Many of us were mildly interested when we found out the MC Hammer (He goes by “Hammer” or “Stanley” now) had signed on for his own reality show.  Having already seen him on the first season of VH1’s “The Surreal Life”, we all knew that we wouldn’t be seeing the over-the-top, parachute-pants-wearing dancing rapper with a penchant for wearing thick gold chains and giant diamond pendants.  This is Stanley the Ordained Minister who wears cable-knit sweaters, who lives in the suburbs, who has been with the same wife for 24 years.

"Please Hammer, Don't Bore Us."

"Please Hammer, Don't Bore Us."

Certainly, from the height of his “U Can’t Touch This” fame to his 1996 bankruptcy to his lovely-but-modest home in rural Tracy, California, MC Hammer has been through a lot.  He now makes a living with speaking engagements, the occasional concert, and his ever-growing social media entrepreneurship.  He has a blog, runs an online dance community called DanceJam.com, is followed by nearly 800,000 people on Twitter, and has a Hammertime iPhone application.  He is planning to release a new album, and is thinking about writing an autobiography. 

And thank you, reality television, for giving us back Hammer.  Until he appeared on the first season of the Surreal Life in 2003, he was struggling.  The show was a positively mind-numbingly boring waste of time, featuring the brainy chick from 90210, Corey Feldman without his drugs, Emmanuel “Don’t Call Me Webster” Lewis, whoever Jerri Manthey is, Vince Neil, and someone called Brande Roderick (the name makes me think she was probably in Playboy—I could google it, but…nah).  It lacked the ‘train wreck’ aspect of other VH1 endeavors like “Flavor of Love”, “Celebrity Fit Club”, “Breaking Bonaduce”, or even the relatively uninteresting “Scott Baio is 45…and in desperate need of a job single”.   But it got Hammer back into the public consciousness, and it taught VH1 a lesson.  Hammer would have to be ordinary on another network.

At least in Season 2, they put Tammy Faye in the same house as Ron Jeremy.  That was fun waiting to happen. 

And now we find ourselves not on the ‘watch-former-celebrities-fall-apart’ network VH1, but rather on A&E.  Yes, Arts and Entertainment.   The only truly great thing that has come out of the show is this viral video advertising it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfxCnZ4Dp3c

Hammer explains the show by saying that, “There’s a big part of American Life missing from the genre.  A lot of people out there get up at 6 in the morning and work hard to send their kids to college and guide them through life.  That’s real American family life.” 

Yes, yes it is, Hammer, and we get to see it every single day of our mundane lives.  We watch reality TV to enjoy watching other people make fools of themselves for…anything.  We want to watch 80’s sex symbol Kelly LeBrock sweating like a herd animal to melt away the pounds she gained over the years.  We want to watch Danny Bonaduce drunk-dial the wife who kicked him out.  We want to see women actually competing in humiliating challenges for the opportunity to date Flavor Flav.  And we most definitely want to see who will come out on top in “America’s Most Smartest Model”. 

We’ve got humdrum covered.  Even Jon & Kate figured that out, and their ratings reflect it.

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