CSotD: Hide the puppy, Chuck
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Non Sequitur, with an observation on the state of reality television and, thus, on the state of reality.
"Reality television" has always been somewhat artificial, simply because editors and producers make decisions on what you're going to see. This can range from something as innocent as cutting out the boring parts to the common-but-misleading policy of actively employing selective editing to create heroes and villains.
My main objection to the genre is that people think they are seeing reality when they are not.
Editing aside, there is the problem of reactivity, that is, of people knowing they are being observed and altering their behavior accordingly. That covers a wide range.
For instance, a cartoonist — who will remain anonymous but whose work is being featured today — turned me on to "the Osbornes" in its first season, and I really enjoyed it.
Now, to begin with, one of the Osborne kids had declined to even take part and isn't seen in the show, so it was never a real-life look into their private lives anyway.
More to the point, however, is that, after the first episodes had aired, the family became aware of being "The Osbornes TM" and began to behave like the characters the show had created.
They became, not a family, but an improv group.
Similarly, when the first season of "Survivor" aired, nobody knew how it would work. By the second, and certainly the third, there was a blueprint, and not only did the producers begin to cast to that template, but the contestants began to act out the roles they felt would prevail, based on what they had seen in previous seasons.
Now, the presence of video does not always seem to impact behavior.
There was a South African program in the '80s in which the producers outfitted a group of people with the clothing and equipment of their ancestors and sent them out to live as pioneers in the bush.
Group dynamics quickly fell apart, to the point where one group broke off and created their own settlement a short distance away and one of the guns with which they were supposed to hunt food was pulled on members of the rival clan. My recollection is that the producer decided things were getting out of control and halted the project, but I could be wrong.
In another half-remembered case, one of the Canadian news shows — "The Fifth Estate" or "W5" — put cameras in the house of a family for a report on counseling and family dynamics or some such, and discovered video of seriously twisted psychological abuse of a young boy, despite the fact that the parents not only knew they were being recorded but continued to faithfully change the tapes.
But we've gone way beyond accidentally taping people becoming psychotic.
Chuck Barris, producer of "The Gong Show," "The Newlywed Game" and "The Dating Game," famously said that the ultimate TV show would feature a little boy with a puppy, and the host would ask the studio audience if, for a million dollars, anyone would come down and shoot the puppy on stage. He would get lots of hands, so he would ask if anyone was willing to do it for half a million, and would keep revising the offer downward.
Eventually, Barris said, someone would shoot the puppy for free, just to be on television.
At the time, we thought it was exaggeration, but we'd never seen "Fear Factor" or "Dog the Bounty Hunter" or "Storage Wars" or my nominee for worst-thing-on-television, "Billy the Exterminator," who is like "The Crocodile Hunter's" evil twin.
Billy dresses like a strung-out carny and enthusiastically professes to be in mortal danger from the animals he is called upon to remove, challenges a normal exterminator would handle without a lot of drama and also with no chance of getting on TV. Billy is not just aware of the camera but is consciously playing a ridiculously artificial role for the audience.
The animals Billy is called on to remove are not nearly as frightening as is the fact that people think these shows reflect reality when they are little more than sideshow freaks acting out Chuck Barris's prediction.
Go ahead. Watch "Billy the Exterminator" and laugh. Then remind yourself that the people who have made it a ratings success are going to vote in November.
Still laughing?
Meanwhile, speaking of things we thought were far-fetched at the time, here's the pilot for "The Amazing Race." The producers made a few changes, you'll note, but they're really only minor tweaks:
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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