11 items
Nitro, Zap, Laser, Turbo, Ice — spandex-clad giants with names like energy drinks, and the ordinary people who tried to beat them at Joust, Powerball and the Eliminator. American Gladiators ran in syndication from 1989 to 1996, a popular success the critics panned, and every kid who watched knew exactly which gladiator they would be.
Tyra Banks turned the fashion industry into a weekly elimination bloodsport: makeover meltdowns, impossible photo shoots, and a panel that could end a dream with one photograph. And in 2005 it produced the eruption that outlived the whole series — "we were all rooting for you!"
Tiny plastic chunks with names like 'Mosh' and 'Cyclops' that you flicked at one another across playground asphalt. Crazy Bones were the pogs that came after pogs — just as collectible, just as fiercely traded, and just as likely to get you banned from school.
The ballroom show that made Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba, and Bruno Tonioli household names. ABC's Dancing with the Stars premiered June 1, 2005, as a six-celebrity summer experiment, and within a year its finales were pulling 27 million viewers.
Gordon Ramsay screaming at a line of sweating cooks over an undercooked plate while a hundred diners wait, the red team against the blue team, and a chef's jacket hung on a hook under a photo that bursts into flames. Fox's 2005 import of Ramsay's British show made him America's most famous angry chef, even if critics and former contestants say the anger is played up for the cameras.
Fox's 2003 prank on The Bachelor: twenty women competed in a French château for a bachelor they were told was a millionaire, who was actually construction worker Evan Marriott. If the last woman standing still wanted him after the reveal, the two split $1 million. More than 30 million people watched the finale, and the sequel proved the trick only worked once.
"Make it work." Heidi Klum's double air kiss and "Auf Wiedersehen," Tim Gunn pacing the Parsons workroom, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia on the judging panel, and a dozen designers sewing cocktail dresses out of grocery-store finds against the clock. Bravo's 2004 sleeper hit turned fashion design into a sport and won a Peabody for it.
The competition show that threw The Real World and Road Rules casts into the same arena and let them fight it out for cash. Premiering on MTV on April 20, 1998, it evolved through several names — from Road Rules: All Stars to Real World/Road Rules Challenge to, eventually, just The Challenge — and became a physical, strategic, elimination-driven staple of MTV's 2000s lineup. Improbably, the spin-off outlived both of the shows that created it.
Poison frontman Bret Michaels, a bandanna, a mansion and 25 women in the Flavor of Love mold, competing in challenges for a date and a backstage pass to his heart. VH1's Rock of Love with Bret Michaels ran three seasons from 2007, the last one on tour buses, and left behind a trashed mansion, a lawsuit and a whole wing of celebreality spin-offs.
The CBS reality-competition show that premiered in 2000 and kicked off the modern reality-TV boom. Contestants are stranded in remote locations, split into rival tribes, and compete in challenges while voting each other out at Tribal Council. Host Jeff Probst's iconic catchphrase "The tribe has spoken" and the show's tagline "outwit, outplay, outlast" became part of the cultural lexicon.
The boardroom reality-competition that made "You're fired!" a national catchphrase. Premiering on NBC on January 8, 2004, and produced by Survivor mastermind Mark Burnett, it pitted contestants against one another in business tasks — running lemonade stands, marketing products, managing teams — with the loser of each week sent home from a tense boardroom showdown. The winner walked away with a one-year, $250,000 contract to promote one of Trump's properties, and the boardroom showdown became a fixture of mid-2000s television.