A) This reality show put a bunch of people in an RV and sent them around the US (usually) to finish tasks and try to win "a handsome reward." One season was on a big ship, and another season was across islands in Latin America or thereabouts. Probably the crowning moment there was when they were waiting for a boat on a beach. It arrived, piloted by Bob Denver in appropriate costume. "What's so funny? "IT'S GILLIGAN!!!!!" It would have been twice as bad if I were there- I was making Gilligan jokes as soon as a boat appeared on the horizon. Having him actually appear after that would have been too much. Oh, and the wind snatched off his hat- but one contestant jumped from the boat to rescue it. Bob was very thankful. The emphasis was more on the journey than on the locations, much of the time. They eventually ended up not only crossing over with another "reality" show, but sort-of merging into the crossover show, which has lasted a LOT longer than this show!
B) This reality show put some "celebrities" together (for some value of "celebrity" or another) into one house. We got Gary Coleman, Tammy Faye Baker, Vanilla Ice, Ron Jeremy, Erik Estrada in one season. Another season had Corey Feldman, MC Hammer, Emmanuel Lewis, Gabrielle Charteris, and Vince Neil. Another had Charo, Dave Coulier, Flavor Flav, Jordan Knight, and Brigitte Neilsen. Another had Adrienne Curry, Christopher Knight, Verne Troyer, and Jane Weidlin. Another had Jose Canseco, Janice Dickenson, and Bronson Pinchot. Another (yes, six seasons!) had Sherman Hemsley, Tawny Kitaen, Florence Henderson, CC De Ville, and Steve "Smash Mouth" Harwell.
This show had more than 1 spin-off. One memorable moment from the season with Jose Canseco was a softball game versus "the celebrities" - lookalikes of Michael Jackson, etc. Heading that team was "Jose Canseco." The resemblance was truly uncanny- because Jose Canseco has a twin brother and they brought him in for the episode!
C) This short-lived reality show had a businessman study martial arts, then travel around to places with an indigenous martial art. There he tried to crash-course on it in a few days, after which he tried to compete in it. They didn't take it easy on the guy, and sometimes you had to wonder if he was going to suffer permanent damage or a fatal injury!
D) This reality show has a comedy troupe- the Tenderloins- do a hidden camera show. Each comedian wears an earpiece, and the others give him instructions he HAS to follow, and deal with the public. If he fails at his task, he loses. The biggest loser of an episode has a big punishment at the end of the episode. The biggest surprise is always waiting to see what the public does. We've seen people sign a petition for a charity called "Fake Charity". We saw one comedian security-wanding at an event, and a woman deliberately vague as to if she was concealing drugs (so she would have to be searched), and incidents where it looked like the comedians' lives were in danger!
[E) This "documentary" attempted to compared different types of fighters and their weapons, to see who would win if they were forced to fight face-to-face, either one-on-one or five-on-five. Despite attempts to be fair, they often were wildly subjective in how they measured damage, and applied rules inconsistent from episode to episode. As an example of the former, they had both weapons slash on a side of beef- but it was the SAME side, so the second cutter had his target area reduced to half before he even began to swing! (I would have insisted, before the swing, that they agree they were only making me hit the same slab of beef because they could only make the contest even by cheating.) As an example of the latter, one episode considered the concealability of the weapons- and a different episode comparing similar fighters completely disregarded it- both times to the benefit of whoever was representing the exact same fighters (the Italian Mafia, vs the James Gang and the Yakuza, respectively.) Whether armor was a consideration was often applied inconsistently (as protection against the LAST weapon but not the first 2), and a shield was never measured for its ability to block a blow (its primary function), but only for its ability to DELIVER a blow. The unreliability of a weapon was often ignored. (When comparing Knight vs Pirate, the primitive "grenado" in the demonstration FAILED on camera. However, when doing calculations for 100 versions of the same fight, they assumed the grenado would go off each time it was used- without even a 1% chance of failure. Likewise, his black powder pistol was assumed to be 100% reliable.) Finally, the wieldiness of a weapon was ignored in favor of only how much damage it did if it connected. (Somali pirates with a boat anchor vs some drug cartel with a machete. The anchor was slow to swing and hard to direct and slow to recover, the machete was fast to swing and easy to direct and fast to recover. They said the anchor was more dangerous. In a life-or-death fight with one against the other, give me the machete. I have to evade the first swing of the anchor, then I have all day to slash one of the attacker's arms since the machete is one-handed and the anchor is not.) All of that aside, they TRIED to measure who was more fatal, and it WAS entertaining despite its flaws.
F) This long-running show is supposedly about what happens when people stop being polite. :) Its cast is rather obviously selected to try to find people most likely to have arguments and fights, and put them on the same season. It's been considered a showcase for immaturity and irresponsible behavior. That's inevitable when you cast with the network in question, and with the agenda of the network and management of the show. (The show would likely have a slant no matter who ran it- in this case, it's ultra-left/ liberal.) There weren't a lot of celebrity careers launched with this show, and I suspect the best-known series alum was the one who went on to become a comic book writer. This show inspired at least 2 other shows on the same network.
