10:45 AM EST on Monday, November 8, 2004

By BRIAN MORAN / Special to WCNC.com

If you’re looking for an excuse to bypass the unusually sexy housewives and you have no interest in returning to South Fork to reminisce about who shot J.R. and you have no morality of any kind, then Fox has the show for you. It’s another shameless effort that forces you to give a good, long, hard look in the mirror and question how far you’ll go for entertainment. The lead actor/fraudulent billionaire echoes the Fox mantra when it comes to business, “If you’re going to lie, lie big!”

Like most of you, I’m addicted to reality television. I have no qualms about who I am and I have the self awareness to know that this eliminates me from consideration to be the coolest kid on the block. When you write a reality television column, you have to check any delusions of having a life at the door. I’m a reality dork and I’m fine with that.

The reason I’m fine with it was made abundantly clear to me on Sunday night. Years ago, Fox realized that viewers want to see lives get shattered on national television. It’s awful but true. So they premiered Temptation Island in an effort to splinter otherwise solid relationships. It turned out to be suspenseful but with no real action, like the Blair Witch. At the end of the day, their lives were skewed but not destroyed.

This was followed by the advent of the hoax show. The lesser known Joe Schmo Show premiered on FX to limited fan fair. For those of you who didn’t see it, and judging by the ratings, that would be a lot of you, you really missed out. They took the most genuine, caring and honest guy in the world and tortured him unmercifully. Put it this way, in the eating challenge, when the other contestants were presented with raw oysters and raw clams, he was presented with a heaping pile of dog fecal. This kid had a fiberglass stomach like no other. He would dry heave during an athlete’s foot commercial yet they presented him with a bowl of dog poop with a spoon in it. It was the highest of comedy.

Fox then combined the two principles and created My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé. The idea was brilliant. The execution was even better. The show was under hyped and it’s a shame. I was there when the hoax was revealed and nobody was laughing. I was there for that moment when the entire cast realized that maybe, just maybe they went a little too far. I was there when the catholic school teacher's little brother, who was knee deep in Heinekens, stormed off in a kilt as producers begged for his return. I was there and I’ll tell the grandkids about it.

Well, reality is like a drug, you take a little hit, you want more. Ruining one family is not enough to get your fix anymore. Fox has decided to ruin the lives of a dozen aspiring futurists with its latest creation, My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss. And believe me; they have not under promoted this one. Anyone who watched any piece of the World Series coverage knows that. Every pitch included a MBFOB reference.

On a Sunday when I was forced to sit through an embarrassing Eagles thrashing and then to endure Adam the contractor's egregious toupee on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, I figured there was nothing that could cheer me up.

I was wrong.

If you’re comfortable with who you are and your status in the after life, this show’s for you. Any show that ends with your wife turning to you and asking, “You’re not going to watch this every week, are you?” is almost always the real deal.

The hoax is one of many rip-offs of the Apprentice this season along with The Rebel Billionaire and the Benefactor. I had an idea to compare and contrast the Apprentice and the Benefactor but I found it so unwatchable that it made the Gotti kids seem pleasant. (As an aside, on the previews for the Rebel Billionaire, they show one of the contestants in a sophisticated barrel supposedly about to go over a 700 ft waterfall. It’s just a setup, mark my words. They would never, ever let that kid go over a waterfall in that thing. I’m a huge Steve Trotter fan which cements my status as a dork. I’m probably the only one alive. He’s the guy that went over Niagara Falls twice and the barrel he used was 5 times bigger and equipped with suspension harnesses for a waterfall that is one fourth the size. I just wanted to mention it so I can say I told you so later.)

The premise is simple, 12 hot shots who are uber-successful in their perfect lives decide to forego their big time salaries for a chance at a high paying position with a billionaire at a company named IOCOR.

Each week someone will be eliminated by a mystery boss pulling the strings behind the curtain. William August, the pseudo-billionaire promises us that their identity will be the most astonishing revelation in reality television history. Fabio? No, can’t be him again. Oprah? It is Chicago. No, no way. Maybe Michael Jordan? His career is in the tank.

In the welcome aboard sequence, they are served rock gut champagne from a convenience store and told it was top notch. They were fed shredded Bologna and Spam and they’re told it’s Duck Liver. They eat it and more importantly, they buy it. None of these corporate all-stars question anything, even the name of the company which sounds familiar to none of them.

Some of the ideas are so clever; they could be implemented on the Apprentice. For starters, the teams are to name their opponents team as a exercise in corporate sabotage. “The Stinky Lepers”, “The Bad Touches” and “Abnormal Body Hair” are my first efforts which I think were a bit better than what the gang came up with.

After hours of thought, these two strokes of genius surface: Femron and Concad. Wow, how will they ever overcome those names? Those companies sound better then Apex and Mosaic in a lot of ways.

The first mission stretches their business acumen: pan-handling. The boys launch the powerful yet vague “Help Chicago” mission. The girls beg for money to go to cheerleading camp despite the noticeable oddity that they’re pushing thirty years old. The streets of Chicago must be littered with folks as gullible as the contestants because the gals win by $12 with their thirty-something cheerleader fundraiser.

It becomes clear that this show could’ve been more aptly titled, “The Biggest Loser” than NBC’s show. August tells the guys they are to sleep under the train like a homeless person since they’re such losers. As reward, the girls are told they are going to sleep on mattresses filled with money. The girls were excited to sleep on $10,000 until they realized the money was clumping and so uncomfortable that they wouldn’t sleep at all. I’m laughing uncontrollably, the misses is not amused.

The highlights of the boardroom includes one of August’s aid asking, “Help Chicago what? Secede? Join Canada?” as the guys stumbled and mumbled.

When August returns from talking to Fabio, he gives Bob this business insight that will carry him into the future, “I’m not sure you know this but…you’re short! Tall people have an advantage in life.” Bob is speechless.

He turns to Dan and explains, “I told you I wasn’t looking for a suit. Yet, you have the most expensive suit on in the room. Get the hell out of my office!”

As I reminisce about the show that was, I think the answer to my wife’s question is clear, “Yes. Every single week as long as I’m conscious and not trapped under something heavy, I’ll watch this show.”