Has it felt like entirely too many years since you’ve gotten a chance to vicariously live through a celebrity for a while by exploring their giant houses on MTV’s Cribs? Well, guess what? The show is coming back once more, and I know there’s something that’s different about it, but I can’t tell what it is. The name is the same, so that’s not it. Same network. Oh, I know what it is. Instead of actually airing on your televisions, Cribs is now going to be a series exclusive to the Snapchat social media service. Keepin’ it youthful.
Cribs, which was a TV mainstay throughout much of the early 2000s, will hit Snapchat Discover this June, and fans can expect to find a new episode every week. To be expected, these Cribs Snaps aren’t going to be 20+ minutes like the original series’ episodes were, and while no time duration was given, it’s called a “short-form” series, so do with that what you will. This is one of several projects created in the wake of MTV parent company Viacom’s deal with Snapchat earlier this year.
Even though the platform is bafflingly different than the original form, Cribs isn’t making any startling changes to the basic set-up. In this version, episodes will feature celebrities taking viewers/users through their presumably lavish homes with signature flourishes, only this time looking more vertical than the 4:3 ratio of most TVs back in 2000 when Cribs started. And there obviously won’t be any giant crews that need to come together to get the show made, since each episode’s tour guide and cameraman will be the homeowner.
There are already a few hosts lined up for when the retooled show premieres, as well. According to Variety, the first celebs doing their domestic online duties are rapper Mac Miller, rapper Travis Mills and pop singer-songwriter Austin Mahone. The latter has a couple of web shows under his belt already, so this should be a breeze for him.
Let’s hope this pick-up means each of the original runs of Cribs either hit streaming sites or start getting repeats on MTV again. Some of those early episodes are definitely worth reliving, particularly the ones where things got weird. Oddball instances, like Ja Rule’s episode in a house that wasn’t even his, just couldn’t be replicated elsewhere, and who can forget Mariah Carey’s hour-long trip into Lalaland?
It’s been a huge day for MTV, which is countering years of negative press and bad ratings by returning to its music roots with a revised programing slate that will both embrace shows of old like Unplugged and new ones like the live music series Wonderland. These changes were promised not too long ago, and it’s good to see that MTV president Sean Atkins held up his end of the bargain. We’ll have to wait and see how things go, but the network already won viewers over today by cutting tonight’s programming to air music videos and Purple Rain to honor the late musical genius Prince.
So get Snapchat on your mobile devices if you haven’t yet, and get ready to get googly-eyed at the lives of the rich and famous again this June.
