battle of the recycled concepts

If you wanted to find a single show that changed the landscape of television, it might be All In the Family. But that would be boring, so I'll say it was Battle of the Network Stars. In the Good Ol' Days, TV stars were pretty much untouchable icons who played their roles and maybe showed up on Mike Douglas every once in awhile. Then ABC Executives had an epiphany that people might want to see Lynda Carter and Adrienne Barbeau jumping around in swimsuits. But how to make it happen? Ah yes ... the American staple of athletic competition. And thus was born a TV institution that paved the way for reality TV and further entrenched T&A as a viable ratings booster.

In Hollywood, no idea (good or bad) goes uncopied, so we now have, not one, but two new versions of this classic show on the way. The less interesting doppleganger is spat up by Bravo Network. In its continuing bid to alienate its core audience of smart people with taste, Bravo is promoting Battle of the Network Reality Stars. This makes no sense, because there is no cross-over appeal; we've already seen these "stars" in their "real" persona, so the voyeuristic component is mild compared to seeing Farrah Fawcett mucking about in a muddy tug-o-war for the first time. Most of these competitors have already appeared naked in their shows or Maxxim magazine, so the T&A novelty has passed as well. My only curiousity is how they're going to juggle the multitudes of network teams, now that we're dealing with substantially more than the Big Three.

Slightly more intriguing is a movie concept based on the show. According to CHUD, it goes like this:

The film is being seen as a comedic Ocean's Eleven, filled to the brim with comedy stars. The plot would center on a disgraced network executive who must win the Battle to get his job back. Which makes no sense.

So there you have it; two non-sensical interpretations of classic celebrity exploitation. And this time, Robert Conrad won't be around to keep things real.