Ridiculousness (TV series)

Ridiculousness is an American comedy clip show that began airing on August 29, 2011. It is hosted by Rob Dyrdek and co-hosted by Sterling "Steelo" Brim and Chanel West Coast. Ridiculousness strictly showcases various viral videos from the Internet, usually involving failed do-it-yourself attempts at stunts, to which Rob and his panelists add mockery and reaction.

Ridiculousness
Genre	Clip show Comedy
Presented by	Rob Dyrdek Sterling "Steelo" Brim Chanel West Coast
Theme music composer	Mark Mothersbaugh
Opening theme	"Uncontrollable Urge" created by Devo; performed by Rob Dyrdek
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	20
No. of episodes	617 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Christian Duguay Jeff Tremaine Kristina Edwards Lauren Dolgen Michelle Klepper Rob Dyrdek Sara Cohen Shane Nickerson
Running time	22 minutes
Production companies	Superjacket Productions (2014–present) Gorilla Flicks (2014–present) Dickhouse Productions (2011–2014)
Distributor	ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks
Release
Original network	MTV, MTV2
Picture format	480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV)
Audio format	Stereo
Original release	August 29, 2011 – present
Chronology
Related shows	Amazingness Deliciousness
External links
Website

Production

On September 10, 2012, Ridiculousness was renewed for a twenty episode third season.[1][2] It premiered on February 14, 2013,[3] and included a crossover with Jersey Shore when Pauly D guest-starred. The season would later go into hiatus in April 2013 and return on July 18, 2013.[4] Season 3 averaged a 1.6 P12-34 rating and is the No.1 original cable series in its time slot with P12-34.[5]

Due to the series being consistently marathoned on MTV and MTV2, beginning in October 2015, some episodes of Ridiculousness were repackaged with lower-cost production music. The new music was under blanket licenses overlaying the former tracks. The former tracks would have required MTV to pay music licensing fees to artists.

The series is produced by Superjacket Productions, Rob Dyrdek's production company, under a multi-year deal with MTV.[6]

Episodes

Season		Episodes	Originally aired
			First aired	Last aired
	1	16	August 29, 2011	December 19, 2011
	2	20	April 30, 2012	November 5, 2012
	3	20	February 14, 2013	September 19, 2013
	4	21	January 2, 2014	April 3, 2014
	5	18	July 10, 2014	October 30, 2014
	6	32	January 1, 2015	June 25, 2015
	7	30	October 8, 2015	June 30, 2016
	8	30	July 7, 2016	September 27, 2016
	9	30	January 20, 2017	June 22, 2017
	10	30	September 1, 2017	January 26, 2018
	11	41	August 5, 2018	October 12, 2018
	12	43	October 19, 2018	February 13, 2019
	13	41	February 17, 2019	May 10, 2019
	14	42	May 17, 2019	September 6, 2019
	15	39	September 7, 2019	December 29, 2019
	16	39	January 6, 2020	March 11, 2020
	17	39	April 20, 2020	September 14, 2020
	18	43	September 15, 2020	November 19, 2020
	19	42	November 30, 2020	January 28, 2021
	20	TBA	February 8, 2021	TBA

Reception

David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "The best thing about watching (viral videos) online is that you don't have to listen to Dyrdek's patter or the stellar contributions of his guests... the bigger danger is in watching the show in the first place: You might die of boredom. In other words, don't try this at home."[7]

In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that Ridiculousness "is most popular in rural Alaska, New Mexico and Montana, and least popular in Washington D.C., Atlanta and San Francisco".[8]

Scheduling

Andy Dehnart of Reality Blurred wrote[9] in May 2020 that in the past, MTV offered marathons of its reality shows to fill time, especially during weekends. More recently, while most of MTV's schedule is still packed with marathons, Dehnart noted "But this is a story about what it chooses to marathon, and why, this week, it will be airing 88.5 hours of Ridiculousness—3.7 days of that show—and only 1.5 hours of The Challenge: Total Madness." Dehart several months later, said[10] "What passes for entertainment on MTV today is a sad, shriveled glob of reality, from the celebration of drunken violence masquerading as a competitive reality show (The Challenge) to just plain stupidity (the Jersey Shore spin-offs). There is nothing wrong with stupidity, but MTV doesn't even try hard with that. Look how often MTV airs Ridiculousness and you'll get a sense of how little this empty shell of a network has to offer."

In July 2020, Michael Schneider and Kate Aurthur of Variety wrote[11] that "As streaming increasingly becomes the future of television, the model for cable TV is falling apart. That could be seen in MTV, which earlier this year seemed to be giving up by devoting 113 of its 168 weekly hours to showing reruns[12] of Ridiculousness." When Variety asked asked about the program’s wall-to-wall scheduling, MTV's execs there said that they were missing the point: The linear network is just a single sliver of their business, as MTV fare might be found on Facebook Watch (like The Real World reboot), or Quibi (Punk'd and Singled Out reboots), or Pluto TV (which features multiple MTV-branded channels). Soon afterward, ViacomCBS announced a revival of MTV's Beavis and Butt-Head that would run on Comedy Central.

According to Tanya Giles, the general manager of ViacomCBS' entertainment & youth group, "We continue to think of cable as just one piece of our ecosystem. Ridiculousness grew the network's frequency and time spent viewing the more it was added to the schedule. We went from people coming one to two times a week to nearly six times a week to watch Ridiculousness... Particularly when COVID hit, now there's a lot of people at home. We knew that this was a show that many generations could watch. It cut across different genders; it's laugh out loud; it's escapist.”

In September 2020, John Gonzalez of The Ringer asked point blank, "How did MTV become the Ridiculousness network?"[13] Gonzalez added by saying "Turn on MTV—on any day, at any time—and you're likely to find an episode of Ridiculousness, a home-videos-ripped-from-the-internet-style show hosted by skateboarder Rob Dyrdek." Gonzales reiterated that "Ridicuolusness is on all the time. All. The. Time. ALL THE TIME. That's not hyperbole. The night before I started hammering away at this story, I turned on MTV around 8 o'clock in the evening. Ridiculousness was on. And it stayed on. It wasn’t until 11 a.m. the next morning that MTV took a break from the show to broadcast Men in Black. But unlike the protagonists of the sci-fi buddy-cop comedy, MTV and its parent company, ViacomCBS, have no need for a memory-wiping device. Apparently, consumers are willing to watch repeat programming with their memories fully intact."

In his article from November 2020 entitled "Sad State Of Basic Cable Today: In A Word, Ridiculousness",[14] Adam Buckman of MediaPost wrote "You know that cable television is in trouble when at least two widely distributed basic cable channels (the other being TruTV, the home of Impractical Jokers) are each relying basically on one show apiece. It is a state of ridiculousness. That happens to be the title of one of the shows referenced above, the always-on, cheapo, video-clip series called Ridiculousness on MTV. Buckman added "Needless to say, this show is tasteless. And because it is seen so frequently, it has come to define MTV today. This statement is not meant as a compliment to either the show or MTV. Moreover, it is highly doubtful that Ridiculousness will ever drive cable subscriptions except maybe in the opposite direction -- namely, away from cable rather than toward it." Buckman in particular, noted that Ridiculousness, a TV show filling untold hours every day (particularly at night), is just about the only show now running on ViacomCBS-owned MTV, which was once, very long ago, one of the pioneering cable channels that made people want their cable TV.

International versions

The program was very successful internationally, which eventually led to the creation of localized versions in some regions. These versions are hosted by local celebrities in their respective regions and is broadcast on international MTV networks, alongside the original American version, or on other selected channels.

Country	Channel	Title	Year	Reference	Hosted by
Chile	Canal 13	Ridículos Chile	2015–	[15]	Luis Fernando Flores Alvarado
France	MTV France	Ridiculous Made In France	2016–	[16]	Gilbert Rozon
Spain	MTV Spain	Vergüenza Ajena: Made in Spain		[17]	Luiz Fernández
Brazil	MTV (Brazil)	Ridículos MTV		[18]	Juan de Rão
South Africa	MTV(Simulcasts on MTV Base Africa)	Ridiculousness África		[19]	Alki Rami
Mexico	MTV (Latin America)	Ridículos MTV		[20]	Fred Lammie
Sweden	MTV Sweden	Ridiculousness Sverige		[21]	Unknown
Poland	MTV Poland	Niemożliwe Made In Poland		[22]	Wojciech Łozowski Tomaza Torrez Paula Tumala (series 1) Katarzyna Pytel (series 2-)
Netherlands  Belgium	MTV Netherlands	Dutch Ridiculousness		[23]	Unknown
Italy	MTV (Italy)	Ridiculousness Italia	2016–2017	[24]	Elisabetta Dami
Denmark	MTV Denmark	Ridiculousness Danmark	2017–	[25]	Unknown
Canada	MTV Canada	It's Ridiculous	2012–		Adam Growe
Middle East	Comedy Central Arabia	Ridiculousness Arabia	2017–		Unknown

References

1. Patten, Dominic (September 10, 2012). "MTV Renews 'Ridiculousness' For Third Season". Deadline Hollywood.
2. Kondology, Amanda (September 10, 2012). "'Ridiculousness' Renewed by MTV For a Third Season". TV By the Numbers. Archived from the original on September 16, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
3. Kondology, Amanda (January 17, 2013). "'Ridiculousness' Returns February 14 at 10PM". TV By the Numbers. Archived from the original on October 7, 2013. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
4. Kondolojy, Amanda (June 20, 2013). "MTV is Heating Up This Summer With the Return of Rob Drydek's 'Ridiculousness', 'Money From Strangers' and 'Nikki & Sara Live'". TV by the Numbers. Archived from the original on June 29, 2013.
5. Bibel, Sara (September 17, 2013). "'Ridiculousness' Renewed for Season 4 & 'Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory' Renewed for Season 6 by MTV". TV by the Numbers (Press release). Archived from the original on September 22, 2013.
6. "Rob Dyrdek and His Production Company Super Jacket Sign Multi-Year Deal with MTV". The Futon Critic. June 25, 2014. Retrieved April 26, 2017.
7. Wiegand, David (August 26, 2011). "'Ridiculousness' review: silly and boring for MTV". www.sfgate.com. SF Gate. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
8. Katz, Josh (2016-12-27). "'Duck Dynasty' vs. 'Modern Family': 50 Maps of the U.S. Cultural Divide". The New York Times.
9. Dehnart, Andy (May 1, 2020). "Why doesn't MTV repeat The Challenge when it airs Ridiculousness a ridiculous amount?". Reality Blurred.
10. Dehnart, Andy (September 2, 2020). "16 and Recovering: a powerful look at addiction that's MTV's best reality show in years". Reality Blurred.
11. Schneider, Aurthur, Michael, Kate (July 21, 2020). "R.I.P. Cable TV: Why Hollywood Is Slowly Killing Its Biggest Moneymaker". Variety.
12. Jenkins, Craig (August 31, 2020). "The 2020 VMAs Tried Like Hell to Avoid the Elephant in the Room". Vulture.
13. Gonzalez, John (September 15, 2020). "How Did MTV Become the 'Ridiculousness' Network?". The Ringer.
14. Buckman, Adam (November 24, 2020). "Sad State Of Basic Cable Today: In A Word, Ridiculousness". MediaPost.
15. "Ridículos Chile - 13.cl". 13.cl.
16. "Ridiculous Made in France : Les présentateurs sont... - MTV France". www.mtv.fr.
17. "Vergüenza Ajena Made in Spain - Programa - MTV España". www.mtv.es.
18. "Ridículos - Programa de TV - MTV Brasil". MTV Brasil.
19. "Ridiculousness is coming to Africa! and these are your hosts… - MTV South Africa". www.mtv.co.za.
20. "Ridículos MTV - MTV America Latina". mtvla.com.
21. "Ridiculousness Sverige - Shows - MTV". m.mtv.se.
22. "Niemożliwe PL - Shows - MTV". m.mtv.pl.
23. "Dutch Ridiculousness - Tv Show - MTV Nederland". m.mtv.nl.
24. "Ridiculousness Italia - Programma - MTV Italia". ondemand.mtv.it.
25. "Ridiculousness kommer til Danmark". MTV.dk.

External links

• Official website
• Ridiculousness at IMDb