MTV announced Wednesday that it has laid to rest its hit reality series “Buckwild” — a week after the death of the show’s most popular participant, Shain Gandee.
But the show won’t end until MTV runs a “Buckwild special” Sunday — at the end of a day of “Buckwild” first-season marathoning that’s sure to clock some mighty impressive ratings.
(“Buckwild” averaged 3 million viewers at the time MTV ordered a second season in February.)
Gandee, his uncle and a friend died of carbon monoxide poisoning April 1 when Gandee’s Ford Bronco sank knee-deep in mud, which covered the exhaust pipe. The three men had gone “mudding” near Gandee’s Sissonville, W.Va., home.
“After careful consideration, MTV will not be moving forward with season two of ‘Buckwild’ in West Virginia,” the network said Wednesday in a statement about its successful “Jersey Shore” successor.
“We love the cast and the show and this was not an easy decision, but given Shain’s tragic passing and essential presence on the show, we felt it was not appropriate to continue without him,” MTV continued. “Instead, we are working on a meaningful way to pay tribute to his memory on our air and privately.”
MTV’s decision was not embraced by the show’s producer — who belongs to some radical philosophical sect that does not believe in losing one’s employment just because a show’s star has died.
“There’s something that smells of [manure] here on every level,” producer J.P. Williams fumed to the Hollywood Reporter, demonstrating that depth of vocabulary for which the entertainment industry is famous.
“This is the network that has shows about teen pregnancy,” Williams continued. “They’ll stick by a show that allows you to abandon a child, but a kid dies by accident . . . and they cancel the show?”
Shooting had begun on the second season when Gandee died. And the gang had renegotiated their contracts for the second season, upping their salaries from a pathetic $1,000 per episode to a merely embarrassing $4,000 per episode — in case you were wondering why the television industry so loves docu soaps.