New Nugent Reality Show on OLN

http://www.freep.com/entertainment/tvandradio/ted4e_20051104.htm


BLOOD, GUTS AND GONZO: Ted Nugent's reality TV series moves to OLN with more hunting, more action and more pointed jabs from the crowbar of truth

November 4, 2005






BY JULIE HINDS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER



"Michigan has really let me down with this political correctness and I want to fix it and I may run for governor," says Ted Nugent, standing on the property of his ranch southwest of Jackson and spouting the gospel according to the Motor City Madman.


'Wanted: Ted or Alive'
8 p.m. Saturday

OLN


THE SCOOP ON OLN
OLN (formerly Outdoor Life Network) focuses its programming on four categories: action sports, field sports, bulls and rodeo, and original programming. It's the home of "Survivor" in syndication and events like the Tour de France and the America's Cup. The cable network is available in an estimated 64 million homes.

In the course of a 15-minute conversation, Nugent has blasted antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan, celebrities who bare their problems on reality television, opponents of dove hunting, smokers, Democrats, pimps, whores and welfare brats.


"Write this down," he says at one point. "This will be the headline of your story: Ted Nugent's truth crowbar actually causes Michael Moore to start his period early."


Cat scratch fever, indeed. There's nobody more passionate about his beliefs, or more outrageously provocative in his expression of them, than Nugent, who, at 56, is decades into relishing his larger-than-life reputation as a rock 'n' roller, a lifelong hunter and -- choose whichever you prefer -- either a gun-loving Neanderthal and clown prince of the extreme right or a plain-spoken believer in living off the land, respecting your body and following your moral compass.


He's a star of reality television, too, but he doesn't much enjoy the other shows on the air, from the emotional-meltdown-of-the-stars variety to the maggot-eating, wilderness-living ones.


"The 'Survivor' series I couldn't watch, because my average camping trip is more real than that," he scoffs a few minutes before he yells an expletive in honor of the contestants he insists he's helped see the light on his latest series.


"Wanted: Ted or Alive" premieres Saturday on the OLN cable network. It promises to be bolder and bloodier than Nugent's previous reality show, VH1's "Surviving Nugent: The Ted Commandments."


And just how gonzo was "Surviving Nugent"? Well, last year, he needed 40 stitches to close a gash in his leg resulting from a chain saw accident that happened on the set.


"Wanted: Ted or Alive" will go where "Surviving Nugent" didn't dare, according to its producers.


"OLN said to us, 'Whatever VH1 wouldn't let you do before, that's what we want,' " says Alex Campbell, coexecutive producer of "Wanted: Ted or Alive."


And, yes, there will be footage involving the killing of animals, one of Nugent's favorite pastimes.


"These people are asked to kill to survive out here," says Campbell. "We're not giving them very much food at all."


It's a hot weekday morning in September as five contestants from the show's second cycle, which airs in January, hang out in an open field on Nugent's secluded property, waiting for the next challenge in survival and outdoor skills to begin.


Nugent, who also has a ranch in Texas not far from President George W. Bush's Crawford compound, is stationed a short hike away at the base camp. It's a collection of trailers, tents and utility buildings located near Nugent's plagued house, which has been infested with black mold for a few years and is described by him as "a toxic dump."


The five so-called city slickers are spending a week living in a white tepee that has five American flags flying outside it. Several of them say they ended up on the show after answering an ad that offered a chance to live like a rock star and win $50,000. Little did they know the star was Nugent. Their lifestyle at the moment includes going to the bathroom by digging a hole in the woods.


A dozen or so crew members are hovering a short distance from them with cameras and sound equipment, ready to capture every moment of their activities, which have ranged from hunting a deer to something messy involving a 55-gallon drum of pig guts.


One night, the five players were startled to find somebody had dumped hundreds of crickets inside their tepee. They estimate it took them hours to kill the bugs and change the hay inside their shelter.


Another night, they say Nugent offered them a thousand bucks if they'd be naked for 24 hours, a dare that wound up with them making togas and diapers out of buffalo hides.


David Zander, 38, a stay-at-home dad and furniture maker from New York City, describes the experience so far in reverent, life-altering terms. He says he's discovered what was missing in his life.


"What I realized this week is that I thrive in nature," says Zander, who's pondering buying a weekend home in the country. "I've lived in New York City for eight years. ... It's definitely sapped some of my sparkle, some of my spirit."


Bridgetta Tomarchio, 26, an aspiring actress and model from Los Angeles with sparkle in excess, says it was "awesome" to have an opportunity to kill a chicken. Her friend and rival, Will Dyck, 30, a real estate developer from Fresno, Calif., had the opposite experience.


"I had to take a couple of swipes at my chicken, and it was absolutely traumatic to be beating something to death as opposed to just taking it instantly," says Dyck.


"True," says Tomarchio. "But you know what was kind of funny? Don't you think it was hilarious when we had to chop its head off finally and it's running around without a head?"


It's hard to imagine a Nugent project that wouldn't enrage animal-rights activists, and yet Stevie, 29, a club promoter from Miami who prefers not to give his last name and who usually avoids eating red meat, says he's developed a grudging respect for Nugent's philosophy on hunting.


"I was able to rationalize it as it wasn't something pumped full of steroids and chemicals and hadn't lived a miserable life," says Stevie of the animals involved.


What does Stevie think of Nugent himself? "Nice guy. He seems like he really cares about people. He's been very nice to us, on and off camera. I think he feels like he is almost on a quest to give his point of view to the world."


Every reality show has a misfit, and this cycle's candidate is Terry Sigmund, 29, a native of Germany, who's described as being in her own world by the other competitors (and "a little wacko" by Tomarchio).


Sigmund, a Seventh-day Adventist, says she chose not to compete in the pig-guts contest because it was against her religion. She thinks God may have sent her to Nugent's show to see if she'd violate her beliefs, which she's glad she didn't.


"That's how the Holocaust happened. People didn't stand up when they were asked, because they wanted to be conformist And if you are conformist and forsake your belief and you compromise that, that's the first step for a major catastrophe," says Sigmund.


The contestants are vivid characters, but they can't hold a candle to Nugent, who requires only a single question to go on long, sermon-like rants about what he believes and why he's right. When asked if there will be any political content on the show, Nugent looks as if he's just been asked if there'll be oxygen in the air.


"Environmentalism is politics," he says. "The Ten Commandments are politics. My choice of dinner is politics. What is politics, after all, but the system by which intelligent people can stop policy destruction by ignorant people? That's why we wrote down those self-evident truths in a little ditty called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights."


Nugent says the players on "Wanted: Ted or Alive" were moved to tears by the things they learned from him, and he proceeds to enumerate those lessons using phrases like the good mother Earth and listing concepts such as treating your body as a sacred temple.


He sounds almost wistful as he explains why he's decided not to follow through on hints he'd previously dropped about running for governor of Michigan in 2006.


"I was on the cusp, in fact, I was hanging precariously from my short hairs into the chasm of running for governor," he explains with typical Ted gusto.


So why didn't he? The short version is he considers his life almost perfect, except for the fact that there's no time to kick back and do nothing. His dream for next year, he outlines, is to cut back on his schedule and respond to offers to get busy with "an enormous, neon, flashing, bold-lettered 'no' sign."


Still, this doesn't mean he's ruling out a possible 2010 run for governor. "It's wide open and a bold likelihood," he says.


Almost as bold as his new show.


"I'm gonna celebrate blood and guts," says Uncle Ted. "Because blood and guts are cool."