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0:58

Today on basic, The co creator

1:00

of MTV's The Real World, John Murray.

1:03

What if we told these

1:05

stories of these young people starting

1:07

out their lives in New York? with real young

1:09

people, what if we put? A group of

1:11

them together who normally wouldn't live together

1:13

from different backgrounds, race, socioeconomic,

1:17

sexual orientation, we called it

1:19

a docu, so because it was a docu,

1:22

but it was soapy. When we were

1:24

in that back room, making the

1:26

pilot, there was such an

1:28

energy and it was just

1:30

infectious. I mean, he really felt

1:32

like he'd had this voyeuristic experience

1:35

of being somewhere you maybe weren't

1:37

supposed to. MTD did

1:39

say to us, well, what if nothing happens?

1:41

And we said, well, if nothing happens, we'll

1:43

throw pebbles in the Generally,

1:46

after about two weeks together, the

1:48

cast gets exhausted and you're gonna

1:50

have a week where nothing happens.

1:52

And of course, we tap And MPP

1:55

was like, what's going on? Anyway, nothing's

1:57

happening. And so we said, okay, we'll throw a

1:59

pebble in the pond.

2:00

Hello,

2:01

everyone, and welcome to Basic, the official

2:03

podcast of the unofficial history of cable

2:05

television. I'm Doug Herzog, a

2:07

former TV executive who never lived

2:09

with seven strangers.

2:11

And I'm Jen Cheney, TV critic for

2:13

Vulture and New York Magazine. And I have

2:15

live with strangers, but there are only three of them.

2:17

Today, if we're gonna be joined by a true television

2:20

legend Jen, John Murray, who along

2:22

with his former partner, Maryl's Butam,

2:24

created the real world and in the process

2:26

of whole new genre of television.

2:28

It's just really hard to believe that the real world

2:30

debuted on an unsuspecting MTV

2:33

audience thirty years ago. And

2:35

honestly, TV has not been the same since,

2:37

I don't think.

2:37

Do you remember watching the real world when it first came on?

2:40

You know,

2:41

I didn't see it when it first came on

2:43

because I didn't have cable. But

2:46

when I finally moved into, like, my own

2:48

place post college, like,

2:50

I remember very specifically that the first

2:52

day I was really moved in, I turned

2:54

on the TV and there was a real world marathon

2:56

and I just sat there for, like, eight hours

2:58

and I was so happy. And then you

3:00

were hooked? early binging. Well,

3:02

we're gonna stop being polite. We're gonna get real

3:04

with John Murray right now. And of course, stay

3:06

tuned after the interview, and

3:08

Jen and I will talk about what we learned.

3:13

John

3:13

Murray, welcome to basic. We're so happy

3:16

to have you with us. we always start

3:18

off the episode by asking

3:20

our guests a question, which is can

3:22

you remember when you got basic

3:25

cable?

3:26

Yeah. I think I got it when we sold

3:29

our first cable TV show.

3:33

But I also remember The

3:35

first show, I really remember, like,

3:38

being super excited about

3:40

being on, you know, to

3:42

have cable. was the Larry Sanders

3:44

show.

3:45

Got it. Okay.

3:46

Yeah. The old the old the

3:48

old Showtime show.

3:50

What? The

3:51

first one or or or the the or

3:53

the HBO series?

3:56

Yeah. Let me see here. Oh, no. Yeah.

3:58

Not Gary Shandling Show, the Larry Yeah.

4:01

Yeah. There you go.

4:02

Alright. So anyway That

4:04

was a great show. One of the one of the great

4:06

but you're not a cable guy Right?

4:08

You started in local television. I

4:10

did. I did. I I went to the nearest

4:12

Missouri School of Journalism because ninety

4:15

eight percent of their students who graduated

4:18

and got jobs right away. And I

4:20

like -- Sure. -- that doesn't

4:22

sound right. And I want you to go

4:24

to Missouri. I

4:26

went right to work in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I

4:28

think it was the sixty fifth or

4:30

eighty fifth market and I produced the

4:32

ten o'clock news in Green Bay, Wisconsin

4:35

for about nine months

4:37

until I got a job offer in Atlanta.

4:39

and I was there for a while then Rochester,

4:41

then Cleveland finally got to

4:43

New York and sort of switched from

4:46

news two programming TV stations

4:48

and a New York iHealth program forty

4:50

stations around the country and really

4:52

started to learn what Like, how

4:54

did this universe work? Mhmm.

4:57

And

4:58

what brought you together

5:00

with,

5:01

ultimately, with your real world

5:03

cocreator, Maryelle Spunum. When I was

5:05

in New York working for this Teligent

5:07

rep firm that stole the National Spot

5:09

Time, I was helping them with helping

5:11

their stations schedule so that they

5:13

would get big ratings, like, could Oprah

5:15

Win three at four, use people's

5:17

court as a lead into news because it'll

5:19

bring male viewers, those kinds of things,

5:22

the people that were pitching me

5:24

their shows, I turned around and

5:26

started pitching them ideas I had for shows.

5:28

And so I sold my first

5:30

show to a company called

5:32

New World Television. It's gone now.

5:34

And then that first show was called CrimeDiveries.

5:37

and it was a little bit like law and order. It was

5:39

I researched a bunch of crime

5:41

cases at the New York Public Library.

5:43

And then with Mary Al's created

5:46

a a group of fictional detectives who

5:48

were gonna solve those cases. And

5:51

we sold it to a company called

5:53

Clintex for syndication and

5:55

we made a pilot, but we didn't sell enough

5:57

stations, so it did not go forward. I

5:59

believe

5:59

the the idea to develop a

6:02

show for MTV. Like, that was Someone

6:04

suggested that to the two of you. And I think

6:06

if if what I read was correct or no? You're

6:08

shaking your

6:08

head. No. Go ahead. What

6:11

happened was and Doug probably remembers

6:13

this better than I do. Mary Alice,

6:15

you know, my late partner, was

6:17

the Queen of daytime TV. She had

6:19

produced some of the biggest daytime

6:21

shows. And MTV

6:25

called her and asked

6:28

her if she would help them develop

6:30

a a low budget sort

6:33

of soap about young people

6:35

starting out their lives. And that's just

6:37

shaking his head. Yes. No. That's No. That's

6:39

all absolutely correct. We had this

6:41

idea to do this

6:42

was kind of the era of, I think, like,

6:44

Melrose Place and I know 210 had

6:46

just started and we decided we wanted

6:48

to do an an everyday soap opera

6:50

like like your grandma's soap, like, you know, one

6:52

life to live at a general hospital and

6:54

put it on every day five days a week. But

6:56

with young adults, And

6:59

I mentioned this too, of all people,

7:01

Fred Silverman, and he

7:03

said you have to meet Mary l sputum, who

7:05

used to produce soaps, I guess, at NBC

7:07

for him. So he connected me with Mary Ellis. Now

7:09

I'm gonna ask a slightly delicate question about

7:11

Mary Ellis. How old was she then?

7:13

I

7:14

think she was probably in

7:17

her early

7:18

forties? Right. So she was a

7:20

she was a forty year old woman, and I remember,

7:22

you know, the MTV was literally

7:24

John could attest this.

7:26

And it was filled with twenty five year

7:28

olds. It was it

7:30

was a place by and for

7:32

young people. and I bring in Mary

7:34

Ellen's to help

7:37

develop this open. Got a lot of

7:39

funny looks like who is this woman?

7:41

and what is she doing here? And what

7:43

does she know about rock and roll? And the

7:45

answer was nothing, but she knew a lot about soaps.

7:48

And we hired her to consult

7:50

with us on building out this

7:52

idea for her. So and she's probably

7:54

there I think she had her own office there for a minute.

7:56

She's probably there for a couple of months till

7:59

I finally realized,

7:59

which I should have known from the beginning,

8:02

MTV couldn't afford to make a soapbox.

8:04

Not only could you couldn't afford it, but

8:06

you weren't willing to let someone else own it

8:08

because we -- Right. That's right. -- we went

8:10

to hype Siobhan, and he was really

8:13

willing to fund it and

8:15

own it. But you guys didn't wanna let

8:17

someone else own it. forgot that part,

8:19

John. Thanks. So so we

8:21

very sheepishly folded our tents

8:23

and Mary Ellis went on her way

8:25

and I I kind of thought that maybe that was the last

8:27

I'd ever see a Mary Ellis. And I don't

8:29

know how long the gap was. Maybe you

8:31

remember till you Very short. Very

8:33

short because you don't realize how

8:35

desperate Miriams and I were at that

8:37

point. I mean, we

8:40

had had at

8:42

least four and a half years of

8:45

making pilots. And you don't make

8:47

any money on pilots. And I

8:49

had I had cashed in all my set

8:51

of virus I was driving a twelve year old

8:53

Honda Accord. I was living in a

8:55

garage apartment in in Hollywood.

8:58

Mary Ellis had gone to work for

9:00

loving because she had to pay

9:02

the mortgage. She had a daughter.

9:04

Right? She had a daughter and a husband who

9:06

she was supporting. Right. So

9:08

So yeah, we were super

9:10

desperate. So so

9:12

we were not gonna let this this

9:15

this done her socks saying no.

9:18

Well, forward. And

9:20

so we came up with this idea. Well,

9:22

what if we did a real

9:24

life soap opera. What if we told

9:26

these stories of these young people

9:28

starting out their lives in New York with real

9:30

young people? What if we put a

9:32

group of them together who normally wouldn't

9:34

live together from different backgrounds, race,

9:37

socioeconomic, sexual

9:39

orientation, because I had had that

9:41

experience in college where I was suddenly thrown

9:43

together with a diff with different people from

9:45

me and there was a lot of conflict.

9:47

But out of that conflict came growth

9:49

and that was basically what we pitched

9:52

to Lauren Carrillo, Doug's

9:54

programming exec, at the

9:56

Mayflower Hotel on Central Park

9:58

West. We pitched her this

10:00

idea. And she

10:02

looked at us. She goes, oh my god.

10:04

I experienced that when I moved to New

10:06

York. I get it. I get what

10:08

you're saying. There's a story there.

10:10

And she said,

10:12

I'm gonna go talk to Doug. And

10:14

I by noon, I think she had

10:16

called us back and said, yeah. Let's make

10:18

a pilot. Now we did realize

10:20

that that meant we were gonna be using

10:22

high end cameras. I mean,

10:25

it is MTV, not a lot

10:27

of money. was part

10:28

of the calculus that you did

10:31

that

10:31

doing a a reality show like the one

10:33

you were proposing would be less expensive.

10:35

Yeah. And the soap? Yeah. That's

10:38

because the

10:39

soap was too expensive for MTV.

10:41

So we said, let's do real

10:43

people. We'll use camera people just

10:45

out of film school and, you know, we'll

10:47

just do it real low budget.

10:50

And they say yes. But

10:51

effectively, it was I mean, you

10:53

argue that it kind of was a soap opera in terms

10:55

of you're following the drama amongst people.

10:57

There just

10:58

happened to be not acting.

11:00

Yeah. And we're we're

11:02

applying the principles of dramatic storytelling

11:04

to how we tell the story.

11:06

So we're looking for an A and A

11:08

story. We're looking for how is this

11:10

character gonna be changed? What's the inciting

11:13

incident in the episode? So I had

11:15

taken the Robert McKee's story structure

11:17

course. And so I'm I'm applying

11:19

all those principles. And, of course, Mary

11:21

Ellis is the queen of storytelling.

11:23

Like, I mean, she goes okay,

11:25

who's our hug? You know? What's

11:27

gonna be his hug? You know? And so

11:29

she's like, well, and, you know,

11:31

sometimes people would come in and say, well, this is what

11:33

happens. You go yeah, that's chronologically

11:35

what happened. Well, how do you tell that

11:37

story so it's interesting? So,

11:39

you know, she was great at really

11:41

forcing us think about how you tell

11:43

stories, not just giving

11:45

it back to the view of Verizon app.

11:52

The last

11:52

thing you want to hear while listening to your

11:54

favorite podcast is another gimmicky

11:56

ad. MGM builds the same

11:58

way. It's why they provide award

12:00

winning service without the use of mascots

12:02

or repetitive jingles. Instead,

12:04

they focus on you and how you

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could save up to twenty five

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podcast for a quote to see how much you could save on

12:21

your auto insurance.

12:23

important

12:23

holiday PSA. Do not

12:26

sleep on Old Navy's jingle jammies,

12:28

from iconic plaids, to candy

12:30

cane stripes, to Mary

12:32

elves, Old Navy has

12:34

every festive pajama print for the

12:36

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12:44

these

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PJs sell out fast. So, pop buy an

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Old Navy store or visit old navy

12:48

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12:51

it check out of office to check into the

12:53

sweet views of

12:54

this place where the kids aren't

12:57

asking for the WiFi.

12:58

Mom, Can we go to the pool? And when

13:00

you're with Amex, it's not if it's going to happen,

13:02

but when? American Express, don't

13:04

live life without

13:05

it.

13:10

John, do you remember when you were pitching it, like,

13:12

how you talked about it? because the the term,

13:14

reality television did not this then.

13:17

The turn on scripted television

13:19

was not a a thing we said in

13:21

the TV business back then. And III

13:23

sort of remember a lot people obviously, you know,

13:25

I think we talked I'm sure we talked about it at

13:27

the time compared it to an

13:29

American family, which was a documentary.

13:31

And so did was it This

13:34

is a doc or We call it a

13:36

doc docuserve. We call

13:38

it a docuserve, because it was a

13:40

docu, but it was soppy. And

13:44

and, yeah, that was how we that

13:46

what the term reality TV did

13:48

not exist at that time.

13:50

can you

13:50

talk about the casting aspect of it? Like,

13:52

especially in the first season when you're, you

13:54

know, really inventing this thing? Like, how did you

13:56

go about

13:58

finding, you know, a group of

14:00

people and and people that came from

14:02

diverse

14:02

backgrounds. Yeah. First of all, you gotta

14:04

remember this is before the Internet existed.

14:07

So, basically, we're putting up

14:09

flyers. And we're putting up flyers

14:11

in laundromats where young people

14:13

go to wash their clothes. with a whole

14:15

number, you can peel off the number and

14:17

call, you know, free

14:19

rent, you know, cool

14:22

TV show things, you know, social

14:24

experiment. And we would get

14:26

calls. And then we would also just

14:28

be walking down the street and

14:31

find two people that looked interesting and asked

14:33

them to come in and talk to us. And then

14:35

we also contacted some of the modeling

14:37

agencies And because it was

14:39

MTV, I think we all agreed

14:41

it would be good if the people we

14:43

cast were somehow connected

14:45

either to the music business or at least our

14:47

statistic or had

14:49

some kind of sort of a creative

14:51

focus. So that first

14:53

season, you know, most of the young

14:56

people were either musicians or

14:58

writers or artists.

15:00

We just go back to the pilot before we move

15:02

on. So The

15:02

way I tell the story is you

15:05

guys came in with your pilot. It's

15:07

probably about twenty minutes long as

15:09

our member shot over three or four days.

15:11

two

15:11

episodes. Two episodes. And

15:13

and and I remember

15:15

thinking I was like, this this feels like a show.

15:17

Like, this kind of floats. It kinda works.

15:19

When did when

15:20

did you have that moment? Like, when did you what

15:23

what part of the process is you go, hey, I think we really

15:25

have an actual idea here that's gonna flow.

15:27

we had

15:27

this at the same moment that Lauren

15:30

Carrillo did. I mean, when we were in

15:32

that in that, like, back

15:34

room making in the pilot, and

15:36

the cast had all arrived and they were

15:38

like bouncing off of each other and people

15:40

were sitting in places you wouldn't expect

15:42

them to sit there was such an energy

15:45

and it was just infectious.

15:47

I mean, you really felt like you

15:49

had this voyeuristic experience

15:51

of being somewhere you maybe weren't supposed

15:53

to, watching these people

15:55

sort of play up to each

15:57

other, have fights with

15:59

each other. I mean, it was it

16:01

was it it was just we hadn't

16:03

seen it before. It felt so

16:05

fresh I think that was the moment we felt

16:07

we had something really special. And

16:10

then as this wonderful

16:12

editor Alan Cohn started put

16:14

the episode a pilot together, and

16:17

he started using music, stripped

16:19

off the music videos,

16:21

and he started putting in jump

16:23

cuts and he just gave this

16:25

thing a stylistic look

16:27

that just had not been seen. And

16:29

the way the stories were told, the way we

16:31

jump about from thing to thing.

16:33

We were breaking all these traditional rules

16:35

of storytelling, but it was

16:37

fresh and it was fun to watch. I

16:39

wanna go

16:40

back to something you were talking about earlier

16:42

in terms of storytelling. And

16:44

the idea that you weren't just

16:46

reflecting back yours with every little thing that they did, you

16:48

were really kind of trying to shape a narrative.

16:51

talk a

16:51

little bit about how that works

16:53

because, you

16:54

know, those of us who are watching, we

16:57

assumed that what we're seeing was

16:59

real. So I think you want to have that authenticity,

17:01

but how do you how do

17:03

you shape a narrative without influencing what's

17:05

actually happening between the people

17:08

on the show? MTB

17:10

did say to us, well, what if nothing

17:12

happens? And we said, well, if nothing

17:14

happens, we'll throw pebbles in the pond.

17:17

And so what we didn't know is

17:19

generally after about two weeks together,

17:21

the cast gets exhausted and you're

17:23

going to have a week where

17:26

nothing happens. And, of course, we pet.

17:28

And MTV was like, what's going on? Wait.

17:30

Wait. Nothing's happening. And so we said,

17:32

okay. We'll throw a pebble in the

17:34

pond. And so we took this book called

17:36

Bear pond that Herbritz

17:38

had shot and it had a

17:40

bunch of new

17:43

gorgeous guys in it. And one of those new

17:45

gorgeous guys was Eric Niece.

17:47

And so we stuck it in with some

17:49

of the other books. you know, this was we

17:51

started two weeks after we'd start

17:53

shooting. And Heather B finds

17:55

it. And she finds Eric in it,

17:57

and she just goes to

17:59

town. She I mean, she had already

18:01

had some issues with him. He was a pretty

18:03

boy model and, you know, and

18:05

and she was making fun

18:08

of him and Eric didn't blame her.

18:10

He blamed us for putting the book in there.

18:12

And so we've heard a valuable lesson

18:14

is you don't want them blaming

18:16

you we apologized to the cast.

18:18

We said we wouldn't use that

18:20

footage, and we moved

18:22

on. And and, you know, and and

18:24

stuff started to happen, we regained trust of the

18:27

cast, and somehow

18:29

we managed to make thirteen

18:31

episodes. it it wasn't it was was

18:33

the first season. Wasn't you took them to Jamaica.

18:35

Right? Yeah. We took them that was another thing was

18:37

It's not it was one of our with one of our

18:39

producers sort of broke the fourth wall as

18:41

they say. Now, we

18:44

had one of our other rules was there's a strict

18:46

line between the cast and

18:49

the production team. because we said we

18:51

want, if something happens, we want them

18:53

to go to each other, we don't want them coming

18:55

to us. So the relationship has to

18:57

be between the seven of

18:59

them. relationship is a professional

19:02

relationship. And so, yeah, in

19:04

Jamaica. And we sent them to Jamaica because, well,

19:06

we didn't have a lot of money, but we could afford to

19:08

send at least three people. So we set

19:10

the three girls. I think we had a trade out

19:12

deal with Heatinglitzam. That's right.

19:14

And and the idea was

19:16

the girls weren't getting any in New

19:18

York, so we'll send them to to make

19:20

up and maybe they'll get

19:22

some. And meanwhile, the boys were pissed at us

19:24

because why are you just sending them? And they get

19:26

down there and they're having a

19:28

good time And I guess they went to some breakout

19:30

concert and there were some, like,

19:32

you know, we had permission

19:34

to shoot, but then one of the bands didn't

19:37

wanna shooting and so there was this crazy

19:39

chase back to the hotel where it would

19:41

be like these people were

19:44

in a van chasing our kids in the

19:46

van and just got through the gate, and

19:48

then they came into the hotel. Of course, the

19:50

hotel got rid of them. But anyway, I guess,

19:52

Bill, the director who felt he needed

19:54

to come for bet he

19:56

and bet he seemed to want comforting,

19:58

and they

20:00

crossed -- Yeah. -- crossed the line, crossed

20:02

the middle of God. And as Rebecca said

20:04

in her interview, she sucked him through the

20:06

force wall. And then and,

20:10

Bill, and and then I got the pleasure

20:12

of firing, Bill. of course, Bill

20:15

continues to see Becky. And

20:17

so now, he's sort of the

20:19

eighth character in the show. And

20:21

then Yeah. because he shows

20:22

up in the show later on. Affirmative. He

20:24

made he directed Andre's

20:27

video. Andre needed a video and

20:29

he hired Bill to do it.

20:31

So Bill sort of became he was he

20:33

could have been nominated for two Emmys,

20:35

and then the cast

20:38

member. At

20:40

what

20:40

point did you realize that the show was

20:43

a success? Like,

20:44

was it as soon as it

20:45

started airing? Did it take some time for you to

20:48

realize that people were into

20:50

this? The first

20:51

episode went on the

20:54

air in May of nineteen ninety

20:56

two. And the typical

20:59

primetime rating in

21:01

the MTV demo, which was I

21:03

think twelve to twenty four, was

21:05

about a point three. And real

21:07

world, that first episode popped to

21:10

point nine. So we tripled the

21:12

prime time normal average.

21:15

So we were a success

21:17

right off the bat, and then the

21:19

number kept growing. Listen,

21:21

I am just appreciative that

21:24

Someone

21:24

cared about generation x for this very brief window

21:27

of time and cared about

21:29

our

21:29

experience. You know what was now? We should talk

21:32

content because what was great

21:34

about the real world was when

21:36

MTV gave us complete freedom to cast.

21:38

So we cast this really interesting

21:40

group of people and we didn't necessarily know where

21:43

this story would take us, but we had

21:45

some amazing story

21:48

about race and about

21:50

racism. And there were like

21:52

important conversations happening there

21:54

that young people all across

21:56

America were seeing and we're learning from growing

21:58

from seeing conditions. And

21:59

not only race, I mean, sexuality, abortion,

22:04

of course, you know,

22:06

the storyline around Pedro'smora and being HIV positive

22:08

in AIDS. So that was something, you

22:10

know, you know, along with all

22:12

the antics which now seem

22:14

quaint compared to latter day real

22:17

world. You know, there were there were

22:19

issues and, you know, things of real

22:21

substance. But over time, the

22:23

real world sort of became something

22:25

else and that got pushed to the back. Is that the

22:27

fair assessment? You

22:28

would still have those moments when

22:30

you'd have, you know, like, Danny and

22:32

Railroad, Brooklyn, had been in

22:35

Iraq as a US military

22:37

person, and he was having PS.

22:39

post

22:42

traumatic distress or something.

22:44

And so there were issues that would come up,

22:46

but I think young people who

22:48

were on the show were more comfortable being

22:50

on TV. And that first season was very

22:52

chased other than bill effect. I mean,

22:54

not -- Right. -- it wasn't what happening

22:56

from from the from

22:58

under the covers. And so people just became

23:00

more comfortable with expressing their

23:03

sexuality. And, you know, and I don't know how much real

23:05

old plate in that, and then of course,

23:07

now with social media, people share every

23:09

intimacy about their lives. So,

23:11

I mean, in some ways, real world really

23:13

was part of that chronology of how

23:15

people sort of opened up their lives to the public.

23:18

Mhmm. I I always say, you

23:20

know, that you I think you can draw a

23:22

straight line from the real world to,

23:24

like, selfies. You know, because for us at

23:26

MTV, you know, we would talk about it, you

23:28

know, even

23:28

then, it was obvious to us like the idea

23:30

of turning the camera on the audience was kind of

23:33

a revelation. They were like, oh my god. They

23:35

would really want they they wanna see themselves more

23:37

than they wanna see almost any rock

23:39

stone. Yeah. And and it was real laboratory. And

23:41

as I, you know, as you look at how the

23:43

world evolved, I, you know, like like a

23:45

real world selfie

23:46

and there's I think you could draw I

23:49

think you could draw a straight line. Is that you would you

23:51

agree with that? Yeah. No. Absolutely. And

23:53

we were, you know, we were young

23:55

people starting out with season

23:57

three when we did real

23:59

world London. and we were

24:01

going to have a couple Europeans in the cast, we had to make

24:03

sure that their English was good enough. So

24:05

that's when we started asking people to send

24:07

in a tape. make a tape

24:09

of themselves, you know, and they go

24:11

to Best Buy, get a camera, return it the

24:14

next day after they made their

24:16

traffic date. you

24:18

know, or they come to these massive

24:21

auditions we have where two thousand

24:23

kids would be lined up to

24:25

to for a chance to

24:27

sit at a table with twelve other kids and

24:29

maybe they would be chosen to move to

24:31

the next step. And at least

24:33

initially, the first

24:35

season, it seems like maybe one of your takeaways might

24:37

have been that you wanted to have that

24:39

kind of social

24:42

you know, in

24:43

keeping with what had happened on the first

24:45

season with conversations about race to have that

24:47

kind of social discussion

24:50

to have something that was relevant because that

24:52

that at

24:52

least early that saying, that that felt like a consistent

24:56

thread. Yeah. And I mean,

24:56

we wanted that, but there was no guarantee

24:59

of it. I mean, we did not when

25:01

we cast Tammy Ackbar in

25:03

season two, we didn't know she

25:05

was pregnant. She didn't know she was

25:08

pregnant. at the time. So that just I think and

25:10

that's that's the cool thing about, you

25:12

know, reality is

25:15

that you cast these

25:17

people and then you go where the story

25:19

takes you. Now, yes, when we went to San

25:21

Francisco in season three, we wanted

25:23

to find someone who was HIV positive to

25:25

be part of the cast in San Francisco in nineteen

25:27

ninety three to avoid that story

25:29

would have been false. I mean, that story was

25:31

part of what was going on in that

25:34

city. And in other big cities in America. But

25:36

it happened that Pedro sent us a

25:38

letter from Miami. You know,

25:40

we had someone looking in San

25:42

Francisco for someone who was

25:44

levy positive. But Pedro came in through

25:46

Miami, and that's how

25:48

he ended up in the show. Well,

25:50

and as

25:50

important and obvious as it was to

25:53

you to cast somebody like Pedro.

25:55

The, you know, the flip side of

25:57

that, putting somebody like Pedro on

25:59

national television was a huge deal

26:00

in nineteen ninety three. Mhmm.

26:02

Well,

26:03

you know, but nobody nobody was talking about that. Right.

26:05

Right.

26:05

Yeah. No one was talking about that. And, yeah,

26:08

there had been, like, an early frost, a

26:10

TV movie with a,

26:12

like, Wynn, There have been a few

26:14

things, but nothing that would

26:16

reach young people the way having

26:18

Pedro on the real world did. You

26:20

know, as President Clinton said, Pedro

26:22

being on the rear wall did

26:24

did loads more

26:26

than anything his administration could

26:28

have done to sort of

26:31

educate people about HIV AIDS

26:33

and to create a more

26:35

compassionate world for people with

26:37

HIV AIDS. Do you have

26:39

a do you have a favorite season? I

26:41

think it's always gonna be

26:43

New York because New York. I did most

26:45

of the interviews. So I

26:47

was there. I was living it. And, you

26:49

know, that season, we were so

26:51

understaffed. We were so

26:53

exhausted by the time I

26:55

mean, it was we were in, like, Sherman's march.

26:57

We were just trying to get to the

26:59

end date. We all just went into

27:01

massive depressions after it was over because

27:03

we had had this goal that we had to reach and we finally

27:05

reached the goal and now it's now what do

27:07

I do? I'm what do I I'm I'm normally

27:09

working nineteen hours a day, like, what

27:11

do I do now? So,

27:13

yeah, that that season always gonna be

27:15

a favorite because I was so emotionally involved

27:17

in it because I was right there.

27:20

in the loft, you know, in the control room

27:22

doing the interviews. And then

27:24

as the show had success and we spun

27:26

off road rules and we started doing other

27:29

shows, I was more back

27:31

at corporate headquarters and

27:33

not as emotionally connected, even

27:35

though Mary House and I would always be very

27:37

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27:39

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Your

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Express. Don't live life

29:40

without it.

29:41

So if

29:44

if I

29:46

can

29:46

jump a little forward in your

29:49

career and ask you, you

29:51

know, later on you were producer of some other reality shows

29:54

like a simple life and keeping

29:56

up with the Kardashians and and those are almost to

29:58

me like the inverse of what the real world was

30:00

and that you're starting with people

30:02

who

30:02

are famous and well known and trying to tell their

30:05

stories, which to me seems like it would be

30:07

harder. Can

30:07

you talk a little bit about was

30:10

that an adjustment for you to be

30:11

featuring people who are already

30:14

celebrities when they walk in the

30:16

door? Yeah.

30:16

I mean, it's a lot easier to

30:18

deal with a young person who

30:20

isn't famous, doesn't have a

30:23

manager. You know, who you have

30:25

to convince to read the contract

30:27

and maybe take it to their uncle Larry

30:29

who's a lawyer to look at versus,

30:31

you know, dealing with

30:33

Kardashians or Paris Hilton where,

30:35

you know, they're gonna have lawyers and

30:38

managers and all sorts of people that are

30:40

gonna be part of that process. But, you

30:42

know, simple life is a little different

30:44

from Kardashians. and that simple life was

30:46

it was inspired by the real life green ache.

30:48

Right? Like, we wanted real life green

30:50

acres. Right. And we were working

30:52

with Fox and Fox, the head

30:54

of casting there, Sharon, had met

30:57

with Paris. And

30:59

we started talking about, well,

31:01

you know, people know Paris Hilton

31:03

Hilton hotel chain. ARRIS

31:06

has spent most of our time on the

31:08

coast, never been to the middle

31:10

of the country. and certainly not to a family farm

31:13

who we put with her, you know,

31:15

we tried her sister out, we tried

31:17

a bunch of people and then walked

31:19

Kole Ritchie, and, oh my god, the two of

31:21

them started telling tales of

31:24

being high school students that buckley together

31:26

and all the mean girl stuff they

31:29

did. And we were just

31:31

laughing. And so we've we had found,

31:33

you know, the perfect thing. So

31:35

And then, you know, they were fish out of water. It's

31:37

an old television story, you

31:39

know, the fish out of water. And,

31:41

you know, and we put them in high heels

31:44

and for coats and stuck them

31:46

in a Ford pickup truck and

31:48

off they went to the family farm. And

31:50

it was great. And then, of course, we

31:53

up we had to have a structure, so the the

31:55

family would connect them to jobs.

31:57

And so each episode would have a job

31:59

that they had to do And of

32:01

course, the family we cast had a

32:03

really cute seventeen year old

32:05

son. And of course, you

32:07

know, there were some shenanigans there.

32:09

And you know, so it it worked amazingly

32:11

well. And, you know, when that

32:13

first episode of Simple Life went

32:15

on, fourteen million people.

32:18

Wow. Mhmm. I mean, I had

32:20

never seen numbers that big. Yeah. because

32:23

I was in cable, you

32:25

know. And and we're easy,

32:27

John, easy. I know. I mean, real wide.

32:29

And I I mean, in its day, real one would

32:31

get up to, like, two point one

32:33

million, two two, but

32:35

fourteen million was pretty exciting. That's a lot

32:37

of people. Yeah. And then

32:39

Kardashians, you know, happened because

32:42

Lisa Berger, who had been one of our

32:44

executives at MTV on the real world, was

32:46

running programming at e, and she called me

32:48

up and she says Ryan Seacrest has this tape

32:50

of this girl, Kim. I want and her

32:52

family, I wanna send it to you. Do you think there's a

32:54

show there? I watched it. And I said, oh

32:56

my god. This is a perfect show. You've got the conservative dad.

32:58

You've got the mom and your mother who's

33:00

into every business. You've got the three daughters

33:02

who are each unique and different

33:05

And then you got these two younger girls

33:07

who turns out one of them would become a future

33:09

billionaire. And -- Mhmm. --

33:11

you know, and it was and then you

33:13

had this, like,

33:14

Scott, who

33:17

was interested in Courtney, but he was like

33:19

a little bit of a flip flam guy and

33:23

And, Chris, I remember she said I had

33:25

my eyes on you, Scott.

33:27

Yeah. I think we did a deal over the

33:29

weekend and we were in pre production

33:31

on the Monday. And --

33:33

Yeah. -- it was great.

33:35

The first time I went over and met

33:38

Chris had cooked dinner. We're all sitting around

33:40

and, you know, it was just like it was

33:42

amazing. And if you look at those early Kardashian

33:44

episodes, they were very innocent.

33:46

you know, as opposed to where we

33:49

are now with them and their new show on

33:51

Hulu, you know, now it's

33:53

tales of the super rich.

33:54

Mhmm. Right. Well, I'm

33:57

curious, with with a show specifically the

33:59

Kardashians, I

33:59

think, what was

34:01

it like to try to figure out what

34:03

the quote unquote Arcs and narratives

34:05

are going to be because I would

34:08

imagine Kim and all of the

34:10

people in the family

34:12

like had some very specific ideas and that it was

34:14

So when you when you do a show

34:15

like that, you basically meet with

34:18

the the

34:19

a cast with each family member individually, find

34:22

out what's going on in their life, what they wanna

34:24

do, what their motivations are,

34:26

who they might be having

34:28

issues with, and then you, you know, start to follow you say,

34:30

yeah, I'd like to follow that

34:32

story. And you start following those stories. You don't

34:34

necessarily tell the other person in the family what

34:36

this person

34:38

is up So as a producer, you sort of know all the dynamics of what's

34:40

going on and then you're following it. And, you know,

34:42

and you're saying, yeah, you should do that

34:44

next week. that's

34:46

your plan because you're thinking, yeah, that'll work well

34:48

with this thing that her sister's

34:50

doing that she doesn't know

34:52

about. So,

34:54

yeah, So it's Did you ever get pushed back? It's a different kind

34:56

of television. I always call it. It's sort of like appointment

34:58

television and that you're making appointments

35:01

shoot stories and stuff within the family.

35:04

Whereas real world, you're just shooting

35:06

everything. You're constantly running cameras.

35:08

Yes. Sometimes you have to decide whether

35:10

to follow. Becky and

35:12

Bill here or Kevin

35:14

there, but with the

35:16

Kardashians or show like that or

35:18

the HouseWise, generally you know what you're gonna shoot each day. Did

35:20

you ever get pushed back about

35:21

suggestions you were making from any of them?

35:23

Or No. They were I mean, that was the

35:25

amazing thing

35:26

about

35:28

Kardashians where they were so open to the process.

35:30

And, you know, they they I

35:32

mean, Chris got it. She knew that

35:34

this would be amazing. for the

35:37

family that this would open up a lot of doors. And saw the importance of it.

35:39

And and Chris was the one who, you

35:41

know, when some of the

35:44

some of the family would get a little tired of it. She was the one who would sit

35:46

him down and say, no. This is the family

35:48

business. You need to pull your

35:50

share of the family business.

35:54

Well.

35:54

Reality TV takes a

35:57

lot of shit from

35:59

from

35:59

from folks. for

36:01

some good reasons and some not for some

36:03

not so good great reasons. When you, you

36:06

know, sort of sit back and you look at

36:08

your shows and

36:10

your career, how

36:10

do you look at the the world of reality television? What do

36:12

you think the contributions have been? And there

36:14

and there have been many. And and

36:17

what are you proud of? Yeah.

36:19

I mean, I think that reality

36:22

TV really led the way

36:24

was much more on top of it

36:26

than scripted in

36:28

terms more diversity within the cast and certainly

36:30

highlighting issues

36:32

that prime time scripted television was

36:34

not doing. I mean, I think the interesting thing

36:36

about the real world It's like when

36:39

Tammy found herself pregnant and had to decide whether

36:41

she was gonna keep the baby or terminate

36:43

the pregnancy, that wasn't something

36:45

a writer wrote And we didn't

36:47

get any criticism for airing that because

36:50

that's just what happened. We told the

36:52

story and we had this beautiful

36:54

story because John Brennan, her roommate who

36:56

was very much opposed to

36:58

abortion. He stated that to her, but he

37:00

said, I'm

37:02

not gonna like, walk away from you because you're my friend, and I'm

37:04

gonna support you through this. So, you know, it

37:06

wasn't just a bunch of people who don't know

37:08

each other, yelling at each other over

37:10

an issue. It was people who

37:12

had become family. And now

37:14

you're watching them maintain

37:16

their relationship as a family, but

37:18

deal with an important issue that they

37:20

disagree on. So I really

37:22

feel I'm very proud of, you know, the

37:24

fact that, you know, eight years after the

37:26

real world survivor and then

37:28

amazing race, And they'd rather

37:30

they've all had multiracial

37:32

casts, and they haven't been afraid to tell

37:34

those stories when they come up. So yeah.

37:36

So so I And and they certainly probably don't exist

37:38

without the real Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

37:40

And I and I think that particularly in the

37:42

case of the real, and I think there was a

37:44

whole whole generation, several generations

37:47

that grew up sort of seeing that, you know,

37:49

there was something exciting about

37:52

the idea of diversity, meeting people

37:54

who have different life experiences

37:58

actually really fun and sort of expands who you

37:59

are. Right? So I think, you know,

38:02

that MTV audience that

38:04

is so different

38:06

from their parents in terms of how they look

38:08

at sexuality. I think

38:10

MTV and the real world had a huge

38:12

role in that. Well,

38:14

John, It

38:15

has been a pleasure to have you. We

38:17

are longtime fans of the

38:20

real world. You certainly know that from

38:22

myself, but I know Jen is

38:24

as well. and we're so happy you're able to join us here

38:26

today on Facebook. Thanks for coming.

38:28

Thank you. It

38:28

was fun fun talking about. So

38:32

that was

38:37

John Murray, the great

38:39

granddaddy of reality television, really interesting conversation I

38:41

thought. So Jen, the real world, the ultimate

38:43

Gen X show. Right?

38:46

It is in a lot of ways. And you

38:47

know, it's funny because when you were talking

38:49

during the interview about, like,

38:51

people complaining that

38:54

MTV wasn't showing music videos anymore because they were getting taken over

38:56

by the real world and all these other shows that

38:58

you guys were launching. And I remember being

39:01

mad about that time. Are

39:02

you are you still mad? I just No.

39:05

No. I'm not.

39:05

And I and I as I

39:08

said, like, especially

39:09

in retrospect, there was this little

39:12

sliver of time in, like, the early nineties

39:14

when, like, people gave

39:15

a shit about Gen X, and that

39:18

went away. but it was it it feels more special and precious to me

39:20

now. I know that you care about this as

39:22

well. Well,

39:22

as you're saying, I noticed I noticed you're a fan of those revival.

39:24

So, like, you really like catch it up with

39:26

your old genics friends. Yeah.

39:28

I mean, especially the

39:29

New York when I think just because it

39:31

was first and I

39:34

watched

39:35

it on on Paramount plus before

39:37

I watch the reunion. And those seasons are just

39:39

such a

39:39

wonderful, like, time capsule in so

39:42

many different ways of

39:44

just, like, what

39:44

things look like at that time, the pop culture, that what people

39:47

were wearing. Yeah. I I

39:49

really enjoyed that.

39:50

you know, I now I'm thinking channel

39:52

off the top of my head. I think from here on in, I'm

39:54

gonna refer to you as gen x. I'll

39:56

be I'll I'll be Doug Boomer.

39:58

god. You know what? If

39:59

you're willing to call

39:59

yourself that, before I

40:02

can. Doug O'K boomer,

40:03

I can call myself. Yeah. Yeah. Doug

40:05

middle name,

40:05

okay, last

40:08

name

40:08

boomer. The the other the other interesting

40:10

thing that he said that, you know, I

40:12

have spoken about many times from

40:14

my vantage point was that he

40:18

he wasn't sure it was gonna be more than one season. You know, it was it was

40:20

this great experiment and nobody knew what to make

40:22

of it or what it was or what the what

40:24

the reaction would be. And I think

40:27

I've said this probably on this show and probably

40:29

certainly to you. But during that first season, I was

40:32

convinced it was might only be one

40:34

season because the

40:36

kids who

40:36

were in that first cast, they

40:39

had no expectations going in. Right. And

40:41

then they became

40:42

like these like sort

40:44

of cultars, little MTV celebrities, and their lives

40:46

changed dramatically. And I thought, oh my god.

40:48

Well, the experiment's over because

40:50

now any kid that comes in

40:53

to the next season is gonna have real

40:55

expectations about how to make themselves famous or that

40:57

they're gonna get famous and they're gonna be

41:00

insufferable to watch and

41:02

annoying and over the top and no one's gonna

41:04

wanna watch them. And I couldn't been more

41:06

wrong because the more

41:08

insufferable, the more annoying, the more

41:10

over the top they were, the more people watched.

41:12

and and they're still watching, which is kind of incredible. The show's

41:14

still going. I've got to

41:17

ask them that. I

41:18

my gosh. I should I know they

41:21

stop I know they stop there for a minute.

41:23

Right? Whether it, like, moves to

41:25

Facebook or something? Yeah. They

41:26

I don't know if I don't think it's

41:28

still going right now. III feel like it's just

41:30

the reunion ones, but I

41:32

if I'm wrong, I apologize. Yeah. Same

41:33

here. We should probably know that. Right? question.

41:36

I'm gonna call our research department

41:38

and get on them for not to not to

41:40

get you A research department, which

41:42

is me and Doug. Yeah.

41:45

So

41:45

the real

41:46

world, clearly, you know, ground

41:48

zero for reality television, unscripted

41:52

television, whatever you wanna

41:54

call it, And that, you know, as we talked about, you know, reality

41:56

TV and the real world take a lot of shit

41:58

for past

41:59

transgressions.

42:01

But they all but

42:02

they'll but on another, you know, level, they they really

42:04

did bring a lot of interesting and

42:07

noteworthy things to the

42:09

landscape and the party. Mhmm.

42:12

Yeah. I think so. I mean,

42:13

certainly in the case of the real world,

42:15

as we discussed, just

42:18

representing, you know, we talked about, you

42:20

know, Pedro and HIV, but just representing

42:22

all these different kinds of experiences

42:24

and backgrounds that people had. We didn't

42:26

talk about this from season one,

42:28

but that was there was a gay character in season

42:30

one in that. He

42:31

has three pages. Dorman. Right.

42:32

Sure. Dorman. And that was That

42:34

was also a big deal at the time because you just did not see

42:37

a young gay person

42:39

on TV being represented, you know, just

42:41

as a Well, thank

42:42

you. authentically. Exactly. Right.

42:44

Not in, like, kind of a Hollywood, you know,

42:46

sort of trumped up way. Right. So

42:48

I think

42:49

all of that has been an

42:51

incredible valuable service. But I think

42:53

to your earlier point that in

42:56

general within that genre,

42:58

you know, it it quickly morphed

43:00

into people using reality TV to get

43:02

attention to make a

43:04

comeback if they had been, let's say, an actor

43:06

and kind of like stopped

43:09

getting jobs. Like, there are certainly people

43:11

who use reality TV to be

43:14

attention grabbers. And that's, I

43:16

think, less of a service than some of the other

43:18

things that's capable of doing. Howard Bauchner: You know, we have

43:20

seen that

43:20

happen many times. There are those

43:22

who say, you know, some of those

43:25

people ended up

43:26

in in office.

43:27

And, you know I can't imagine who you're referring

43:29

to. You know, you could so, you know,

43:31

you could draw a straight

43:33

line from, well, you could draw

43:35

lines from the creation of the real world

43:38

to a lot that's happened in this

43:40

country over the last