Oh my god. Oh my god? Oh my god. I have so much to say.
My mom and I have made it a habit of watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette for the past few years. Sometimes, we’ll look at the other shows on the same channel to see if there’s any other awful content for us to consume. This past June, after The Bachelorette, we found an absolute garbage fire: a reboot of The Dating Game called The Celebrity Dating Game. This show is, as it would seem, just the dating game but instead of regular, boring, gross people, it had CELEBRITIES (please gasp, I don’t think you saw this coming).
For those of you unfamiliar with The Dating Game, allow good ol’ Belle to lend you a hand. Essentially, this game show consists of one person sitting in a fun little stool center stage and three potential bachelors or bachelorettes behind a partition, out of sight from the person center stage. The person asks all three people questions and, based on the answers they give and not their looks, they choose one of the three people to go on a date with. It’s kinda cute, not really anything too exciting but, hey, it honestly doesn’t need to be.
Now The Celebrity Dating Game takes this concept and keeps three regular, boring, gross people behind the partition BUT puts a celebrity in the little stool center stage. This is less cute, but it can’t be THAT bad, right? Wrong. Let me tell you why this is a literal garbage fire of a television program.
For starters: the hosts. The main host is everyone’s favorite quirky woman and wife of a Property Brother, Zooey Deschanel, who could not be more obvious to the fact that she is not even trying. After the three common people meet the big sexy celeb and two are sent away since the big sexy celeb didn’t choose them, Zooey will always, every single time, say “Go get some ice cream!” to the two losers and, personally, I think that shit got old after the first fucking time, Zooey. Then, by the piano to the left of the celebrity, we have Michael Bolton, who hasn’t moved a muscle since I was born. Michael is simply there to sit in his chair entirely motionless, read the jokes from the teleprompters once every five minutes, and flash a smile with nothing behind it. Not only that, but every mystery celebrity and the three people behind the partition who have to guess who the celebrity is are blessed with a song from Michael. This song usually parodies famous love songs—sometimes his own—and describes the mystery celebrity to the three people after their heart. This song either gives every single detail about the celebrity away possible or doesn’t give anyone one smidge of relevant information. He stands to sing this song but hardly moves at ALL. These two have TERRIBLE chemistry. They try to play off each other and make jokes like they’re buddies but you can just tell how awkward the environment they create is. Pretty much every episode, Zooey says, “No, you can’t choose Michael!” and everyone will force themselves to laugh. That check must be enormous.
Not only are the hosts hard to watch, but the contestants are as well. This includes the celebrities; they aren’t exempt from being cringe. The celebrities always are either too enthusiastic about being there or clearly are just doing it for the exposure. Very few celebrities fall right in that sweet spot between the two where they’re actually bearable to watch. The three people behind the partition are more likely to behave relatively normally compared to the celebrity, but not by much. The questions were mostly nonsensical like, “If I were a lump of bread dough, how would you kneed me juuuust right??” A lot of weird sexual food questions for people the celebrity had no sexual tension with. Then they’d answer sexually and the celebrity would laugh like they weren’t expecting it. Like bro we get it, you get off by being treated like a little lump of steak that needs to be seasoned, drop the fucking act.
I remember two celebrities off of the top of my head that I actually enjoyed watching: Gabriel Iglesias and Margaret Cho. Both are comedians whose comedy I haven’t really listened to, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, they both were very pleasant and treated it like they wanted to be there just the right amount and actually seemed to have some real, genuine fun with it in a way that didn’t make me feel like I was watching a car wreck I couldn’t look away from. All of their potential bachelors and bachelorettes were all very likeable, normal people—well, except for one man on Margaret Cho’s episode who my mom and I are convinced did a line or two or three before he stepped on stage. Once he left after not being picked, my mom looked at me and simply said, “He makes me so nervous”.
Some celebrities shocked me or disappointed me. The biggest shock was David Koechner. You’re telling me this man’s Anchorman money ran out?? Like I believe that shit. Two disappointing ones for me were Nolan Gould and Marcus Scribner, but mostly because I watched both Modern Family and Black-ish with my family sometimes in middle school and I had a pretty big crush on both of them. Also, they’re around my age. Should I be on national TV asking people how they’d kiss me if I was an apple or some shit just to go on one mediocre date? Is that something I should be thinking about along with finding a job and finding a place to live? Should Michael Bolton sing a song about me that reveals all my personal information and my social security number too??
I did ask my mom for her input, as she and I experienced the same hell together in watching this weekly. Here’s what she had to say:
Anyways, I’m tired of celebrities being in things. I’m tired. Get them out.
