February 23, 2005

Reality TV show for sale.
posted by SideDish 19 years ago
  • here's a non-Tiny URL link.
  • I had an idea for a reality show awhile back... maybe I should put it on eBay as well... I call it Joe American! You take 8 lovely ladies from war torn, sexist, or poverty stricken third-world countries and bring them here to marry Joe American for citizenship. After the elimination rounds, staged dramatics, and steamy "do me, I'm American" scenes, the "lucky" lady finds out that Joe is actually French, and she's has to go home or face deportation! BWA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!! I use American, not because I don't think people from third world countries don't want to immigrate to Europe or such, but just because I think that Euro-reality TV is much better than the shite that's on American TV... After all, TLC wouldn't exist without the BBC.
  • it seems like ideas for reality shows should be closer to the "dime a dozen" range, rather than a starting bid of $10k. seems the genre has rapidly set a limited template for itself.
  • patita, is there something wrong with tinyurls? they're so cute!!
  • 1) You can't copyright an idea of this sort. Certain very strict points of formatting, yes, but not something as basic as "put them all in a transparent cube!" The actual format elements of this idea are a mish-mash of previous shows, and so are not legally owned by this bloke. There's absolutely no product here to be paid for, and if a transparent-cube challenge-based show were to crop up on Fox in six months time, this guy wouldn't have a leg to stand on. 2) Everybody had an idea like this ages ago, when David Blaine was doing his transparent box thing. For a few weeks, every new show being pitched somehow found itself set in a transparent perspex box, usually for little or no reason. 3) There was a reason none of those shows got made. It's a bloody terrible idea.
  • I remember reading someplace that the tinyurl links expire and get reused after awhile, so they're not permanent. But maybe I imagined it.
  • yeah--tinyurl recycles its links, so your innocent link to the auction could be hardcore porn in 3 months. plus some folks are loathe to click on something where they can't see the actual link (and determine if it's something they trust). supposedly tinyurl is going to implement a tool so that you can check where the link is actually sending you, but it's not here yet.
  • doh! it looks like they expiration bit no longer holds. from their site: By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.
  • Someone doesn't realize that good ideas are a dime-a-dozen. Having good ideas doesn't mean jack. In fact, I crap good narrative/inventive ideas. Of course, as said so well above, his isn't even a good idea. More's the pity.