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New shows offer look into ‘celebreality’

Unlike some fellow B-listers, former “Happy Days” star and ‘80s teen heartthrob Scott Baio had long spurned reality TV.

No longer. Baio will be the latest star to bare his celebrity soul on VH1’s “Scott Baio Is 45 ... and Single ”next month.

“I didn’t want to do a reality show. The concepts were always meaningless, and the people seemed pathetic,” Baio says. “Maybe I’m a little pathetic. But this isn’t Scott Baio getting a colonoscopy. It’s about a guy trying to get his life together, trying to figure out why he’s never been married and what his problem is.”

Baio’s series - part “Broken Flowers”, part “High Fidelity - is a raw look at the back story of one of Hollywood’s most prolific serial daters. A therapist and past lovers ranging from former “Playboy” playmates to actresses Erin Moran and Nicole Eggert also star in Baio’s made-for-TV journey of self-discovery.

It’s the latest in a string of warts-and-all reality programming better known as “celebreality,” a small-but-growing TV staple since 2002’s “The Surreal Life” and “The Osbournes” premiered to huge cable-channel audiences, particularly among the young demographic advertisers covet.

While no one is clamoring for a 24/7 Celebreality Channel just yet, viewers are in for a big summer dose of the genre:

• VH1 will pair “Baio” with “Rock of Love With Bret Michaels,” aimed to help the frontman for heavy-metal band Poison attract women - as if he needed any help.

• Bravo Network will showcase “American Idol” pixie Paula Abdul as an entrepreneur and all-around go-getter in the much anticipated “Hey Paula!” and is launching a third season of comedian Kathy Griffin’s “My Life on the D-list.”

• A&E will air “The Two Coreys,” featuring former troubled-teen ’80s pinup boys Corey Haim and Corey Feldman living together.

• ABC is weighing in with NBA basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s “Shaq’s Big Challenge”, a fitness show for obese middle-schoolers, and car-race competition “Fast Cars and Superstars ”with William Shatner.

• NBC will serve up tennis pro Mark Philippoussis dating twenty- to fortysomething “kittens and cougars” in “Age of Love.”

Relatively inexpensive to produce and quick to film, celebreality can provide fast ratings boosts because even faded stars have large fan bases, TV execs say. “The concoction of nostalgia, train-wreck potential and people desperately in search of attention can yield great television,” notes Christian Drobnyk, chief programmer at cable channel TLC, whose celebreality programming is limited largely to star chefs, fashionistas and home flippers.

Shock factor wears off

Still, Drobnyk notes celebreality shows generally aren’t sustainable, and many fail to score large repeat audiences - a staple for 24/7 cable channels with limited budgets for original programming. “They’re promoted in a way that shows the shock factor,” Drobnyk says. “But once you’ve captured that, you’ve been there and done that.”

Unless they have rotating casts such as MTV’s “The Real World” or are competition-based such as ABC hit “Dancing With the Stars”, most wear thin after a season or two, he says.

Successful celebreality shows have strong stars and plotlines, even if they are a bit contrived.

“Everybody wants to be a fly on the wall in people’s homes, but it’s no good being a celebrity and opening your doors if you’re boring,” says “Osbournes” matriarch Sharon Osbourne, whose show lasted four seasons.

“I think people just like seeing celebrities being humiliated,” says Griffin, whose self-humiliation and faux self-importance are part of “D-list”’s charm. “There’s something juicy about watching celebrities who are out of control, not very bright and unbelievably self-centered.”

Griffin, a comic and actress whose career spans three decades, says “D-list” has been a great career move, providing the notoriety to help sell out live performances and secure a guest co-hosting gig on ABC morning schmooze fest “The View”. “Even on a small network like Bravo, the exposure has made me hugely more acceptable,” she says. “Before ”D-list“, people thought I was too edgy.”

The potential for positive PR on such shows as “Dancing With the Stars” also has made stars more accepting of celebreality TV. “Dancing” helped rehab the vilified image of Paul McCartney’s soon-to-be ex-wife Heather Mills and made a star of Olympian Apolo Ohno, a superstar in short-track speed-skating but little known until millions saw him win the fourth season of the top-rated show.

For others, celebreality can jump-start careers. Former talent agent Chris Coelen helped Jessica Simpson broker her MTV show “Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica.”

“It really gave her the profile she has now,” says Coelen, head of RDF/USA and Pangea Management, the production company whose reality-show stable includes “The Two Coreys,” “Shaq’s Big Challenge” and “Wife Swap.”

Career jump-starts

Haim’s last major hit was 1987 teen horror film “The Lost Boys.” He has done mostly TV cameos the past five years, after wrestling with personal demons ranging from substance abuse to obesity. “Yeah, I did drugs and got messed up. My career took a halt. I had to work some stuff out and get my head straight,” says Haim, 35. “I still have to pay some dues for my past, but (”The Two Coreys“) is an opportunity.”

The story line: Haim, unemployed, single and slovenly, moves in with Feldman and Feldman’s wife, Susie Sprague (married by fellow celebreality star M.C. Hammer on a 2002 “Surreal Life” episode) in a threesome in the style of “You, Me & Dupree”. Although Haim concedes some plotlines were contrived, he’s hoping for a payoff. “This could be a wonderful steppingstone. Will this be my entire future? Absolutely not. I’m a movie actor by birth.”

Poison’s Michaels is the latest musician to star in VH1’s successful string of dating shows and spinoffs that began with rapper Flavor Flav’s “Flavor of Love.” Michaels doesn’t need the money, notoriety or dating help, but acknowledges living with 25 women in a rented Bel Air mansion for a few weeks sounded like fun. The “women, exposure to my music and financial considerations - it all seemed to add up,” he says.

Naturally, it’s about marketing, too. The show is timed to Poison’s summer concert tour, new album release and Michaels’ upcoming solo CD.

Robert Sharenow, A&E’s head of alternative programming, says fan appeal will likely keep celebreality shows a TV staple. A&E hit “Gene Simmons Family Jewels,” featuring the Kiss frontman and his tight family, is expected to be renewed for a third season.

“These shows provide an all-access pass into what these people’s lives are like. You see camaraderie and love and friendship that’s real. You don’t see that in a scripted sitcom, where writers are laboring to get laughs from fiction,” he says.

Nothing is off-limits

Baio fretted over his show’s concept, which he calls part reality and part “Larry David”-esque sitcom, and whether it would sustain viewers, says Jason Hervey, the former “Wonder Years” child star who pitched Baio the idea and is co-producing the show through Bischoff-Hervey Entertainment.

Hervey says Baio’s nostalgic popularity and lothario reputation should make “Single” compelling. “He’s the holy grail of reality TV,” Hervey says. Mixed metaphors aside, Baio says if the series fails to attract viewers, it’s not crucial to his career or well-being.

“All I’m doing is giving people insight in what it’s like to be me,” he says. “Sure, you want people talking about you again. But professionally, if it doesn’t happen, I’ll stay home and play golf.”

So where is the genre headed? VH1 chief programmer Michael Hirschorn, who greenlit Baio’s show as well as several celebreality hits, says nothing would surprise him.

VH1 briefly considered a concept involving Joey Buttafuoco and ex-teenage lover Amy Fisher when the pair recently surfaced together, and pondered a separate pitch for a celebrity-fused quest for America’s greatest stripper. “Outrageous ideas are fun, but they also have to be grounded and relatable,” he says.

What about a show capturing Paris Hilton’s upcoming jail stint?

“I would do that in a second,” Hirschorn says.