1: they are not self aware. So they will do and
13:17
Speaker 1: say things that you're like, did you really just say that?
13:20
Speaker 1: Like you're so like you're so out of touch. But
13:23
Speaker 1: to them that doesn't matter because you calling a rich
13:26
Speaker 1: person out of touch? What does that mean to them? Okay,
13:29
Speaker 1: well I'm gonna go on about my life, you know,
13:32
Speaker 1: like sure I'm out of touch, but like what do
13:34
Speaker 1: I need to be in touch with? I'm comfortable, I'm lucky.
13:38
Speaker 1: I don't need to actually be in touch to survive.
13:40
Speaker 1: You can like talk about me, but like it actually
13:43
Speaker 1: does you know, literally, like it's just words at this point,
13:47
Speaker 1: and that's the whole. They can't be affected. Yeah, the
13:49
Speaker 1: more out of touch and bubbled up they are, the
13:52
Speaker 1: better it is for the outside world watching from the
13:54
Speaker 1: other side of the bubble, right, Yeah. Yeah, And there
13:57
Speaker 1: was also this kind of one of the things I
14:00
Speaker 1: think Scott realized was with our obsessions, which shows like
14:03
Speaker 1: Desperate Housewives and the o C, you had this you
14:07
Speaker 1: could literally create this intersection of our fascination with drama,
14:14
Speaker 1: wealth and real people's problems, you know. So that's kind
14:20
Speaker 1: of like where the Real Housewives of Orange County stemmed from.
14:25
Speaker 1: And it's it's all very it's interesting bread and circuses.
14:29
Speaker 1: It makes me think of sometimes, you know, the dawn
14:39
Speaker 1: of reality television seems to be a very US based
14:43
Speaker 1: thing right from from the offset, but if you look
14:47
Speaker 1: at the expansion, you see it's not just across formats,
14:50
Speaker 1: it's across other countries. Like I didn't know this before
14:54
Speaker 1: the Got Talent franchise started in the United Kingdom. But
14:58
Speaker 1: of course when you think of God Talent, you think
15:00
Speaker 1: of America's got talent, and I still don't know whether
15:04
Speaker 1: that is meant to be a sincere or satirical statement,
15:07
Speaker 1: because they do not hesitate from showing some train crashes
15:10
Speaker 1: on that one. I also was surprised to find every
15:15
Speaker 1: like at this point, I am convinced, and I'll need
15:17
Speaker 1: your help to see if this is correct. I'm convinced
15:20
Speaker 1: that past a certain threshold of success, the goal for
15:24
Speaker 1: almost any reality show franchise is to expand to other countries.
15:30
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that or am I like exaggerating here? Yeah?
15:34
Speaker 1: I think so. And you know, with the Bachelor franchises,
15:37
Speaker 1: I've watched Australia's, I've watched UK's, I've watched Japan's, I've
15:41
Speaker 1: watched New Zealand's. Because I don't stop just that America. Um,
15:46
Speaker 1: and I would almost say, like these other franchise franchises
15:50
Speaker 1: in a way, I have almost nailed the formats almost
15:53
Speaker 1: better than American. So it's it's an interesting thing where
15:56
Speaker 1: like they wanted to expand, but you kind of get
15:58
Speaker 1: the feeling that they're like these fine so are more popular.
16:01
Speaker 1: So I think it's still like they want to sell.
16:04
Speaker 1: The thing is it's all about making money. If you
16:05
Speaker 1: can sell the rights to a franchise to a different country,
16:08
Speaker 1: that's you know, more money in your pocket. But at
16:10
Speaker 1: the same time, there's a selfishness of wanting to be
16:12
Speaker 1: the one who did it best, so right, and they'll
16:15
Speaker 1: they'll they'll tweak it just enough to make it work
16:18
Speaker 1: for that audience. You know, there's some cultural things that
16:20
Speaker 1: might fly under the radar, you know for people in
16:23
Speaker 1: different country based on the way we do it here,
16:25
Speaker 1: but the people that are making and adapting it for
16:26
Speaker 1: other countries, they know exactly what their audience is. They'll
16:29
Speaker 1: take the you know, the broad strokes of it and
16:31
Speaker 1: like you said, just do a laser focused adaptation of it.
16:35
Speaker 1: And then when we watch it, it almost seems more
16:37
Speaker 1: novel because this is something that we're not fully used to.
16:41
Speaker 1: I will say, if you guys ever want to dabble
16:43
Speaker 1: in any international bachelor Bachelor atte franchises, Australia is the
16:47
Speaker 1: way to go. Australian. Australian version of that franchise is
16:52
Speaker 1: incredible television. I am going I'm going to watch it
16:56
Speaker 1: then because it's a recommendation from you. Uh, they're like,
17:01
Speaker 1: there are Okay, there's so many other things that happen
17:05
Speaker 1: in other countries. When these franchises are spun off and
17:09
Speaker 1: they become they nail a format. As you said, they
17:13
Speaker 1: end up speaking in their own voice. I found some uh,
17:16
Speaker 1: some like pop culture research on which country's version of
17:20
Speaker 1: insert show here is the one you should watch? Is
17:23
Speaker 1: the mole better in the US or is better in
17:26
Speaker 1: the Netherlands. The answer, by the way, appears to be
17:28
Speaker 1: the Netherlands. But but we've got to look at there's
17:33
Speaker 1: this awesome article written by Elise Zazowski who talks about
17:38
Speaker 1: the the history of US peculiar British reality show asque thing,
17:46
Speaker 1: which is their their comedy panel shows. They're not the origins,
17:50
Speaker 1: not British, but I've always been fascinated by these because
17:54
Speaker 1: it's they take, you know, like the snarkiest comedians and
17:57
Speaker 1: the snarkiest comics of the day and they put him
18:00
Speaker 1: in this absolutely fake game show thing where they're just
18:04
Speaker 1: like firing barbs and going on little diet tribes and
18:07
Speaker 1: then the host arbitrarily gives them a cartoonist number of
18:12
Speaker 1: very many or very few points. This is something that
18:16
Speaker 1: I don't know if the US is gonna nail. We
18:19
Speaker 1: have stuff like wait, wait, don't tell me on MPR
18:22
Speaker 1: whose line is it anyway? But the last thing I
18:25
Speaker 1: want to shout out and get your opinion on on
18:28
Speaker 1: as our resident expert Japan game shows, reality shows? What's
18:36
Speaker 1: up with that? Why? Why do they seem so singular,
18:39
Speaker 1: so so different? And I'll be honest, so incredibly compelling.
18:43
Speaker 1: I'm hypnotized. Yeah. So, one of the sort of bigger
18:47
Speaker 1: shows from Japan which has broken through the sort of
18:51
Speaker 1: American you know zeitgeist, uh is Terrace House. And I
18:56
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys have ever heard of Terrace House,
18:58
Speaker 1: but it's similar to the real world formula in the
19:04
Speaker 1: sense that they take like six, six or eight strangers
19:07
Speaker 1: and put them in a house together and they have
19:10
Speaker 1: to kind of like build their friendships. And it's not
19:14
Speaker 1: explicitly a dating show, but like you know it, you know,
19:18
Speaker 1: people start to like each other and that leads to
19:22
Speaker 1: interactions and differences, and the show is shot fly on
19:26
Speaker 1: the wall, so you're literally you don't like see it
19:28
Speaker 1: wouldn't be like where on The Bachelor if someone storms out,
19:32
Speaker 1: a camera follows them. It's more literally like there's cameras
19:35
Speaker 1: around the house and we watch them like Big Brother style,
19:39
Speaker 1: and then yeah, and we get into all sorts of
19:41
Speaker 1: things going on in their lives. And then if one
19:45
Speaker 1: of the housemates decides to leave the show, a new
19:48
Speaker 1: person who is of the same identifying gender comes in
19:52
Speaker 1: to take over that person's role. And then they have
19:57
Speaker 1: a group of studios sort of like menitators on the
20:01
Speaker 1: whole time that they like cut two and these are
20:03
Speaker 1: sort of like comedians of I'm assuming they're Japanese comedians.
20:08
Speaker 1: Of course I'm not always familiar with these Japanese comedians,
20:11
Speaker 1: but that they come in and they like talk in
20:14
Speaker 1: the background about these people, and it's like this very funny,
20:17
Speaker 1: sort of like juxtaposition of these people just living their
20:20
Speaker 1: normal lives, and then you have these like commentators being like, oh,
20:23
Speaker 1: that's awkward. You know. It's like this really sort of
20:26
Speaker 1: silly show that has really grown in popularity in America
20:32
Speaker 1: also because they put it on Netflix, so uh, there
20:35
Speaker 1: it is. I I love. I don't know how people
20:40
Speaker 1: get into the cooking competition shows. Nul you're a fan
20:43
Speaker 1: of Great British Bake Off my heart My heart belongs
20:47
Speaker 1: to the original Japanese Iron Chef as well. I started
20:52
Speaker 1: rewatching that recently and I realized they got me When
20:57
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I thought the chairman was like
20:59
Speaker 1: a old guy and he was just obsessed with his
21:03
Speaker 1: kitchen competitions. But that show holds up would you would
21:07
Speaker 1: you guys say that qualifies as a reality show or
21:10
Speaker 1: is that stretching the limits too much? It's I mean
21:13
Speaker 1: it's about the personality. Is for sure that there is
21:15
Speaker 1: a competition to it, But I don't see how it's
21:17
Speaker 1: any different than you know, there are relationships. I don't
21:19
Speaker 1: see how it's that much different than a bachelor, uh scenario,
21:23
Speaker 1: because it really is you know, the same testimonials and
21:26
Speaker 1: you know that kind of stuff. What do you think? Yeah,
21:28
Speaker 1: I mean cooking shows now because they're you know, like
21:32
Speaker 1: and I'm going off like Top Chef, Like these characters
21:36
Speaker 1: become very real to us. So like now it's like,
21:39
Speaker 1: oh the chef I follow, you know, like I am
21:43
Speaker 1: interested in his life and what he's doing. So there
21:45
Speaker 1: is a reality show aspect to it, but I think
21:47
Speaker 1: it follows under reality competition show because you know, they're
21:50
Speaker 1: literally competing to be named like the Top Chef or
21:54
Speaker 1: even like the Iron Chef if you will. Um. But
21:58
Speaker 1: they do, like you see, It's not as much, but
22:02
Speaker 1: you do see the tensions rising, and you do see
22:04
Speaker 1: them commenting on each other, and you do get that
22:07
Speaker 1: sort of like in the room energy, you know, and
22:10
Speaker 1: you can feel it, and I think that kind of
22:12
Speaker 1: adds to the reality of it, the reality television of
22:15
Speaker 1: it all. Oh, we're about to get to one of
22:17
Speaker 1: my favorite examples of this, which we could I think
22:20
Speaker 1: we could rightly call extreme. So Japan runs the game,
22:25
Speaker 1: it runs the game show game. Uh, one of the
22:29
Speaker 1: things that really sticks out to a lot of people.
22:32
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen it, I think we can we
22:35
Speaker 1: can unanimously recommend checking out a program called sun Suno
22:40
Speaker 1: Dempa Shonen. Again not native Japanese speakers, but you'll be
22:44
Speaker 1: able to find it as you as you in you.
22:48
Speaker 1: This show made its made its bones, made its name
22:52
Speaker 1: by putting people through horrible situations for the entertainment of
22:58
Speaker 1: the viewing audience. Brutal stuff. Sometimes. One of the most famous,
23:03
Speaker 1: the one that hipped me to it at first is,
23:07
Speaker 1: like you said, they use comics a lot in this
23:10
Speaker 1: programming reality TV. You'll do that too to a degree.
23:13
Speaker 1: Here in the US, there's this guy wants to be
23:15
Speaker 1: a breakout comic known as Nasubi, and the sub signs
23:20
Speaker 1: up for this thing, but he doesn't really know what
23:22
Speaker 1: he's signing up for. He gets placed in an apartment,
23:26
Speaker 1: no food, no clothing or minimal food and no clothing.
23:31
Speaker 1: He has no contact with the outside world except through
23:35
Speaker 1: subscriptions to various magazines, and he has to use the
23:38
Speaker 1: magazines to win sweep steaks in order to get the
23:43
Speaker 1: normal stuff you need for life, like food, water, snacks, clothing.
23:49
Speaker 1: And the deal was if he wins enough, if he
23:52
Speaker 1: wins like fast, a certain threshold, he has set free
23:55
Speaker 1: from his apartment. I don't want to. I don't know.
23:58
Speaker 1: Is it okay if we spoil this? This came out
24:00
Speaker 1: a while ago, the big twist, I think, so okay?
24:03
Speaker 1: Well spoiler alert three to one. He thinks he's getting
24:06
Speaker 1: set free and then he gets forced to continue playing
24:09
Speaker 1: the game in just a new location. He doesn't know that.
24:14
Speaker 1: He knows he's being filmed, but he thinks it's going
24:16
Speaker 1: to be edited. He doesn't know what's being live streamed
24:20
Speaker 1: to the entire nation of Japan? Is that legal? Like?
24:25
Speaker 1: How how far you guys have to say? It reminds
24:30
Speaker 1: me of that. What's it called. It's like a it's
24:32
Speaker 1: like an extreme haunted house mckami manner. I think it's
24:35
Speaker 1: what it's called where you sign a waiver and basically
24:37
Speaker 1: like give these people permission to kidnap you, throw you
24:40
Speaker 1: in a trunk and you know, black bag you and
24:43
Speaker 1: then torture you, uh, sensory deprivation, cover you with spiders, sewage,
24:47
Speaker 1: all kind of a terrible person, awful and apparently he
24:51
Speaker 1: is live streaming that as well. Um so, no, no question,
24:54
Speaker 1: there is a documentary about it. But that level of
24:56
Speaker 1: extreme quote unquote entertainment I think always super sketchy. I mean,
25:01
Speaker 1: you know, we we we've seen it in American television
25:03
Speaker 1: with things like Fear Factor, Naked and Afraid, maybe Survivor,
25:08
Speaker 1: but again that's all big budget productions with a lot
25:11
Speaker 1: of oversight and you know, unions and stuff. I mean,
25:15
Speaker 1: this feels like it's a lot more under the radar
25:17
Speaker 1: and potentially dangerous than than those. Yeah, yeah, I don't think.
25:21
Speaker 1: I mean, always read your contract, don't just sign anything
25:28
Speaker 1: without realizing what you're getting into. Because there is a
25:32
Speaker 1: sickness in this country, in a fascination with watching people
25:35
Speaker 1: suffer and look I may have. You know, if I
25:38
Speaker 1: had been in Japan and aware of that show, maybe
25:42
Speaker 1: I would have tuned in. But like, I don't love
25:45
Speaker 1: it conceptually because it just feels like some sort of
25:49
Speaker 1: it feels like a movie we've seen, like a song.
25:52
Speaker 1: You know, You're like, it might not be literal torture
25:55
Speaker 1: where you're trying to fight for your life, but he
25:56
Speaker 1: is fighting for his life. He's fighting for his say entity,
26:01
Speaker 1: You're basically in solitary confinement. They put people in solitary
26:04
Speaker 1: confinement in prison for like acts, you know, for punishment,
26:10
Speaker 1: and so it's like, what where is the joy that
26:12
Speaker 1: we're like, I look, I'm talking to that doll, and
26:15
Speaker 1: then after a while, you, yeah, now I'm just watching
26:19
Speaker 1: a man be tortured. He was taken to South Korea,
26:24
Speaker 1: by the way, that's that second twist. He later went
26:27
Speaker 1: on to the world of variety television, and unfortunately, like
26:32
Speaker 1: so many people who attempt to be reality television stars,
26:36
Speaker 1: his career petered out or didn't get to where he
26:41
Speaker 1: wanted it to go. He ended up being a well
26:44
Speaker 1: known local comic in his native his native area which
26:51
Speaker 1: was Fukushima, and then he was also a dramatic stage actor.
26:56
Speaker 1: This guy just had a really tough time he did.
26:59
Speaker 1: I saw a report where he said he remains, in
27:03
Speaker 1: his words, grateful for the overall experience, and then he
27:06
Speaker 1: assures people that he the producers apologized to him later.
27:11
Speaker 1: And I don't know, man, I try to be a
27:13
Speaker 1: forgiving person. But if all of us, by the way,
27:17
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, folks, we are actual friends, um on
27:21
Speaker 1: a NOL and Max and and yours truly, but if
27:24
Speaker 1: you guys like told me I had to guest on
27:27
Speaker 1: a podcast and then I woke up locked in an
27:30
Speaker 1: apartment for more than a year, I would I don't
27:34
Speaker 1: know if an apology would cut it. You'd have to
27:36
Speaker 1: at least take me to David Busters or something that's
27:38
Speaker 1: you know, Old Boy, And that's the plot of Old Boy. Basically.
27:42
Speaker 1: There's a really good segment on This Gentleman named the SUBI,
27:48
Speaker 1: produced by NPR producer Stephanie Food, that appeared on This
27:52
Speaker 1: uh This American Life called Human Spectacle or on the
27:55
Speaker 1: episode of a Human Spectacle episode five twenty nine. You
27:59
Speaker 1: can stream it on their website. Uh full name Ahmatsu
28:03
Speaker 1: Tomaki uh nasubi means eggplant, so that's like his stage
28:08
Speaker 1: name that he goes through but I am the egg plant.
28:11
Speaker 1: There you go. The idea about legality is my ulterior
28:15
Speaker 1: motive for this is not just to exercise empathy and
28:18
Speaker 1: humanity for people in terrible situations, but also to ask
28:22
Speaker 1: about the future of reality television. It's not going away.
28:34
Speaker 1: It's often cheaper to produce than scripted and you know,
28:37
Speaker 1: say the quiet part out loud, things like writers strikes
28:41
Speaker 1: incentivized studios to do these things and cut some corners
28:45
Speaker 1: in the budget. But on a what do you think
28:50
Speaker 1: the reality the future of reality television looks like? Are
28:54
Speaker 1: there trends we can point to? Is it still sort
28:58
Speaker 1: of anything can happen? Yeah, I mean I think it's
29:01
Speaker 1: just gonna get because there's so much out there already.
29:05
Speaker 1: It's just going to get more and more sort of
29:08
Speaker 1: wild and weird. Uh, sort of like how f boy
29:11
Speaker 1: Island exists. It's like, okay, we already have a twist
29:14
Speaker 1: on everyone competes for one person. Okay, well, let's have
29:17
Speaker 1: like a bunch of guys who don't want to be
29:18
Speaker 1: in relationships compete for people. You know, It's like it's
29:21
Speaker 1: it's just gonna get stranger or even like the one
29:25
Speaker 1: where it's like is it a cake? And that's a
29:29
Speaker 1: phenomenon that came from social media. That was the whole
29:33
Speaker 1: thing where you would watch these videos where people be like, oh, shoe,
29:36
Speaker 1: and then they would cut into it and it's a cake.
29:38
Speaker 1: And they would just be constant videos of like these
29:41
Speaker 1: items that turned out to be cake. And they turned
29:43
Speaker 1: it into a reality competition show and you see you
29:46
Speaker 1: see that on the surface, you know, like this is absurd,
29:49
Speaker 1: But that show got renewed for a second season, so
29:51
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's very very popular. So I think
29:56
Speaker 1: we have a lot more sort of um innovative and
29:59
Speaker 1: yet absurd shows coming our way like that, because they
30:03
Speaker 1: have to keep heightening and at the same time keeping
30:06
Speaker 1: you know, our interests because but how do they do
30:09
Speaker 1: that without venturing into these kind of extreme nihilistic waters
30:13
Speaker 1: that we're talking about, like with this uh, this this
30:15
Speaker 1: fellow in Japan. Well, I mean that's the one good
30:20
Speaker 1: thing is now there's a lot more sort of social
30:23
Speaker 1: accountability for stuff like that. So if something is like
30:27
Speaker 1: I mean like even like the Bachelor Bachelorette, like they
30:30
Speaker 1: get a lot of heat when very clearly misogynistic or
30:34
Speaker 1: clear abuse is happening of the contestants by the producers,
30:39
Speaker 1: like they they know what everyone's saying, every you know,
30:45
Speaker 1: every everything. I could tweet at Mike Flys right now,
30:48
Speaker 1: you know, like I can tell Mike Flies, hey man,
30:50
Speaker 1: don't do that, and he's you know, like him or
30:53
Speaker 1: his assistance. Like people see these things and they report back,
30:56
Speaker 1: and that's why Mike Flies is notorious for tweeting stuff
31:00
Speaker 1: of fout like don't worry, we will not allow this
31:03
Speaker 1: sort of dark thing to happen. And you're like, why
31:06
Speaker 1: is you know, like they all like, you know, it's
31:08
Speaker 1: not necessarily true, but they're hyper aware of how people
31:11
Speaker 1: are perceiving them, which is why you then see literally
31:15
Speaker 1: such almost like literally like mentally just softening sort of
31:26
Speaker 1: shows like is it cake? Like it's such a basic
31:31
Speaker 1: comp you know, concept of us just being like is
31:34
Speaker 1: it a kike? There's nothing threatening about it. There's nothing
31:37
Speaker 1: even remotely dark about It's just people trying to guess
31:41
Speaker 1: if an object is a cake. And that is so
31:43
Speaker 1: like that's the kind of stuff we're seeing because that's
31:48
Speaker 1: they're hyper aware that people are going to call them
31:50
Speaker 1: and call them out option right, that would be that
31:54
Speaker 1: means like you you're in the you're in the brainstormy meeting,
31:58
Speaker 1: and you're looking at the options that are least likely
32:02
Speaker 1: to create a firestorm on Twitter or two. I mean,
32:05
Speaker 1: I like that, but I also want to point out
32:07
Speaker 1: the the idea of the idea of this my guy
32:11
Speaker 1: going proactively on social media and saying, don't worry, We're
32:15
Speaker 1: not gonna let this dark thing happen. That's kind of
32:18
Speaker 1: spooky too, because it makes me feel like the implication
32:21
Speaker 1: there is there was somehow in the cards. It's like
32:24
Speaker 1: if you go to a store and there's a sign
32:28
Speaker 1: that says no shirt, no shoes, no service, and then
32:31
Speaker 1: below that there's a line that says, you know, also
32:35
Speaker 1: no explosives in children or something, then you're like, how
32:38
Speaker 1: did that make it on the sign? Why are you
32:40
Speaker 1: proactively telling me not to do that? Understood? Yeah, that
32:45
Speaker 1: was an assumption I made. You should never assume because
32:48
Speaker 1: there's years of evidence on television of them clearly doing
32:51
Speaker 1: stuff that screwed over people. So that's kind of where
32:55
Speaker 1: it's like, Oh, I actually have like hours and hours
32:58
Speaker 1: of evidence that you guys don't have the leads best
33:01
Speaker 1: interest in mind. Do the people who are victimized by this.
33:06
Speaker 1: Do they have any recourse or have they you know,
33:09
Speaker 1: has there been any legal action that someone is one
33:11
Speaker 1: or anything like that. No, there's no legal action, but
33:14
Speaker 1: they can always. The thing is, like, why do you
33:17
Speaker 1: need legal action when you have the like court of
33:19
Speaker 1: public opinion, So you could just go like one cast
33:22
Speaker 1: or one bachelor went on This American Life and talked
33:25
Speaker 1: about his experience and he basically was like blacklisted from
33:28
Speaker 1: the production, but like he got his story out there.
33:32
Speaker 1: So like you don't even need to get a legal
33:34
Speaker 1: team together because now you can just write a book
33:36
Speaker 1: or go on social media or go on like a podcast,
33:39
Speaker 1: or go on you know, like anything and talk about
33:41
Speaker 1: your experience and then all of a sudden you have
33:43
Speaker 1: like all these people turn on you and be like,
33:45
Speaker 1: see he was tortured or not tortured, but you know
33:48
Speaker 1: he was you know, messed with and made to feel
33:51
Speaker 1: a certain way and his mental health suffered because of it,
33:55
Speaker 1: and the court of public opinion. I think we all
33:58
Speaker 1: now it's tough. I think the lesson here is just
34:02
Speaker 1: stick with cakes, you know, like the wonderful Nicole Buyer's nailed.
34:07
Speaker 1: You know, that's so good. It's just like everyone on
34:10
Speaker 1: there knows they're not good at making cakes, and and
34:13
Speaker 1: we just get to watch them make cakes poorly or
34:15
Speaker 1: you know, at varying degrees of of of competence, and
34:18
Speaker 1: even when they do it just like barely passibly, it's like,
34:21
Speaker 1: good job. But they're poking fun at themselves and they
34:23
Speaker 1: know exactly why they're on there, and no one's really
34:26
Speaker 1: you know, disparaged or made to feel stupid, because that's
34:30
Speaker 1: the whole deal. And they know what it is walking
34:32
Speaker 1: in or even that show, Um, what was it, Flora's Lava.
34:38
Speaker 1: It's the concept of your own childhood of trying not
34:41
Speaker 1: to touch the floor and you're just jumping like furniture
34:43
Speaker 1: to furniture. That's all Flora's Lava. You just are trying
34:47
Speaker 1: not to touch the floor. And it's genuinely just the
34:49
Speaker 1: most nostalgic and like simple concept you can have on
34:53
Speaker 1: a show, and people love it. I will say, though,
34:56
Speaker 1: there is kind of the other sort of you know,
34:58
Speaker 1: we're obviously like left leaning people, but like there is
35:01
Speaker 1: the more right leaning side, which is the show Snowflake Island.
35:05
Speaker 1: I believe it's called where it is on Netflix. Let
35:11
Speaker 1: me confirm it's called Snowflake Island, and I didn't just
35:15
Speaker 1: call it, it's snow Snowflake Mountain. Excuse me, of course, Sorry,
35:20
Speaker 1: I watched too many like Love Island, Temptation Island. I think,
35:23
Speaker 1: now everything's an island, but it's it's Snowflake Mountain where
35:26
Speaker 1: they have all these people, you know, more progressive or
35:30
Speaker 1: left leaning or just like not conservative people come on
35:34
Speaker 1: this show and you have like military men basically take
35:37
Speaker 1: all their belongings and then you know, for the most part,
35:40
Speaker 1: verbally and physically make them do tasks that are pretty
35:44
Speaker 1: you know, in my opinion, useless, because if you are
35:48
Speaker 1: the type of person who's never going to go camping,
35:51
Speaker 1: like what is this, like, what are you having to
35:53
Speaker 1: survive outdoors? Have to do with anything? You know? Like
35:55
Speaker 1: to me, I'm kind of like the oh, you took
35:58
Speaker 1: the city folk out into the mountain and then also
36:00
Speaker 1: conveniently all the city folks are people of color, and
36:03
Speaker 1: then you have all these like white military men like
36:05
Speaker 1: yelling at them like there is clearly an underlying of
36:09
Speaker 1: like you know, like right wing nonsense here, whereas like
36:14
Speaker 1: you should never treat someone like that, and yet here
36:17
Speaker 1: we are being like, look, at these snowflakes, which is
36:20
Speaker 1: a known term that the right use to describe people
36:26
Speaker 1: from the left or just liberals or the Democrats who
36:29
Speaker 1: just like ask for basic human rights and they're like, snowflake,
36:32
Speaker 1: he can't handle it. And you're like, okay, now you
36:34
Speaker 1: just called a rally show snowflake Mountain. Then we can
36:37
Speaker 1: kind of see what's going on. I will say it
36:40
Speaker 1: does have the coveted zero percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes,
36:45
Speaker 1: you know, which is objectively kind of hard to get. Uh,
36:48
Speaker 1: you get that many people to agree. So this is
36:51
Speaker 1: where we see the trends continuing in the future. We
36:56
Speaker 1: we knew there was a lot of stuff we weren't
36:58
Speaker 1: going to be able to get to. We're all very
37:00
Speaker 1: excited about this episode, so much so in fact, that
37:04
Speaker 1: this has officially become a two parter. This is an
37:08
Speaker 1: absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. Where can people learn
37:12
Speaker 1: more about your work, more about what's coming up? Uh,
37:17
Speaker 1: and where can they find you? I am at Anna
37:21
Speaker 1: host n on Twitter and I'm at selling host on Instagram.
37:25
Speaker 1: You can follow me there to keep up with all
37:27
Speaker 1: my shows. I tweet and post about my shows all
37:29
Speaker 1: the time. You can check out my show Ethnically Ambiguous,
37:33
Speaker 1: which I host with Sharne Lonnie Units, which is all
37:35
Speaker 1: about being a person of color and sort of Middle
37:37
Speaker 1: Eastern news um and other kind of fun stuff and
37:40
Speaker 1: experiences we've had. And I have the show Will You
37:44
Speaker 1: Accept This Rose, which is hosted by comedian Art and Marine,
37:48
Speaker 1: and it's a real nutty show where we recap every
37:52
Speaker 1: episode of the Bachelor franchises from Bachelor, Bachelorette and Bachelor
37:56
Speaker 1: in Paradise, along with recapping the foreign version of these
38:00
Speaker 1: shows as well. Uh. And so you can go to
38:03
Speaker 1: Rose Podcast dot vodka. That's right, we got the down
38:07
Speaker 1: ponca dot com. Rose Podcast dot vodka to see more
38:10
Speaker 1: about our show. Oh yeah, you can get dot anything
38:13
Speaker 1: if you pay for it. Um. So Rose Podcast dot
38:17
Speaker 1: vodka to check out more about that show. And yeah,
38:21
Speaker 1: I host a Twitch show every Tuesday evening with writer
38:27
Speaker 1: Molly Lambert on Twitch. Yeah, it's called Deckheads Chief Stuis.
38:32
Speaker 1: We talked about Bravo, we talked about Below Deck. We
38:34
Speaker 1: just talked about all the different shows that we are enjoying.
38:36
Speaker 1: Sometimes we gonna talk about narrative shows that we're watching
38:39
Speaker 1: because we love shows that are truly weird like the
38:42
Speaker 1: offer on Paramount Plus. Can you believe they put that
38:45
Speaker 1: show out? Anyway, everyone's doing very interesting accent work. We
38:49
Speaker 1: talked about it and uh yeah, that's where you can
38:53
Speaker 1: find me, and you can find Ben and I as
38:56
Speaker 1: human people as well on the internet. Uh I am
38:59
Speaker 1: at how now? Noel Brown on Instagram and I lark
39:03
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Abou don't really don't really tweet, but Ben
39:06
Speaker 1: does both of those things, the instagrams and tweets. Oh well, yeah,
39:11
Speaker 1: the rumors are true. So you can find me in
39:13
Speaker 1: a burst of creativity calling myself at ben Bowling bow
39:16
Speaker 1: l I in on Instagram. You can get a behind
39:20
Speaker 1: the scenes look at my misadventures, some of which work
39:23
Speaker 1: out to be genuine adventures, as well as further research.
39:26
Speaker 1: I'm doing them at ben Bowling hs W on Twitter.
39:29
Speaker 1: Where's the HSW come from? If you know? You know,
39:32
Speaker 1: thanks for being old school there and one of the
39:36
Speaker 1: big values that people get from Twitter. One of the
39:40
Speaker 1: reasons La Musk was trying to buy it once upon
39:43
Speaker 1: a time is because Twitter is where you can find
39:45
Speaker 1: our producer, Mr Max Williams. Yes, you can find me
39:48
Speaker 1: on Twitter at at l Underscore Max Williams in the meantime,
39:52
Speaker 1: huge thanks to Alex Williams, brother to Max Williams, who
39:55
Speaker 1: composed our theme. Also thanks to you again Max for
39:57
Speaker 1: being the best super producer on the block, uh and
40:00
Speaker 1: the star of the show. Thanks to who else bad?
40:03
Speaker 1: We else we want to thank, We want to thank
40:04
Speaker 1: christ Frostios here in spirit. Well yeah, thanks to you know,
40:08
Speaker 1: uh and thanks to you know. Let's just start thanking people. Um,
40:12
Speaker 1: thanks thanks to most most of this is yeah, let's
40:18
Speaker 1: just say yeah. Thanks bad Frederick. Thanks to Eve's Jeff Cote,
40:22
Speaker 1: the one and only. I think we think we call
40:25
Speaker 1: it today. I mean, why would we think Casey pegrum um,
40:29
Speaker 1: why don't yeah producer of Jonathan Strictly a k The Blister.
40:36
Speaker 1: I think I think it was done enough. We'll see
40:37
Speaker 1: you next time, folks. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
40:47
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
40:49
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.