Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.
Through its first three seasons — in 2003, 2004 and 2013 — there was always a Pittsburgher as the mark on “The Joe Schmo Show,” a faux reality competition where all the contestants are actors except the Schmo, a regular Joe or Jane.
But for the series’ 10-episode fourth season (9 p.m. Tuesday, TBS), the Schmo is Ben Frisone, an electrician from Baltimore, who thinks he’s competing for $100,000 on the first American season of a South Korean reality show called “The GOAT.” It’s a made-up house-based competition full of ridiculous salutes and an obsession with goat theming.
“Joe Schmo” Season 4 executive producer Dave Kneebone (“The Eric Andre Show”), who is new to the series, said many of the finalists for this season’s Schmo were from the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes regions.
“I even questioned at the time, why is that?” Kneebone said. “Maybe it’s something in the personality or the demeanor of people from that region, that they have those qualities we were looking for in our hero: being a good sport, honesty, integrity.”
The irony that the similar “Jury Duty” became a minor sensation in 2023 after swiping the “Joe Schmo” concept is not lost on Kneebone. The new season of “Joe Schmo” filmed in May 2021 and sat on a shelf until now.
“As we were getting into pre-production and production, we started hearing rumors of this other show with a similar structure to it,” Kneebone said. “There are a lot of good ideas in the world, and it’s not surprising they would try to do something similar.”
Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who would go on to write the hugely successful “Deadpool” movie series, created “Joe Schmo” and return as executive producers, but Kneebone was the day-to-day showrunner.
Season 1 of “The Joe Schmo Show” followed Mt. Lebanon native Matt Kennedy Gould as he competed on a fake reality show called “Lap of Luxury,” which this season’s “The GOAT” most closely resembles. Season 2’s “Last Chance for Love” aped “The Bachelor” with a dating competition that featured Amanda Naughton Mason from Upper St. Clair. Season 3’s bounty hunter-themed “The Full Bounty” saw Lawrenceville’s Chase Rogan compete as the Schmo.
Gould did not respond by deadline to emails when I tried to catch up with him. Rogan now lives in Erie, where he’s co-owner of a Five Iron Golf franchise. Naughton Mason lives in Avonworth, where she’s raising three children and volunteering for the PTA. No “Schmo” producers contacted either of them about this new iteration.
Neither Rogan, who said he had dinner with Gould after the third season aired, nor Naughton Mason watched “Jury Duty.” Both were ambivalent about watching a new “Schmo” season, but they each recall their respective seasons fondly.
“Immediately in the aftermath, I think I felt blessed, honestly, and I don’t think my opinion has really changed over time,” Rogan said. “Rarely does it get brought up anymore, but every once in a while it comes up, and it’s just a fun thing.”
Rogan said the $100,000 he earned from the show proved to be a life-changing opportunity to invest in a business and it was also a confidence booster.
“I don’t know if you’d expect it to be or not,” Rogan said, explaining that when the ruse was revealed, producers said they chose him because he was a genuine person. “It teaches you it’s OK to be yourself and that’s good enough.”
Naughton Mason said she was shocked and a little embarrassed after the big reveal on her season, but mostly she just enjoyed the ride.
“It was a ton of fun, and I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Naughton Mason said. “People randomly recognizing me for that small 15 minutes of fame definitely cured me of any dreams of fame.”
Kneebone said he didn’t reach out to any of the past Schmoes but producers did consult some of the actors and writers from past seasons.
“We talked about their challenges, what worked, what didn’t work, what cautionary tales they could share with us,” Kneebone said. “It was extremely insightful and helpful. One thing (they mentioned) was that for the cast and the hero (Schmo) in the show, it becomes very real, so be careful with people’s emotions. That’s something we tried hard to take care with.”
Unlike “Jury Duty,” which went behind the scenes to show the producers only in the final episode, “Joe Schmo” has always toggled back and forth between showing the actors pretending to be house guests and the producers behind the scenes. It also shows the actors out-of-character discussing their reactions to the Schmo’s responses to situations and how those responses can upend plans, leading to script rewrites.
Featured Local Businesses
This season, the actors seem less disciplined than in the past, cracking up during the eviction ceremony that ends each of the first three episodes made available for review.
“Over and over again, we told them, ‘You have to treat this seriously,’ ” Kneebone said, “and they couldn’t keep their wits about them. We thought, they’re gonna blow this. But over time, it ended up that it didn’t really affect the outcome. Ben thought it was nervous laughter or that they were crying.”
While the first three seasons featured comedian Ralph Garman as the host, the fourth season replaced Garman with Cat Deeley (“So You Think You Can Dance”).
“We love Ralph and tried to get him back in a different role, but Ralph’s a celebrity and he’s recognizable as being affiliated with this show,” Kneebone said. “The stakes are extremely high in this thing, and we wanted to build a reality for Ben from the ground up, something that would not be detectable to him as a potential prank. … Cat comes with a whole authenticity and expertise of her own. When you see Cat Deeley, she’s obviously a famous television host, and it adds credibility to this show we’re trying to build around Ben.”