The 6 Lowest Of The Many Low Points In Reality Show History

Still no? That sounds like the worst show ever? Well, it could have been worse.

Before Punk'd, Kutcher and MTV developed a similar show called Harassment. It was the same idea, only with ordinary people instead of celebrities. Unfortunately, instead of harmless goofs, blunders, and bloopers, Harassment focused on emotionally scarring its victims.

In April 2002, Harassment decided to prank a vacationing couple. Here's the gag: They would walk into their Las Vegas hotel room and discover, get this, a dead human body on their bed! Covered in blood! To add to the fun, the hotel security guards were informed to not let the couple leave the room. Not only were they spending their vacation with a corpse, they were now the lead suspects! In a murder! Ha ha ha!!!

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That's when Kutcher, star of That '70s Show, popped in to let them know it was all a fun, harmless prank. Hilarious, right? Well, according to the couple, it wasn't. They filed a $20 million lawsuit against Kutcher, MTV, and the hotel for "wanton, malicious, and oppressive" behavior. Lawyers argued there was nothing to sue, since the show never aired, but the other lawyers argued that yes there was -- MTV just changed the show's name to "Punk'd" and added Wilmer Valderrama. Then, as suddenly as Ashton Kutcher appears in a hotel room to tell you a dead body is fake, Punk'd was cancelled.

They claimed the cancellation was not a slimy way to dodge legal repercussions, but it seems suspicious to abandon a successful TV show that prints money every time you sneak up on Wilmer Valderrama and hit him with a fish. All we can be sure of is that surprising people with a dead body continues its winning streak in the Dumbest Goddamn Idea Championships.

For instance, one woman went on and wished for a housekeeper for two weeks. Sounds nice, right? After all, every pretty dame deserves a break sometimes! Well, it wasn't so she could drive up to Napa and gossip with her girlfriends. She had seven kids, a truck-driving husband, and an ailment that required surgery. So in order for her and her family to not die, she had to go on TV and beg a smarmy game show host for help. It was an entire hour of sad women struggling to smile while they begged for lifelines right after a few bored housewives asked for Caribbean vacations.

In this single episode, a miserable woman asks for bunk beds for her four children because three of them are currently sharing a bed while the youngest sleeps in a folding crib that keeps collapsing in the night. Another lady wants a hospital gurney for her polio-riddled son so he can see the outside world for a bit. A third woman wants to go to trade school so she can get a job. Why? Because her husband is dead. Again, this all takes place in one episode.

After the jobless widow leaves, a pregnant woman asks for food. Not to eat, but to sell in her family grocery store, which they can't afford to restock. And finally, a woman comes out who has a child too sick to go to school. She wants a set of encyclopedias so he can still get an education. It's an endless barrage of tragic problems being patched with terrifyingly short-term solutions. At the end of the show, the audience votes for the winner based on applause, and that winner becomes the "Queen for a Day." Not only is their wish granted, but they get other prizes from sponsors, like appliances, furniture, gift certificates, and jewelry. So the next time your family has no food to eat, at least you'll have stylish earrings!

Oh, right. What about the non-winners? Remember those other women who went on national TV and begged for a meager handout to entertain viewers, only to find out their wish wasn't good enough? They get cheap consolation prizes, which aren't quite nothing, but they are nothing-adjacent. Sorry your kids have nowhere to sleep, lady, but at least they can stay up all night playing the home version of Queen For A Day!

HOW TO PLAY QUEEN FOR A DAY, THE HOME VERSION!

Begin by having Player One ask Player Two for a low-to-medium-cost item only a sad person would want. Food stamps? Tuberculosis medicine? Professional kidnapping negotiator? Player One should now cheerfully add a grim detail about their personal life. For example, "My entire family died this morning" or "My rotten foot has nearly fallen off!" The game ends when Player Two says "No! Fuck you!"

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One of the cast members is a woman named Susan Aikens, who lives in Alaska's remote northern wilderness, 500 miles from the nearest city. She led a rather ordinary life, which did not sit well with the show's producer, Aaron Mellman. In order to enhance "reality," he would make her do things she'd never normally do. This frustrated her, but she kept doing them. It's likely she didn't move 500 miles into the woods to refine her negotiation skills.

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Their drama came to a boiling point in February 2015, when Mellman wanted to film an episode of Aikens camping. According to a lawsuit Aikens filed later, they told her to go to a camping site further down the river from her usual spot and to take a snowmobile instead of her safer ATV. They demanded she drive the thing over an overflow (ice covered by water) at high speeds. She insisted that was dangerously crazy. The producer reminded her that she literally sold her life to TV, and if TV wanted her to slide to her death on a snowmobile, then shut up and hit the gas. And also, lose the helmet. The viewers can't see your face in that bare minimum of safety equipment.

National Geographic

As you might have expected, it did not go well. Aikens ate shit, in fact. She broke multiple bones, and was exposed to brutally freezing temperatures when the crew tried to pull her clothes off to access her injuries. To make matters worse, they didn't call for help because they wanted to get a shot of her walking it off. When they finally did call for a rescue plane, they asked it to land at a far distance to film a more dramatic journey. These assholes almost killed a woman for a single episode of a show you probably haven't even heard of.

Aikens is now suing, claiming that literally everything that happened was the producer's fault and she has lasting, painful injuries. And before you accuse her of being a greedy little baby like those people who think they deserve $20 million of Ashton Kutcher's money for seeing a fake dead body, know that Susan Aikens is a legitimate badass. She once fought a grizzly bear and won. Unfortunately, a lifetime of surviving in the wilderness was no match for the lunacy of Hollywood's reality TV machine.

For instance, there's the A&E show Intervention, which follows alcoholics and drug addicts around for a few days before filming an intervention staged by their friends and family. It's as soul-crushing as it sounds. To make matters worse, the crew treats these troubled sacks of human misery like they're wild cheetahs. They let them do anything, even if it's obviously dangerous or illegal. At least twice they stood by and watched while their subjects drove drunk. Are you telling us the camera guy couldn't get them a cab? People could have died. At a certain point, you're no longer a documentarian so much as you are an asshole.

A&E

When people became upset at this, a lawyer for the network said, "The law in the United States doesn't require you to step in and save people ... and it doesn't require you to stop a crime that's in the works." It means they can legally film the subjects stealing, selling drugs, even doing drugs in front of their kids, and Uncle Sam can't do shit about it. The movie Running Man was supposed to be set in a dystopian future wherein prisoners were murdered for ratings, but that seems downright respectful to human life and decency compared to Intervention.

Then there's VH1's Celebrity Rehab, in which Z-list celebrities try to kick their addictions at the Pasadena Recovery Center. Former teen idol Leif Garrett agreed to be on the show and tried to get clean himself before shooting began. He was four days sober when the producers asked for footage of him using, presumably to show how miserable he was before the miracle of reality TV. He initially refused, but later agreed. VH1 somehow managed to convince a drug addict to do drugs. Kudos to them!

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Another cast member, Grease's Jeff Conaway, said he was always aware he was being filmed and would sometimes act up and be more dramatic for the cameras. He also said he couldn't wait to leave the show and do more drugs. He was not a well man. But instead of convincing him to quit, they simply asked him to shut up about it and let the viewers think he was done with drugs. It was a terrible, irresponsible plan, and the worst thing happened: He died a few years later. No one's saying VH1 is responsible for keeping drug addicts alive, but for fuck's sake, they should at least be able to say "We tried our best" at their funerals.