There are some days when this job really does feel like I should be writing for The Onion. Hollywood’s development slate was already ridiculous enough, what with big-screen movies coming down the pike based on children’s toys such as the Magic 8-Ball and the game Battleship. Now, however, I log on to check the morning’s latest news and discover Variety reporting that The CW is developing a show called Extreme Musical Chairs.
I’ll pause a moment to let that sink in.
Yes, musical chairs. As in, that game you played in kindergarten, the very same. Except this version is “extreme,” you see. What exactly constitutes an extreme version of musical chairs, I hear you ask, and quite rightly so. Perhaps spikes unexpectedly burst out of one of the seats periodically? Maybe the contestants are being chased by half-starved Rottweilers that have been specifically trained not to attack anyone in the seated position. Could it be that the loser is publically broken on the rack at the end of each round?
I kid, of course. The real version of Extreme Musical Chairs will “transform the popular children's game into a physically demanding competition with multiple rounds of elimination set in an indoor obstacle course.” What’s that? You say that sounds even stupider than any of my suggestions? Well, that’s hardly my place to judge. If you’d like to know who’s responsible for this guaranteed masterpiece, you can thank Phil Gurin, Richard Joel and Deena Dill. Gurin previously gave us such titans of the genre as Shark Tank and The Singing Bee.
There’s been a lot of talk these days about how Hollywood is all out of ideas. I think that this story proves that to be false. Hollywood has tons of ideas. It’s just that they’re super determined to greenlight the dumbest of them.
In the meantime, stay tuned for Extreme Hide and Go Seek, coming this Spring to Fox.
(Image via Allison Achauer/Shutterstock)
