Saturday, September 6, 2003

SCHMO MONEY, SCHMO PROBLEMS: Let me jump ahead of the curve in favor of something, which I haven't for awhile. The new SpikeTV reality spoof The Joe Schmo Show is, without a doubt, must-see television.

"Joe Schmo" is the happy cross-fertilization of The Truman Show's contrived realism with the snarky, knowing smile of "Joe Millionaire". (In fact, imagine The Truman Show, only with Eurosnob director/creator Ed Harris replaced by Will Ferrell.)

The premise: take one doofus, tell him he's on a reality competition called "The Lap of Luxury", but put him in a house with a bunch of actors playing reality-tv archetypes (The Virgin, The Bitch, The Grizzled Veteran, The Puck Guy, The Polynesian Gay Guy Who's Neither Polynesian Nor Gay In Real Life) rather than real people, and then orchestrate the whole experience to humiliate the crap out of the one guy who thinks it's real and send him for the ride of his life.

Oh, sure, I can see how it could go too far, and be sadistic and not pleasurable. It could be "Fear Factor" with the added minus of the competitors not knowing they're eating horse rectum.

But so far, it works. It's got the same cheeky charm as "Joe Millionaire", only this time it's all the contestants lying to one of them instead of one guy lying to all the contestants, and it shares the same thrills of imperfect cast training as that show did, as the actors aren't always entirely on-script. Matt Kennedy Gould, the schmo in question, is wonderfully gullible, and takes his humiliations in good spirit. The show is goofy fun, and it made me laugh out loud. Repeatedly.

Let Tim Goodman at the SF Chronicle and the NY Daily News' David Bianculli tell you more.

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