To most people, Rob Van Winkle - a.k.a. Vanilla Ice - is best associated with his work as a 90s rapper and the artist responsible for "Ice Ice Baby," but those of us who watch the DIY channel regularly enough know the musician now spends his days fixing up homes and starring in DIY's The Vanilla Ice Project. With that in mind, it's not quite as surprising to hear that Ice is set up with a new series on the fix-it channel. But even so, Vanilla Ice Goes Amish is bound to raise some eyebrows.
It looks like DIY is looking to cut itself a slice of the Amish reality TV craze, and they're using one of their current stars to do it. Following in the footsteps of Discovery's Amish Mafia and TLC's Breaking Amish, DIY has Vanilla Ice Goes Amish in the works. According to LA Times, the series is expected to air on DIY later this year and will have Ice visiting an Amish community and presumably attempting to learn their own methods of house building and repairing. As the Amish are well known for their lack of electricity and dedicated, hardworking people, it should be interesting to see how the rapper fits in among the group.
Vanilla Ice tweeted his enthusiasm for the upcoming series this week:
Of DIY's programming, I'd put The Vanilla Ice Project among the some of the more entertaining series the network airs but not so much among some of the more educational shows. Ice seems to have a talent for home renovations and the creativity to go with it, but the series isn't really set up to teach the way some other DIY shows do. It's strength is in its entertainment value and I expect Vanilla Ice Goes Amish to be a bit more of the same, with an Amish twist. We'll have to wait and see how it looks once the trailer arrives. In the meantime, here's a look at an episode of The Vanilla Ice Project
