WasteOfTechnology.com » Gary Busey Meets the Paranormal

It’s hard to believe that it was all the way back in 2003 that the WB network presented an interesting concept in the stale world of reality TV. The proposed show was to be called The Surreal Life and, similar to prior reality shows such as Big Brother or Real World, would be based on the idea of people of different personalities dealing with the unique situation of living together. But there would be a twist: celebrities. “Instead of taking regular people off the streets who are looking to gain notoriety into the house, why don’t we take celebrities and do the same thing?” the producers must have asked. The obstacle then must have been that celebrities work on television or in the movies or perform or record-one way or another, they are busy people. So to get around this obstacle of the busy celebrity, how did the network manage? Ex-celebs. So they brought in Vince Neill, MC Hammer, Corey Feldman, TV’s Webster and the like for their first season. The second season followed the first’s idea with a cast that included Tammy Faye Baker, Vanilla Ice and Ron Jeremy.

This second season did huge for the WB, breaking ratings records for the network, yet the network passed on the third season leaving it to be swept up by VH1. The Surreal Life fit perfectly with VH1’s new direction alongside shows like I Love the 80’s and the rest, as they say, is history. They coined the term Celebreality and did what, if asked 5 years ago, I would have deemed impossible. The network made stars of Danny Bonaduce and Flava Flav, reinvented the career of Hulk Hogan and made Brigitte Nielsen a familiar face in the twenty-first century.

As annoying as the oversaturation of pop-culture on the former music network can be it can’t be denied these various accolades. Among them–the star power of Gary Busey has been flashed across the network consistently over the past few years. First he shockingly shed pounds on a steady diet of “water and nectar” on Celebrity Fit Club, and now he’s back with the network just in time for the Halloween season with Celebrity Paranormal.

Gary Busey and a few other celebrities including Hal Sparks and Donna D’Errico sent into abandoned, haunted locations with ghost finding equipment and set loose with only the surveillance cameras watching them. Picture that old show on MTV called Fear after a motorcycle accident, brain surgery and way too much cocaine in the 80’s and you have what comes out. Busey, as always, takes over the show with his mixture of unwavering pride and absolute senselessness.

The show starts with an introduction of just what exactly is going on. The celebrities are visiting an abandoned hospital which is said to be guarded by many ghosts of those who perished here due to an epidemic many years ago. Busey immediately takes leadership in reading the instructions to the group and promptly displays his weirdness by hugging everyone in the cast in order to give them a “blessing of his energy” followed by some born-again Christian rambling. And if there’s any doubt of whether or not Gary is insane…

Some things to note in that short scene:
1) Gary mixing up what an EMF meter is and asking about an “EFM meter” multiple times seconds after hearing the correct word.
2) Gary’s camouflage pants.
2) The ghostly “Gary Busey” text floating on the screen behind him.
3) Some typical Busey noises.
4) Gary not waiting for his teammate as he struggles to get his backpack on.

So Busey enters this building along with a girl from Survivor and Busey takes control in a militant-like fashion. He’s all business, with no fear and with a full understanding of what’s going on. He starts to use his EMF reader, or as he calls it “EFM reader” to scan through the hospital where he delivers a detailed explanation.

The whole thing is completely ridiculous. They have the creepy self-camera work and the infrared EMF views along with eerie background music but the whole thing comes across as nothing but silly. To listen to Busey make sense of all of this nonsense and breathe heavily is enough to keep you watching though because, after all, it’s Gary Busey.

As the show continues we get to see
-Gary continuously explain in a calm and matter of fact fashion how he has been in this situation before and displaying his vast knowledge on the topics including “spiritual writing.”
-Gary lashing out at a teammate with a brash use of expletives
-Assorted random Busey moments such as this.

Gary’s next mission sends him back into the house to explore another specifically haunted area of the hospital. While there he uses a hacksaw to cut through a rib bone, and wait in the darkness where he experienced “silence” filled with “noise” among other things. He also heard screaming which, as he described it, sounded like a “mechanical tiger.”

Finally, the whole group was to go up to the most haunted of all of the missions to cast the ghosts out. They followed the procedure as indicated in the book provided by the producers at VH1, and the ghosts were asked to leave.

I found my head shaking the whole time I watched this program. Thankfully, as always, Busey delivers with his making sense of the senseless with his nonsensical blabbering. The show was obviously staged and the fact that the whole cast was so into it is absolutely silly, though you’d expect it from Gary of course. In the end I saw this as nothing but VH1 taking the trite old idea of putting people in a haunted house and putting their own “celebrity” spin on it. To Gary Busey however, the show meant a whole lot more.

When Busey had his great run on I’m With Busey on Comedy Central a few years ago it was one of the greatest things I had to look forward to every week. Yet the show didn’t catch on and, more or less, bombed. As disappointed as I was that the show was not renewed for a second series, there was something comforting in knowing that the general population didn’t find Gary Busey’s ranting and rambling entertaining. And now, as I watch Gary Busey go ghost hunting on VH1 I think the most unsettling part is that I get the feeling that I’m not alone. Not that there might be ghosts out there but that there are others out there watching and being entertained by the outrageousness that is Busey. And this is scarier than the most twisted ghost story this show could ever put together.