Studs

1 9 9 1 – 1 9 9 3 (USA)
600 x 30 minute episodes

Studs was a dirty talking cross between The Dating Game and Love Connection.

Each night two hunky beefcake guys and three hot ‘babes’ discussed their dating experiences with each other (“one stroke of his stick and I totally surrendered”), with much talk of the guys’ great butts (“I like a guy with a bullet-proof butt!”) and getting their hands up the girls’ skirts (“his hand shot up my leg like a heat-seeking missile”).

Each of the guys had been out on a blind date with each of the three girls before this show, and the guy who proved he knew the most about the ladies was crowned “King Stud” and could win a fancy date paid for by the show.

The gals had been asked various questions about the guys before the show – about phone etiquette, first impressions on meeting, what they remembered most about the date, how romantic the guys were, which of the guys would be most likely to do various things, etc. – and the boys won points for figuring out which opinions of them had come from which girl.

At the end of the show, the guy with the most points was asked which of the ladies he wanted to go out with again and, if she had also picked him, Studs sent them off on a fancy date.

When the show first aired, actor Charlton Heston wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times, suggesting that Studs should administer free HIV tests to prospective contestants. The producers declined, saying that responsibility rested with the contestants.

Jay Leno of The Tonight Show compared Studs to going to the zoo and watching baboons stick their posteriors in each other’s faces.

Still, about 400 people audition each week for the show. Prospective contestants were required to sign a release making the show’s producers legally blameless should they be raped, killed, slandered, libelled or given a sexually transmitted dis-ease during the Studs encounter.

Chicago-born stand-up comedian Mark DeCarlo was the host and moderator of bad taste.

Ron Goldman – who was murdered in 1994 along with OJ Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson – appeared on an episode of Studs in 1992.

While OJ Simpson was acquitted of both charges of murders in a high-profile televised trial, he was later found liable for the deaths in a 1997 civil lawsuit filed by Goldman’s father.

Host
Mark DeCarlo