The Simple Life
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The Simple Life is the name of a reality television series originally broadcast on Fox in 2003.
Premise
The series juxtaposes two young, wealthy urban socialites, Paris Hilton, heiress to the Hilton Hotel fortune, and her friend Nicole Richie, adopted daughter of singer Lionel Richie, with the people and the values of varied environments.Beginnings
The idea for The Simple Life was generated in Fox's comedy department. Brad Johnson, senior VP of comedy development, said The Simple Life was born out of a challenge from Fox Television Entertainment Group Chairman Sandy Grushow and News Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin to find another way to do comedies outside of the traditional sitcom format."The areas that seemed simplest and cleanest was to go back to those high-concept '60s sitcoms and say let's do them for real," Mr. Johnson said.
The Simple Life was inspired by Green Acres, a sitcom about a New York society couple who moved to a farm. Mr. Johnson said they originally thought of moving an entire family to the South. Cameras would observe as the former socialites, deprived of access to their bank accounts and Beemers, attempt to get a job, buy groceries and fit in with average Americans.
At the same time the comedy department was developing the idea, Paris Hilton was meeting with the studio's casting department.
Sharon Klein, senior VP of casting at the studio, said she was immediately fascinated by Ms. Hilton and wanted to do a show with her. "I'm used to meeting with actors who are putting on a façade," Ms. Klein said. "She was so real. She was funny. At that first meeting she did not come off stupid. She was in her own reality and not embarrassed to talk about it. There was a sweetness to her."
The two departments talked and realized they had their show: Send Paris Hilton, who had never worked a day in her life, and her sister Nicky to live and work on a farm.
At the time, the studio was working closely with Mike Darnell, head of reality programming at Fox, who liked the idea. "They wanted to see stilettos in cow shit," Ms. Klein said.[link]
Paris was convinced to come on board, however Nicky, being somewhat shy to the limelight at the time, opted out. Paris told some media that she was in talks to do the show by herself[link], but ultimately, FOX decided the city-living cast had to be a duo.
Paris aledgedly asked several friends onboard, including Bijou Phillips and Kimberly Stewart, but ended up making an agreement with her then-close friend, Nicole Richie.
Fox hired established reality producer Bunim/Murray to produce. Bunim/Murray found the Leding family in Altus, Arkansas, for the girls to move in with.
The Penfifteen Club recorded one of the show's themes, a tribute song called "(Hey) Miss Hilton".
With everything ready to go, production began May 2nd, 2003.
Seasons
The first season
In the first season, Paris and Nicole agreed to leave behind their cellphones, credit cards and celebrity status to move in with the Leding family in Altus, Arkansas for a month.
What was supposed to be an assignment in learning how to adapt to doing chores and getting their hands dirty turned out to be an experiment in failure. In the process they would ruin a dairy farmer's milk supply, wreak havoc at a local Sonic Drive-In and take advantage of an employer's credit card, ultimately getting fired from every job they took up. This was greatly upsetting to the Leding family. Despite all of this, the two would often get a lesson in reality check 101 from the family themselves. As for whether the girls took it to heart left something to be desired.
The show started airing on Fox December 2nd, 2003, to surprisingly well received ratings. The premiere episode drew 13 million viewers, increasing Fox's Adults 18-49 rating a phenomenal 79%.[link] The second episode drew 13.3 million viewers, an increase of 200,000 viewers over its premiere.[link] During the airing of the series, Fox added two extra episodes and a reunion special, which continued to draw ratings. With results like this, it was only natural that Fox would order a second season.
The DVD of this season was released in U.S.A on January 20th, 2004. Some international releases included the bonus episode and the reunion episode.
Road Trip
A second season, subtitled Road Trip, began broadcasting in the summer of 2004. In this season, Paris and Nicole traveled across the United States in a pink pickup truck, pulling an Airstream trailer. They participated in such activities as catching crawfish, working as maids in a nudist resort, and sausage making.
The premiere episode (drawing 9.8 million overall viewers[link]) showcased Hilton's horseback-riding accident, which made headlines when they were still filming.
The ratings continued to climb during the season, and Fox were quick to announce heading into production on Season 3, not before airing a special episode titled The Simple Life - The Stuff We Weren't Allowed To Show You on November 17th, 2004. The special showcased several cut scenes from the season (some of which appear on the Season 2 DVD) as well as preview clips for the third season.
The DVD of this season was released in U.S.A on November 2nd, 2004.
Interns
The third season, began shooting October 27th, 2004. The first episode premiered January 26th, 2005.
The third season, subtitled Interns, would see Paris and Nicole take various internships with companies along the East Coast of the United States. The girls traveled around the northeast United States via the Greyhound Bus company's publicly available bus routes. But unlike season 2, this time around the girls did not have a swanky home on wheels and instead were travelling around the northeast in a regular Greyhound bus that was also ferrying normal members of the public that are travelling to the same destination.
The season featured one memorable encounter with twin baby orangutans from Parrot Jungle Island in Miami, Florida. Nicole Richie's fiance DJ Adam Goldstein also appeared in this season when he surprised Nicole and took her on a date. In this season, there were episodes where they were given little or no money while interning, or their internships were shortened because instead of doing their work, they would do something like have manicures, read magazines, play with chairs, tell jokes to people, and go to mini-marts (in a police cruiser). In the last episode of the season, there was no party shown with friends or family. Instead, they were hounded by paparazzi, one of the final times the two were seen together on good terms.
The DVD of this season was released in U.S.A on March 14th, 2006.
'Til Death Do Us Part
Bunim/Murray had plans to send the girls on a trip to Mexico in its fourth season, but plans were quickly put on hold, and rearranged. In an interview with USA Today, Paris confirmed the longstanding rumor that Nicole and herself were no longer friends, and that Nicole would not be part of the fourth season. Plans at this point were now to shoot on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Instead, said Paris, the new co-star would be Paris' friend Kimberly Stewart, the daughter of rocker Rod Stewart, and someone Paris had wanted on the show to begin with. Kimberly said that producers would attempt to mollify Nicole by giving her a new reality show of her own, a Newlyweds-styled effort focused on her upcoming wedding to Adam Goldstein, known professionally as DJ AM. [link]
Fox was quick to debunk what Paris and Kimberly had said. Fox Network head Peter Ligouri told the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles that Paris and Nicole are both contracted for Season 4 and a possible Season 5 as well. Kimberly was not going to be involved at all, and Paris and Nicole are, in his words "TV professionals, who will be ready to work together when the time comes"[link]
Fox unexpectedly cancelled its plans for Season 4 in October 2005 both because it had filled its midseason show quota, and because Paris and Nicole had the falling out as friends. Other networks, such as NBC, The WB, VH1 and MTV were all reported to be interested in obtaining the rights to the show.[link] On November 28th, 2005 E! announced that they had picked up The Simple Life and had ordered a new 10-episode season, along with the first 3 seasons. Shooting began February 27th, 2006.[link]
The fourth season premiered on June 4th, 2006, drawing 1.3 million viewers. While those ratings would have been dismal for Fox, it was actually more than four times E!’s prime-time average. And in key adult demographic groups, ratings more than tripled from the network’s average. [link]
The season features Paris and Nicole playing "Wife" to a different family every episode, in a similar manner to Wife Swap. The girls alternate between the family each episode, with the family then deciding which of them was better in the role.
This season was also unique, as Paris and Nicole did not leave L.A. The families they stay with are L.A residents, and the show often focused on Paris and Nicole's personal lives and careers aswell as the challenge of being a wife and mother. This season also featured guest stars from the girls' well-known friends, family and associates.
Although Bunim/Murray originally confirmed the girls would not talk with each other on camera, Paris confirmed that they will be side by side in two of the ten episodes. [link]
The fifth season
Paris first hinted that E! had been talking with herself and Nicole about doing another season during a radio interview. [link]On July 12th, 2006, E! announced that the show has been picked up for a fifth season that will air in 2007. [link]
Ted Harbert, E! Networks president and CEO said: "I don’t have any control over whether they’ll be friends by next season, we need to talk about the best thing to do for the show, and I’m not sure shooting them separately again is the best thing for the show. We pulled off a difficult thing this year, but frankly we got away with it. We can’t do that again." [link]
Remakes, Rip-Offs and Spin-Offs
Paris and Nicole's rural misadventures on The Simple Life have proved so popular with viewers that Fox World has produced international versions for overseas television. While Paris's international counterparts aren't hotel heiresses, they are relatively rich and well-known in their home countries, and the plots of the remakes tend to be the same. So far, at least five official remakes have been produced:
[La Vie Rurale] for the Québec market. [Lihtne Elu] for the Estonian market. [Ciao Bella!] for the Belgian market. [La Ferme Célébrités] for the French market. And [Cambio de Vida] for the Uruguayan market.
Some other international markets, such as Japan, chose to subtitle or dub the original rather then produce a remake.
The Simple Life has also been emulated by other less-official reality remakes. A good example being E!'s , which shared various unquestionable similarities with The Simple Life.
The rumours of Nicole set to have her own show about her romance and wedding planning with DJ AM were put to rest by Nicole herself, when she said she would never do a reality show about her personal life. [link]
According to Elle Magazine, Paris is apparently set to do her own reality series with MTV. Said to be centred more around her personal life, and the recording of her debut album, it's supposed to be very much in the vein of In Bed With Madonna.
Since plans for Kimberly Stewart to appear in The Simple Life fell through, she has been working on her own reality series. The series' pilot, titled Win Your Life Back features Kimberly taking favourite personal belongings off two teams of young female contestants, and putting them through challenges to win their belongings back. Whichever team wins back the most belongings would win a $100,000 shopping spree. The pilot has been presented to MTV, but it is not yet known if it has been picked up.
In 2005, NBC produced a reality series titled I Want To Be a Hilton. I Want To Be a Hilton took the idea of The Simple Life, and reversed it. Hosted by Kathy Hilton, Paris's mom, the show saw several contestants from rural country and suburban areas having to perform certain tasks, ranging from dog grooming, a fashion show and organizing a charity event, while learning etiquette and manners. The finalist of the competition received a prize package that included a $200,000 trust fund, a new apartment, wardrobe and the opportunity to live the life of high society for one year. Paris and Nicky guest starred in an episode, and Paris's dog Tinkerbell (who appeared in The Simple Life) also took part.
External links
- [The Simple Life Official Website]
- [The Simple Life Official Japanese Website (in Japanese)]
- [Estonian remake Lihtne Elu Official Website (in Estonian)]
- [Image from Uruguayan remake Cambio de Vida]
- [Bunim/Murray Official Website]
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