The Joe Schmo Show
| The Joe Schmo Show | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Reality television hoax |
| Created by |
Paul Wernick Rhett Reese |
| Starring | Ralph Garman |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 29 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | J. Holland Moore Barry Poznick |
| Camera setup | Multi camera |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | Spike |
| Picture format |
1080p (HDTV) 720i (NTSC) |
| Original release | September 2, 2003 – August 10, 2004; January 8 – March 5, 2013 |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
The Joe Schmo Show is a reality television hoax show created by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. The series is broadcast in the U.S. on the cable network Spike. The show's premise is that a target person or persons are led to believe that they are contestants on a reality television show; in reality, all of the other participants in the purported show – including the host – are actors, and their actions and the outcome of the purported show are all scripted in an attempt to elicit comedic reactions from the targets. The show's first season, The Joe Schmo Show, aired in 2003, and its second season, Joe Schmo 2, aired in 2004. The first season's hoax was conducted as a typical reality competition show while the second hoax was a Bachelor-like dating series.
On December 10, 2012, Spike announced it was bringing The Joe Schmo Show back for a third season, which premiered on January 8, 2013.
The only constant presence in all three Joe Schmo seasons has been voice actor Ralph Garman, who has served as the "emcee" for all three editions (playing a smarmier caricature of himself in the first, a pompous British man in the second, and a bounty hunter in the third).
The target of season one was Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania native Matt Kennedy Gould. The other "contestants" are archetypes of common reality TV show participants.
Two actors made brief appearances in supporting roles: Ryan Raddatz played Molly's boyfriend, William (who feigned shock at seeing her in a bikini), and Steve Ireland played David Decker, a "network executive" who negotiated with Gould to finish the "Meal Not Quite Fit for a King" challenge.
For the hoax, the producers named the faux-reality show Lap of Luxury, with a $100,000 top prize "awarded" to the "winner." Perhaps in an attempt to keep things as close to actual reality shows as possible, at the end of every episode an eviction ceremony was conducted where each contestant voted to evict someone, and the person with the most votes was eliminated. After the written finish was executed, the actor in question would take a plate with their face painted on it and give it to Garman, who would then state a rhyming couplet that went "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, (name), you're dead to us" then throw the plate into the fireplace, breaking it. In the final episode the three remaining "players" (in this case Gould, "Brian", and "Hutch") faced a final vote from the evicted "houseguests" (similar to the final Tribal Council on Survivor) with the one getting the most votes "winning".
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