A few weeks ago we shared stories from three guys who had their cars tricked out on MTV's totally manipulated reality show, 'Pimp My Ride.' I felt a special connection with them, because I also have some reality television experience - as a dater on syndicated classic 'Blind Date.'
If you're too young to remember 'Blind Date' (which is a scary concept), it was some of the best televised cringe around. Two strangers were sent out on a romantic outing with camera crews, and the producers would make fun of them with pop-up text and animation. Over the course of 910 episodes, they saw all kinds of people from football players to magazine models to Steve-O from 'Jackass' pair up.
I found out about auditions in 2005 from - where else? - Craigslist. It's no coincidence that the rise of reality TV coincided with the popularity of the free classified site. If you live in a major city, three or four shows are looking to cast on Craigslist every single week. So I sent an e-mail and got called in to a rented office to fill out a nine-page application document.
When I got there, the place was stuffed to the gills with hunks. The thing about reality shows is that aspiring actors use them to pad out their "reel"- any footage is good footage, after all. So my competition was all studly dudes looking to leverage 'Blind Date' into a career, while I was just there for the laughs.
I'm not the most conventionally handsome guy. I basically look like DJ Qualls from 'Road Trip' if he got fat. So I knew I had to bring something different to the table. Episodes of 'Blind Date' typically go in two directions: meet cute or total trainwreck. I obviously wasn't going to fall into the first category. I filled out the application with tons of bizarre (but true) stories about being kidnapped and getting thrown out of bars and the like.
What you might not know about 'Blind Date' and similar shows is that the video where people introduce themselves is often shot right at the audition and then re-used. After I handed my application in, they brought me into a room with a green screen and started asking me to expand on some stuff I wrote.
I knew I was doing well when they brought the producer (a well put together older woman who, in hindsight, looked a bit like Robin Wright's character from 'House of Cards') into the room. She started peppering me with very specific, very leading questions, and at several points asked me to repeat things with very specific phrasing. The scripting was already beginning and I hadn't even been cast yet. But at this point, I knew I was in. If they didn't want me, they wouldn't be wasting time getting footage.
A week or so later they called me and asked me to show up for filming. I was instructed to bring three shirts. That's a lot of shirts for one date!
I showed up at the spot and we did the "meet," which is when the guy and the girl are first introduced. Her name was Heather, she was a redhead, and I felt literally not a molecule of chemistry. But that was OK, because this was television and I could probably fake it.
One thing about 'Blind Date' and other syndicated shows is that they are very, very controlling about what you talk about on camera. We were sat down and given a list of things that weren't allowed to discuss: movies, music, TV shows, politics - basically anything that would set the date in a specific period of time. Because 'Blind Date' will be shown eternally in syndication, they want people to be able to relate to the daters without missing any current cultural references. We were also forbidden from speaking with each other when the cameras weren't on, which was pretty weird. It's difficult to try to make a connection with somebody when you'll be forced to stand next to each other without saying a word for 20 minutes while the crew sets up.
Not that Heather and I had much of a connection. One conversation we had in the car involved how she once hung out with Kid Rock.
The show runs on a very specific formula: the daters get introduced, head off to do two activities, and then get dinner, drinks and...whatever. You don't get to pick the activities, obviously. The two they chose for us were "DJ school" and a Krav Maga class.
The DJ school was toddler-level nonsense, but the Krav Maga class was a whole 'nother kettle of fish. If you're not familiar, it's a martial art used extensively by the Israeli defense forces. For Heather and I, it was basically a big bald dude teaching her how to kick me in the balls over and over again. I was wearing a cup, but as any dude knows, even a protected nutshot brings a little sadness to the boys.
There's a general rule in documentary filmmaking that for every hour of footage you shoot, you'll get about a minute of it on the screen. Reality TV works the same way. Each date on the show is about seven minutes of screen time, plus the Roger Lodge intros and recaps. And we filmed for seven straight hours.
By the time we got to dinner, the producers pulled out the secret ingredient: alcohol. Have you ever noticed that every season of 'The Bachelor' starts with a cocktail party? The people who make these shows know that getting daters shitfaced results in more interesting television. So the minute we hit the average French place in Midtown for a meal together, they started pushing drinks on us.
I downed a 22 of decent Belgian beer in about fifteen minutes and immediately ordered another. Heather had wine. The dinner segment of 'Blind Date' is where they really work their magic. While on the screen it looks like an intimate situation, behind the cameras are a group of producers who will constantly interrupt you and get you to talk about certain topics. There were four of them arranged on a banquette, listening eagerly to our dinner conversation and butting in every few minutes.
In my case, the topic they wanted me to bring was perhaps the most ludicrous thing I put on my application - that to raise money to move to New York, I let a dude film me doing some weird stuff. (Don't judge. It's not easy to start a new life in the Big Apple.) A lot of times, the show likes to lay out a money shot like that in the dinner segment and hope for the sparks to fly. So I dropped it on the table, and to her credit Heather didn't freak out much.
The thing is, even though I knew I was being manipulated, the crew was super cool about it. We were the last date of the New York portion of the season, and they were happy to be done with the gig. After dinner, we went out to a bar and got lit up with about half of the producers and crew, where they spilled a bunch of info about other daters they'd shot before us.
At the end of the night, the girl and I sucked face for the cameras to raucous applause from the crew. [No, we don't have video of that portion of the evening but if you look at the classic and cheesy 'Blind Date' graphics below, you will see that it did, in fact, happen.] She invited me up to see her apartment but it was weird and had a lot of mirrors so I staggered home to Queens. I had turned what they hoped to be a trainwreck into a demented success. About six months later I'd receive a check for $100 - the standard payout for daters.
Six months after that, the show aired. I was now dating the woman who would later become my wife. Needless to say, she wasn't terribly happy about it. That same year, we would go on 'Cash Cab' together. They don't really give you cash on that show when you win, but that's another story.
For those of you interested in watching the first half of my episode, here's the clip:
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