One More Trashing and One Last Trophy

One Last Existential Moment, One More Trashing, and One Last Trophy Make the B-listers Household Names, if Nothing Else by Roxanne McDonald

One unlikely decision by Ron Jeremy plus more destructive outburst for miscreant Rob’s road make for one unexpected grand prize winner, permanent A-lister, Traci Bingham, and wrap up “Surreal Life Fame Games.”

The grand finale of “Surreal Life Fame Games” remained true to the definition of the word “finale” as much as Rob remained consistent and true to his viewers’ anticipation of his fits.

The four finalists, Rob Van Winkle, a. k. a. Vanilla Ice, Traci Bingham, Pepa, and Ron Jeremy, are put to the final tasks:

A scripting promo for the number one sponsor of the show, GoldenPalace.net

Rob rewrites the whole thing, and delivers a speedy 31-second ad.
Traci just wears a GoldenPalace.net crop-top and acts really cute.
Pepa delivers a serious come-on, from a seated position.
Ron is also a sober salesman, adding, “…and it’s free!”

A focus group session

The host asks the group to determine which ad is most compelling:

About Rob’s ad—one says she always thought he was hot; another says he is modern, what with his tats and all. Rob’s delivery makes another want to seriously check out the Golden Palace for free lessons in poker, etc..
About Ron’s ad—the group laughs. They know he’s a porn star, one says; they know of his endowment, another adds. But another says he is sleazy, and still another admits to not hearing a word, being too busy looking at him and thinking about all of the above.

Traci’s ad performance—one guy is so riveted, all he can say when the clip is done is “I’m sold.” The host asks for associations, and one tester, unaware of what associations means, I guess, says she believed what Traci was saying. Another says the boobs were a major distraction, while a third or fourth guy says it didn’t matter what she was selling…. Uh-oh.

Pepa’s ad performance—they were pretty raw with Pepa, saying everything from how they didn’t believe her at all because she appeared to trying to act instead of “talking to us” to how she looked like she was trying to be sexy [just because she followed Traci?] and wasn’t sexy at all to someone saying, “I don’t know her; I didn’t know her; I don’t want to know her.”

Traci turns to Rob and asks what is up with his winning everything, and “Are you [even] human?”

But Rob does not win. Traci does. Nooo, this isn’t where he flips out. Hold on. It gets better.
This puts Traci out of harm’s way, leaving the other three to have to vote one of the other’s off the show. As Leach suggests, they have to act as A-listers might, stabbing others in the back to move forward….

Rob has no apparent issues with this; Pepa is not all that thrilled; but Ron is brooding and very troubled: Rob has been his closest friend, but Pepa is also a kind of friend, and he is so not into hurting either one of them—so he comes up with what he thinks will be clever strategy, voting himself off…as Pepa will vote off Rob, Rob will vote off Pepa, and they will have a three-way tie. Not to get all Jean Paul Sartre, but that is not choosing, is being in bad faith (mauvais fois), Ron. It aint gonna work.

And it doesn’t. As they gather for the voting, prefaced by a Survivor-kind of lecture, Leach’s game show girl hands each of them TWO chips, each chip with the name of the other two players, so Ron has a chip with Rob on it and a chip with Pepa on it, and he must choose the castaway. Ohhh, the other is the drainhole of my existence, you can almost read on his stunned face.
Now the cameras take a moment to show us the last loving discourse between Ron and Rob, which includes Ron saying “on my mother’s grave,” he is not voting his best buddy off.

What does he do? Votes Rob off.

Yes, folks, the apoplexy and rage combined could not have been scripted better: crash goes a studio chair. Whoosh and in comes Rob with the base or bass drum, which he attempts (?) to bring down over Ron’s head. Then more shattering sounds—glass tables, mirrors, the rest of the drum set, and Jerry Springer body/security guards come out to chase Van Winkle around the set.

Back to Reality
The next challenge, now with Pepa, Traci, and Ron, has Ron looking over his shoulder a few anxious times as the challenge begins. The goal is to identify how many hits on Google each of every one of the houseguests has received, thereby establishing who is “most” and who is “least” “famous”.
The results of the game—which Pepa loses—are as follows (though I didn’t get all of the numbers…you can Google and find them if you need to):

10 CC Deville
9 Traci Bingham
8 Brigitte Nielsen
7 Chyna Doll (just over 2 million hits)
6 Andrea Lowell (2,420,000—just type in the word “cheater”…sorry.)
5 Emmanuel Lewis (4,270,000 hits)
4 Pepa (4,620,000 hits)
3 Verne Troyer/MiniMe
2 Vanilla Ice
1 Ron Jeremy

Not only did Ron have the best Google ranking, then, but he also won the Back to Reality challenge, getting two or three answers correct.

Cathy Griffin, Final Judge of Who is the A- Lister

Cathy is presented by way of a dark alley Ron and Traci have to walk down, at the end of which Cathy is standing enshrouded in dark cloak, face covered, and all.

She reveals herself, has to actually introduce herself, then proceeds to put them through the rigors of a celebrity interview (with traditional behind-the-scenes Griffin editorializing that is hilarious, as usual); Academy Award acceptance speeches; a task involving [imaginary] drive-by hecklers/stalkers/paparazzi whatevers; and a “Dancing with the Stars” moment.

Then Cathy sends Ron down one alley and Traci down another, the alley ending on the street being the real back to reality and the alley leading into the balloons and confetti and big fat check room being the room for the permanent A-list celebrity.

The winner…Traci Bingham. She is not as she had reported someone called her, the black Baywatch Babe. She is a real celebrity now.

I don’t know. The whole thing was so…anticlimactic, I guess.

But nevertheless, a way to enjoy reality TV and celebrities of some register doing things we commoners do, including having our feelings eposed and hurt.

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