I was watching Fear Factor™ awhile ago, and I think I have just come up with an idea for the best “reality” show ever. It’s called I Will if You Will, and here’s how it works:
The host, like Jeff Probst from Survivor™ or Joe Rogan from Fear Factor™, asks a bunch of people to do really stupid stuff, like eating bugs or walking on glass or going to Iraq, and the rule is that at any point during a single episode, the group can confer and any contestant can say the magic words, “Hey, Jeff, I will if you will,” and the host has to do it or they all win.
It gets better.
See, the players can only pull their trump card out once, so they have to decide at each point whether it’s better to eat the bug and wait for something really bad, like walking a tightrope between two buildings, and the host has to be prepared to do this week after week. The other rule that’s absolutely necessary is that the producers file a script with some accounting firm like Earnst & Young that describes each stunt request in detail, and they can’t deviate from the script, or everybody wins.
This is, of course, an un-thinly-veiled, not-so-carefully-caged metaphor for being The President, but it’s also a reaction to listening to Joe just now telling someone walking on a bed of glass, “Oh! Dude! Don’t twist your foot! You’re gonna cut yourself, man,” and it’s also a really good idea for a reality show that you are welcome to steal freely.
See, I don’t have the resources to make it happen, but I’d love to watch it, and that’s how ideas are supposed to work.