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Thank, or blame, Ozzy Osbourne, says Surreal Life producer Cris Abrego. The Osbournes "made it possible for us to talk to celebrities," he says. "Five or six years ago, reality TV was a bad word." Now it's CPR for a dying career, a way for forgotten celebrities to remind the world that they exist and for child stars to reintroduce themselves as grownups. Not that any celebrity will admit to such motives. On one Star Dates, Kim Fields--Tootie from The Facts of Life--says of her two blind dates, "If they call me Tootie, they're out of here." But by her second date, she seems miffed that her beau says he has seen only one episode of Facts, and she asks him if he has ever watched her other sitcom, Living Single. ("In Living Color?" he says. "I used to watch that all the time.")
For all the popularity of this new genre, working with stars who aren't show-biz naifs has some drawbacks. Abrego, who once produced the MTV reality show Road Rules, remembers its restrictive contracts: "The Road Rules kids, they'd have to sign their firstborn away. But these guys, if you don't get the right hair and makeup person to show up, there's trouble." There's the ego massaging, convincing even C-list stars and their agents that the series are not has-been freak shows--shhh, it's our secret! "They had standards," Abrego says. "There were people who said, 'If Gary Coleman does the show, I won't do it.'" (Instead, they cast Webster's Emmanuel Lewis, who is the diminutive former child star who didn't do Celebrity Boxing.)
THEN THERE'S THE FINANCING. Even minor stars, unlike civilian participants, expect to be paid real money. Celebrity Mole permits its winner to keep the grand prize (up to $250,000), while most celebrity game-show contestants must give their loot to charity. "In all fairness," says Mole executive producer Scott Stone, "we couldn't afford to hire them to do the entire taping"--though he insists that some of the stars played for charity anyway. Not so Griffin: "F___ that! The level of celebrity that will do this show, we need this money!" Butch Patrick (that's Eddie Munster to you) says he did Star Dates because "I had broken up with my girlfriend, and there was a paycheck involved." In the middle of one date, he charges a fan 10 bucks for an autograph.
But the shows are cheaper than scripted series, and a Mole stunt that involves a contestant getting soaked under a waterfall does gain a certain appeal when said contestant is supermodel Frederique van der Wal. Still, reality shows rely on, you know, reality: we watch them to see people's genuine, unrehearsed reactions, even in contrived situations. Can you expect that from people who have spent their lives performing? "You can tell when someone's acting," says Surreal's Carter, pointing to a genuinely moving moment when Neil talks about his daughter's death of cancer. But Abrego wasn't always sure. "I've seen them turn it on and off," he says. "There's a moment where Corey is crying, and to be honest, we're not sure if it's real." Feldman says it is, as is the series' denouement--he married his fiance in a ceremony officiated by ordained minister Hammer--and insists that the nuptials were not a stunt to juice his career. (Look what it did for Tiny Tim!) Rather, he says he did Surreal Life as a "science experiment."