Flavor of Love

There has to be something in The Bible about this.

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:

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:

"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?

"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.
  • 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.
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