Just when you think every reality series is a repeat of the last ridiculous gimmick, TV executives pull out something new. Unfortunately, most of their ideas are terrible.
After all the airtime wasted, a new reality show has been created that actually appeals to sophisticated, intelligent people. The gimmick is as basic as the union between man and woman: UB students getting wasted and doing hilarious things to each other.
"Drunk TV" is TV worth watching. It is not the type of reality show where producers have to use clever editing to manipulate people and situations into something more interesting than what takes place. The show is both controversial and hysterical from the moment the red recording light goes on.
The show, sponsored by Main Street eatery "Sal's Pizza," is produced by and stars UB students who are former members of the now defunct "UB Comedy Club."
Oliver Del Rosario, Neil Mathews, Jim Miesner and "Johhny-on-the-G-Spot" (a white dildo) have been working on this show for two years. The first episode aired last week on Adelphia cable channel 20. The opening premise involved membership into the "century club," an initiation that consists of drinking 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes. It's a game everybody wins.
Generally, the hosts will get drunk and tape students they find in classes, bars or on the street. Whatever they come up with is what viewers get, no matter what.
"This is what really sets our show apart. There is puking, nudity, swearing ... we can do whatever we want," said Del Rosario, a fifth year senior from Rochester. His two co-hosts (not including Johnny) are also in their fifth year of undergraduate studies and originate from the Binghamton area.
The Apollo Media Group clears the content of each show before it airs, and Del Rosario said "Drunk TV" is "ran like street basketball. If no one calls it, it's not a foul."
So far, the call has only been made once by the city of Buffalo, who threatened to pull "Drunk TV" off the air permanently if they aired the episode "Is That Condom Kosher?"
Some other episodes to be aired are "Fun with Diuretics," featuring the drunken hosts clad in Elvis and monkey masks, determining just how much urine is necessary to soak a Depends to its center. Another episode, "Ass Casting," shows a girl eating a bowl of cereal out of a plaster casting of Mathews' butt.
The show airs on Adelphia cable channel 20 on Thursday nights at 1:30 a.m., with an encore presentation the same night at 3:00 a.m. So if it is too cold to make a drunken trek to The Steer, students have two options: watch a string of phone-sex commercials or watch Drunk TV. The latter is the much more appealing of the two.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
