Flavor of Love

Television has had to choose between making gold or crap. They can pay top dollar to make shows like Mad Men and hope to cash in on DVD sales, or crank out dirt-cheap reality shows that can turn a profit even with tiny ratings.

Or, they can say "fuck it" and make a show about dating Flavor Flav.

—Cracked.com, "The Top 5 Everything of the Decade (For Better and Worse)"

Flavor of Love is a VH-1 "Celebreality" show. It centers around Public Enemy Hype Man and Large Ham Flavor Flav finding true love after his breakup with Brigitte Nielsen (Sylvester Stallone's ex-wife). 20 girls were to compete for his heart until only one remained. It didn't work out too well, resulting in not two, but three seasons, each with a new supply of girls. Hilarity ensued.

The show is So Bad It's Good, and goes way beyond Bile Fascination and right back to Crazy Awesome. Largely because all of the girls -- and Flav himself -- are freakishly insane.

Oh, and? The season 1 girls weren't told they'd be dating Flavor Flav, until they'd already been cast.

Each contestant is given a nickname by Flav (he's admittedly not good with names) and is referred to by that nickname for as long as she remains ~~in the competition~~ on VH-1. The contestants compete for intimate dates with Flav by partaking in various challenges, ranging from silly to ridiculous. At the end of each episode, the show features a clock ceremony where contestants receive gold clocks to wear around their necks. Flav brings the few remaining women's parents on in the third or second to last episode. Finally, the season finale takes place in a tropical destination. The finalists and Flav spend the last two days at a luxurious resort preceding his final decision.

The whole mess was a Star-Making Role for many of the girls, and resulted in a number of spinoffs / clone shows, many of which feature a whole lot of contestants from previous shows. These shows include, but are in no way limited to:

Flavor Of Love Girls: Charm School
I Love New York
- New York Goes To Work
- New York Goes To Hollywood
- Real Chance Of Love
  - Real And Chance: The Legend Hunters
- Frank The Entertainer in... A Basement Affair
- Boston Symposium
I Love Money
For The Love Of Ray J
Rock of Love with Bret Michaels
- ... And its many, many spinoffs.

Also, Flavor of Love itself spun off from Strange Love, a spinoff of The Surreal Life, in turn based on The Real World, which... you get the idea.

In the end, Flav decided not to go with his pick, but to marry the mother of his seventh child instead. Well, at least we all had a good laugh, right?

Tropes used in Flavor of Love include:

Arch Nemesis: New York and Pumkin.
Author Appeal: Flav likes reindeer. Then he nicknames one of the girls in Season 3 Prancer.
The Baroness: Red Oyster. Ohhh boy. Red dress, whip, long black hair, serious look on her face... she was trying very hard to be the trope archetype.
Battle Butler: Big Rick, jumping in between New York and Pumkin at the season 1 reunion show.
Becoming the Mask: All of the girls start referring to themselves by their show nicknames, and become more crazy and obsessed with Flav each episode.
- Averted in Flavor Of Love Girls: Charm School, where the very first thing Mo'Nique did was to get rid of the girls' nicknames and tell them to become themselves again.
  - Played Straight in Charm School 3 as everyone, including Ricki Lake, referred to the Flavor of Love girls by their nicknames.
Berserk Button: Flav doesn't like his name misspelled. In the 3rd season, he eliminated a girl because of it.
Better as Friends: Flav and Brigitte, Flav and Goldie, Flav and Hoopz.
Beware the Nice Ones: Sweetie did not take her elimination well. At the reunion show, even Flav agrees that her elimination was a surprise. In her defense, the other choice was Hottie, who failed the challenge. (They had to cook chicken for his mother. While Sweetie had to overcome fear of chicken to complete the challenge, Hottie on the other hand placed the chicken in the microwave and set it on "chicken".)
Big Beautiful Woman: Goldie, Somethin and Like Dat.
Cat Fight: Quite a few.
Catch Phrase: "FLAVOR FLAAAV!!!"
- Elimination Catchphrase: "Your time's up."
Clip Show: Usually ran before a season's finale.
Cloudcuckoolander: Wire. Also, Flav.
Did You Just Have Sex?: Pumkin to Goldie. Subverted: it later turns out Goldie didn't sleep with Flav, realizing she only saw him as a friend.
Disproportionate Retribution: Saaphyri attacks H-Town after she hits her with a bouquet of flowers.
- Justified Trope: In Charm School, it was revealed that Saaphyri was traumatized by having her furniture and possessions taken away after her father died.
The Ditz: Many. Red Oyster accidentally revealed herself to be one when she didn't know the word "electrifying".
Double Standard: Flav wants his girl to be only his, but she's got to understand that occasionally he wants to touch other girls. On the lips.
Everything Is Racist: Pumkin can't catch a break.
Genre Savvy: Flav knows full well that some of the girls are only on the show for money or fame. So he has his intimidating viking woman ex hook them up to a lie detector.
Gold Digger: Hottie.
- Hotlanta was accused of this, leading to a Crowning Moment of Funny when she yelled: "This isn't even his house!".
Granola Girl: Wire.
Guilty Pleasure
Half Truth: In Toasteee's defense, the videos she did in college are not technically porn. They're actually videos of her wearing nothing but a thong, strangling fully clothed men with her thighs. ... Or So I Heard.
It's All About Me: From alot of people, including Flav himself.
Kavorka Man: The picture says it all.
Large Ham: Flav of course.
Let Us Never Speak of This Again: No matter how many spinoff shows they appear in, none of the girls will ever admit to having been attracted to Flav. Apart from New York.
Man Child: Guess who.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Wire thinks she's this. Toasteee has shades of it as well, especially when she's drunk.
Manipulative Bitch: New York, natch.
The Mole: Red Oyster, who volunteered to spy for Flav. Also Eye'z, who wasn't really a competitor anyway.
Money, Dear Boy: In a later MTV interview, Hoopz said she was simply scouted for the show in LA last minute and had a contract a few hours later. Although she genuinely liked Flav, it's obvious that at least a few girls on the show were brought in the same way without so much as a clue who Flavor Flav is.
Non Gameplay Elimination
Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: New York assures us she has nothing against big girls, apart from hating them. Pumkin says she isn't prejudiced, she just can't understand black words.
Only Known by Their Nickname
Only Sane Woman: New York's mom, occasionally.

"I don't wanna be seen in public with a man that's forty-freakin'-six years old, wearing a freakin' clock that's not even running."

- Goldie and Hoopz both stayed pretty sane as well, just having a lot of fun with Flav and not getting mixed up in house drama at all.
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Buckwild.

--Flav: Can I ask you a question? Where the fuck did your accent go?

Overly Long Gag: By New York's mom, of all people:

"You didn't say marriage. I know you didn't say that. That's never gonna happen. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever, Tiffany. Ever. Ever. Ever, in a million years. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever."

Pretty Fly For A White Girl: Buckwild
- Pumkin eventually realizes she can't keep up with all of the "black words". She copes by... getting cornrows.
The Reveal: Red Oyster is married.
Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Toasteee and Nibblz were eliminated because of their pasts as a Pornstar and Stripper respectively.
The Runner Up Takes It All: New York goes on to have two seasons of her own dating show, two other reality shows based on her, and a small appearance on a film.
Running Gag: Every time Hottie blinks, a "ching" sound follows. VH-1 kept this up for every reality show she appeared in.
Sassy Black Woman: Many of them.
Screw the Rules, I Make Them: Flav does this in Season Two to bring back New York on the show, even though she wasn't a contestant at the time, and again in Season Three to bring back Thing 2, after she was eliminated. Earlier in Season Three, he allows four girls selected by Saaphyri and Buckwild to enter the competition in Episode Seven.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Payshintz and Buckwild quit due to not wanting to have to deal with Bootz and New York respectively.
She's Back: New York in Season 2.
She Cleans Up Nicely: Buckwild and Saaphyri in Charm School. Buckwild loses most of the accent and starts acting like a lady, and Saaphyri learns to control her anger and to verbally express herself.
Sibling Team: Thing 1 and 2. In the clock cerimonies, Flav even puts a gold clock on both of their necks. Eventually he broke them up as two equal competitors.
Smug Snake: Toasteee reveals herself to be one in I Love Money.
Spin-Off: I Love New York and Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School.
Spiteful Spit: The Infamous scene where after a heated argument, Pumkin spits on New York. Pumkin should be lucky New York only got to push her into a camera.
Stalker with a Crush: New York.
Stay in the Kitchen: Flav to Hottie. Extremely justified use of the trope.
Ugly Guy, Hot Contestants
The Un-Reveal: Hoopz' real name. It's Nikki, by the way.
Victorious Loser: Despite losing two seasons in a row, New York ends up with the last laugh when it comes to success. See The Runner Up Takes It All.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Most of the girls who were eliminated in the first couple of episodes.
- This was interestingly subverted with Saaphyri, who was infamously known for being eliminated in only a couple of minutes of the show, after having an altercation with H-Town. And then she went through a genuine metamorphosis on Charm School, showed many Hidden Depths and won the freaking show.
Xtreme Kool Letterz
You Look Familiar: Pumkin, who has been noted on being on different Reality TV shows.
- Flav caught Hottie on reality TV one morning, thought it was hilarious, called all the other girls up to his bedroom to come watch the show and promptly eliminated her for being a lying Gold Digger.