Homeless Real World, a reality show about six homeless people in Denver, has been dismissed as too edgy by TV execs. Funny, we thought edginess was a desirable quality in reality TV. Maybe by too edgy they mean: Our viewers don’t want to watch smelly unkempt poor people with actual problems.
Here’s the teaser. Nothing shocking here. In fact, reality sort-of stars Danny Bonaduce, Dustin Diamond and others routinely displayed behavior as bad or worse. A highpoint on Breaking Bonaduce: The feisty redhead demolishes a large bottle of vodka curbside, hops onto his skateboard and careens into the middle of a busy L.A. intersection. The homeless group gets pissed and behaves badly too. But at the end of the day, they slept in cardboard boxes. Whereas Bonaduce et al. returned to houses, chefs and stylists. These semi-celebs’ stints on reality shows didn’t improve their dispositions much. Post-filming, Bonaduce continued to punch and bite people, while Diamond, with the aid of Hulk Hogan, parlayed his rancor into a brief wrestling career. In contrast, after filming Homeless Real World, three of the cast checked into detox and one got off the streets. Hmm, edgy.
