Way back in 2004, VH1 picked up a borderline unwatchable reality show that would change television for the next half-decade.
The Surreal Life was a celebrity infused rip off of The Real World and Big Brother, and featured minor celebrities like Flavor Flav, Brigitte Nelson, Ron Jeremy, Vanilla Ice and Da Brat. While the first two seasons aired on the WB, the show really picked up steam when it moved to VH1 for season three.
That season would spawn 14 spinoffs. While My Fair Brady, a show about TV's Peter Brady (Christopher Knight) dating some model, was terrible, Strange Love, starring Flav and Nelson, launched a cash cow that didn't go dry until a murder-suicide in 2009: Celebreality.
After Strange Love came Flavor of Love, a dating show featuring Flav and some of the baddest bitches you'll ever meet. The show is most known for a white girl (Pumpkin), spitting on a black girl (New York), and then getting run down. Also, he gave them all stupid names, like Pumpkin and New York. Ultimately, Hoopz, the woman currently dating Shaq, won the first season over New York. But Flav brought New York back for season two, where she again lost in the finale, this time to Deelishis (THESE NAMES DOH!).
So, as a consolation prize for twice failing to win the heart of a grown man that wears a clock around his neck, the network decided to give New York her own show, I Love New York.
I know it's a stupid name, but the show was originally going to be called The Flavorette, so I think we all won with this name. I Love New York was the most watched debut in VH1 history, and I think we can all agree that the show's two seasons produced some great characters, such a Taylor Made (A douchey rich white guy that proposed to New York TWICE), Onyx, The Entertainer and Punk (Now WWE Superstar David Otunga. He also has a Harvard Law degree and is married to Jennifer Hudson. Interesting guy.)
But two of the more interesting characters the show gave birth two were brothers Real and Chance. They formed a terrible rap group known as the Stallionaires. It is a group so bad, that it doesn't even have Wikipedia page. Real was the nice Christian guy that New York's mother loved, and Chance was the edgy bad boy that New York just couldn't let go of. In true VH1 fashion, they got their own show called Real Chance of Love in 2009.
The show wasn't all that great, but Real and Chance were always entertaining.
Somewhere along the line, we got a sort of side spin off when VH1 launched Rock of Love, a Flavor of Love for white chicks featuring former Poison front man Bret Michaels. To this day, television has yet to achieve the awesome-ness that was Rock of Love.
With drunken, fake titted sluts competing for the affection of an aging rock star, Rock of Love was a mega-hit, and went three full seasons before Michaels was all like "Yeah, I guess I should just go date my longtime girlfriend and take care of my kids." So, his selfishness deprived us of this show going on for the rest of eternity.
Eventually, one of the girls that lost on Rock of Love, Daisy, would get her own dating show called, you guessed it, Daisy of Love. It was aight. Also, at some point, they sent all of the Flavor of Love and Rock of Love Girls to Charm school.
All of these shows merged in 2008 with the first season of I Love Money, a show were these "reality stars" basically admitted that they were fame and money hungry whores. The show was cut off in the middle of its third season because of the controversy caused by…
Megan Wants a Millionaire: This was, by far, the best concept yet. Megan Hauserman, a gold digging bimbo from Rock of Love, was given a dating show where only wealthy men could compete for her affection. The first season aired three golden episodes, but was quickly suspended when contestant Ryan Jenkins (Who I maintain was TOTALLY gonna win this thing), was sought by police for questioning in the murder of his wife. Jenkins was later found dead in an apparent suicide, leading to VH1 pulling the plug on the show (Where it came out that Jenkins finished third) and I love Money Season Three, where Jenkins was also a contestant.
That was the end of Celebreality, but the movement birthed some great shows and, ultimately, VH1's affinity for ridiculous reality programming led to shows like Tool Academy and The Pickup Artist.
In the former, an expert attempts to take d-bag guys and make them into good boyfriends. In the latter, a "pickup expert" named Mystery attempts to do the opposite, taking nice and happy guys and turning them into shallow pickup artists that wear boas for some reason.
No comments :
Post a Comment