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00:00One place that I've started to go more recently for inspiration is other game shows.
00:11Bachelor is a super guilty pleasure of mine, and I really thought this was one of the funniest
00:20ideas anyone has ever pitched.
00:22The Bachelor is one of the most popular franchises in the world of reality competition there
00:27is, and who better to do that with than Grant O'Brien.
00:32I think that we ultimately did a good job balancing the creative of the show and making
00:37it a good experience for Grant.
00:39We've done a number of different episodes of various different shows at Dropout that
00:44involved pranking Grant.
00:46Oh!
00:47Oh!
00:48God dammit!
00:49Holy shit!
00:50Sam, I would have been trying harder at this game if I'd known I was trying to impress
00:54someone the whole time!
00:56Tonight we're starting off with a new segment called True Facts About Grant, that are not
01:00jokes, that are just true actual facts about this gangly asshole.
01:04Initially, the game mechanic was on the meaner side, you know, we're like, are we mocking
01:10Grant?
01:11Are we, like, are we actually trying to find him love?
01:16The original idea here, which was something I think we called deal breaker, was the notion
01:22that we would do a reverse dating show in which the contestants are eliminated based
01:30on learning, they eliminate themselves based on things they learn about Grant.
01:36And finally, I felt that was too mean-spirited.
01:41We like, you know, watching people have a bad time on reality television.
01:46I'm not convinced we like to watch people have a bad time on Game Changer.
01:50It would be far more fun simply to put Grant, and create moments that were, you know, legitimately
01:57heartfelt and interesting and be more about the nature of human connection.
02:01We were all rooting for Grant in this instead of rooting against him or laughing at him.
02:06We wanted him to make a connection with somebody, and I'm really happy that we took it in that
02:10direction because it just was more fun.
02:12Ultimately, when we changed the mechanic to be super wholesome, that's when I think the
02:16show became a gem.
02:19I've shot emails and text messages to some friends of Grant's to ask what kind of folks
02:23that they think he would be into.
02:24Nick Kocher told me that Grant dates, like, the kind of people who you could imagine as
02:32the lead in musicals.
02:35Allie wrote me back one word, twinks.
02:38Not incredibly helpful.
02:40Grant loves banter.
02:41He loves people to spar with.
02:43He loves good conversation.
02:45He's this odd sort of mix of very modern and very old-fashioned.
02:50We had to reach sort of outside our usual casting infrastructure for this, Lalu's Gallery
02:57Casting, and Emily has been a part of many actual dating shows, including, like, Are
03:04You the One on MTV.
03:06With her help, was able to find ten great candidates for Grant.
03:11Men as well as women, right?
03:12We wanted to sort of honor the fact that Grant is bi, which, like, you normally don't see
03:20in dating shows.
03:21You don't normally have men, women, and non-binary folks competing for one person's affections.
03:28Early on, we even talked about bringing a full-on jacuzzi into our parking lot so that
03:36Grant could sit in a jacuzzi and have multiple one-on-one dates with his prospective romantic
03:44partners.
03:45Yeah, originally it was supposed to be in the parking lot.
03:47We were like, let's just slide over the dumpster, we'll put a hot tub there.
03:50We're literally trying to copy the Bachelorette.
03:52We looked at the Bachelor production designer's Instagram and tried to copy her style, but
03:59she gets, like, $10,000 per set, probably.
04:02Instead of the luxurious Bachelor vibe of a hot tub, we got a blow-up kiddie pool from
04:08Target with, like, leaves floating in it.
04:10We're gonna make it a boring, bougie, like, gaudy living room kind of set with a fake
04:19fireplace and a fur rug, but we're gonna do it Game Changers style, make sure we're incorporating
04:24the colors.
04:25The couch is hot red.
04:27The big difference between us doing a Survivor tribute and us doing a Bachelor tribute is
04:33I love Survivor, and I don't love the Bachelor.
04:37Immediately the question was, how do we improve upon the source material, and I think we did
04:44that in a number of ways.
04:45I think we did that with the contestants we brought to the table.
04:48I think we did that with vibes.
04:50I think we did it by not painting our Bachelor as some sort of superhuman, but showing him
04:58off in all of his pluses and minuses, which we all have.
05:03I think we did it by offering prizes to the contestants as they were leaving.
05:09Oh my god, you weren't lying.
05:11These are good gifts!
05:12That's what I'm saying!
05:13I think the wildest part of that episode was the ending.
05:18Grant was having a really hard time as that episode wore on.
05:22I think his decisions felt more arbitrary, and by the time he had willed it down to two
05:28men, it was very clear to me that he didn't want to choose between them.
05:34When Grant approached me about offering the prize to both of them, I loved it.
05:40It felt different to me, it felt inclusive, it felt progressive.
05:45No one saw that coming.
05:47And I think that is what made for a really excellent show.
05:53At the end of the day, when Grant couldn't decide, I'll never forget, there was a moment
05:57we actually paused the show and Sam pulled us aside.
06:02The look on people's faces was one of surprise and a little bit of shock.
06:08The gamble was that either Reece or Abel would be too offended by both being selected that
06:14they wouldn't be into it and that would have created its own energy, its own other vibe
06:20of an ending.
06:21But that didn't happen and luckily we got our poly-fairytale ending.
06:27It immediately begs the question, is this something we're going to do in future seasons?
06:31Are we going to take on other reality competition shows and do our own full day two part version
06:39of them?
06:40I'm reluctant to fall into patterns but I can immediately think of others I want to
06:44do.