Matt Baume

There was a nude photo scandal that nearly stopped The Real World from ever making it to air -- early in Season 1, over half the cast threatened to walk away from the project because of how the producers were treating them. I've got the behind-the-scenes story in this week's bonus video ... plus the

Huge thanks to Patron Kimberly, who pointed me in the right direction to find the never-aired pilot of The Real World! In this week's bonus video, I want to share a bunch of fascinating moments from this experimental not-for-broadcast artifact, from the awkward meetings to a loft party to a fake rom

Cast your mind back, if you will, to the 1990s, when reality TV was new. Though the genre was young, many had already written off shows like The Real World as trash. But one young man saw an opportunity, and thought that maybe there was a way he could use television to save lives. His name was Pedro

Hello there! Imagine it's 1992, when being an openly gay person is tremendously dangerous in most of America -- and you've volunteered to have your big queer life broadcast to millions of homes. Norm from season 1 of The Real World had absolutely no idea what he was signing up for, but he knew enoug

My guest this week is Danny Roberts, one of the stars of Real World: New Orleans, which originally aired on MTV in 2000. Danny was planning to become a teacher and wound up on the show through a series of coincidences, accidents, and last-minute changes of plan, so he was a little unprepared for the

Hello there! I'm recovering from some back trouble this week so I'm sliiiiiightly woozy on muscle relaxers... but I won't let that stop me from making a bonus video! This week, I have the real life story of how MTV created The Real World in a desperate attempt to prove that they were still cool, and

Hello there! I have a video about The Real World coming your way soon, and for this week's bonus video I want to share some fun stories about the very silly origins of MTV -- how a bunch of music weirdos (and a Monkee) hijacked Nickelodeon to prove the idea could work, why they had to take a bus to

My So-Called Life lives again! This week on the podcast, we're chatting about how MSCL was saved from oblivion, resurrected on cable. What made MTV such a perfect home for this show -- better, in fact, than the network where it originally aired? Joining me this week for a chat about MTV is the delig

My guest this week has spent his life traveling the country to bear his soul, and now he’s settled down in the last place he ever expected — the town where he grew up. David Schmader is a writer and performer who wrote for The Stranger in Seattle by day, and who turned his articles into dramatic the

My guest this week is Dave Holmes, who you might know from the podcast International Waters, or his articles in Esquire, or his book Party of One. I first saw Dave on MTV, in a proto-reality show competition to become a VJ back in the late 90s. On screen, it was clear that Dave was the most qualifie

Imagine this riskiest thing you could do -- and then imagine what would happen if you did it. My guest this week knows something about taking a chance -- Kevin Allison is the host of the Risk podcast, a show where people tell true stories about the times they put everything on the line. It's a conce