Department of Bad Ideas: Joan Rivers' New TV Show
Possible the most poorly-timed project in the history of television will soon be upon us: Joan Rivers is launching a new show in which she talks to very, very rich people about exactly how they got to be so very, very rich. "She knocks on the doors of mega-mansions, and approaches drivers of luxury cars, to ask how the heck they have all that money," explains Mark Burnett, the show's producer and the man responsible for unleashing the Survivor phenomenon. Could there be a worse time for a show like this in, say, the last 100 years or so? Probably not, which explains why even Burnett has trouble explaining the concept's awkward timing. "This show is about the super-rich. And, in this climate, the super-rich get richer." Tell that to billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has lost $30 billion (or $100 million a day) in recent weeks—or Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Sergei Brin, or Larry Page, who have each lost 11-figure sums since the start of the financial crisis.