Underunderstood Wiki

Manhunt

· John Lagomarsino

Summary

John finds high drama in a little-known UPN reality show.

Show notes

Programming note: starting next week, Overunderstood will drop on Thursdays. This will spread out episodes of Underunderstood and Overunderstood, and give us a little more room to work on them. Thank you for your support!

Transcript

Billy: Hi, friends. It’s Billy. Two quick notes before we get started with the bonus podcast. First note, the first episode of this bonus podcast was called Overstood, until we realized there was an existing podcast with that name. So, our apologies to them. This podcast is now called Overunderstood. Second note, Overunderstood, previously Overstood, has so far been coming out on Tuesdays, which is when Underunderstood comes out. But after this episode, we figure it would be better to space things out. So, Overunderstood, previously Overstood, will come out two days after Underunderstood. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. Anyway, here’s the show.

John: Hey, everybody.

Regina: Hmm. Hi, John.

Adrianne: Hey, John.

Billy: Hi, John.

John: Okay, I have like a 20-year-old story.

Adrianne: Uh-huh.

Regina: Wow.

John: And it’s about reality TV. So, I feel like Billy especially will enjoy this.

Billy: I’m ready.

John: I hope Billy doesn’t know the story already.

Regina: Billy, did you start watching reality TV as an 11-year-old?

Billy: Well, probably before that, yeah, I’m sure.

John: Yeah, I was watching Survivor in, like, the year 2000.

Regina: Wow. I-

Billy: Yeah.

Regina: Yeah, I guess that’s shocking to me only.

John: So, to set the scene, the year is 2001. You’re all familiar with the WWF, the World Wrestling Federation?

Billy: Yes.

Adrianne: I mean, loosely.

Billy: Not to be confused with the panda one.

John: No, different, different organization.

Billy: Okay.

John: Now the WWE.

Adrianne: The World Wildlife Fund?

John: Yeah. But it’s not that, it’s the wrestling thing.

Adrianne: Not that, okay.

Billy: But WWF still exists, but if you look it up now, it’s just the panda one.

John: Yeah, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

Billy: Okay.

Adrianne: They changed it to WWE?

John: Yeah, it was a merger. WCW and WWF merged and they became WWE at some point, World Wrestling Entertainment.

Regina: What if we got the pandas to wrestle, and then it’s WWF again?

John: You think this is like an Apple Music, Apple Computers kind of thing, where they have, like, kind of a tacit agreement that the- they’ll never make the pandas wrestle, and that’s how they co-exist?

Regina: Probably.

Billy: But they don’t co-exist anymore. It’s just w- w- Wii.

John: Right? It’s just Wii now.

Billy: Sure. Okay.

John: Anyway, you know, you know, the, when I say the name Vince McMahon, does that ring a bell with anybody?

Billy: He, isn’t he, like, the, the main cheese?

John: Yeah, he’s the, the, the guy who’s, like, the head of the, now the WWE, then the WWF in 2001.

Adrianne: But is he the actual head of the WWE, or is he a character that is the head of the WWE?

John: He’s bo- this isn’t what the story is about, but he is both. He has, like, a, the commissioner kayfabe role, but he is also in charge of the, of the organization.

Adrianne: Got it.

Billy: This is why he’s, like, buddies with Donald Trump. Donald Trump is kind of both too, if you think about it.

John: That’s true.

Billy: It’s true, yeah.

Regina: I don’t wanna get any more, like, liberal, uh, reviews on Apple Podcasts though, so let’s not.

John: Yeah.

Regina: Let’s not talk about that.

Billy: Oh, that we’re too liberal.

Regina: Yeah.

John: We’re a bunch of filthy liberals. One, one star.

Billy: Hey, listen, I think I watched The Apprentice once.

Adrianne: I definitely watched The Apprentice. I watched Celebrity Apprentice.

John: This is really fun. Out of about a thousand words in the notes that I have, uh, we’re on word four right now.

Billy: Okay.

John: So we’re gonna be here a while, everyone.

Adrianne: Okay.

Billy: People are paying for access to this podcast. We’re trying to give them their money’s worth.

Adrianne: Back up. What’s reality television?

John: Nope, we’re… So, th- the year is 2001. Vince McMahon is kind of at, like, the peak of, of his whole thing. Uh, this is also the year he decided to boot up the first iteration of the XFL, the Extreme Football League.

Billy: Oh, yeah.

John: Do you remember this?

Adrianne: No. What is that?

John: A famous failure of a, of an alternative football league where, like, the rules were grittier, everyone gets hurt more. Um-

Regina: Isn’t football already, like, just American?

Billy: The coolest thing to me as a kid, for whatever reason, was that you didn’t have to write your real name on the back of your jersey.

Regina: Oh, God.

Billy: So there was a player-

John: Mm-hmm.

Billy: … whose name was He Hate Me, and I just thought that was the coolest thing. I don’t know why. Okay, continue.

John: I think they actually made them each pick a, like, it wasn’t even an option to put your real name on the jersey. It’s like everyone had to have one. Uh, so this is that same year. Vince McMahon is booting that up. It seems like he has his fingers in a lot of stuff. Um, the XFL famously fell apart, like, midway through the season, and it shut down without ever finishing its first season. It came back this past year. That’s also not what this story is about. Um, but it is about a show that was Vince McMahon’s idea in 2001. And his pitch was you take the WWF and you team up with the syndicated TV network UPN, and you make a reality show where three stalkers try to take out contestants with paintball guns, and the last contestant standing at the end of this gets $250,000.

Billy: I’m sorry, three stalkers?

John: Three, yes. Three violent stalkers follow around contestants for a while.

Billy: Okay. You mean that word in, like, the sense that I think you do, in, like, the, like, someone you would get a restraining order against?

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It, the idea behind this was that there was predators and prey on this show. And the last prey contestant wins a quarter of a million dollars.

Billy: And the predators were WWF stars?

John: Well, we’ll get to that. But the idea for the show was a real thing. And yeah, he did want to involve WWF stars, and that was gonna be the tie-in, was, like, the, the predators were the ones going after them. So, this show, the idea for the show was a real thing. But by sometime in 2001, Vince McMahon got kinda busy with the XFL as it was falling apart. Uh, but UPN did air a show, and that show was called Manhunt, and it aired in, like, the summer of 2001. So, the idea was that 13 contestants were picked for this show. They were flown to the island of Kauai on Hawaii, and the competition lasted for six days, uh, while the contestants were chased by these, these hunters.

Adrianne: Oh, so it’s in a controlled environment. I was imagining just going about your daily life-

Billy: Yes.

Adrianne: … but there could be a stalker, like, behind the cereal in the grocery aisle.

Billy: Yes.

John: No, no, no, they brought them to Kaua- this was also around the time Survivor was getting popular.

Adrianne: Okay. All right.

Billy: I was imagining that too, like the, like that, um, senior, like, high school senior game we had talked about before.

Regina: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Billy: Assassin or whatever.

John: Mm-hmm.

Billy: That’s what I was imagining.

John: Yeah.

Adrianne: Yeah, me too.

Billy: So this is more, this is, like, more tropical aesthetic. This is like…

John: Yes, yes.

Billy: So, is it, like, Survivor-type aesthetic, where they’re there, uh, they don’t have access-

John: Mm-hmm.

Billy: … to modern things, or…

John: It’s more military than that.

Regina: Oof.

John: Uh, they’re all wearing, like, like, comms headsets and stuff, and their idea is that, like, they’re given maps and stuff, and they have to go on these, on these excursions to find things on Kauai. And, like, while they’re moving, they could be shot at. And I should mention one other thing. O- one of the hunters on the show was, uh, John Cena before he got famous, and he operated under the name Big Tim Kingman.

Playback: Welcome to the island. I’m Big Tim.

Billy: Oh, whoa.

Playback: I’ve invited 13 unlucky souls to come here and play my game, the game I call Manhunt. These soft-bellied suburbanites have six days- … to cross my island. And the first one to cross the finish line wins a quarter of a million dollars in cash. I’m here to prevent that, with a little help from my friends, Rainn and Koa.

Adrianne: This is like a Mortal Kombat movie.

Playback: Our weapons of choice, these. Air-powered marker rifles. And just to make things sporty, we only carry three rounds per attack. And the rifles shoot once every ten seconds. The rules are simple. Three hits, they go home, and we take a trophy. Their hair.

Adrianne: Oh my god.

Playback: Because I’m a sportsman, they get one day of basic tactical training.

Billy: All right.

John: Wow.

Adrianne: Oh, wow.

John: That’s the set-up for this game.

Adrianne: I wanna watch it.

Billy: I felt really, uh, targeted when he said, “Soft-bellied suburbanites.”

Adrianne: Yeah. That hit home.

John: Is that how you think of yourself?

Billy: Well, I was just watching this. It’s like it goes from a young John Cena who looks, I mean, he’s kind of, like, an absurd-looking caricature of a person now. But, like, then it’s, it’s, uh, there’s something even stranger about how he… Well, I don’t mean this as a dig, but he’s just, like, he’s, like, super muscular and, like, looks almost fake. It looks, it looks like someone, like, wrapped someone in fake muscle.

John: He looks like a G.I. Joe with a blond Mohawk.

Billy: Yeah, he has, like, bleach-blond hair. So it goes from him, yeah, who looks like a literal- … action figure come to life, like a He-Man come to life, and then it cuts to these people that look like they just pulled them out of, like, some random IT office- … somewhere, you know. Like, somewhere in America, just like the random IT crew. And, yeah. So I, I can… I feel like it’s easy for me to transport myself there and, and f- feel the threat of a, of a young, bloodthirsty John Cena.

John: Before anyone knew who he was.

Billy: Right. That’s what makes him scarier. Like, who’s this guy?

John: Yeah.

Billy: Modern-day John Cena is very friendly, very family-friendly. This guy just seems like a predator.

John: I mean, he’s out to shoot you with one of his three paintballs.

Billy: Yeah, right.

John: That he can shoot once every ten seconds.

Billy: Wow.

John: Uh, but, so Manhunt, it turns out, was a sham. One of the co-executive producers, his name is Bob Jaffe, um, he either left the show or was fired, depending on who you ask. Uh, but that all happened because he decided he didn’t wanna be involved with the show anymore. And the reason was because a bunch of the show wasn’t real.

Adrianne: Um…

John: And remember, and… That, that doesn’t sound so shocking now, but remember this was around 2001 where we were just coming off of the first season of Survivor. Reality TV is kinda having its boom.

Adrianne: We thought it was actually reality.

John: It’s not e-… Even that you were thinking of it as reality, it was just like, it was kinda high stakes. It was like this is a game show where people win actual money.

Billy: Did the contestants know that it was not real?

John: Yeah, we’ll get to some of that. T- actually, take a look at this, uh, webpage that I’m dropping in Slack. Um, don’t read too much of it. Just kind of … I just want you all to experience the aesthetic.

Billy: Ooh, the web archive. So this isn’t publicly accessible anymore.

John: It’s not. This is, uh-

Billy: Wow.

John: … from the Wayback Machine.

Billy: This looks like… I feel like I’m on some weird, uh, like, white supremacist website, honestly. It looks like-

John: I mean-

Billy: It looks like a website someone would make and have, like, a kill list or something. Like, this looks like-

John: I mean, like, click on the top where it says, “WAG the game.”

Billy: Uh-huh.

Adrianne: Yeah, that’s-

Billy: And giant red test-

Adrianne: … just horrible.

John: Yeah, yeah.

Adrianne: Yeah.

Billy: This seems like som- where someone would publish their manifesto.

Adrianne: Oh my god, this works.

Billy: Oh, whoa. Okay, how do I explain this? This looks like…

Adrianne: Are you telling me this story was broken by TheStingray.net?

John: I think I’m telling you that.

Billy: TheStingray.net?

Adrianne: Yeah.

Billy: I have never heard of this. What is this?

John: No one has. Why would you have heard of this?

Adrianne: I mean, look at that logo.

Billy: It looks sort of like… It looks sort of like Drudge Report on drugs. It looks like, it looks like Drudge Report, like, meets Idiocracy. Like, the aesthetic of just, like, ads, but they aren’t even ads.

John: It’s got one of those Geocities, like, site hit counters in the top right.

Billy: Yeah, this is wild.

John: And then, like, look at the headlines that are… There are themes to the headlines, but they’re not coherent.

Billy: And why is Richard Hatch featured so prominently on multiple parts of this website?

John: Yep, yep.

Billy: Also, the logo it’s this… The logo-

Adrianne: Okay, yeah.

Billy: … is this nude white man with a gray beard and hair. It’s, uh, he’s got this big saggy belly that’s covering where his private parts would be, and he-

John: Yeah.

Billy: … has a, has devil horns and a devil’s tail. He’s got a trident with a, with a fish?

Adrianne: I think it’s a stingray probably.

Billy: Oh, a stingray. The Stingray. But, so he’s killing the Stingray? I’m so confused.

John: Lot of mixed metaphors- … for sure.

Billy: The lead-

John: So…

Billy: So, is Richard Hatch the Stingray?

John: No, the Stingray, I believe, is the guy who runs this, who ran this website. His name is Peter Lantz. Uh, it says here on the website-

Adrianne: Hmm.

John: … he is a five-time Emmy-a-won, Emmy-winning investigative reporter and lawyer, now working as a screenwriter and novelist. According to Wikipedia, he’s a conspiracy theorist. If you, if you kinda poke around the, um, the, the front page of this, remember this is hap-… Like, the story that we’re gonna be talking about took place in August of 2001. Uh, and this was the guy reporting the story that we’re gonna go down into. And then S- September 11th happened. Uh, and you see midway down the page, “TheStingray.net: A New Mission.” Uh, “In the years since I began investigating allegations of rigging and producer manipulation on so-called’reality TV‘, uh, a number of critics and some, uh, networks, network execs raised the question, ‘Why should we care? After all, this was just television, a medium that commands our lowest expectations.’ ‘There were bigger fish to fry,’ they said, and after the events of September 11th, there was little question that they were right.” Uh, so he pivoted the website, it seems- … to be about 9/11 conspiracy theories at some point after, uh, being about for, like, for two years, about being a reality show of conspiracy theories. So this, kind of, like, a, an amalgamation here of Survivor, Manhunt, and 9/11, and he went on to write a couple books linking the, um, the, the 1993 World Cen- World Trade Center bombings to 9/11, and a missing Al-Qaeda link between the two.

Billy: Love it.

John: So, uh, all of that is to say- … this guy’s kind of a… I don’t know how trustworthy the guy is in terms of his, like, hard facts reporting, but this is where the story comes from.

Adrianne: This guy has a story in Vanity Fair Magazine this month.

John: Oh, wow! About what?

Adrianne: It looks like a true crime, um, billionaire intrigue story.

John: Okay. I don’t, uh, I don’t doubt that he has some actual sourcing and reporting chops, because he did a very thorough job on his Manhunt research. Uh, this guy published a series of articles on this website where he sourced a bunch of, of real hard evidence, uh, that the show was completely manipulated and that it… Like, down to the outcome that the show was manipulated.

Adrianne: No.

John: Yeah.

Adrianne: Say it isn’t so.

John: So he claims that this began in the first episode when…A producer on the show caused the first losing contestant to lose. Her name was Jacqueline Kelly. And the way he did it was really crazy. He, he, like, so something happened where a couple of the contestants rolled down a hill trying to get away from the predators and, uh, got, like, injured themselves in some way. And Jacqueline ran after them to try to help them and a producer, like, grabbed her to make her stop chasing after those contestants, uh, shoved her to the ground, and made her do an interview on camera rather than tending to those, those contestants. And, uh, later that night, they did this kind of, I don’t fully understand the mechanic, but they did something like a tribal council where you vote people quasi out of the game. Uh, and she was voted out because it was perceived that she abandoned her teammates when in reality a producer purposely kept her from helping those teammates.

Adrianne: This seems so within the bounds of reality-

Regina: Right.

Adrianne: … television show producer, this is your job.

John: Seems like it to me.

Regina: Right.

John: Uh, here, uh, from The Stingray, he writes, “Jaffe, in an interview on August 3rd, said that the chief of Paramount TV’s production studio went so far as to ask him to fix a gauntlet in favor of…” The gauntlet, by the way, this is their, their voting you out, uh, you’d do some voting for other contestants and the three losing contestants would have to compete in a gauntlet, which was like a, an obstacle course through the woods or something, where the three, um, predators would shoot at them. Uh, and one of them would get shot enough times to leave. I couldn’t find any footage of this, but my understanding is that someone leaves during the gauntlet every time.

Billy: I’m still struggling with the concept of this show. So the concept is just like-

Regina: Yeah.

Billy: … who can withstand bullying the longest, basically?

John: It’s not bullying, right? It’s, it’s like…

Regina: Being hunted?

John: Yeah, you’re being hunted.

Billy: But you can’t actually be killed. You’re, uh, you can only be voted off.

John: No, no, no. If you’re shot three times-

Billy: Oh.

John: … you’re off the show.

Billy: Okay.

Adrianne: And you can also be voted off?

Regina: Right.

John: No, you get voted into this intense situation where you’re more likely to be shot at.

Adrianne: I see.

Regina: Hmm.

John: And they call that the gauntlet. And that, and someone would leave in the gauntlet. I don’t know what I… This is the part I don’t understand. There was some mechanic where during the gauntlet, someone would get shot enough times to leave.

Billy: So that’s presumably to add, like, a social layer where you want people to like you so they don’t-

John: Yeah.

Billy: … put you in a higher risk position.

Regina: Right.

John: Yes. And the first accusation here is that the producers were manipulating that by putting the first person who got voted out, or who got voted into the gauntlet, in a situation where it looked like she had abandoned her teammates.

Regina: Hmm.

John: So the quote here is, “Jaffe, in an interview…” Jaffe is the producer. “In an interview, uh, August 3rd, said that the chief of Paramount TV’s production studio went so far as to ask him to fix a gauntlet in favor of a particular female contestant, 23-year-old Mandy Caplan. She was originally identified in Jaffe’s cut of the series as a grad student, but labeled in the new recut as a journalist.”

Billy: Hmm.

John: So he’s compiled here a bunch of the manipulations that he claims happened. One of them is that they, in the final version of the show, uh, replaced the maps that the contestants were using, which on the island were really detailed and had topography on them, with ones that seemed really basic and, like, kind of, uh, hard to navigate to make it look, at home, like the show was harder than it actually was. Uh, he claims, there were these, like, side, uh, challenges where you could win, like, $100,000.00, uh, at a, at, like, a side quest kinda thing. And those things were kinda presented on the show. But it was never told to the audience at home that the contestants were playing for a money pool. And in fact, because of this reporting that he was doing in real time, the show had to eventually add a, uh, a disclaimer that the contestants were playing for extra money that you weren’t, weren’t seeing on the show. Uh, but the weirdest part of the whole manipulation thing, and the part that caught my eye, was that when the contestants got home after the six days of shooting, Paramount apparently decided that there wasn’t enough drama between the contestants and they wanted re-shoots. So, they called up all of the contestants and said to meet in a park in LA. And this guy gathered the call sheet and a shot list, uh, and he had everybody show up and recite lines from a script, there’s also screenshots of the script, and kind of enact parts of the con- of the, of the, of the contest that didn’t happen on the island in this park in LA to make the whole thing seem like there was more conflict than there actually was.

Billy: Okay, question.

John: Yes.

Billy: Are these, like, testimonial type things where they’re talking to camera? Or are these, like, actual scenes that they are claiming happened during the, the filming?

John: So, so Param- Paramount claimed what was going on was mostly testimonials. And those are really funny because they planted some palm trees and planters to put behind them so it looked like, uh, Hawaii. Um, but there’s one scene in particular where the contestants are looking at a map and, like, figuring out a game plan for where to go. That was completely concocted, like it was scripted before they showed up on that day and they were just told to say the lines that were in the script. So it actually is gameplay that was being scripted.

Billy: Yeah, ‘cause the first thing is extremely common in reality television.

John: Yeah.

Billy: Right? Like, doing the testimonials way after the fact when they have most of the story figured out and they just basically need people to say certain things to kind of carry the story and bridge certain gaps.

John: Yeah.

Billy: Like on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, they don’t even really try to hide this. Their, often their, like, hairstyles or their look is, like, completely different in the testimonial part than it is in the part that’s happening on the camera. And they still have them speak in present tense as if they were, had just been pulled aside or whatever. But…

John: Well, that’s kinda different though because it’s not a, it’s not a game show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

Billy: No.

John: Like, there’s money on the line here.

Billy: Sure, sure, sure.

John: Like, what you’re presenting to the audience at home is presumably a game show and how they played the game.

Billy: Sure, yeah. Totally.

Adrianne: This first article by Peter Lance refers to FCC anti-rigging rules.

Regina: Mm-hmm.

John: Yeah. So do you remember 21 Questions?

Adrianne: Is this another, another one of your games?

John: It was a 1950s game show, um, where two contestants would play against each other in these booths and they were asked general knowledge questions and, um, I think there was 21 of them, and the one who answered the most correctly would, like, move on and become the champion.

Adrianne: Oh yeah, this was turned into a movie called Quiz Show.

Regina: Mm-hmm.

John: Yeah.

Adrianne: With Robert Redford.

John: It came out eventually that all of the, basically after the first episode, all of the contestants were rigged and told to lose or win, they were given the answers in advance. And like a year after all of this, other shows also started cheating and there was a, it almost destroyed game shows in the US because the FCC intervened and laws were passed that basically, uh, said that what you’re presenting in a game show needs to be on the up and up and needs to be actual competition.

Billy: Oh, right, yes.

Adrianne: How do we feel about this- … as a law?

John: D- I wonder how far it extent- I didn’t really read a whole lot about this, but, like, does this extend to sports and stuff? Like, why doesn’t the WW, why, why doesn’t wrestling fall under this?

Adrianne: Yeah.

Billy: Uh, I, I mean, I don’t know how I feel about it as a law. I do think, like, if you watch early game shows, they’re basically, like, just elaborate ads that they were doing to kill time and make money. I mean, they’re all sort of like The Price Is Right is now, but e- even more sponsory.

John: Well, that’s actually why-

Billy: They’re just-

John: Yeah, that’s why 21 Questions, um, started rigging it, because their, their sponsor was like, “This game is extremely dull and no one can answer the questions. We need this to be better.” And the producer was like-

Billy: Right.

John: … in a panic, were like, “Uh, okay. Yeah, we’ll just give, we’ll, we’ll make, we’ll write this, like, we’ll write this to be more exciting.”

Billy: Right. So I think as a result, like, game shows have become better, but I’m sure there’s maybe other things about the law that could be an issue.

John: Yeah, whether it, as a law, it’s good or not, I do like kind of the assurance that when you’re seeing a game show on TV, you can be reasonably sure that, like, the people are normal people who are actually playing for… It’s just more fun to think that they’re, to know that they’re playing for real money.

Billy: Right.

John: And, and, okay, so one other funny thing about this, this staged reshoot thing that happened. Uh, there was, what’s her name? Um, Jacqueline Kelly, that first contestant who was manipulated out of the game, presumably, allegedly. She was the only one of the 13 contestants who refused to come back for reshoots, and she says that’s because the producers said that no one gets any of their prize money that they won on the show unless they come back for these reshoots. So, it seems like they were all forced to come back and, like, do these fake scenes in this reality show that they had already participated in, and when this all started coming out, when this became common knowledge for, somehow this wound up on, on, uh, on the Stingray.net, Jacqueline Kelly filed a formal FCC complaint to say, “Hey, this show was rigged. I think this falls afoul of game show laws.”

Adrianne: Was this show popular? Sorry.

John: No, absolutely not. It was a UPN show.

Adrianne: Hmm.

John: It, no, it was not popular.

Billy: Wow, dig on UPN.

Adrianne: Seems like a lot of drama for a-

John: Yeah.

Adrianne: … show no one’s watching.

John: Well that, that’s why I think this website is so funny, because it was so focused on this game show that no one was watching. So there was this, this Professor Steve Beverly, he’s a professor of broadcasting at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He also, uh, started beating this drum and wrote a second complaint to the FCC, and his complaints are kind of interesting. I’ll read here from the Stingray.net. “In the past, the FCC has taken enforcement of this rules provision so seriously that in the mid-1970s, CBS lost two years from the license of KNXT, its Los Angeles-owned station, for billing a series of Jimmy Connors’ tennis challenges as winner take all, when, in fact, both Connors and his opponents were guaranteed substantial appearance fees.” So, like, in the ‘70s, that was enough for a CBS affiliate to lose its license for two years.

Billy: Huh. I guess, also, this is, so this is enforced by the FCC, so this really only applies to broadcast television. Doesn’t apply to cable channels-

John: Yeah. Yeah.

Billy: … presumably, and other… Okay.

John: Yep.

Adrianne: So UPN is broadcast?

Billy: Yes.

John: Or was. It’s not around anymore.

Billy: Yeah.

John: Uh, alleging that the evidence of rigging on Manhunt, quote, “could well be the tip of an iceberg in this genre,” Professor Beverly charged that, quote, “The issue is not merely whether an outcome is influenced. An equal issue is whether a reality program is presented to the audience in the context in which it occurred. If it isn’t, the producer should tell the audience it isn’t, and tell them specifically why and how in a detailed disclaimer at the beginning of the broadcast.” There was no disclaimer on Manhunt indicating that the interviews or resho- reshoots took place months later. The only notice given by Paramount was a one-quarter-second statement hidden in the closing credits that said, quote, “This program includes dramatic scenes intended for entertainment purposes only.”

Billy: Okay.

John: Yeah. So, Regina actually found this. Um, she found a, a Google Groups thread called “Is Survivor Legally a Game Show?” Which is an interesting question. The, the, the, the original commenter asking if Survivor’s legally a game show knew about Manhunt and said, uh, “A lawsuit resulted, and the fundamental issue was if the FCC game show rules apply to the program. Obviously, the show argued they did not app- they did not apply. The court,” and this person isn’t sure if a jury was involved, “the court decided a primary definition of a game show is a contest of intelligence. This resulted in the suit being dismissed because the show was not considered a contest of intelligence, and therefore was not subject to the FCC game show protocol.”

Billy: Wow.

Adrianne: What the heck?

Billy: What a dig.

Regina: Yeah. They’re like, you don’t have to be smart to win. Sorry.

John: On this show intelligence doesn’t play-

Billy: Yeah.

John: … play a role.

Billy: I don’t think Rich- I don’t think Richard Hatch would agree with that.

Regina: Sorry, I just have one clarification, which is, uh, I don’t think it was a new law. I think it was just an amendment of a, an earlier law.

John: Oh, what was the earlier law?

Regina: Uh, the Communications Act of 1934.

John: But did it say something in there about game shows or contests?

Regina: Yes.

Billy: We’re clearly all lawyers, I just wanna say for the audience.

Adrianne: This is legal advice.

John: Yeah, take legal advice from us. So, they apparently won the, uh, or at least the, the case was dropped against them, because this is not a ga- a contest of intelligence.

Billy: Huh.

John: And then, uh, here, this, this, uh, this wronged producer, Jaffe, said, “In the original production of Manhunt, 13 people banded together to act as a team. They were determined not to exhibit the kind of cutthroat behavior that had been seen on shows like Survivor, but Paramount executives were disappointed that they didn’t act with more conflict and backstabbing. For the sake of ratings, they asked me to change the very reality of the series, and I couldn’t, in good conscience, go along with that.”

Adrianne: Wow. This guy has a really strong moral compass.

John: Yeah, for someone who wound up being the executive producer of a reality TV show in 2001- … this guy seems like he picked the wrong career.

Adrianne: They also describe him in 2001 as a veteran reality show producer.

Regina: Yep.

John: I mean…

Billy: It’s possible, right? I don’t know, how old is The Real World at… But it was probably…

John: What was that, ‘96?

Billy: Almost a decade old at that point. Yeah, 1992.

John: ‘92, wow.

Billy: Wow, okay. I kinda wanna watch this show now. Have you watched-

John: It’s, I can’t find it.

Billy: … any of it?

John: I can’t f- I found, like, highlight reels on YouTube, but I can’t find, like-

Billy: Hmm.

John: … episodes of the show. It would be such a quick binge-watch, too. Six episodes, 13 people.

Adrianne: Bob Jaffe made it into the New York Times. I was trying to find his resume to see if he worked on Real World. I can’t really find any reality TV that, that this guy worked on prior to Manhunt.

John: So not a veteran.

Regina: Maybe he was actually a veteran.

Adrianne: They got that mixed up.

Billy: Well, John Cena still made it, so.

Playback: Some wanna act rough like John Cena. Some wanna get buff like John Cena. Used to be cool when I used to come through. Now you wanna act tough like John Cena. Aiwa! Gi-gi-gi-gi, gi, gi, gi. Gi-gi-gi-gi, gi, gi, gi. Some girl a want beef like hyena. Some girl a get beat from Serena. Some girl a get wild, a girl a get loud. A girl take shots like tequila. Aiwa!

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