First Impressions: The Surreal Life Fame Games

We all have our reality guilty pleasures; some enjoy watching dudes singing karaoke while others enjoy watching rich kids talk about how hot they are. Some people somehow find enjoyment on watching people sitting around a house and do nothing 24/7. Me, my reality bane is watching has been celebrities humiliate themselves in the hopes that they may become relevant again. And no show has been better at humiliating celebrities than the six seasons of The Surreal Life that takes singers and actors from our formative years and sticks them in a house with reality stars and other people that are less famous. Now much like the show it ripped off, The Real World, The Surreal Life is bringing back some of it’s former contestants for The Surreal Life Fame Games.

As seen with the “game” played in the first episode, the show is about how much fame one has or what they will do to hang onto it. In the inaugural game, the ten Surreal Lifers had to be picked by a group of thirty random people to get a picture taken with. Who had Vanilla Ice getting the most photos? But anyways. Then the bottom three with the least amount of pictures would then have a mini game where the two losers would be banished to the “B-List” which, let’s face it, would be an upgrade for pretty much everyone in the cast. But they let the non-losers pretend they are still on the “A-List” in the lavish part of the house where the “B-List” part looked more like a low rent motel.

Ironically the biggest fame seekers, the token reality star, none of them were selected for these games. Instead the contestants were primarily made up of the token actor from the eighties and the token rocker or rapper. From season one we get Emmanuel Lewis (Webster). From the second season there is Vanilla Ice (Ice, Ice Baby), Traci Bingham (Baywatch), and Ron Jeremy (porn). After Jordon Knight (NKOTB) dropped out for personal reasons Brigitte Nielsen (Red Sonja) is the lone representative from season three. Chyna Doll (wrestler) and Verne Troyer (Mini-Me), who replaced Knight, are from season four. Pepa (Push It) is the only one who survived the infamous season five. Then C.C. DeVille (Poison) and Andrea Lowell (Playboy TV) are from the latest season.

Wait, no Flavor Flav? How can VH1 do a reality show without Flavor Flav?

Back to the game, I’m really not sure what the rules of the game are. Supposedly someone gets kicked off the show until there is only one celeb left. But all that happened was two contestants, Chyna and Mini-Me, were banished to the B-List but weren’t eliminated, or so I took from it. And instead of all the other celebrity editions game show, the person the wins gets to keep the money, and is not playing for charity which is something cheap. Couldn’t they have at least gone halfsies?

Verdict: Complete and utter trash. And I’ll be watching every week despite the disturbing Brigitte and Chyna hookup in the first episode. Go Webster! The Surreal Life Fame Games airs Sundays at 9:00 on VH1 and will most likely be repeated contantly throughout the week and will probably have twenty marathons before Groundhog’s Day.