Blogging The Bach: Starring Jimmy Kimmel

Monday afternoon update: If you couldn't tell by what I wrote this morning about the so-called wedding crash, it really bugs me when this show stages something strange or out of the ordinary, then pretends it "just happened." Now, thanks to the blogosphere, we know how Chris and Whitney really ended up at that wedding. First, here's what producer Robert Mills tweeted out last night:

THIS WAS NOT STAGED

When I saw the all-caps tweet live during the show, I assumed he was winking at us and saying, "Yes, of course, you know that something like this was totally staged."

But then, here's what Chris Harrison said in his blog:

We did an okay job of showing this, but you should know this was not planned and it was not our idea at all. None of this was set up by our producers and we didn't know those people at the wedding. Whitney is really the one who came up with the idea. The more she and Chris joked about it the more they wanted to do it. Finally as you saw one of our producers said, "Hey if y'all want to do this, then go do it."

We were pretty close to the house so we drove them back to change and dress up so they could crash the reception, which was in the same place as you saw the wedding. Whitney grabbed some prop out of Chris' house and wrapped it as a wedding gift to the couple. The truly entertaining thing was the closer they got to actually crashing the wedding, the more nervous Chris and Whitney got. It was one of those things that sounded funny and cool, but when you're actually about to truly crash a wedding, you're nervous as hell.

I have to give massive props to our crew that night. With just a few cameras and the cover of darkness they hid from a distance and somehow covered the wedding as best they could without being seen. As Chris mentioned, a producer or two also snuck in and shot some video on their phones as if they were family or friends just capturing the moments. It was genius on-the-fly television producing that was so well done it looked planned, but I promise you it wasn't.

And here's what Bachelor Chris said in his blog: 

Jimmy sent us to a winery, and I had no clue what else he had planned for us, but when Whitney and I saw that wedding taking place on the property, and she suggested we crash it, I thought, "Sorry Jimmy, but we're scrapping your date!"

I loved Whitney's spontaneity and the fact that she suggested we do it; it really showed me that she lives in the moment. What you didn't see was us talking to the show's producers. Nothing like this had ever been done before, and everybody was really hesitant to actually do it. They had to scramble to figure out logistics, how they were going to capture everything on camera and make it work. Thankfully they figured out a way to make it happen, and off we went to the mansion to change into our crashing clothes.

Whitney looked beautiful in her dress, and in the limo we were both actually so nervous about crashing. We tried to come up with a backstory for how we knew the bride and groom, but I'm a terrible liar and I knew I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. We were also worried that people would recognize me, so we came up with a story about being engaged. Of course, once we were in the wedding, we ended up talking to the maid of honor. I mean, come on! Couldn't we have sat next to a fourth cousin once removed?

I actually could not keep the story straight, and if it wasn't for Whitney, we would have been found out and tossed out. She did a great job mingling and keeping our story in line. She's so friendly, and everyone got along with her, and we totally tore it up on the dance floor and somehow never got made! That was a night I'll never forget. As for Nick and Shannon, the couple whose wedding we crashed, thank you for allowing us to join you on your special day, even if we weren't invited! I wish you nothing but a lifetime of happiness, and if I do end up getting married at the end of all this, you're invited! 

Finally, here's what the bride (shannonfrench99) said, on her Instagram account: [T]he producers contacted our venue and asked about couples getting married in the Fall. There were several to chose from but apparently we fit the exact profile they were looking for. They liked our age, story and theme for our wedding.  

Just a little real reality about how this show is really produced.

Original post:


What do you call Benedict Cumberbatch on a date with 30 women? The Cumberbachelor.

That was the "final joke" on the Jimmy Kimmel show last night, after the host's corporate cross-pollinated synergistic turn on the The Bachelor earlier in the evening. Clearly he and the Chrises were having a great time together and after 18 seasons, it's fun to see something other than the same old, same old.

Having said that, however, yikes, the actual show last night was weird. The Bachelor is always weird, of course and if you're going to watch you have to accept it on its own terms. It's really, really not about finding true love, although, for what it's worth, another Bach couple, Des and Chris, did in fact get married for real on Sunday. (On the other hand, Andi and Josh broke up, less than six months after their engagement was shown on TV, which how it usually goes with these relationships.)

Anyway, even within the strange world of The Bachelor the tone just seemed off last night. In particular, a crazy alcohol-fueled reality show is not the healthiest place for a woman whose husband killed himself. Juelia told Chris about her husband's suicide, which was way, way too real for this show. He tried to be sympathetic and supportive, even as he looked extremely uncomfortable listening to her story and the whole thing was just off. It didn't fit. Other thoughts:

Chris is a kisser. For all the emphasis on Chris's humble midwest farmer persona, and the deliberate contrast with sleezy Juan Pab, Chris kisses early and often. In informal Bachelor-lore, Bob Guiney is considered to be the "kiss one, kiss them all" title holder but our farmer is giving him a run for his money. Note that on the group date, the woman who wouldn't let him kiss her ended up getting the group date rose. (Go Becca!) And really, ABC, enough with the smacking sounds. Just stop.



We now know that there are two virgins, two widows and a couple of moms in the group. There's also a Kardashian wanna-be, Ashley I, in the picture above. She does kinda look like Mrs. West, and she wears more mascara than a medium size soap opera cast, but until last night the K-link was unspoken. The she made it official with this gem: When Jimmy K told the group that a pool party would take place instead of the usual cocktail party, Ashley I lamented that she had been "so excited to do my Kardashian look tonight." The K-ness only goes so far, however: Ashley I is one of the virgins.

Can we have Jimmy Kimmel every week? Clearly he, Chris Harrison and the producers were having tons of fun sending up the show and all of its weird conventions - the hot tub, the roses, the word "amazing." I don't for a minute, however, believe that Bach Chris didn't know that Jimmy was going to "sneak" into his bedroom and wake him up.

Even more than that, I don't believe the wedding crash was spontaneous and unplanned. ABC producer Robert Mills tweeted out that "THIS WAS NOT STAGED" and in his blog, Chris Harrison states that "this was not planned and and it was not our idea at all." He even says that he doesn't know Nick and Shannon (the bride and groom,) he hopes to meet them soon and he's sorry they ate so much of their wedding cake.

Nope. Not buying it. Not even a little bit. From the wedding gift, which was supposedly wrapped by Whitney at the bachelor pad with wedding wrapping paper that just happened to be available, to the film of the event, which was supposedly shot by producers' cell phones, to the fact that everyone whose face was shown on the show would have had to sign a legal release and possibly a non-disclosure agreement, this was way, way too complex to have truly been a spur-of-the-moment surprise.

Plus, if we're supposed to believe that this was all Whitney's idea, totally on the spur of the moment, what was the date originally planned to be? Whitney's date card was conveniently generic (Today is going to be fun, no whining, signed Jimmy K) and if there really was something else that was supposed to have happened, some pretty elaborate arrangements would have had to have been made in advance and then cancelled. (I also think Chris H would have mentioned it in his blog, for example, We had been excited to take Chris and Whitney to a romantic dinner on a gondola, but crashing the wedding sounded like so much fun we abandoned the original plan...)  As I said earlier, you have to take the show on its own terms and it's not pretending to be Masterpiece Theatre, but still. Some things just don't add up.

That's all for now, Rosebuds. There's more drama to come next week, of course. Ashley I eats an ear of corn, someone takes off their bikini bottom and jumps into a lake, and one of the women announces that this is a date for bimbos. And are Chris and Britt breaking up? Tune in next week, same Bach time, same Bach channel, for more fun and games with Prince Farming.