VH1 generally likes to turn their reality shows into nightmares. This time, it's a logistical one.

Picture this. You get fourteen contestants, most of whom seem to have been delivered from Central Casting to play whoever the Jersey Shore crew took advantage of this week. You start them off in Los Angeles and give them -- a literal ton of cash. As in 'two thousand pounds of U.S. currency.'

How much money does that equal? No one's saying yet. (Even if it's pennies, it'll outshine a few reality competitions. Singles is a prize worth having.) But it doesn't matter how much you've got to start, just the amount that reaches the finish line. Y'see, this cash has to be transported to Las Vegas. And it will go by foot, by raft, by bicycle, by whatever means the producers can throw at you in a series of timed mini-leg challenges covering that distance. If you move it all within the time limit, you vote one person out and keep the ton intact. If you can't shift the load, it gets lighter: along with your contestant elimination, you get a loss of currency poundage -- and a smaller grand prize at the end. Last person standing gets whatever weight is left. (Keep in mind that they will lose some amount along the way -- the show is pretty much designed for it.)

So. Two thousand pounds of money. A few hundred miles. Fourteen people. And if I know VH1's casting department, three drug problems, two alcoholics, three who will have sex with anything which can't get away in time, and fifteen active brain cells.

http://www.vh1.com/shows/ton_of_cash/series.jhtml

Premieres August 17th. Hosted by Dhani Jones.

They like to move-it move-it.

• RE: Ton of cash.,cahaya, 12:23 PM, 08-04-11
  • RE: Ton of cash.,Estee, 12:40 PM, 08-04-11
  • Whoops!.,cahaya, 01:19 PM, 08-15-11
    • RE: Whoops!.,Estee, 01:42 PM, 08-17-11
      • RE: Whoops!.,cahaya, 03:52 PM, 08-17-11
• Premiere.,Estee, 01:33 PM, 08-18-11
• Learning experience.,Estee, 10:26 AM, 09-01-11
  • RE: Learning experience.,Puffy, 02:12 AM, 09-02-11
    • RE: Learning experience.,kidflash212, 11:50 AM, 07-10-16
• RE: Ton of cash.,Puffy, 12:00 PM, 09-16-11
  • RE: Ton of cash.,Estee, 01:29 PM, 09-16-11
• RE: Ton of cash.,Puffy, 05:55 PM, 10-27-11

LAST EDITED ON 08-04-11 AT 12:41 PM (EST)

Check out the values here.

We may all have a different idea of what constitutes a "ton of money", but according to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a ton of $1 bills amounts to $908,000 - nearly $1 million!

If you're talking about a ton of coins, then it's a different story - a ton of quarters is worth $40,000, and one ton of pennies (363,000 pennies to be exact) is worth $3,630.

Looking it up: Cent - 2.5 grams. Nickel - 5 grams. Dime - 2.27 grams. Quarter - 5.67 grams. Half Dollar - 11.34 grams. Dollar (SBA) - 8.1 grams

Doing a little math... Dimes are as good as quarters at 2,000 ($200) per pound or $40,000. The best coinage for the weight is the dollar coins, coming to about $112,100.

(eta) Ok, watching the trailer... it's all in shrink-wrapped $1 bills, about a cubic yard of it that fits fairly neatly on a shipping pallet.

14 people? And they choose each round who's not pulling their weight, eliminating them? And only one person wins (what's left of) the prize? It looks like some interpersonal skills as well as a little heft and brains is going to have to go along with that greed.

Wednesdays at 9:00 on VH1. I've marked my calandar, although I rarely even look at RTV on the cable/sat networks.

LAST EDITED ON 08-04-11 AT 12:41 PM (EST)

...I have to visit eighteen different websites to run down one harassing sales phone number, but the approximations on a ton of cash has its own page?

LAST EDITED ON 08-15-11 AT 09:21 PM (EST)

They bumped up the premiere to 8/11 without telling us!

First full episode (101) is online here.

I'll watch it after I get home from work and decide then whether to rec(r)ap it and continue with the next episode (still set for 8/17 9:00 PM ET/PT on VH1).

After viewing online...

It's a 36-minute plus "super trailer" that is essentially the whole first episode, minus the very end and perhaps a few takes. The rest of it is there, though. Why they call this Full Episode 101 on the web site is beyond me, but it looks like the real deal (the full episode) is set for 8/17 after all.

There's enough to go on here to determine the complete format and get a sense who the contestants are. Some of the format (especially the graphics part of it) is very nicely done and the camera work is good. The contestants on the other hand are not only financially challenged but challenged in other aspects of their personalities. Between these two things not going for them, some of them (maybe all of them) are not quite the kind of people you'd want inside your friendship circles.

See original post regarding VH1's casting priorities.

I'm still set to watch the premiere tonight after Famous Food. I just finished surviving Christian's ego over on Masterchef and I'm still dealing with Danielle's assorted psychoses for the 8:00 p.m. hour. While this crew may have enough between them to send things over the edge, they'll have to work at it.

Besides, it's kind of like watching Big Brother. Trying to spot the next jailbird is half the fun.

I'll be packing this in between BB at 8 and the Love in the Wild finale at 10 tonight. It's a double-header live-blog recap writing night tonight (same tomorrow night with BB and Expedition Impossible), so if I do decide to do a rec(r)ap of this, it'll probably appear on Friday. Based on the super-trailer I saw, there's more than ample snark material to work with.

As far as the jailbirds go, it might turn out to be not only who, but how many! Given this bunch of losers (at least financially), I'll wager more than one.

Ye gawds, these people are some kind of annoying.

Lessons learned from the night (which no one else did):

1. When Dhani essentially says 'We tested this and if you do everything right, you should be able to run it in this much time', it means 'kiss your cash goodbye.' Because no one is going to do everything right. When there's no margin for error, every leg of the course is an exercise in how much money you can lose. Given last night's performance plus the season preview, I fearlessly predict that less than a third of the original total will reach the finish line -- by production design.

2. Upchuck had a point. (Yes, that hurt.) The amount of money they would have lost on penalty time was less than what they would have gotten to the safe point by waiting a few extra minutes. But...

3. ...just once, when someone claims they were misquoted, taken out of context, or had their words lied about, don't you wish anyone in the cast would say "I'm pretty sure there was a camera on you when you said that. Why don't we just review the footage?" *sigh* Well, at least people know what he is now. As if he left much room for doubt.

4. The muscles, they do nothing! (Remember, that point was coming from someone who cost them more than a few thousand all by himself. But at least his rear supported his weight while he was sitting on it for most of the challenge.)

5. Yes, it is a very good idea not to drink when you might have a challenge in the morning. Given that this is a VH1 series, the number of you to figure that out was amazing. (One.)

6. How do you know good girls don't win? Has anyone ever tried? Are you calling Hoopz bad? Good girls generally don't get strangled in their sleep: isn't that a victory in itself?

7. Note that also-rans get nothing. 'Text to decide if last place wins a thousand dollars. One buck per vote.' Nice to see
they're already trying to fund the next season.

8. Good luck finding someone to root for.

9. Seriously. Good luck.

So far, I've learned that:

1. It is possible to get the challenges done within the time limit: the main obstacles to victory are the personalities involved.

2. The personalities involved are largely stupid, petty, and hateful. They wouldn't have been picked otherwise.

3. Upchuck is the new poster child for Muscles Are Meaningless. But then, everything that comes out of his mouth is meaningless, so it's more of a whole-body problem.

4. VH1 is on a quest to become cheaper than NBC. Terrifyingly, they may succeed.

5. The elimination format is semi-workable, but doesn't mean much with a crew that insists on firing an endless series of warning shots. (However, I do give some credit to Willy for making a pawn scheme work -- barely.)

6. I don't hate them all yet, but 100% is on the approach...

Upchuck may never lose an elimination challenge. He does nothing during the tasks. The only one I like is Justin. Loved him spreading sun screen on the girls while the other guys watched.