Saturday, March 01, 2008

Fox announces "Last Call" for Reality TV

April 20, 2014

In the nearly two years it has been since the last reality or contest television show aired on TV, executives at Fox have been trying to debunk the theory that every American had appeared on a reality TV show already. It turns out Fox was right, which means the network will be airing Last Call this summer, a reality TV show for the 12 Americans who have yet to be on TV.

So who are these 12 people and how did Fox find them? The two Fox executives behind the development of Prisoners Raise My Baby and Death Quiz were driving to Bonanza Idaho, hoping to find TV fans there, assuming the town derived it's name from the popular TV western of the 1960's. Instead of finding people dressed as Hoss and Little Joe, they found a Ghost Town. The 12 people who work in the souvenir shop/visitor's center called The Bonanza Saloon apparently do not own a TV, and therefore missed out on all the open auditions for the previous 4,376 reality TV shows. Perhaps most surprising, they were completely unaware of Real World: Bonanza and 2007's Kid Nation which reportedly took place in the very same Ghost Town.

After making contact with these faithful Bonanza employees (and purchasing a bag full of fake turqouise rocks from them) the two Fox executives contacted Sony and were able to negotiate a sponsorship in which the winner of Last Call will be awarded a 120" HD squared, ultra-Plasma, Sony "more real than real" Television along with one million dollars (which isn't worth what it used to be back when this whole reality TV thing started, thanks to inflation).

Details about the nature of the show are still being hammered out but you can count on zany challenges, conflicting personalities, an annoying out of work B-list host, and the ability to determine who gets kicked off each week by using your ThinkCom, or traditional text message for those who are still stuck in the aughts. Either way be sure to tune in this Summer as Fox unveils reality TV's Last Call.

ThinkCom is a registered trademark of Sony.

Movie Recommendation


I highly recommend the documentary called The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters. It is the story of Steve Wiebe, a 35 year-old family man from Washington who gets laid off from Boeing and takes solace in a Donkey Kong arcade machine he has placed in his garage. Steve attempts to break the 20 year old high score record on the game, owned by Billy Mitchell a Floridian hot sauce mogul who is the Michael Jordan of competitive classic gaming.

The movie is now out on DVD so do what you can to rent it because the story of this underdog outsider trying to take on the established nerd gaming empire (I say that lovingly) is so compelling that I would have to say this movie might be my favorite documentary of all time. Hollywood couldn't write a more intriguing story than this, and they certainly couldn't create the characters that appear in the various arcades that this story unfolds in.


This is the official site for the film, Billy vs. Steve but I would wait to go to the site until you have seen the movie because the front page has an update from Steve Wiebe on the status of the world record which would fall into the spoiler category. If you are having trouble finding the film, there is always Amazon!