This Time, It’s a Different Kind of Fox Hunt

Fox is looking for a few good men--50 to be precise. The requirements? Sexy, single (no ex-wives or kids, please), 21-and-older interested in competing for the title of sexiest bachelor in America this fall. The event will take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Sept. 12 and air Oct. 2 as a two-hour special titled “The Sexiest Bachelor in America.”

The winner will receive more than $100,000 in prizes, including a new car--but no bride. (Fox is still recovering from its “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” February fiasco in which Darva Conger married stand-up comic Rick Rockwell.) Search parties for contestants will continue this month at Hard Rock Cafes, clubs and radio stations throughout the country. Buff bachelors can also enter by logging on to https://www.sexiestbachelor.com or https://www.fox.com.

“The challenge of a show like this, as opposed to a Miss America pageant, is creating the template,” says Don Weiner, the show’s co-executive producer and director. “There is no national organization that looks for applicants or contestants in all 50 states. Our challenge is doing the outreach.”

Like its sister don’t-say-beauty-say-talent pageants, the contestants will represent each state and include talent, formal wear and (there is a God) bathing suit contests, judged by six female celebrities. But first, an eight-member team of mostly single women has to cull through a pile of what Hollywood-based producer Nash Entertainment believes will reach 100,000 entries.

“There are tapes they showed me that, as a man, I would say, ‘That guy would never be on the show,’ but the women love him, because he really opened up about who he was instead of just having a great look,” Weiner says. “They’re looking at the whole personality.”

The Los Angeles casting call took place earlier this month, when the upstairs balcony at the Universal CityWalk Hard Rock Cafe brimmed with buffed, but a little reluctant, beefcake.

“Some of the Hard Rock staff called me and said, ‘Get your droopy little butt here,’ ” laughed Jaylee Bachman, 24, a curly, dark-haired bartender and a student from Dallas hanging out in Los Angeles for the summer. His idea of sexy? “Being relaxed and confident without doing intrusive, scary and steroid-pumped typical guy kinds of things. The biggest reward to winning would be having my grandmother sit at her bridge club on Tuesday nights bragging about her little boy. That and scaring the heck out of my mother.”

Jason Santiago, a 30-year-old studio electrician from Simi Valley with cropped blond hair and chiseled features, stopped by while visiting a friend at Universal.

“I guess what makes me sexy is my confidence and the fact that I can be myself and not worry what other people think of me,” he says. “If I won, I’d probably go on with my life as usual, except with maybe a little more popularity or friends.” And the right woman? “No, I’ll find the right woman on my own.”

Eligible bachelors had to introduce themselves on video and fill out a six-page application asking contestants to list hobbies, special skills or talents, favorite TV shows, describe their perfect day, name their hero, and state their most significant accomplishment--think Playboy Playmates turn-ons/turn-offs. Then there’s the obligatory background check on contestants to make sure they fit eligibility requirements and don’t have any funky skeletons in the closet, given the recent history of some other reality shows.

“We want to be sure the guys we put onstage are of a certain moral standard that women, their families and our network can be proud of,” Weiner says.

Of course, if they don’t make it here, there’s always “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”