Fearless Smiling for a Candid Camera

OK, people, to quote an old show business expression, work with me here. You say you don’t like a lot of what’s on TV--especially the wallowing in personal misery or prying ever deeper into personal lives that permeates daytime shows?

Well, here’s a suggestion: Don’t go on television to air your dirty laundry! Quit whining in public! Stay home and suffer like everyone else!

Sounds simple enough, but it won’t happen. Whatever folks may say about television, they love being on it, even if that means putting themselves at risk of looking like a dope in front of millions of people.

While talk shows such as “Jerry Springer” and “Jenny Jones” remain a unique kind of oddity, this trend toward allowing television to document the most intimate of situations has found a new avenue in so-called “relationship” shows--”Change of Heart” and “Forgive or Forget” among them--as well as court shows, from “Judge Judy” to the new revival of “Divorce Court.”

Taking a page from “Love Connection,” “The Dating Game” and the gone but not forgotten “Studs,” “Change of Heart” finds a couple and sends them each on a date with someone else, the suspense being whether either party will choose to dump their semi-significant other. Most of the time, viewers end up simply fearing that either of them will live long enough to breed and pass on their genes.

One of the new shows loosely affiliated with this genre is “Blind Date,” a syndicated series that matches two perfect strangers for a day and--aided by micro-camera technology--chronicles their every move, distilling the 10 or 12 hours they spend together down into a brisk 6 1/2 minutes.

Moreover, the producers augment the footage with little helpful hints and asides--a la “Pop-Up Videos”--telling viewers in one instance that the woman is extremely religious a moment before the guy lets loose with the fact he’s an atheist.

It’s all generally played as lighthearted fun, and it’s easy to understand why the show is doing reasonably well in the ratings. Most of the contestants are beautiful, and the chance to sit in on a blind date is a voyeur’s dream.

Participating, however, is another matter, since the possibility of embarrassment is always there. Consider, for example, a woman going out with an old-fashioned guy who points out he’s put off because she looks old and wore a dress with a neckline diving precipitously close to her waist.

In addition, producers interview the parties in a “confessional”--excerpts of which are shown on the air--encouraging them to disclose very personal tidbits about their dating history and past sexual exploits.

Given that blind dates are stressful enough, why would people subject themselves to the potential humiliation of having the experience televised? Are a few fleeting moments of TV notoriety really worth it?

Apparently so, at least for those clamoring to go on “Blind Date.”

“There’s like this feeding frenzy to get on it,” said Matthew Papish, one of the program’s executive producers.

Though based in Los Angeles, with offices that gaze out at the Hollywood sign, the show intends to gradually fan out and hold promotional weeks in other cities, beginning with episodes being shot this week in Las Vegas. Papish said that once it was announced the program would travel, calls and e-mails began pouring in from viewers all over the country clamoring for their turn.

Some of those featured locally are no doubt wannabe actors and actresses hungry for any exposure they can get, a longtime staple of game shows. Although the producers say they try to avoid booking actors, they acknowledge being on the show requires a certain kind of extroverted personality as well as people who can be comfortable and natural on camera.

“The reasons why people do this are varied. Their motive might be ‘I want to go on television. I want to get exposed.’ But they might get lucky. They might meet someone,” said executive producer Thomas Klein, whose credits include MTV’s “The Real World,” which also receives applications from thousands of youths each year.

Those who don’t secretly harbor ambitions to be the next Leonardo DiCaprio, or even Debbie Matenopoulos, still approach the prospect of appearing on television differently these days. With so much reality programming out there, being on TV isn’t viewed as a lark anymore but a God-given right.

“With the advent of the home video camera, everyone’s used to being on television,” Klein suggested. “ ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ popularized that. It’s more what Andy Warhol said: Everyone’s going to have their 15 minutes of fame.”

This phenomenon has been dramatized in films such as “The Truman Show” and “EDtv,” which conveyed cautionary messages about the abusive and intrusive nature of the media, at the same time illustrating how captivating the lives of real people can be to a mass audience.

Yet if those movies, and especially “Truman,” derived their final crowd-pleasing power from the idea of a regular guy reclaiming his soul by fleeing the limelight, the viewing audience has thus far expressed little real-world outrage about the boundaries that reality programs have breached.

In addition, while many of these programs rely on “caught on tape” video where the subject isn’t aware of being recorded, producers say even willing Guinea pigs soon lose any sense of self-consciousness. Expose yourself to being covered for hours and hours, as on “Blind Date,” and the real you will eventually come out, warts and all.

“After awhile, people forget the camera,” Klein said. “Whatever kind of barrier they’ve set up for themselves it gets broken down, and they have to interact with that person.”

“This show is an exploration about human beings, about who we are and how we act. That’s what’s compelling about it,” added executive producer David Garfinkle.

Last week, one of the aspiring contestants on hand to confess her dating history was Tori Stone, a perky 26-year-old enthusiastic about the opportunity to meet a great-looking guy. Asked about potentially baring her foibles to a vast TV audience, she said, “That’s OK. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Indeed, it seems like most of our hiding these days is done in plain sight . . . and on camera.

* “Blind Date” airs locally at 6 p.m. weekdays on KCOP.

Brian Lowry’s column appears on Tuesdays. He can be reached by e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes.com