Tim has been a veritable font (fount?) of great ideas lately. Here's one I particularly liked (note: I changed Tim's terminology to make it just a little more prime-time friendly):
"focus on the the crap
focus on the people who buy it
e.g., i saw a kitted blanket that had a picture of a
ram standing on top of a mountain. show the host
standing next to the blanket, and he/she says, "who
buys this crap?"
host interviews several people, all of whom say
something like, "i'd never buy that," or, "i'd never
buy that crap."
host finds someone who says they like the picture of
the ram on the mountain.
host offers to pay for half of the cost on the
condition that they can interview the person AND go
into their home and look at, and talk about, all of
their other crap.
host makes the person think that they're on some
Martha Stewart interior decorating show.
host goes into home. whenever the person turns their
back on the host, the host looks into the camera and
starts to laugh."
Mary adds: I would definitely watch that. My only suggestions would be to make it more like a hidden camera thing, where you wait until someone actually buys it, then you jump out and say, "Surprise! You're on "Who Buys That Crap"!!" and the people would be so thrilled to be on teevee, they'd let you come home with them even if you didn't pay for half.
The beauty of it is: it could have an anti-consumption message, and maybe eventually it would make people think twice about purchasing horrible crap? Or anyway, you'd see crap at the store and you'd think: "There's no way there isn't a hidden camera somewhere." HGTV would love it.
