Should have bought trip insurance

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on June 22nd, 2006

A Charleston Gazette story, subtitled “Mild-Mannered Insurance Agent Tries Hand At Standup,” tells the story of Dave Stacy, who gets his second shot at Reality TV fame by appearing on The Travel Channel’s This Job’s a Trip (tonight at 8 PM EDT). Apparently appearing on (childhood buddy) Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days was not enough for Stacy. So, he wangled a trip to Hollywood via the show that “puts unlikely people into fantasy jobs they’ve dreamed of for years.”

Mind you, this is his second experience with Reality TV, but he’s still surprised when he ends up in H-wood, degraded, miserable and “so discouraged he nearly packed up and went home.” Stacy says he was looking forward to what he thought “was going to be all-expense-paid comedy camp.”

Instead, Stacy was put through a series of trying ordeals in front of the camera, including trying to be funny on street corners and other unlikely locations.

“The next thing you know, I’m on the stage at the Hollywood Improv,” Stacy said. There was little training and virtually no time to prepare. “I literally wrote the material two hours before I went on.”

Sounds familiar. Reality TV has turned into one episode of TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes after another, only less funny (if you can imagine that). The Reality fad has lasted far longer than anyone could have predicted. By now, it should have morphed into that interactive soap opera that was depicted in “Rollerball”… or was it “Fahrenheit 451”? Or both?

“They say 50 percent of those people who have tried the Improv either throw up or have just thrown up,” says Stacy. Who is feeding him this tidbit? No doubt one of the show’s producers… hoping that, through the power of suggestion, they would actually have their subject ralph on camera… now that‘s compelling TV! Or… the producer only goes to the Improv on Funniest Bulimic in L.A. Night.

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