The Baby-Daddy is On!

Ok, ok, enough with the e-mails, I got it already! Yes, ABC has announced Jason "the Baby-Daddy" Mesnick, so viciously dumped by MeAnna Pappas on last season's Bachelorette, will be back as the prime object of female desire when the Bachelor comes back on in January for it's 13th installment. While MeAnna found the man of her dreams with 'ol Bonghit Spicoli and is now spending her quality family time in L.A. doing photo-ops, driving a leased Maserati, and auctioning off items on Ebay, just like she promised she would on the show, Jason was sent back to Seattle causing women everywhere to cry a river.

As the dust settled and people gnashed their teeth at DeAnna for breaking Mr. Nice-guy's heart so she could go be famous with her new "fiancee", they took out their frustrations by burying ABC under an avalanche of e-mails and phone calls demanding Jason be made the new Bachelor. The e-mails must have hit home because ABC's president of programming sounded a lot like he might just shelve the Bachelor for a while back in interviews in July. But hope, if not common sense, springs eternal for Romance Reality Television with principal shooting now rumored to begin in October.

As I blogged just after Jason was given the most brutal kiss-off in Bach history, the next slot was his for the taking. I said that I both "hoped and thought he would not." Silly me. Both Jason and ABC have both evidently enjoyed a huge gulp of Producer Mike Fleiss' infamous kool-aid and are now on board for what fans hope will be the lucky 13th try. We'll see about that. But you can't say that Jason, with his cute three year-old son and general, all around nice-guy earnestness isn't going to attract a different caliber of woman to this show. I am 100% positive they will get applicants who wouldn't have gotten near this clunker in a million years otherwise. Whether Fleiss and partner in crime, Lisa Levenson, will actually cast any of them is another matter. After 7 years of casting famewhores, drama-queens, and Hollywood wanna-be's, I expect old habits will be hard to break. They actually think stalkers, psychos, and actress wanna-be's are really entertaining. Even Weak Wingman-host, Chris Harrison has given interviews equating tears with ratings.

Concerns:

Casting: Duh. This is where this chance can be absolutely wrecked. If any of you can picture Jason proposing to the likes of Shayne Lamas, please send me what you're taking because I want some. This is probably this shows last chance to actually deliver upon the premise it promises. If they can't pull this one off; they can't pull it off. Because of Jason's fanbase and his reputation, I actually expect there to be some buzz about this premiere. That hasn't been the case for this franchise for a long time. Suffice it to say, if they cant deliver the goods with this guy, women around the country (who make up an enormous majority of viewers) will get the message that this will never work. I predict this series will live and die on this season. Fleiss had better pay attention if he likes cashing ABC's checks.

Jason: Ok, time to break this guy down a little. Now, I know that I'll be seeing so much of little Ty that I'll be hugged around the closest commode like a diabetic with a empty box of Whitman's Sampler in my arms, but I also know that women will love that new aspect of the show; especially if reports are right and they will be filming in Seattle. With that said, this show always comes down to how well the lead can carry it and Ty not withstanding, this is up to Jason--his interaction with the women and the way he treats him. ABC had "hotter" choices here. With all due respect to Jason's mob of female swooners, there were hotter guys available. Jeremy-Bot Anderson has washboard abs and a leading man chin. Jason, in contrast, is in good shape, fairly nice-looking, a little thin of hair and grimaces like he's being held captive when he smiles. Does this guy have the chops to carry this show on his shoulders? I honestly don't know. If you remember the Prince Lorenzo Borghesi or Travis Stork seasons, you saw two better-looking men stumble around the women like two guys who had just escaped from their mom's basements.

Now Jason's army of female myrmidons will disagree with that assessment, but I'm sorry, he is a nice-looking, in-shape guy, who seems to be really nice. He is not model-hot. And not the entire audience will be made of women who are in-love with his niceness and commitment to his kid. If it were, Jeremy would not have received so much support in his candidacy to the next Bachelor. That guy was shown, unfairly in my opinion, to be a arrogant moper, yet he had a huge fanbase of his own. Just because Jason appears to be so damn nice should you, dear readers, expect the old pirate here to give him a free pass? Ha, you are kidding. I'll be just as hard on this guy as I think he warrants. I'm gonna call him when I think he needs it and I'll search slang-dictionaries for new ways to describe "vomit" for all the saccharin-sweet Jason loves Ty scenes we are going to be subjected to. I don't give free passes.

The good news is that there is soon to be another shot for me to be a wise-ass and I can't wait. I can practically hear Harrison practicing in front of the mirror right now: "Our most romantic season ever!"

Yeah, I like it. Argh!

Kudos To Reality Steve and Jeremy Anderson

Reality Steve is at it again; doing not only a funny column but acting like a "journalist". Well "La-tee-dah". Yeah, he is the real deal; unlike me, who just sits around bitching. Steve landed an interview with the Jeremy-bot and its a humdinger too. The most revealing aspects of the audio is not the fact that many show secrets are revealed, it's that Anderson actually seems like a pretty sincere guy who went on the show for the right reasons; no endorsement deals, going to Hollywood or any of that. The schlub actually believed he had a shot at love. (Shakes head) Poor idiot.

Anyway, the interview is good, it's also very long: about an hour and a half. If that's too much for you, I'll try and recap what I thought were the the most important parts here:

DeAnna: Although Jeremy mouthed all the necessary platitudes about her reading between the lines wasn't very difficult. Some memorable quotes:

R.S.: "Whatever happened between Dee and Jesse, I guess we viewers just never got to see it."

J.A.: (Laughing) You're not the only one!"

J.A.: "There were a lot more picnic blow-ups from her than you ever saw." "By the time we walked on the beach during the last chance date; she was different. The whole refrain from her had been: If it's you, I'm moving to Dallas or to Washington if it's Jason or whatever. That changed when we were on the beach. She wasn't so sure anymore. She's been the Princess for a year now; I think she may have been bitten by the Hollywood bug."

"Jason and I are best friends. We talk almost every day."

Suffice it to say, I was pretty hard on Jeremy this season. I went so far as calling the guy "fake" and a "robot". I should have been more cognizant of the editing bug. Jeremy wasn't really happy he was shown as a morose, depressed person. He said there were a lot of light moments that never got shown. This shouldn't surprise me or you either, dear reader. Trying to recap this is pointless because it robs you of his voice inflections and laughter he joined in with Steve when he agreed but had too much class to say so. You need to listen to it.

Barbarossa's Conclusions: Ok, the biggest news of the interview is that Jason and Jeremy are being considered as the next Bachelor's. It sounded like the focus is solely on them as well. Neither have heard from ABC as of August 4th. Ok, I went so far as to swear that I wouldn't watch the Bachelor, let alone blog about it, if Jeremy were selected. I'm officially changing my position after this interview. Mind you, its with reservations. Like Reality Steve, I'm willing to admit I was fooled by some of the edit and admit Jeremy is indeed in this "for the right reasons". That does not answer the charisma problem for me. But I realize that charisma, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, but I'm not sure this guy has the chops to carry this show off as it's lead. But...this was BIG...Reality Steve floated an idea that's been around for weeks now on the boards and its a gem and Jeremy readily agreed! He proposed two Bachelors: Jason and Jeremy, along with some revolutionary changes to the show. Maybe Jeremy and ten girls and Jason and ten girls. If Jason cuts a girl, Jeremy has the chance to try her out before dumpsville. Not everyone meshes with each other and Jason and Jeremy are fairly different guys. I think this idea is nothing short of terrific! This is the type of changes I'm talking about. Jason and Jeremy seem like truly sincere guys, but both only appeal to part of the Bachelor viewership. People will get sick of seeing Ty is its Jason alone, and Jeremy might whine and mewl a bit without Jason's smile backing him up. They also sound like Best Friends who could help each other and talk stuff out about the women. I like this. No, I love it!

Now, Fleiss just needs to leave the drunken fame-whore and actress-wanna-be's at home and pick some decent women, not a bevy of unstable drama queens and I predict ABC will buy this in a second. I wouldn't have the women do a vote-off like they did in Byron's season either. Let both guys stay and work over the lovely's until we get a match. This might actually work, maybe even twice. This idea is a winner and if any of Fleiss' troglodytes read this blog they need to snatch it up and run with it.

'Nuff said. And Argh!