Toddlers, Tiaras, and Television Quiz

Answer: Toddlers & Tiaras

At the top (or bottom depending on your scale) of the reality show genre are shows that offer exploitative images of children. "Toddlers & Tiaras" was once the longest running of this show type. "Toddlers and Tiaras" focuses on the children (some as young as three years old) beauty pageant circuit. The network formerly called The Learning Channel, now just TLC, premiered "Toddlers and Tiaras" in 2009. The show is highly controversial because of the often extreme sexualization and pressure placed on the young pageant hopefuls.

Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson was a six year old pageant contestant that appeared on the initial seasons of "Toddler & Tiaras" in 2009. In 2012, TLC created a new show to focus on Thompson and her family's often colorful daily life, outside of the pageant circuit. Like many reality shows, "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" is popular across a broad spectrum of television viewers and savagely derided by critics.

Answer: Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire?

Imagine you are trying to sell the concept of a reality show to a broadcast network. Here is the premise, fifty women are interviewed by a man visible only in silhouette. The man is allegedly a multi-millionaire and the women are vying to be his bride. The winner gets a wedding ring valued at 100,000 but must marry the "millionaire" right there on set. Think this is a bad dream, nope; it is a real Fox network reality show that aired on February 15, 2000. Darva Conger, a 34 year old nurse, was selected by Rick Rockwell as his instant bride.

Immediately after the on-set wedding, problems set in for the happy couple. Rockwell's millionaire status was called into question, and a prior domestic abuse charge was discovered. Ms. Conger claimed the marriage had not been consummated, and had the arrangement annulled less than two months later. However, all was not lost for Ms. Conger. She did sell the engagement ring and other prizes from the show and appeared in the August 2000 edition of Playboy magazine. "Who Wants To Marry a Multi-Millionaire" proved too exploitative even for the Fox Network and was cancelled after its lone airing.

Answer: Farmer Wants a Wife

Fremantle Media, the company that also brought you the "Idol" and "Got Talent" franchises, produces the reality dating show "Farmer Wants a Wife". In this cerebral offering, a rural farmer puts would be brides from the city through tests and obstacles before selecting a future spouse.

The excitement in the show is in the "fish out of water" hilarity that made the Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert comedy "Green Acres" a smash hit the 1960s. Far from being a bust, "Farmer Wants a Wife" ran for eight series in the UK and spawned local versions in over twenty countries.

Answer: Armed & Famous

"Armed & Famous" lasted four episodes on the CBS network (rebroadcast on the Viacom owned VH1 network) in the fall of 2007. The show featured Erik Estrada, best known for playing a California Highway Patrol Officer in the 1970's television show "CHiPs". Estrada and fellow "stars" La Toya Jackson, Jack Osbourne (son of Ozzie), Trish Stratus (WWF wrestler and model) and Wee Man (from the "Jackass" series) became fully sworn reserve deputies of the Muncie Indiana police department. In addition to being absurd as a premise and boring as a television show, the actors as real cops theme induced one lawsuit during its brief history. One of the alleged "criminals" in the show sued the producers for false imprisonment and violation of her privacy.

"Steven Seagal: Lawman" has a premise that is similar to "Armed & Famous". The show follows the martial arts movie legend on his rounds as a reserve deputy Sheriff in Louisiana and Arizona. While the Seagal show is every bit as unintentionally funny as the ludicrous "Armed & Famous", Seagal himself does have an extensive background in police support that partially legitimizes the premise.

Answer: The Osbournes

If you have ever been married, you know that under the best of circumstances relationships are difficult to maintain. Marriages between celebrities seem particularly vulnerable to falling apart. Add the stress of a reality based television show to the mix, and it is small wonder that the marriage rarely outlasts the run of the show. It is this no small wonder that Heavy Metal legend and noted mumbler, Ozzie Osbourne, and his oft foul-mouthed manager wife Sharon were married in 1982. The marriage survived the stress of their top rated reality show, "The Osbournes", that ran on MTV from 2002-2005.

In contrast to Ozzie and Sharon the high profile marriage of singers Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachay did not survive reality television. Lachay and Simpson were married in 2002 and divorced in 2006. The show, "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica", raised the profile of Ms. Simpson during its 2003-2005 three season run. This was due in large part to a series of "dumb blonde" comments Ms. Simpson made in various episodes. Musician and tattoo aficionado Dave Navarro and model-actress Carmen Electra had a seven episode reality show and a three year marriage. Musician Travis Barker and beauty queen-model-actress Shanna Moakler milked a two season show out of their four year marriage.

Answer: Adopted adult unmasks biological father's identity for cash

In 2005, the ever innovative Fox Network brought us the adoption game show "Who's Your Daddy?" The premise of the show was an adopted adult is pitted against a group of men, one of who is his/her verified biological father. Through questions and answers the contestant was supposed to determine which putative man was the actual "daddy". If the guess was correct, then the contestant received $100,000, but if the guess was wrong then the fake father received the money. The pilot episode of the show starred comely actress TJ. Myers. Ms. Myers was able to correctly pick her biological father from the group. Not surprisingly, adoption advocacy groups protested the very premise of the show. The show was cancelled after the pilot episode, not out of any sense of crossing a decency line, but because of low ratings.

In case you were wondering, the on air paternity test "reveal" is a stable of "talk shows" across the globe. The "your my baby daddy" plot is a signature feature of the long running, cultural high water mark, known as the "The Maury Povich Show".

Answer: A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila

Tila Nyugen, better known as Tila Tequila, is the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants who settled in Houston Texas. As a teenager, Tila flirted with gang life until she was offered a chance to model for Playboy Magazine in 2002. Tila became an on-line pinup and was Playboy's first Asian "Cyber Girl of The Month". Tila parlayed her exotic looks and online following to become one of the most popular stars at the early social media forum, MySpace.

In 2007 at the height of her internet appeal, Tila appeared on the MTV network reality show "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila". Sixteen straight men and sixteen gay women were offered their shot at turning Ms. Tequila's head. The "hook" for the series was that Tila was bisexual. Oddly enough few people were surprised. The show received a second season and neither time did Ms. Tequila find her soul mate. The show was recast for a third season without Tila. Since the peak of her fame, Ms. Tequila has stayed active by entering into several high profile and often tempestuous relationships. In addition, Ms. Tequila took another page out of the fading celebutante handbook starring in a 2011 "leaked" sex tape with several other women.

Answer: Undercover (Secret) Princes

"Undercover Princes" and its distaff counterpart "Undercover Princesses" aired on the BBC 3 network. The basic premise of the show was to make a real-life version of the 1998 Eddy Murphy comedy "Coming to America". In the movie, an African prince looking to escape his unfulfilling life as a super pampered scion of royalty moved to New York and worked at McDonalds. While in New York, he falls in love with a "regular girl". "Undercover Princes" took three alleged royals and placed them in Brighton England, and filmed their search for love and attempts at "normal" lives. The show lasted for two series. A companion show about three princesses living in Essex, England was broadcast in 2010.

"Secret Princes" is a US version of the same premise that premiered in 2012 on the TLC network. "Secret Princes" adds a fourth "royal" and follows the same format as "Undercover Princes". The popularity of the show plays both on Americans fascination with the concept of inherited royalty, and the enduring desire of many to be part of a real-life fairy tale.

Answer: Homosexuality

Want to take a run of the mill, mean-spirited, practical joke reality series and turn it into an offensive homophobic embarrassment, then follow these simple rules. First get the US Fox network to produce and air a series called "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé" in 2003. This show followed a woman, who had to get her family to participate in and not object to a "fake" wedding for a cash prize. Next, have the alleged finance be an actor playing the role of a rude slovenly boyfriend, to make it harder for the girl's family to remain supportive. When the hilarious secret is revealed, make everyone cry and give them a lot of money not to sue you.

Finally, you need to amp up the offensiveness and introduce societal homophobia to the fun. In the second season of the French version of the show, broadcast in 2009, the contestant had to convince his family that he has "come out of the closet" and is marrying another man. Again the contestant is also duped, in that the "fiancé" is an actor portraying an outlandish stereotypical gay man, to make obtaining the family's support for the wedding that much harder. Sadly, this type of show continues to be produced in various countries.

Answer: The Ugly Duckling

Who can forget the famous Hans Christian Andersen story "The Ugly Duckling"? A lovely tale of a misfit duckling who is picked on and ostracized for the differences in his appearance, until it is revealed that he is not a duck at all but a swan. The story is a cautionary tale of judging books by their covers, as well as letting others define your worth and control your self-esteem. In the hands of the US Fox network, this story becomes a 2004 reality game show in which women are transformed from their normal "ugly" selves into beautiful "swans" by repeated plastic surgery and body alterations. To add to the ego debasement, each week two of the refigured swans faced off against each other to see whose alterations were the most successful.

"The Swan" was pilloried as one of the most sadistic and misogynistic television programs to air. The idea that a woman can achieve a positive self-image only by undergoing repeated surgery, earned "The Swan" Entertainment Weekly's dubious honor as #1 Worst Reality Show in 2009. Undeterred, the producers of "The Swan" mined the same morally bankrupt reality show genre with 2010's "Bridalplasty", where twelve women competed each week to "earn" plastic surgery procedures and an eventual prize of a dream wedding and unlimited surgical procedures.