“Flavor Flav!”
– Flavor Flav
Image courtesy Amazon.com
Sometimes dignity and strong morals can be a boon to a reality show, and sometimes they can just get in the way of all the fun. Such is the case with Flavor of Love, which can be best summed up as The Bachelor if it was executive produced by Jerry Springer.
William “Flavor Flav” Drayton is a pretty interesting guy on his own, having made enough money with Public Enemy that he can not only be eccentric, but indulge any of the frequent whims which his money affords him. While this may not make for a very well-adjusted person, it certainly makes for entertaining TV. After a comeback attempt on The Surreal Life 3 led to a bizarre romance with Brigitte Nielsen and the aptly-titled Strange Love chronicled their romance, Flav was left alone in the world with his mansion, six children, and butler. So what better way to stave off loneliness than to make a reality show?
The Show
Unlike many reality TV shows and their stars, which are comprised of wannabe actors and take themselves deathly seriously much of the time, this show was actually closer to reality in some ways. Featuring Flav attempting to choose from a harem of 20 normal-looking women, most of whom thought they were Hollywood starlets in training, I’m sure, the show quickly established that the Law of the Ghetto applied with regards to behavior. Wasting no time in eliminating 5 of the contestants, the show instead focused on the personalities (and frequent personality clashes) of the remaining contenders, all of whom swore that they alone were there because they really loved Flav the most.
The show itself is definitely best meant to be viewed on DVD, as it is gloriously profane and nasty, giving you a true flavor of language that the original airings on VH1 just couldn’t touch. And in keeping with the trash TV nature of the show, there’s quite a bit of nudity as well, as the girls seemingly will do ANYTHING to win the love (and money) of the guy with the gold teeth.
Flav himself is an interesting guy, wild and eccentric at one point, and introspective and lonely the next. You never really see any kind of partying side of him, despite his reputation, as much of the drinking and debauchery is done by the girls and Flav’s biggest vices these days seem to be eating at Red Lobster and buying too many pink outfits. Thankfully, the show makes no attempt to paint him in a better light than anyone else, giving us plenty of edits that make him out to be just as big of a buffoon as the women who are humiliating themselves to win his love.
And speaking of the women, after cutting out much of the dead weight in the beginning, the show focuses on a few personalities as the front-runners:
– New York is the clear star of the show, born to be on a trashy reality TV show with her “ghetto princess” routine and motor-mouthed trash-talking about everyone else. She seemed to view it as much as a game as a chance to win the love of Flav, and in that regard played the game very well. 10 episodes of her is a LOT to deal with in one shot, however.
– Pumkin is the wannabe reality show star who took a feud with New York, in the classic black v. white fashion, all the way to the semi-finals before getting outed by her own mother as a fame-whore. And if there’s one thing Flav can’t stand, it’s someone who’s not real.
– Hoopz was the dark horse, probably the most classically attractive of the bunch, and also the most grounded of the bunch and thus the least embarrassing to watch on a show-by-show basis. Of course, anyone willing to actually sign up for this car wreck can’t be called “grounded” by any definition, but she was certainly more tolerable than most of the girls.
I won’t spoil the eventual winner in case you haven’t watched it yet and actually think it matters who wins, but it didn’t work out anyway and they’ll have to do another season to determine another love of his life. Regardless, if you’re sick of shows like The Apprentice taking themselves too seriously and you long for a return to the days of trash TV, this is the show for you. It’s loud, stupid, and offensive, yes, but never takes itself seriously and actually kind of has a nice message at heart about being yourself and it not mattering to Flav what you look like, as long as it’s true love. But he doesn’t want any ugly chicks, of course.
The Video
Presented in the original full-screen aspect ratio, this was kind of a disappointing transfer for me. Colors look a bit too dark much of the time, and the quality isn’t much better than you’d get on TV. But I guess that’s fitting for a show like this.
The Audio
Dolby Digital 2.0, with no other language options or subtitles. I was hoping for subtitles myself, so I could transcribe some of the more colorful conversations that took place in the house, but no. This sounds fine for what it is, capturing all the insults and bile as intended.
The Extras
The third disc contains all the extra stuff. The highlight is by far “After the Lovin,” a reunion show with all 20 girls and Flav, which quickly degenerates into a Springer-like brawl between New York and Pumkin and solves nothing. Still, it’s tremendous car crash entertainment, and a fitting coda to the series.
The rest of the stuff is deleted scenes from the show, most of which focuses on New York and Pumkin and their continuing war, as well as random confessionals from Flavor Flav on a variety of topics. Nothing that we couldn’t have lived without.
The Ratings
The Show: ***1/2
The Video: **
The Audio: **
The Extras: **
The Pulse:
Trashy, ugly, stupid, sure. Entertaining? Hell yeah. Flavor Flav above all is a reality star now, and this is his arena. If you miss Jerry Springer and think that the people on Big Brother need to loosen up, this is the show for you.
