Confessions of a TV junkie
When it comes to television watching I have a split personality.
There are shows that I admit to watching, such as
”
Scrubs,
”
”
The Office,
”
”
30 Rock
”
and
”
Rescue Me.
”
Then there are the shows I watch that I would never admit
watching to anyone.
Confessions of a TV junkie
When it comes to television watching I have a split personality. There are shows that I admit to watching, such as “Scrubs,” “The Office,” “30 Rock” and “Rescue Me.” Then there are the shows I watch that I would never admit watching to anyone.
After deciding to write a column about my favorite shows, I figured hundreds of columns have already been written praising the above shows. But I have yet to read anything about how great Flavor Flav is in his reality shows, or how entertaining the spin-off “I Love New York” was.
Flavor Flav, whose real name is William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., was a rapper for Public Enemy and is now the biggest reality star on music channel VH1. He was well known for his mouthful of gold teeth and the huge clock he wore around his neck. In 2004, Flavor Flav joined the cast of VH1’s “Surreal Life,” which puts former celebrities in a house together for two weeks. During his stay he fell in love with fellow cast member Brigitte Nielsen, better known, perhaps, as Sylvester Stallone’s ex-wife.
It was an odd pairing from the start. Nielsen is 6-foot-1 and Flavor Flav 5-foot-7. She had pet names for him calling him Mr. F and Foofy Foofy. It was entertaining watching them meet and fall for each other; together they stole the entire show. Nielsen, who was engaged before she fell for Flav, left at the end of the season to be with her fiance.
VH1, smelling increased ratings (translation: money) had the pair team up for a second reality show called “Strange Love.” In that show Flav competed with Nielsen’s fiance, Mattia Dessi, for her love. The series ended with Nielsen choosing Dessi over Flav, but Flav’s reality show career was far from over.
In 2006, VH1 and Flavor Flav roared back with “Flavor of Love,” a hip-hop version of “The Bachelor.” In “Flavor of Love,” 20 women competed – and by competed I mean yelled, cried and tried to beat each other’s brains in – for the chance to become Mrs. Flavor Flav. At the end of each episode he rewarded the girls with a big clock, and whoever didn’t get one was dismissed.
The most memorable of the girls was New York (Flav being Flav, he felt it necessary to give each girl a cool nickname), who connived and fought her way into Flav’s heart. The highlight of the season was when Pumkin, after being eliminated, spit right in New York’s face. In the final episode Flav had to choose between Hoopz and New York, ultimately choosing Hoopz by giving her a matching set of gold teeth.
In the reunion show (there are always reunion shows – how else can we catch up on the latest gossip?) months later, anxious fans found out that Hoopz had dumped Flav and that there would be a second season of “Flavor of Love.”
During this season there was even more yelling and fighting, and Flav even brought back New York to spy on the new crop of girls for him. Ultimately, New York lost out again, when Flav chose newcomer Deelishis over her – but things worked out okay for New York (whose real name is Tiffany Pollard) as she ended up with her own show, “I Love New York.”
“I Love New York” was a female version of “Flavor of Love.” New York put the men in boxing rings, and had them do other manly feats to win her love. At the end she picked a rapper from Florida named Tango (she also gave the guys cool nicknames), who proposed to her. After some hesitation New York accepted his proposal.
But in the inevitable reunion show, Tango dumped her after showing “unseen” footage of her dissing (not my word) his mother. Which is okay with me, really, because I heard recently that VH1 will soon begin airing “I Love New York 2.” On this new version viewers will vote for five cast members via a web site. I can’t wait.
By the way, during a recent VH1 special, we learned Deelishis (Chandra Davis) has dumped Flav because she caught him cheating on her with New York. According to Deelishis she gave New York a good old’ fashioned Detroit beat down. If that doesn’t spice up “I Love New York 2,” nothing will.
In a way, it kind of bothers me that I know so much about Flavor Flav and VH1 reality shows, but I don’t know any current members of the U.S. Congress. I guess it’s more exciting watching Flavor Flav and his girls fight and argue than watching Representative Mike Thompson D-01 duke it out with Elton Gallegly R-24 (I guess I know a few members of Congress).
