Summer stars
Unlike some fellow B-listers, former “Happy Days” star and ‘80s teen heartthrob Scott Baio had long spurned reality TV.
No longer. Baio will bare his celebrity soul on VH1’s “Scott Baio Is 45 … and Single” next month.
“I didn’t want to do a reality show. The concepts were always meaningless, and the people seemed pathetic,” Baio says.
“Maybe I’m a little pathetic,” he acknowledges. “But this isn’t Scott Baio getting a colonoscopy. It’s about a guy trying to get his life together, trying to figure out why he’s never been married and what his problem is.”
Baio’s series – part “Broken Flowers,” part “High Fidelity” – is a raw look at the back story of one of Hollywood’s most prolific serial daters. A therapist and past lovers ranging from former “Playboy” playmates to actresses Erin Moran and Nicole Eggert also star in his made-for-TV journey of self-discovery.
It’s the latest in a string of warts-and-all reality programming better known as “celebreality” – a small-but-growing TV staple since 2002’s “The Surreal Life” and “The Osbournes” premiered to huge cable-channel audiences, particularly among the young demographic advertisers covet.
While no one is clamoring for a 24/7 Celebreality Channel just yet, viewers are in for a big summer dose of the genre:
“VH1 will pair “Baio” (July 9) with “Rock of Love With Bret Michaels” (July 15), aimed at helping the frontman for heavy-metal band Poison attract women – as if he needed any help.
“Bravo Network will showcase “American Idol” pixie Paula Abdul as an entrepreneur and all-around go-getter in the much anticipated “Hey Paula!” (June 28), and has launched a third season of comedian Kathy Griffin’s “My Life on the D-list.”
“A&E offers “The Two Coreys,” featuring former troubled-teen ‘80s pinup boys Corey Haim and Corey Feldman living together (July 15).
“ABC will weigh in with NBA basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s “Shaq’s Big Challenge” (June 26), a fitness show for obese middle-schoolers.
“ NBC is serving up tennis pro Mark Philippoussis dating twenty- to fortysomething “kittens and cougars” in “Age of Love” (premiering Monday at 9 p.m.).
Relatively inexpensive to produce and quick to film, celebreality can provide fast ratings boosts because even faded stars have large fan bases, TV execs say.
“The concoction of nostalgia, train-wreck potential and people desperately in search of attention can yield great television,” says Christian Drobnyk, chief programmer at cable channel TLC, whose celebreality programming is limited largely to star chefs, fashionistas and home flippers.
Still, Drobnyk notes, celebreality shows generally aren’t sustainable, and many fail to score large repeat audiences – a staple for 24/7 cable channels with limited budgets for original programming.
“They’re promoted in a way that shows the shock factor,” he says. “But once you’ve captured that, you’ve been there and done that.”
Successful celebreality shows have strong stars and plotlines, even if they are a bit contrived.
“Everybody wants to be a fly on the wall in people’s homes, but it’s no good being a celebrity and opening your doors if you’re boring,” says “Osbournes” matriarch Sharon Osbourne, whose show lasted four seasons.
“I think people just like seeing celebrities being humiliated,” adds Griffin, whose self-humiliation and faux self-importance are part of “D-list’s” charm.
“There’s something juicy about watching celebrities who are out of control, not very bright and unbelievably self-centered.”
Griffin, a comic and actress whose career spans three decades, says her show has been a great career move, providing the notoriety to help sell out live performances and secure a guest co-hosting gig on ABC morning schmooze fest “The View.”
“Even on a small network like Bravo, the exposure has made me hugely more acceptable,” she says. “Before ‘D-list,’ people thought I was too edgy.”
The potential for positive PR on such shows as “Dancing With the Stars” also has made celebrities more accepting of reality TV.
“Dancing” helped rehab the vilified image of Paul McCartney’s soon-to-be ex-wife Heather Mills and made a star of Olympian Apolo Ohno, a superstar in short-track speed-skating but little known until millions saw him win the fourth season of the top-rated show.
For others, celebreality can jump-start careers. Former talent agent Chris Coelen helped Jessica Simpson broker her MTV show “Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica.”
“It really gave her the profile she has now,” says Coelen, head of the production company whose reality-show stable includes “Wife Swap,” “Shaq’s Big Challenge” and “The Two Coreys.”
Haim’s last major hit was 1987 teen horror film “The Lost Boys.” He has done mostly TV cameos the past five years, after wrestling with personal demons ranging from substance abuse to obesity.
“Yeah, I did drugs and got messed up. My career took a halt. I had to work some stuff out and get my head straight,” says the 35-year-old. “I still have to pay some dues for my past, but this is an opportunity.”
The story line: Haim, unemployed, single and slovenly, moves in with Feldman and Feldman’s wife, Susie Sprague (married by fellow celebreality star M.C. Hammer on a 2002 “Surreal Life” episode) in a “You, Me & Dupree”-style threesome.
Although Haim concedes some plotlines were contrived, he’s hoping for a payoff.
“This could be a wonderful steppingstone,” he says. “Will this be my entire future? Absolutely not. I’m a movie actor by birth.”
Poison’s Michaels is the latest musician to star in VH1’s successful string of dating shows and spinoffs that began with rapper Flavor Flav’s “Flavor of Love.” (The network briefly considered a concept involving Joey Buttafuoco and ex-teenage lover Amy Fisher when the pair recently surfaced together.)
Michaels doesn’t need the money, notoriety or dating help, but acknowledges that living with 25 women in a rented Bel Air mansion for a few weeks sounded like fun.
The “women, exposure to my music and financial considerations – it all seemed to add up,” he says.
Naturally, it’s about marketing, too. The show is timed to Poison’s summer concert tour, new album release and Michaels’ upcoming solo CD.
Baio fretted over his show’s concept, which he calls part reality and part “Larry David”-esque sitcom, and whether it would sustain viewers.
His nostalgic popularity and lothario reputation should make “Single” compelling, says Jason Hervey, the former “Wonder Years” child star who pitched Baio the idea and is co-producing the show.
“He’s the holy grail of reality TV,” Hervey says.
For his part, Baio says if the series fails to attract viewers, it’s not crucial to his career or well-being.
“All I’m doing is giving people insight in what it’s like to be me,” he says. “Sure, you want people talking about you again. But professionally, if it doesn’t happen, I’ll stay home and play golf.”