The Joe Schmo Show - The Joe Schmo Show (Season One)

The Joe Schmo Show (Season One)

The target of season one was Matt Gould. The other "contestants" are archetypes of common reality TV show participants.

Two actors made brief appearances in supporting roles: Ryan Raddatz played Molly's boyfriend, William (who feigned shock at seeing her in a bikini), and Steve Ireland played David Decker, a "network executive" who negotiated with Gould to finish the "Meal Not Quite Fit for a King" challenge.

For the hoax, the producers named the faux-reality show Lap of Luxury, with a $100,000 top prize "awarded" to the "winner." Perhaps in an attempt to keep things as close to actual reality shows as possible, at the end of every episode an eviction ceremony was conducted where each contestant voted to evict someone, and the person with the most votes was eliminated. After the written finish was executed, the actor in question would take a plate with their face painted on it and give it to Garman, who would then state a rhyming couplet that went "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, (name), you're dead to us" then throw the plate into the fireplace, breaking it. In the final episode the three remaining "players" (in this case Gould, "Brian", and "Hutch") faced a final vote from the evicted "houseguests" (similar to the final Tribal Council on Survivor) with the one getting the most votes "winning".

The show experienced an unexpected shift during an early episode. Earl ("the Veteran") had bonded with Gould. When Earl was "voted" off the show, Gould began to weep and question his possible monetary gain at the cost of competing against his new friends. Both the other "contestants" and the show's executives allegedly questioned the future of the show. While Gould was kept in the dark until the very end, the tone of the show was apparently altered (according to the voiceover of the early episodes). While the original premise had been to make situations funny at Gould's expense, it became clear that the audience would sympathize too strongly with his earnestness; later games and contests were rigged to ensure he would win.

Gould's sensitivity came to the forefront in a later episode featuring a sumo wrestling contest. Gould knocked down Kristen Wiig, playing "Dr. Pat", causing a real-life head injury that forced her to be taken to the hospital. Gould eventually won the contest but was disturbed by the incident. The next day, when Wiig returned to the show, still in character, Gould gave her the all-expense-paid spa vacation he had won earlier.

The producers added a twist in the series when Hutch was eliminated due to breaking the rules. After said elimination he returned and (as noted above) made the final, where he was declared the "winner" just before the hoax was revealed.

In the show's finale, which aired to over 3.4 million viewers (the all-time record for a non-wrestling show on TNN/Spike up to that time), Gould learned the truth and received the $100,000 prize for which he was "competing," along with the two vacations and a new plasma TV. He later recorded commentary that was included in Mo' Joe Schmo, a rebroadcast of the series. The Joe Schmo Show was released on DVD with additional and uncensored footage in 2004.

Gould's plaintive cry, "What is going ON?!?", delivered upon his discovery that the show was a fraud, became a popular catchphrase. Spike TV has since used the phrase at the end of the network's other original productions, some of them involving Gould himself.

Some cast members have gone on to bigger success, including Kristen Wiig, who landed a regular spot on Saturday Night Live in 2005, and also went on to co-write and star in the hit 2011 movie Bridesmaids; Lance Krall, creator, writer, and lead of VH1's Free Radio; Ralph Garman, a voice actor on Family Guy and co-host of "Hollywood Babble-On"; and David Hornsby, who is a writer, supervising producer, and performer on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Creator/producers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick went on to a number of projects, including the hit movie Zombieland.