Philip Zelnick smelled a rat. "Okay, where's the candid camera?" he asked when an airport security guard in Bullhead City, Ariz., told him to climb onto the X-ray scanner (below) before boarding a flight to California in 2001. Still, Zelnick, 35, complied, sliding through the fake contraption (which did not emit real X rays) twice at the request of the phony guard. He was getting off the conveyor belt when, he says, his right thigh was pinched by the machine, causing bleeding and a bruise. Camera host Peter Funt says he "deeply regrets" any injuries but calls Zelnick's claims exaggerated. Footage of Zelnick was never aired. Yet his attorney Andrew Jones is unappeased: "It's not reality TV. It's humiliation TV."
Garcia and Sloat v. Dude, This Sucks: The act stank, but the finale reeked
Best buddies Monique Garcia and Kelli Sloat stood in line for hours to get into the taping of an MTV pilot similar to the old Gong Show, and, sure enough, they made it to the edge of the makeshift stage. Not a good thing, it turned out. After the show's host introduced a couple of harmlessly awful acts, four young men in forest-ranger outfits took the stage. Their skit—a combo of dancing, campfire music and marshmallow roasting—seemed pointless, until the end. Suddenly, says Sloat, now 16, "two of them turned to where we were, exposed themselves through flaps on their butts and defecated on us." Sloat and Garcia didn't immediately realize what had happened. But a bad odor soon cleared that up. The pair, both sophomores at Big Bear High School in Big Bear, Calif., were ushered to a cramped room where they were given bottles of water but no soap to clean up. Then they were coached on how to say, 'Dude, this sucks!' in front of a camera. "I was sick to my stomach," says Garcia, 16. "Kids at school still say, 'Remember the time you got pooped on?' They thought it was funny." The show never aired, and the two male pranksters involved in the skit pleaded no contest to misdemeanor criminal charges and paid fines of $2,600. But Garcia and Sloat want more: Their suit against MTV is scheduled to go to trial later this year. Says a network source: "We didn't know the stunt would involve fecal matter."
Finnegan v. The Man Show: A day at the beach goes bad
The kid seemed normal enough—until he opened his mouth. Patrick Finnegan was with his friend Kay Yamaguchi, 36, when a chubby boy approached them at Manhattan Beach, near L.A., and asked for help inflating his rubber raft. When Yamaguchi agreed, the young man, Aaron Hamill, 14, better known to Comedy Central viewers as the Man Show Boy, made a string of lewd sexual remarks about blowing up the float. Finnegan asked him to leave, and within minutes a pair of giggling staffers ran up and asked the couple to sign a release. "Oh, please, it's really funny," he recalls them saying. But Finnegan, 49, a father of two who works as an assistant director on commercials and music videos, wasn't laughing—especially since he claims the network ran the footage without his consent. Now he's suing the network. Says Yamaguchi, who is not taking part in the suit because her face wasn't shown: "I felt violated."
Mouser v. CBS's Culture Shock: Endurance is right
After lasting 40 minutes suspended six feet above the ground in a harness, Jill Mouser had such severe back pain that medics gave her a morphine shot. "I went into shock," she recalls of the stunt, which was taped on a southwestern Indian reservation last year for a pilot that never aired. As part of a contest for $75,000, Mouser, 30, a fitness-equipment sales rep, and her then-boyfriend, Marcus Russell, 33, vied with other couples in a test supposedly based on a Native American ritual. It turned out to be excruciatingly painful, she claims. "I screamed and yelled, and they came and got me down," says Mouser, who was taken to a hospital an hour and a half away. "You trust them. You think, 'This is CBS.' They're not going to deliberately hurt me.' " Mouser and Russell are suing the network, alleging Mouser's back was injured and that the harness was designed to be more painful than others used on the show. (CBS declined to comment.)
Walter v. ABC's Houston Medical: Cameras focus on a family's night of grief
Chad and Shani Walter's twin sons, Nathan and Grant, were born 10 weeks prematurely at Houston's Memorial Hermann Hospital, the setting for the reality series Houston Medical. Chad, a 30-year-old law student, says they were asked if they would let cameras film the care that one of the boys, Nathan, was given and willingly signed a release. Then, say the couple, the baby, who was battling an E. coli infection, took an unexpected and heartbreaking turn for the worse. The camera crew taped doctors telling the Walters there was no hope for their child; at that point, they say, they asked the producers to respect their privacy during Nathan's final moments. After the couple left the room, the TV crew stayed behind and taped medical staff removing tubes from the infant's body and dressing him to be taken to his parents. Most of that footage never aired, but the show did include images of the Walters opening a door to receive Nathan's body. A hospital spokeswoman expressed sympathy for the couple but points out they appeared on camera "at their own discretion." Still, the Walters feel that once events took a tragic turn, they were ill-equipped to make decisions about a TV show and are considering suing the hospital for not stepping in to protect them. "It's disgusting," says Shani. "It's like being raped."
- Contributors:
- Susan Christian-Goulding,
- Ulrica Wihlborg,
- Gabrielle Cosgriff,
- Alexis Chiu.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
