''The Benefactor'' is an American
reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...
show broadcast on
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
starting on September 13, 2004. The premise involved 16 contestants vying to win
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
1 million from billionaire entrepreneur and
Dallas Mavericks
The Dallas Mavericks (often referred to as the Mavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Dallas. The Mavericks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference (NBA), Western Conferenc ...
owner
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor whose net worth is an estimated $4.8 billion, according to ''Forbes'', and ranked No. 177 on the 2020 ''Forbes'' 400 list ...
.
In late March and early April 2004, ABC held open auditions for the show in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
,
Boise
Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown area's ...
,
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
and
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
and also accepted auditions by mail.
The show and its format were kept tightly under wraps during its filming, which began on April 30, 2004 in Dallas, Texas. Mark Cuban purposefully kept details about the show to a minimum, revealing only a small bit of information about the show on his personal blog during filming. Dallas journalists, eager to learn what was going on, routinely compiled sightings of ''Benefactor'' film crews around town.
However, the show proved to be extremely unpopular and suffered from very low ratings, despite leading into the popular ''
Monday Night Football
''ESPN Monday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''MNF'' and also known as ''ESPN Monday Night Football on ABC'' for simulcasts) is an American live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games currently airing on ESPN, AB ...
''. The show also suffered from ABC stations in
NFL markets (such as
WBAY
WBAY-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC and owned by Gray Television. The station's studios are located on South Jefferson Street in downtown Green B ...
in
Green Bay and
Buffalo's
WKBW-TV
WKBW-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, the station maintains studios at 7 Broadcast Plaza in downtown Buffalo and ...
) moving the show to a timeslot after ''
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' is an American late-night talk show, created and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. The nightly hour-long show debuted on January 26, 2003, at Hollywood Masonic Temple in Hollywood, Los ...
'' or another night entirely due to local sports shows devoted to NFL coverage or local pre-game shows in the pre-MNF slot. Episode three had only 4.9 million viewers, the network's least-watched show of that week. Episode four did even worse, with only 4.05 million viewers and finished sixth in its time slot among 18- to 49-year-olds.
The series was widely seen as a copycat and derivative of ''
The Apprentice
''The Apprentice'' is a Reality competition, reality talent game show franchise originally aired in 2004 in the United States.
Created by U.S.-based British producer Mark Burnett, the show depicts contestants from around the country with variou ...
'', a popular show of the time that was hosted by
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
. ''The Benefactor'' debuted about nine months after ''The Apprentice'' did, though ''The Benefactor'' focused more on offbeat and unconventional tasks that weren't directly related to business, as opposed to ''The Apprentice's'' commerce-related tasks. ''The Benefactor'' also offered a straight cash prize as opposed to an apprenticeship with salary.
Contestants
The show
Cuban said specifically that he would give the $1 million prize to the person that demonstrated that they had the skills that Cuban deemed necessary to be successful. Each game or test involved throughout the show was designed specifically by Cuban to require the contestants to demonstrate these skills.
Week 1 (September 13, 2004)
In the first week, Mark Cuban invited the sixteen contestants to a Dallas mansion to begin the game. As the contestants arrive, Cuban watches them and their interactions with the others through closed-circuit cameras. Once everyone has arrived, Cuban joins the group and announces that one of them has already failed the first test: you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. Cuban then proceeded to eliminate Richard, who Cuban believed had called the game "stupid" (In reality, he actually said that he didn't 'think
The Benefactor'was 'going to be one of those stupid shows.')
The next part of the game involved Cuban interviewing each of the contestants. He did so with the purpose of determining whether or not the contestants could live up to the expectations that Cuban had from them from their applications. From the interviews, Cuban sent Laurel home because she wouldn't play
air guitar
Air guitar is a form of dance and movement in which the performer pretends to play an imaginary rock or heavy metal-style electric guitar, including riffs and solos. Playing an air guitar usually consists of exaggerated strumming and picking m ...
during her interview, a contrast to her application video where she checked her mail in the nude. Cuban then deliberated between sending William and Grayson home, but had a difficult time deciding, so he decided to have the two play a game of
Jenga
Jenga is a game of physical skill created by British board game designer and author Leslie Scott and marketed by Hasbro. Players take turns removing one block at a time from a tower constructed of 54 blocks. Each block removed is then placed on ...
to determine who would stay by challenging their ability to handle pressure. Grayson was able to hang in the game for a while, but William eventually won and Grayson was eliminated.
Week 2 (September 20, 2004)
In the second week of the program, Cuban chose three of the remaining thirteen contestants to be "captains." The captains would then select three people to be on their team and the thirteenth would be eliminated. Linda selected Chris, Kevin and Spencer, Dominic selected Tiffaney, Femia and Christine and Shawn selected Latane, William and Mario. Kathy, the thirteenth contestant, was then eliminated from the game.
It was then announced that the three teams would be given several hours of Mark Cuban's time and $2,500 with the specific instruction of doing something that would not waste Mark's time. Linda's team was the first to go in the morning. They take Cuban to the Scottish Rite Children's Hospital in Dallas to visit the patients, but they realize they made a mistake when they realize that Cuban was a regular visitor to the hospital's patients and that the contestants didn't get much time to interact with Cuban.
Dominic's team is next, going in the afternoon. They start off by taking a flashy
Hummer
Hummer (stylized as HUMMER) is a brand of pickups and SUVs that was first marketed in 1992 when AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee. Although discontinued in 2010, Hummer returned as a sub-brand of GMC in 2020. ...
limousine
A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment.
A very long wheelbase luxury sedan (with more than four doors) driven by a prof ...
to the arcade
Dave & Buster's
Dave & Buster's is an American restaurant and entertainment business headquartered in Dallas. Each Dave & Buster's has a full-service restaurant and a video arcade. As of October 2022, the company has 151 locations in the United States and two ...
. Cuban is very excited because he hasn't been to an arcade since he was fifteen and has a great time, capping the time off with a mid-day beer with the team.
Shawn's team goes last late in the afternoon. They take Cuban to the Speed Zone
go-kart
A go-kart, also written as go-cart (often referred to as simply a kart), is a type of sports car, close wheeled car, open-wheel car or quadracycle. Go-karts come in all shapes and forms, from non-motorised models to high-performance Kart rac ...
park. Cuban again has a good time, but following racing, the team takes Mark to a sky-shot ride, which shoots riders into the sky on a giant slingshot. Mark, however, is
afraid of heights and refuses to get on it. The team doesn't have a backup plan and they end up wasting the remaining 45 minutes of Cuban's time and, consequently, lose the competition.
The four members of Shawn's team are then put before Cuban's "Board of Advisors" - a panel of three second-graders - who will determine which two members will stay in the game and which two will have to leave. After the three second-graders ask the four contestants a series of questions, they determine to eliminate William and Mario.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benefactor (TV series), The
American Broadcasting Company original programming
2000s American reality television series
2004 American television series debuts
2004 American television series endings
English-language television shows