The Joe Schmo Show (Original Series)

[PurpleTentacle]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377024/

You actually can't find any trailers for this. Weird, it's only 20 years old. *cough*

I decided to watch it, since some people mentioned it in Jury Duty.

So far, half way through the first episode, it's kinda meh. So I'm not sure if I'll finish it.

But I have to express my surprise on seeing little baby David Hornsby and little baby Kristen Wiig in the cast. Considering the cast isn't super big, that's not a bad ratio of people who got to be sucsessfull. Wiig is also already working her butt off, trying to fix mistakes by her fellow actors.

If any of this is real, of course. I'm always sceptical with these kinds of things...

Edit: That they have a gay character in there, but just have to mention like 20 times in the first episodes, how much of the not-homos the actor who play him has, makes me roll my eyes really, really hard every time. I guess different times, but man this is rough.

Edit: It's weird. Fashion certainly has moved on since 2003, but not as much as from 1983 to 2003, or any two decades beforehand. Quite a few outfits I could still see people wearing today.

Edited April 25, 2023 by PurpleTentacle

[PurpleTentacle]

How often these actors supposedly mess up is kinda unbelievable. Seems like they are doing it deliberately to heighten the drama. It's pretty clear that Matt is not going to figure it out. After all he thinks this is a reality show and on these shows people lie.

Matt certainly is a character. On the one hand he's kinda nice and does speak up when Hutch tries to bully somebody, on the other hand he's just a massive douche, who thinks he's way hotter than he actually is, in multiple aspects. Is that a straight, average, white guy thing? I don't think I've ever seen it in real life, but I've always hung out with a more nerdy crowd.

Edit: Episode 4: I assume Kristen Wiig was like "This maniac douchenosel nearly killed me. Get me out of here, I don't care how." and then producers and/or actors whispered into Matt's ear that it would be a good idea to give his price away, as a way to say sorry, because otherwise people might vote him out. So once he did, they added that 25k price for leaving to it. If Matt hadn't given up his price, she probably would have just regular "quit the game".

Edit: The final reveal was pretty well done, but really only because I could just fast foreward all the repetition before. Otherwise it would have been tedious. The stuff afterwards was too drawn out.

Edited April 25, 2023 by PurpleTentacle

[PurpleTentacle]

Season 2:

Again we have two actors that I recognise and have gotten good and steady work after this. Natasha Leggero and Jon Huertas.

And again they have "a big mistake, that could blow the whole show!" in the first episode. Yeah, I'm still not buying that that isn't intentional to create more drama. Like the one woman saying that she got this gig through her agent. That isn't that uncommon for these types of reality shows. So production pretending like this was a big flub is just funny.

I hope for the premise of the show that they cut some things out of order during the introductions, because it really seems like Tim is very much into the bachelor and not at all into the bachelorette.

The bachelor is supposedly 30? Man living was rough in the early 2000s.

So they try to parody minorities getting kicked off of reality TV shows first, by doing the same thing. But actually having one of their two real contestants, or even more than two of their actors, be from a minority, that didn't enter their minds. Classy...

That whole spiel about the pearl necklace and how Austin can only give so many pearl necklaces to the ladies was just amazing. Tim even got it. I'm not sure if Ingrid did.

Edit: I think Ingrid figuring it out was a stroke of luck for them (if she wasn't in on it from the beginning and this was staged). Because otherwise a dating show where you trick two people into falling in love would have been far too mean. It was kinda mean as it was.

Edited April 26, 2023 by PurpleTentacle

[PurpleTentacle]

Season 3:

I still think they are making "mistakes" deliberately to heighten the drama. Like the "deaf" actress covering her ears when the champaign bottle popped with 10s delay, like she forgot that she had to do it and nobody else in the room thought it was loud enough to cover their ears.

Also they had to bring Chase to a hospital for a minor scrape, because "a real doctor had to look at it"? They don't have a doctor there? That seems irresponsible for a production with physical challanges.

Later it actually does seem like a genuine flub with the "deaf" actress hearing something Chase says... well maybe if you don't want something like that to happen, how about you cast a real deaf actress. What was the problem there?

Edit: Again with the production "mistakes" that are clearly intentional to enhance drama. In one of the final immunity challanges they allege that they reinforced Chases doors, but he's just so gosh darn motivated that he breaks through them anyway. In a replay you can see that he barely touches one and they swing open. He was clearly meant to win that immunity, even though we are told the opposite.

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by PurpleTentacle

[Lantern7]

“We’re Screwed”

Good times, man. Good times.

[GenerationX]

I enjoyed all three seasons of this show.  Great satire.  I'm disappointed to hear Ralph will not be involved in the newest season.  He was perfect in the first three seasons ("You will leave the Lap of Luxury and return to your sad existence working for the man" heh).

I'm one of the probably twelve people who watched the Superstar USA hoax show 20 years ago.  It wasn't nearly as funny as Joe Schmo, though I did like seeing the lead singer from Eve's Plum as a panelist.

[Garold]

To be honest, I've never been a fan of reality shows. But at one time I really liked it (recently rewatched some episodes on 123movies). It's very interesting to watch how people start to behave in different situations when they don't realize that it's a production. It brings a bit of spontaneity and real humor. 

Edited Monday at 09:51 AM by Garold
added some details