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LCS: Rigged? So says Star-Trib
A sharp-eyed MPLS reader sent us a link to a story in the Star-Turbine by Neal Justin. No shock that we find out that the “reality” series is rigged.
Following the Minneapolis auditions, judges Brian Baumgartner and Kate Flannery, stars of “The Office,” went behind closed doors, presumably to come to a consensus.
When they returned after more than a half-hour of deliberation, I was stunned by their choices. So was Acme comedy club owner Louis Lee, who has some of the sharpest ears in the business.
Turns out they weren’t working alone. The two admitted afterward that producers played a significant role in making the final call and that they were frustrated that some of their favorites were passed over.
In an earlier season, when Drew Carey and Brett Butler went apeshit for the cameras after their choices were bulldozed, we weren’t sure if it was theater or genuine controversy. Either choice looked bad for the show and the show’s producers. (It was bad theater or it was fairly contrived controversy.)
Justin wonders aloud, “These tweaks are nothing compared with the quiz-show scandals of the 1950s. But I do think it’s time to reserve the title of “reality” for only the purest of documentary shows. The rest belong in a new category: Tainted TV.”
But we wonder just why they feel compelled to frame the entire show in the way they do– in the now-hackneyed “reality” format. Why not just bill the show as a contest (ala Star Search), cast the show with whomever you’d like to see compete (with input from agents, managers, suits, etc.– all behind closed doors) and then have a damn contest.
Cutforth and Lipsitz are capable of producing quality reality television (Top Chef), so it’s a mystery as to why this one is so hamhanded and obviously rigged. (Perhaps it’s the meddling from NBC.)
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my only problem with it is that the general public THINKS it is real and full of the funniest comics. Which makes the state of comedy seem poor. Pretty doesn’t always equal funny.
RE: Enforcer.Of the people who have actually made it through the audition process to make the “cast” of the any season of LCS–who would you say wasn’t funny?Granted–I think we could all point to people FUNNIER than some of the people who made the cast. (And this season will be no exception.)But which comedians who actually made the cast of each season do you feel is “not funny.” And, were they the pretty ones?Is it possible that “out of a selection of funny people” some may be pretty and some not so…and that some of the pretty ones get put on tv more readily than others?Here’s another thought to consider. What do people who dedicate themselves to watching reality tv shows want? Do they watch for the supposed reason behind the show…or do they get caught up in the interpersonal relationships most of all?I think an argument can be made that “comedy competition” is just the Macguffin. That’s why you can have the same basic show be popular for singing, clothes designing, cooking, dog grooming, dating, weight losing, magic making–it’s not like America necessarily has deep seated, across the board interests in each of those things.As far as people thinking that it’s “real”…I don’t know.Does it bother me when, after a good show, I get audience members asking me why I’m not on Last Comic Standing? A little. But most people know that reality tv isn’t real–that the American Idol winners aren’t the best singers, that the Top Chef winners aren’t the best chefs…etc. (If they were…and if the competition was pure, wouldn’t they’d have the previous season’s champion defend their crown?)I think it can be fun to bicker about LCS…and to bitch to holy hell while watching it (indeed, that’s what I plan on doing starting this Thursday)…but it is what it is…and it isn’t anything more than that.There’s nothing different about complaining about “how some people don’t deserve the breaks they get compared to other people who don’t get the breaks they deserve” whether it’s “who gets Sullivan” or “who gets Carson” or “who gets Premium Blend” or “who gets LCS”. Getting the show doesn’t mean you’re necessarily better than those who didn’t. Not getting the show doesn’t mean that you’re not necessarily as good as those who did. And thinking that life, much less comedy, is ever going to be fair is an exercise in futility.
Speaking of which, Enforcer…you want to come over and watch the show at my house? We’ll get a bunch of comics together…serve up some beer and regret. It should be a good time.🙂
Actually, neither Cutforth nor Lipsitz are doing LCS this year.
They did last year’s season, but not this year.
This year, they’ve bumped up Javier Winnik, Page Hurwitz and Noel Guerra to control the franchise on behalf of Katz/Engel this year.
Some of them have worked with the Elves in the past, but all of the information available to me indicates that this is NOT an official Magical Elves production this year.
As far as the “LCS is rigged” thing goes…there are three responses.
1) Of course.
2) Not really.
3) Does it matter?
ALL THREE OF THOSE ANSWERS ARE ESSENTIALLY CORRECT.<>
1) Of course, LCS is a reality show that is cast for maximum ratings. It is NOT a pure competition where the most talented performers are determined in a purely objective and scientific method.
Any comedian who has been put through the LCS auditions process KNOWS that they’re not really hiding the fact that they’re looking for “something” and that the “something” they’re looking for isn’t necessarily “who’s the funniest”–or, at best, it isn’t the ONLY thing that they’re looking for.
A pure competition wouldn’t change the rules DURING the competition, which happened this year during the audition process–merely to help the process of casting the show.
A pure competition wouldn’t drop some of the people who advanced through their auditions based merely on the fact that too many of “the same type” have made it through–that’s done merely to help the process of casting the show.
So, when someone cries “Hey, they didn’t pick the people I think were the funniest!”–the appropriate response is “DUH.”
Of course, LCS isn’t “real.”
2) LCS may be “cast”, as all reality shows are, but I don’t think anyone has ever suggested that the people who run the fan voting (once the show gets to the point where elimination decisions are given to the general public) has been manipulated by the producers.
The past couple of LCS seasons have given more time to “America votes” part of the competition–and I haven’t read ANYWHERE that there are questions about whether or not those results are as “legitimate” as any such vote might be.
(And if anyone thinks that America is “taking careful measure of who is legitimately the funniest when they cast their phone and internet votes”…and not just picking the people they like…there’s really no hope for us, is there?)
Once you get past the “casting” process of the show–<><>LCS isn’t really “rigged.”<><>
3) Every summer, NBC gives up an hour a week of their prime time to celebrating a group of stand-up comedians. The comedians on that show see their fan base increase and comedy clubs gain a new crop of performers who can draw (at least for awhile) on their name recognition.
And no one is actually proclaiming the winners of LCS to be anything more than simple that–the person who won a reality tv show competition. It isn’t a travesty of justice that is hoodwinking the public or denying the righteous from something they deserve–it is JUST the results of a television show…and as such is no more important than it is.
So, the show is cast. So, the show isn’t a pure competition. So, some people should get the recognition that goes to other (usually younger, usually more telegenic) people get.
Does it matter?
This is the sixth season of LCS. To paraphrase Denny Green, LCS is what we think it is. It is EXACTLY what we think it is…and it is still on the air.
It is nothing more than a semi-successful summer replacement television show this is marginally about this wonderful thing that we do.
It is no more “real” than other reality shows are about what they cover (and must be just as frustrating for the people who cook, or design clothes, or cut hair, or dance, or sing, or do magic, or groom dogs, etc.)
It isn’t going to change to try to please us.
(Although there IS a “house” again this year…)
And here’s the big question for anyone who is getting all worked up about LCS.
Would a version of LCS where it WAS a pure competition from the beginning to the end get better ratings than the current version of LCS?
I may have tried out for this year’s LCS, but I don’t know if I would have wanted to watch me on tv.
–seattle
In an interview I did with Alonzo Bodden last year, he said this:
GM: Is it just you, Kathleen and Ant that have the final say?
AB: No. We’re kind of the screeners. The producers of the show get involved and so on. But we pick who makes it in the daytime.
So the judges have very little responsibility, it seems. They pick which of the auditioners get to move on to the evening showcase. Big deal. But it’s slightly dishonest to only show those judges at the showcase when it’s not even them making the decision. Sends the wrong impression, and most likely deliberately so.
I should say PG that I wasn’t referencing that they put pretty people on the show I was referencing the fact that they are using other factors to decide who is on the show then funny. I don’t know what they are looking for to be honest. There have been some awful comics on that show I won’t name names. and some ok comics I frankly find the majority of them to be at best uninteresting. The kind of acts that I can’t even remember after they finish. That doesn’t mean that the people on the show don’t deserve fame or whatever. I could care less about that. The world is unfair and the show is shitty who cares. I’m not expecting anything more or less. Good for them. Oh and I’m not coming over. I don’t watch the show I’ve only seen parts of a couple years I don’t really like the show and I’m not going to watch it this year. I will probably check out a couple of shows to see how friends are doing in it but I think the show as a whole is shite.
I think I should make something clear.I’m not “happy” about the process that produces LCS nor am I all that happy with the end product.I understand it…and I’ve come to the point where I no longer see any particular value in being angry about it…but don’t confuse that with me approving of it. Guy, you’re absolutely right–the “celebrity talent scouts” have never been much more than window dressing… Never will that be more clear than this year–and, at the same time, never will those celebrity talent scouts be more on display than this year.But, please, remember that argument the next time one of our fellow comedians says something like “What does the third billed actor on NBC’s ‘Chuck’ know about stand-up comedy? This show is a farce!”–The show may indeed be a farce, but which is it…is it because the celebrity talent scouts aren’t actually judging or is it because the celebrity talent scouts don’t know anything about stand-up?And, Enforcer, you point out how the majority of the comedians who make it onto the show are “uninteresting”. I can see how that argument could be made, although I think we both could pick out a good amount of comics who made the show that ARE interesting.…and would the ratio of “interesting” vs. “uninteresting” be any different in real life than it is on the show?And, you know what would be worse than what LCS is right now? A show filled with what a network executive would classify as “interesting.” Imagine an entire season peppered by the “Freak Parade” that the audition line has been cultivated into being. LCS is an elimination competition–meaning that you don’t “win” so much as you try not to lose. That, my inherent process, means that participants aren’t encouraged to make the interesting choices…they’re more likely to consistently make the safe choices, hoping not to be eliminated. Add to that that you never see performers do more than 5 minutes at any one time…means that you rarely get anything more than pre-scripted and safe micro-showcase sets…and if they stay on the show, they have to keep coming up with more and more of these 5 minute showcase sets… The audience at home gets to watch the same people do basically the same thing every week. It is a recipe for uninterestingness…as far as the comedy part of the show is concerned.What reality tv is about, for the people who watch reality tv…is storylines and interpersonal relationships. When America votes, they don’t vote for funniest…they vote for nicest. Yet, when America WATCHES, they watch for conflict…they watch to hate the villain and all the awful things they say or do to the nice one(s).All comedians who put themselves into the LCS process are really allowing themselves to be used by the show producers for them to do what they do (which is simply to create a show that delivers cost-effective ratings to the network–it just so happens that in this particular case, they’re doing so with a supposed contest for stand-up comedy)…with the hope that the end result of allowing themselves to be used is that there will be some increase in recognition that helps those comedians in their career after the show ends. That’s a choice that we make to be part of the process–and we should know by now, in its sixth season, exactly what that process is and what our function would be.If anyone thinks that America is being hoodwinked into thinking that this show actually is trying to find the funniest stand-up comedian…America lets you know every season, with its votes, that it doesn’t really care who is the funniest…so, they can’t possibly be hoodwinked.
I guess my Seattle-based LCS watching party will be down one Enforcer.:(
On the other hand, I seem to remember another tv watching party–a Super Bowl party–where the Enforcers presence meant I got an eye-full of much more than just football… So, perhaps it’s best.
LCS exists solely to make money for the producers and not to further the art of stand-up. But if talented comics can get a career boost as a byproduct of the show, even if people I didn’t think were very good made it further, I’m fine with that.