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Archive through December 03, 2003

The TVClubHouse: Other Reality Shows: Archives for 2004-1: The Simple Life (Fox)-Starts Dec 2nd.: Archive through December 03, 2003 users admin

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Wilsonatmd

Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 5:00 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Fox anounced a start date for this show, December 2nd (with a 2nd episode the following night-each a half hour).

For those who don't know of this show, what they did was take heiress Paris Hilton and her friend Nicole Ritchie (she's the daughter of singer Lionel Ritchie, despite what you might initially think the first time you see her), and stuck them for a month in Arkansas with a ordinary farming family. They do a lot of what we would consider normal, but for them are strange things-shopping for groceries, working at a fast-food joint, doing farm chores...and from a reviewer who got parts of the premiere, he thinks it'll be a good series because of the comedy factor. One thing that helps it is that it's a Bunim/Murray production (Real World, Starting Over, Road Rules, etc.)....Despite the star's problems (Nicole got busted for drug posession recently, and you've probably heard about the alleged Paris Hilton sex tape) and rumored problems during filming (shooting supposedly ended early after a incident in a bar), the series could be interesting to watch.

Hippyt

Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 4:59 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
bump,I gotta check this show out!

Realfan

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 10:02 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
No interest from me. I can't stand either woman, so why would I want to watch them do anything on TV?

Laura11103

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 10:35 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Who knows, I'll check it out. I wondered why there was no family resemblance and found out that Nicole Richie is Lionel's adopted daughter.

Sweetbabygirl

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 10:41 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Nicole looks like she's bi-racial....eh, whatever, I'll be watching it.

Scorpiomoon

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 12:47 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I saw the Paris Hilton sex video. My guess is this show is even worse.

Sweetbabygirl

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 12:57 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Heyyyyyyy! How'd you see that, Scorpy? (and can a sista get a link to it?)

Scorpiomoon

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 5:04 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Sweet: You can get it via Kaaza. Just do a video search using her name.

Just a sypnopsis: It's three minutes long, shot in the dark (with her eyes shiny like they look in the dark on Survivor). She's her usual blank self and stares into the camera most of the time.

Pamy

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - 8:37 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I heard she was talking on the phone during it, is that true??

Scorpiomoon

Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 8:38 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
The three minutes were edited bits of, what looks like, a couple of hours in the bedroom.

At one point, her cell rings and reaches for it to see who was calling. But she doesn't answer it. I don't know if she did answer and that part was edited out, or if she just didn't answer it and went back to what she was doing.

When you think "sex tape" you think the thing is going to be really sordid and shocking. Trust me, this tape was as boring as Paris herself is.

(I loathe Paris Hilton. I think she's a media ••••• and it makes me sick how there are people in this world who truly deserve recognition for the positive contributions they offer the world yet its Paris Hilton who ends up on Oprah and every other TV show. I hope she gets a clue and backs off from flaunting herself every chance she gets.)

Pamy

Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 1:01 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I thought the phone part was funny, if I was the guy, I don't think I would want anyone to see the video. How embarrasing, he is going to town and she is casually talking on phone! LOL

Tishala

Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 1:36 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
The phone part, to me, was hilarious--her boyfriend tells her to leave the f***ing phone alone. But what was even more funny, imho, was when Paris was "servicing" the guy in the video and she kinda literally....how can i say this?....she took the "head" part a bit TOO literally. LOL. I can't tell you what a male friend of mine said, but it had to do with Paris bein more deeply engaged in her activities. [There is no way to say this without getting modded or sounding like a prude, so I give up.]

I didn't know the Ritchie girl was adopted....hmmmmmm. From what I have heard, she has had quite a few itty bitty scrapes with heroin. Scary.

Pamy

Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 2:06 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
LOL Tish. Adopted? well that explains why she doesn't looked mixed. I wonder if her biological Mom was a drug user.

Sweetbabygirl

Thursday, November 27, 2003 - 5:48 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dammit, who knew that you hadda friggin' pay to get Kaaza?!

Tishala

Friday, November 28, 2003 - 9:55 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
SBG, I just googled for you, girl. Go here and then click on the "Paris Hilton.wmv". It will play in wondow media format. [Forgive me, mods, if this is not a cool link to post here]

Eliz87

Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 12:04 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
hmmm Did she admit that it was her on the video? It's kind of hard to tell. I heard her sister Nikki is having a thing with Ingrid Casares, Madonna's old girlfriend. Not sure if that one is true or not.

Anyway, I think that this show looks absolutely hilarious. I'll be watching it.

Eliz87

Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 12:24 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Scratch that...It was PARIS making out with Ingrid Casares, not Nikki.

Sweetbabygirl

Monday, December 01, 2003 - 2:11 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks, Tish....eh, I know I could make a better tape with my boyfriend, lol!!

Hippyt

Tuesday, December 02, 2003 - 3:00 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Tonight!
Paris Hilton's TV show proves wealthy different
By LYNN ELBER
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie carry a lot of baggage in The Simple Life, and we're not just talking Louis Vuitton.

There's Hilton's reputation as a party girl and her starring role in a sex tape that went from intimate to Internet. Richie, daughter of pop star Lionel Richie, had a legal run-in involving drugs.

The Simple Life itself sounds like a bit of mischief. The Fox reality series, debuting at 7:30 tonight drops longtime pals Hilton and Richie into the lap of a Southern farm family.

CBS generated protests merely by proposing a reality series akin to The Beverly Hillbillies, with a country family's adjustment to upscale urban life as a source of amusement.

So Fox's twist on Green Acres, the 1965-71 Eva Gabor-Eddie Albert sitcom in which a New York socialite reluctantly moves to the country with her husband, had similar potential for insulting rural America.

But the series, unlike its stars, need not worry about its reputation: It's nothing but delicious fun.

What could have been a mean-spirited attack on homespun values turns out to be a lighthearted mockery of the rich. What red-blooded, average American with a mortgage could complain about that?

Watch Nicole and Paris jet to Altus, Ark., after a last-ditch shopping spree that includes a $1,500 designer dog carrier. Watch their faces fall as they realize they're staying in a modest country home that doesn't have room service or a private bath. And that's no chocolate mint on the bed -- it's a tick! (Cue horrified looks from Paris and Nicole.)

See the young ladies traipse around the countryside in wildly inappropriate outfits. Watch Paris ponder the meaning of the following: Wal-Mart ("Is that where they sell wall stuff?"), as well as a shopping list calling for "generic water" and the phrase "soup kitchen."

The rich, it seems, really are different from the rest of us.

Or maybe Hilton and Richie are engaged in a most contemporary form of noblesse oblige, embarrassing themselves on television to make the rest of us feel better. (And the Emmy for self-abasing rich kid goes to ... )

Speculation aside, in this class-warfare skirmish the children of privilege don't stand a chance. Their hosts, the Leding family, have on their side common sense, a work ethic and stability.

Paris and Nicole are armed only with winning smiles and Paris' well-dressed dog, Tinkerbell. But while The Simple Life doesn't cut the pair much slack -- it's edited to get the most laughs out of their gaffes -- its producers insist it's not cruel.

"There's a heart to it," said Jonathan Murray, executive producer along with Mary-Ellis Bunim. The pair are well-established in the reality genre with series including The Real World and Road Rules.

Their latest show began as a suggestion from their agent, Mark Itkin, who asked them to consider a reality twist on Green Acres. Turned out Fox had been weighing a similar concept, and The Simple Life was born.

"Everyone realized for Fox (with its young audience) the best person to send would be Paris Hilton. She seems to be everywhere," Murray said. "She certainly is the `It Girl,' along with her sister, Nicky."

The show was pitched to Hilton, an heir to the hotel fortune, as "Lucy and Ethel go the farm," Murray said, a reference to the antics of Lucille Ball and sidekick Vivian Vance in I Love Lucy.

Richie was selected because of her chemistry with her longtime friend, while the Leding family made the cut for other reasons.

"We wanted a completely functional family, so much the contrast (to) what a lot of us have here in Los Angeles," Murray said, with a small chuckle. "They measured up in every way."

Besides parents Janet and Albert Leding, the household includes three boys (a fourth is in the military) and grandparents. Watching Grandmom try to coax Hilton and Richie into plucking a chicken is worth the price of admission.

The Ledings insisted that they be allowed to maintain control of their home during filming but were tolerant toward the high-flying young women, Murray said.

Richie's arrest shortly before filming was to start did not deter the family. She faced charges of drug possession and driving with a suspended license and was later ordered into a rehab program.

"The Ledings are incredibly fair-minded people," Murray said. "They wanted to make judgments on Nicole for themselves, not on what was in the papers."

The much-discussed Hilton video (showing her with a former boyfriend) didn't hit until after the series finished filming. For Hilton, the show's debut comes uncomfortably close to the scandal.

"It's put her a little on edge about the whole thing," Murray said.

But watching several episodes reassured her, he said. "I think she came away from it feeling that this might be an antidote, taking people's minds off the tape."

And could The Simple Life bring the upper and lower classes closer together?

Don't count on it.

"This is an effort to make America laugh. There is no pro-social goal here," Murray said. "This is entertainment television."

Mak1

Tuesday, December 02, 2003 - 7:51 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I watched this tonight but probably won't make a habit of it. The questions the 2 girls asked made me LOL a few times. For example, looking at a well: "What's that?" "a well" "a real well?" "yes" "What's a well for?" "to get water" "oh" OMG!!!

Scorpiomoon

Tuesday, December 02, 2003 - 8:56 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I made the mistake of watching the last 5 minutes of this freakin' crap before "24" came on.

Freakin' Paris says about Wal-Mart, "Is that where you buy walls?"

I hope to God the family they are staying with got paid a TON of money for babysitting these two <el> for a month.

I felt so sorry for the family and was disgusted at how childish and disrespectful <el> and her sidekick were treating these people.

I DESPISE PARIS HILTON!!!

Eliz87

Tuesday, December 02, 2003 - 9:19 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oh I loved it. Giggled most of the way through. These girls are a crack-up all the way. I didn't feel they were showing any disrespect for the family...just ignorance of the family's day-to-day life.

I LMAO when Nicole commented at the end that they should do a threesome with the son. I know not everyone would find humor in that, but it was said in a lighthearted, good-humored fashion.

I have to say, too, that I live a VERY average life in the suburbs and this would be culture shock for ME. I can't imagine what a couple of rich girls would truly be thinking. But I think both the girls and the family are being good sports.

Whoami

Wednesday, December 03, 2003 - 2:33 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Well, it was sort of funny to watch. But really now, despite how pampered these girls are, can we believe they are really that clueless?

"What's Wal-Mart?"
"What does that mean, Soup Kitchen?"
"What's Generic?"

Also need to wonder when this was taped. I presume before the "Paris Hilton Video" that folks are in a tizzy over. Was that tape done to make folks more interested in this show?

Color me skeptical.

Tishala

Wednesday, December 03, 2003 - 3:23 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Who, I think you hit the nai on the head with the video/tv show connection. And it turns out--I just found out from the Village Voice--that Paris is only going to inherit about 28 million. Granted its LOTS of money, but for some reason I thought the family had mega bucks, like hundreds of millions. Turns out that Hilfiger girl on Rich Girls has lots more dough than Paris does. That makes me happy in some perverse way.

Mak1

Wednesday, December 03, 2003 - 6:27 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Did you see Paris flapping that flyswatter uselessly in front of her? I'm sure she didn't know what it was for. It was funny watching the girls watching the little boy swatting the bees for them. I think the girls were being as respectful as they know how to be...sad. I hope the family was paid a LOT to do this!