Reality TV and the C-list Celebrity

Celebs Jumping on the Reality TV Bandwagon

Okay, okay, we all know that reality TV is like that pesky killer, Jason, from the "Friday the 13th" movies-- it just won't die.

Most of the members of the Screen Actors Guild hate reality TV because it costs them jobs (you don't need to pay a sitcom star a million bucks an episode when there's some poor schmuck willing to eat cow brains for scale). Is it any wonder then, that now there is the disturbing trend of celebrity reality TV shows? The celebrities actually need the work!

It started with "The Osbournes" back in 2002. Back then the shows were so fresh. Ozzy and Sharon throwing hams and cursing at the neighbors. Good, clean fun.

Soon after, Anna Nicole Smith got in on the action with her own reality offering, "The Anna Nicole Show". The problem was Anna really didn't have much to do except eat and hang out with her lawyer, a man who bears the unfortunate name of Howard Stern. Anna's show was tough to watch, but it did have a cult following. And soon the celebrity reality shows just began to multiply. These days, you can't flip trough the channels without happening upon some new celebrity getting bitten by the reality TV bug.

Celebrity reality shows are the new millennium's equivalent of the infomercials of the 1990's-- if you see a celeb on an infomercial or a reality show, it pretty much means he or she is washed up. Now there are exceptions, of course.

Take the "Newlyweds", Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. Their reality show was a sweet sampling of the first years of marriage. And the show gave them more celebrity than their singing careers ever did! Jessica wound up doing a commercial for Pizza Hut, scored the coveted role of Daisy Duke in "The Dukes of Hazard Movie" and now has her own line of yummy beauty products. It is doubtful she would have achieved this kind of fame without a little boost from the reality TV machine. Go Jess!