With the return of The Joe Schmo Show, high-concept prank reality shows are having a moment
Freevee's Jury Duty became a hit, and now everyone's doing a prank show with some kind of twist
Jury Duty premiered relatively recently on Amazon’s Freevee platform, single-handedly reviving a reality TV format that had been dormant pretty much ever since The Joe Schmo Show had finished its run on the network formerly known as Spike at the turn of the millennium. We’re referring to reality TV shows that are based entirely—or almost entirely—on high-concept pranks. Or, you know, higher-concept than something like Impractical Jokers, which is about as low-concept as the “not” jokes that tickled Borat so much.
But the thing that made Jury Duty special is that there didn’t seem to be a mean bone in its body. The boys on Impractical Jokers just like making each other look like fools. Ashton Kutcher was doing the same thing to his celebrity buddies on Punk’d, and (if you buy the argument that it’s a prank show) John Quiñones What Would You Do? is the exact same thing but it’s about shame instead of laughs. Jury Duty was all about trying to prank a guy who just wants to be nice and friendly with everyone he meets, which effectively made it impossible, which in turn made him and everyone around him seem that much more likable.
As we wrote at the time, it was like witnessing a shift in the general level of decency among the kinds of people we’re putting on TV. No longer are they weirdos to be mocked and dissected like dead piglets in a high school classroom! Now they are human beings that we can respect and relate to! It’s clear from Jury Duty’s success (both creatively and in viral meme-y power) that something a bit more cruel like the original Joe Schmo Show would never work today.
So it’s a bit of a surprise that they’re bringing back The Joe Schmo Show. And not only are they bringing it back, but it was already filmed—meaning the revival idea predated Jury Duty and the WGA strike—and its announcement trailer promises it’s “coming soon.” The new Joe Schmo focuses on a guy named Ben who thinks he’s on a Big Brother-style “everyone lives in a house” reality competition called The Goat, when in reality all of the other contestants are actors and the challenges he has to compete in are all rigged in some way.