“L.A. Law” star-turned-“Celebrity Mole” contestant Corbin Bernsen is back where he belongs – on a scripted television series. “Newlywed” Jessica Simpson is officially divorced and saying she’d never again do a reality series. Britney and Kevin are still living a life “chaotic” – but no longer filming it for public consumption. Tommy Lee is appearing on another unscripted series this summer, but this one, “Rock Star: Supernova,” is about music, not college.
And George Hamilton? “The Family” host and “Dancing With the Stars” alumnus is probably back working on his tan.
I don’t want to jinx things, but … Doesn’t it look like the celebreality trend is finally starting to ebb? Or at least morphing into something more amusing?
Sure, there are still celebreality series on the horizon, and a few have even risen to the level of guilty pleasure. Take, for example, Flavor Flav’s ridiculously over-the-top “Flavor of Love,” which begins its second season on VH1 Aug. 6. The one-time emcee of Public Enemy went from “The Surreal Life” to a “Strange Love” spinoff with Brigitte Nielsen to “Flavor of Love,” a kind of “Bachelor” for women who like little guys with gold teeth and massive clock pendants.
Gene Simmons ‘Family’
Also next month, KISS frontman Gene Simmons – who’s already done a reality show called “Rock School” – will launch his “Family Jewels” on A&E. It will chronicle his non-traditional home life with his partner of more than 20 years, actress and one-time Playboy Playmate of the Year Shannon Tweed, and their two children. We’ll supposedly see the metal madman balancing his roles as rock star and dad.
Sound familiar? Sound like “The Osbournes”?
Remember how hot Ozzy, Sharon, Jack and Kelly’s MTV venture was in 2002? Now it seems like yesterday’s tossed ham – yet another reminder that the celebreality-as-pop-culture-phenom days have passed.
And though Bravo is still airing “Being Bobby Brown,” those episodes are from the first season. The network says a second one is highly unlikely.
I say, hallelujah!
While these shows can be amusing, even riveting, it’s often in that voyeuristic, I-know-I-shouldn’t-be-looking-at-that-body-bag-at-the-accident-scene-bu t kind of way. When a wasted-looking Whitney Houston and her husband discussed her constipation problems in great detail on “Bobby Brown,” the scene deservedly topped Entertainment Weekly’s year-end list of the “10 Grossest Things on TV in 2005.” It also obliterated all my memories of Houston’s glory days.
There is bad publicity
Hollywood folks operate on the theory that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I disagree.
TV Land’s “Chasing Farrah” (2005) was supposed to follow Farrah Fawcett on her daily dash from the paparazzi, but the “Charlie’s Angels” star came across as pathetic. And seeing what surgery had done to her beautiful face was heartbreaking.
Even Danny Bonaduce has expressed some “regrets” about “Breaking Bonaduce,” in which “The Partridge Family” alum suffered an emotional breakdown. He recently told a New York tabloid that he “went far enough to possibly damage my credibility” on that VH1 show. Nonetheless, he has been tapped to host Game Show Network’s new “Starface,” a pop-culture game series, due Tuesday.
Like Bonaduce, some “stars” are moving on to less-embarrassing reality ventures. And many of the shows themselves are evolving into reality-sitcom hybrids. That’s how “The Simple Life’s” executive producer Jonathan Murray has always described Paris and Nicole’s venture. He once called the girls “a throwback to … Lucy and Ricky.” (That was when the two were friends and actually interacting on the series.)
Spelling it right
It’s always great when the celebrity is in on the joke. That’s the case with Tori Spelling, whose engaging and hilariously self-deprecating recent “true-life sitcom” on VH1, “So NoTORIous,” traded on references to her (since deceased) famous father and her days on “Beverly Hills 90210.” In some ways akin to Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Tori’s show was, however, close enough to reality to surely rile her estranged mother (and just when Tori may have to wage a legal battle for her inheritance).
While it remains to be seen if “So NoTORIous” will result in Spelling returning to stardom, celebreality has kick-started flagging careers.
John O’Hurley, who was great as J. Peterman on “Seinfeld,” got back on the radar through his stint on “Dancing With the Stars.” He went on to make his Broadway debut earlier this year as Billy Flynn in “Chicago.”
Tatum and Corbin
Oscar winner-turned-“Dancing With the Stars” hoofer Tatum O’Neal has a full-time gig as Tommy Gavin’s sister Maggie on “Rescue Me.” Bernsen, a sad sight on the first two editions of “Celebrity Mole,” is playing the lead character’s dad in USA Network’s hot new “Psych.” Former supermodel Janice Dickinson, who went from “Surreal Life” to “America’s Next Top Model,” now has her own “Modeling Agency” reality show on Oxygen.
Inaugural “Mole” host Anderson Cooper has returned to being a newsman, keeping them honest rather than faking them out. And Kathy Griffin, another “Celebrity Mole” contender, is once again functioning as a real comedian, making fun of her own quasi-celebrity status in Bravo’s “My Life on the D-List.”
Not that it’s all been smooth sailing for her. On the first season of “D-List,” viewers got to know Griffin’s supportive and funny husband, Matt Moline. Imagine everyone’s surprise last September when Griffin filed for divorce, then told Larry King earlier this month that her (now-ex) hubby “was sneaking into my wallet when I was asleep … taking my ATM cards”
… and withdrawing money … that totaled $72,000.”
The problem with celebreality shows about Hollywood marriages is these unions don’t always end well.
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Carmen Electra, the former “Baywatch” star, and Dave Navarro, the former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist, documented their 2003 wedding on MTV’s “‘Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave.” But last week, Electra’s publicist said that the couple are “amicably separating.” Navarro is now a co-host of “Rock Star.”
As for Simpson and Nick Lachey, “Newlyweds” may or may not have caused the end of their marriage. But it did at least raise their profiles. The same goes for Jessica’s sister, Ashlee Simpson, and the two-year run of her hit MTV reality series.
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The key to success at celebreality is it’s got to be the right celebrity and the right reality vehicle.
Pauly Shore hasn’t done much since “Minding the Store” on TBS last summer. “Celebrity Fit Club” has hardly toned the careers of Willie Aames, Chastity Bono or Jeff Conaway. And “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here” did little to free its players from has-been hell.
The saddest thing is to see a “celeb” get stuck on the celebreality circuit, going from one silly show to another. Flav aside, that’s not a good career strategy.
Let’s face it. When you’re already hot, you’re not on a celebreality series.
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Virginia Rohan: rohannorthjersey.com
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(c) 2006, North Jersey Media Group Inc.
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AP-NY-07-28-06 0932EDT
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