Tuesday, December 9, 2014

An American Perspective on British Reality Shows: Why "I'm a Celeb" Trumps "Big Brother"

I spent many years sneering at reality programming. And it is fair, I think, to criticize the concept of something calling itself "reality" when it's often so contrived. That said, I generally watch TV for escapism as opposed to voyeurism... I mean, my favorite show has been Doctor Who since I was seven years old, and that's about as diametrically opposed to something like Jersey Shore or its kin as a fruit salad is different from a fruitbat. I just don't care to watch people acting like fools for the sake of acting like fools. I'd rather watch people acting like fools in the effort of rescuing the universe from the Daleks.

It shouldn't be surprising, then, that something related to Britain's favorite Time Lord got me to try on a reality program. In 2012, news reached Who fandom that Colin Baker, known to us as the sixth incarnation of the Doctor (1984-6), would be one of the contestants on ITV's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! For me, Mr. Baker is a sentimental favorite. Despite being treated poorly behind the scenes at the BBC during his TARDIS tenure, Colin Baker has remained loyal and dedicated to his many fans. On a personal level, I met Colin Baker at a convention in 1986. Baker had very recently been ousted from the role, in spite of the fact that he was in no way to blame for any of the show's problems at the time. (More on that another time, perhaps.) This American convention was one of the first (if not the first in this country) he attended after this blow, and there had been some speculation in local newspapers regarding whether or not he would attend. In America, we tend to expect entitled diva behavior from stars, demanding that candies be divided by color and so on. But Colin Baker showed up and, with cheerful wit and professionalism, entertained young and old and gave the fans a memorable afternoon. Being 10 years old, it left a lasting impression on me that someone who had been treated so unfairly remained so professional and good humored at what must have been a difficult time. I feel like I learned something important about being an adult that day.

This impression, more than mere fandom, is what made me curious to see Mr. Baker on I'm a Celeb. It's one thing to show grace under fire when you're the only one on stage, but what about dealing with an unfamiliar environment and diverse personalities? Not to mention the ridiculous and frightening games and challenges? Not to mention being separated from family and friends? Not to mention having nothing we take for granted, like plumbing, electricity, access to food, or soap? (For that last one, family and friends are likely happy to be separated from you.)

So, I started watching, hoping to root for Gallifrey, and planning to stop if and when Mr. Baker got sent home. What I did not expect was how much I was drawn into the program. Twelve celebrities, mostly known only to Britons and those who watch British television (with one or two American or International celebs), are send to camp out in the jungle, forgoing almost all of the comforts of home. Along the way, the British public vote to determine which campmate must take part in a "Bushtucker Trial," usually a somewhat difficult task in which the player encounters all manner of smelly and exotic animals in hopes of winning meals for the camp. This can take the form of a maze, a cage, an obstacle course, or a dinner table; in eating challenges, players are invited to ingest the unpleasant parts of unpleasant animals, usually in the form of a large bite of the animal's penis or anus, or a frappe made of insects. The object, of course, is to see the celebrity scream bloody murder in the face of what is really very mild danger or, at the very least, an unpleasant task. Snakes, for instance, are almost always constrictors rather than venomous, and the rats always look suspiciously clean. The player has the option of yelling "I'm a Celebrity... et cetera, et cetera" and getting pulled out, but doing so means they go back to camp without meals, meaning the campmates get nothing but rice and beans to eat.

While there is a certain game show drama in watching the trials and other side games, sort of like a sadomasochistic version of The Price is Right, the real enjoyment I get from the show is watching how the campmates get along. Colin Baker got along rather well, if a bit quietly. It's possible that he was too weak to speak, because campmate Helen Flanagan kept getting sent to the trials. At the time, Ms. Flanagan was best known as an actress on Coronation Street, one of the U.K.'s most popular soaps, in addition to having an impressive figure. She also seemed to be in possession of the widest array of phobias known to man, making the cockatoos and kookaburras deaf with her shrieking and weeping. The lack of food made the camp grumpy, even with a celebrity chef in attendance, as they lived on near starvation rations for weeks on end.

Eventually, campmates began to be voted out. By the time Mr. Baker left, I found myself rooting just as hard for the remaining campmates, minus Ms. Flanagan. At this point in the game, the public stops voting for Bushtucker Trials and the camp selects their own champions. Once her entertainment value diminished, Ms. Flanagan didn't last long compared to other attractive women who simply knuckled down and got on with the tasks at hand. By the end, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the program. It wasn't long before I started actually missing it.

The void was temporarily filled with the UK's Celebrity Big Brother, which appears on Channel Four. It had the same tension and silliness and is enjoyable, but in all honesty it's a cheaper and chintzier show, methadone when compared to I'm a Celeb's black tar heroin. It's a good thing that both networks are careful not to schedule their contests opposite one another, because I'm a Celeb would win handily.

Those familiar with the U.S. version of Big Brother will recognize much in the regular and celebrity versions of the U.K. version, though there are significant differences. The main difference is the fact that by airing between 21:00 and 05:30 means that they are "after watershed" and can get away with offensive language, subject matter, and even nudity. This difference makes the U.K. Big Brother a far more intense experience, as contestants openly argue and lust from inside their fishbowl. BB can never quite decide if it's a game show, soap opera, or psychological experiment.

The celebrity version typically has at least two American celebrities on hand. The 2014 edition included Emmy winner Leslie French and Oscar nominee and noted eccentric Gary Busey. Mr. Busey charmed the Brits with a strange combination of aggravating behavior and sympathy, topped with a healthy dose of unpredictable behavior. This bravura performance made Mr. Busey the first American to win.

While the regular Big Brother doesn't lack for drama, it also doesn't lack for minor celebrities. This summer, BB featured a number of contestants who could have almost passed for the celebrity version, including three models and a woman linked to a sex scandal involving a footballer. It's a very fine line, indeed, as many of the actual celebs on the celebrity version have zero international identification, and are even hard-pressed to call themselves celebrities when facing more experienced actors, athletes, and musicians. I enjoy the show, but it's very trashy; it's all a very ostentatious career move for many involved, and a rather cynical one at that. Unlike I'm a Celeb, the winner of Big Brother is usually the biggest and most entertaining personality, as opposed to someone who actually does something. It makes winning the show a very dubious distinction. It's no wonder few sensible people reach the final.

A notable exception to these criticisms was Edele Lynch, lead singer of the Irish girl group B*Witched, who followed up her win on the Irish Celebrity Apprentice with 6th place on CBB. On a Busey-free year, Ms. Lynch might have gone much further. I really came to admire her no-nonsense attitude and relative dignity, but it's very hard to shine with that in the middle of all of that madness. I really hope I'm a Celeb producers think of her for a future series, as she would be a wonderful contestant.

This gets back to the reason I've come to look forward to I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! every year. While you do get plenty of silliness with all of the screaming at cockroaches and bitching and moaning about who's cooking what and how, the winner is usually the person who gets along with everyone, pulls their weight, and treats the camp as a team that they can't let down as opposed to a bunch of strangers they'll never speak to again in a month's time. The 2014 winner, Carl "Foggy" Fogarty, is such an example. A motorcycling legend who earned an MBE after his third championship, he managed to be charming without being smug, amusing without being annoying, and took on trials and challenges with a sportsman's relish. That iron will and good grace made him tough to beat, in my opinion, but any individual with the grit to do it could accomplish the same without having medals and trophies already waiting for them at home. Rather than being a personality contest, I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! actually rewards contestants for being better than the entitled, spoiled brats alluded to in the title. It's an exhilarating feeling, as opposed to an exhausting one, and that's a nice comfort to have in these colder months. Already looking forward to next year, though.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Citizen Johnny: Why I Love The Carson Podcast

My favorite podcast... the podcast that got me listening to podcasts... is about a dead person. No, it's not Serial. It's Mark Malkoff's The Carson Podcast. Malkoff, a behind-the-scenes veteran of numerous shows, as well as a comedian in his own right, has been offering his podcast since February of 2014. Every week, he speaks to someone with a connection to the late Johnny Carson, former host of NBC's The Tonight Show.

From 1962 to 1992, Carson went from being a talented television personality to the Emperor of Late Night. Yes, calling him a mere "king" seems inadequate, especially in light of the fact that his empire was divided and never reunified after his retirement. It could be said that a great deal of Carson's appeal as an everyman mid-westerner, with his twinkling smile, world-class wit, and lethal timing, was that the audience "knew" him without truly knowing him. Like many great showmen, Carson cultivated a certain mystique. Yet he managed to keep the balance between familiarity and contempt firmly square. Johnny Carson, in one of show businesses' greatest sleight-of-hand maneuvers, managed to be the most private man in Hollywood while remaining at the top of his field for most of his career.

In recent years, efforts have been made to pull back the multicolored curtain and see the man behind the wizard. Peter Jones' Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, an excellent documentary shown on PBS (and still available on Netflix as of this posting), was the first attempt at summarizing Carson for an America where he is no longer ubiquitous. His former lawyer Henry Bushkin has written a memoir of his time with Carson that is reportedly something of a seedy tome. However, Malkoff's podcast may turn out to be the definitive work on the man. The podcast has gossip, but it is rarely of the warts-and-all variety; Malkoff clearly sees Carson as a folk hero and has expressed mild disappointment with Bushkin's approach. While I share Malkoff's admiration for Jones' film, which delves into Carson's family life in a way rarely seen (and in a way one imagines Carson himself would have squashed were he alive to do so), it is also too short to truly capture the full picture of Carson's influence, both in the 20th Century as well as today. In short, Malkoff isn't keeping Carson relevant, he's exploring the reasons why Carson remains relevant, a generation later.

Many high school seniors who graduated the year Carson retired turned 40 this year. Likewise, a number of Tonight Show alumni reach Mark Malkoff in a reflective and jovial mood, much like people attending a school reunion where everyone grew up to be incredibly successful. Truly, Carson's legacy is seen in the Tonight Show writers, many of whom have gone on to even higher heights. So, too, have the comedians, and it is interesting to note how Carson's blessing and the tacit endorsement of being called over to the panel essentially created dozens of the most prominent careers in comedy. An unintentional running gag of the podcast comes in the form of the guest revealing that, while Carson allegedly "never" visited with his guests before the show, that exceptions were gladly made for people who the host found interesting or with whom he had built a rapport; if there were a Carson Podcast drinking game, Johnny visiting before the taping would be the point at which you finished your drink.

While I've never met Mark Malkoff, we've exchanged tweets here and there. His personality is light, friendly, and, as you might expect from a fan discussing a favorite topic, slightly reverential. The podcast is always PG-13, with any word you might not hear on late night TV today bleeped out. This is in no way to its detriment; the podcast is largely about the Carson legacy and his mystique, and that can be told without crass language. Malkoff himself has referred to some of the stories about Pat McCormick, the hell-raising former Tonight Show writer who famously streaked on-air, as outside of his comfort zone. While that might disappoint those looking for the definitive version of the helicopter story (no, I'm not going to elaborate; you can do your own research), I suggest that Malkoff is correct to be so judicious in his tone. For evidence as to why, I point you to fellow alliteratively-named comedian Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. While Malkoff and Gottfried are about as diametrically opposed as two people could be (What little I know of Malkoff's comedy career suggests that he doesn't work blue, and even if he occasionally dropped the f-bomb, there's no way he could be as depraved as the legendary Gottfried), their podcasts occasionally cover very similar ground; in addition to being one of the smuttiest standups alive, Gilbert Gottfried is also a rather serious film buff and clearly loves talking about old show-business. In this regard, Amazing Colossal Podcast is either Carson Podcast's evil twin or Bizarro clone, because Gilbert Gottfried has gladly covered Pat McCormick and the helicopter story in graphic and lurid detail, but he lacks Mark Malkoff's focus as an interviewer, not to mention his respect for all of his guests (And yet, oddly, this disrespect is why I listen to the ACP, in spite of it occasionally turning into a one-man roast).

(One last aside about the strange parallel between these two podcasts, which I acknowledge may only exist in my mind: Gottfried will likely never appear on Malkoff's podcast, mostly because I don't think he ever appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny, but there is a part of me that would be interested in hearing Gottfried and co-host Frank Santopadre interview Malkoff. "Weird Al" Yankovic managed to skillfully and good-naturedly deflect Gottfried's attempts to draw him into filthy humor, and I imagine Malkoff would do the same. That said, I think the two of them would have a lot of interesting things to talk about, specifically Gottfried 's recollections and perspective on comics and personalities who are no longer around to be interviewed, but appeared with Carson. I think it would be an interesting addendum, so I'm putting it out there in hopes that both parties make it happen someday.)

While the show centers on Carson, this is not to say that Malkoff is so focused that he doesn't let his guests roam off the reservation a bit. He allows his subjects to add context to the interview by covering the world beyond Carson. (Yes, one exists.) Their careers before and since Carson, their Tonight Show experiences pre- and post-Johnny, David Letterman's late night and daytime offerings, and all of these meanderings serve the podcast's central thesis, if it can be said to have one, which is Carson's overall influence on entertainment and (more so than the Jones documentary, I would argue) the quiet, curious soul of the man himself.

That Carson touched lives is crystal clear. But the podcast is inching closer, almost like a novel, to a clearer portrait of who Carson really was; think Citizen Johnny and you're starting to get the idea. While Malkoff hasn't interviewed too many people who might have a harsh word to say about Johnny (i.e. none of the ex-wives, nor his widow or surviving sons, nor Henry Bushkin have made an appearance, and the only blood relative interviewed so far has been Jeff Sotzing, Carson's nephew and the controller to the surviving archive of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson), the podcast isn't meant to cover peccadilloes and settle scores. That said, recent episodes have increasingly given a peek into Carson's inner life. Jim Fowler offers an unassuming and endearing recollection of a man with a curious mind and a daring spirit. James Randi offers a heartfelt and tearful appraisal of a man with a fierce intelligence and a dedication to reason led him to expose charlatans on-air and offer considerable support to Randi's organization. Bob Saget and Paul Provenza offer memories of an avuncular craftsman, sharing his wisdom with two rising journeymen. With the help of Mark Malkoff's friendly and encouraging presence, the podcast conjures up a romanticized yet, I feel, largely accurate picture of the man. Like Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles' film, Johnny Carson isn't waiting for us at the end of the podcast, but he lives on in these stories, more alive than in the clips his nephew posts regularly to YouTube.

This approach, a podcast devoted to a single figure, is so evocative and effective, like a serialized oral history, that it won't surprise me to see historians mimic it for their own efforts. I can easily see a presidential library or a society devoted to a particular author or filmmaker making good use of this format.

The trick, of course, is to cover the subject while the people involved are still alive. You could fill pages with the names of notable guests and colleagues who are no longer with us. The most notable absences are most likely announcer, sidekick, and erstwhile friend Ed McMahon and producer and occasional whipping boy, Fred de Cordova, but like Carson they show up in stories and anecdotes. (While Malkoff has a clear fascination with de Cordova and his strained relationship with Carson, Ed McMahon comes across like a relative cypher in the podcast, though there's probably a good reason for that: Malkoff occasionally throws in a game "Let's talk about Ed" to which the guest invariably replies some variation on, "Well... Ed was Ed." Another one for the Carson Podcast Drinking Game.)

In spite of these absences, Malkoff keeps providing conversations with those who survive. He's reportedly approaching Doc Severinson, the bandleader during most of Johnny's run and the most significant surviving figure from that era of the show (after Peter Lassally, who has already granted a rare interview to the podcast). Each week, opening iTunes or Twitter to see who Mark has talked to is like a little Christmas morning and the listening itself is always an amusing, enjoyable experience.

Finally, it's interesting to see something of the quality and depth of The Carson Podcast emerge from the podcast form. The podcast is more than just radio on the Internet. Let's be honest: no radio station anywhere would buy a show like The Carson Podcast. In spite of the big name guests and fascinating subject matter, I think that most stations would laugh at the idea, if only because they would question its ability to sell airtime or, in the case of public radio, they would wonder how many listeners it served. Yet it's an important, smart, funny show that preserves something for posterity. It opens the door for other highly focused podcasting and demonstrates that there is a place in the world for something that you don't see often on TV or hear on the radio that much anymore: Good, intelligent conversation. For that much, Johnny would gladly wave Mark Malkoff over to the panel.

The Carson Podcast is here: http://carsonpodcast.com/

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-carson-podcast/id824049190?mt=2