Joe Millionaire

There was one reality show called...

One was called Joe Millionaire, and the other one that was similar was I Want to Meet Harry, where they basically, I want to meet Joe Millionaire.

They convinced these women that this normal guy was a millionaire.

And at the end, they revealed that he wasn't.

They came to Hermosa a lot.

You would see these whatever, like Joe Millionaire, whatever the hell those were.

There would be a bunch of girls and guys like... hooking up and stuff they would come to their most appear a lot but i remember one time they went to this like slot car thing like near my house it didn't last long but i remember in 1998 when i when i first moved in that neighborhood

there was a phase

And if you remember, you'll you'll remember.

Remember the original Joe Millionaire? yeah yeah so she was the runner-up she was the one that figured out the show before it was over yeah and they and uh they had to have like a kind of a plea deal almost the producer he's like right you know we don't whatever you just have to you know you have to play along and and they kind of they made her look really bad with some with some editing yeah you can actually look back and find out crazy yeah what i'm talking about but they made it sound like she was doing things that she wasn't doing yeah that's crazy yeah and anyway so but my point is is that she was pretty big at the time and that's how I knew Jeff because they knew each other from Playboy yeah and and then and then yeah but nobody nobody real nobody you know I mean I hang out with Debbie Gibson but we've never dated I see her all the time

Were there any like diva moments, people that you were kind of like, oh, I can't believe this celebrity is like that? Yeah,

yeah.

I, I kinda, I have an interest in that.

Also, like, you know, to go back, throwback to Joe Millionaire, I would love to be on a show like that where-

Mm.

... everyone thought I was rich, and I was actually poor.

[laughs]

And just see how that goes.

Joe Millionaire was, like, the OG reality-

Like at a time when reality television was exploding, we ran a casting department and had several shows under us.

I think the most successful show at the time was Joe Millionaire.

Joe Millionaire was

huge.

One of the most successful shows ever.

Um, you're right.

Right.

That was like, I think if I remember correctly, that was kind of a big, but Joe Millionaire was for sure the biggest one.

And in the early 2000s, when I was really a senior producer supervising and jumping into then becoming a showrunner at the time, which was all in a very tight few years, we were experimenting a lot.

in the unscripted world, a lot of social experimentation because, you know, think of Joe Millionaire and, you know, Biggest Loser, Extreme Makeover, you know, The Swan being one of them.

Paradise Hotel was another show that, I did where we're going to throw people in situations and sort of, you know, put them under the microscope and we're going to see what happens.

And cable and broadcast television are, At the time when strikes came around and things like that, and that's really where Unscripted took off because when, think of television and channels in general, streaming now, of course.

And you saw some aspects of the business where you sort of went out in the wild, wild west, even how films began, and you would sort of, in a wild, wild west fashion, come up with a bunch of ideas.

Fox was, you know, Mike Darnell at Fox, Mike Darnell was one of the, he was head of alternative at Fox for a number of years.

brilliant guy, but you know, he was Joe millionaire and the Swan and, you know, all kinds of these really break the mold kind of shows.

Yeah.

So I wonder if that also impacts of how we want to empathize with people that choose to do these things.

So if you think about shows like Joe Millionaire, where it was like, we're going to tell these women on a dating show that this guy's a millionaire.

And then we're going to reveal that he's just like a guy with no money.

And it's like, the vibe is sort of like, well, that's what you get for going on TV.

Oh.

It reminded me of a Fox TV reality show like circa 2003, like Joe Millionaire or whatever.

You watch like 55 minutes and like 8,000 commercials just to get the one twist at the end.

I'm sure ...

...

it reminded me of a Fox TV reality show, like circa 2003, like Joe Millionaire or whatever.

You watch, like 55 minutes and, like 8,000 commercials just to get the one twist at the end.

Y- I'm sure...