I don't know about Joe Brown, but I do know that on Judge Judy she is actually settling real lawsuits but both the defendant and Plaintiff are paid to appear, and the show pays off the settlement to who ever is owed. Their travel and lodging are paid for and they are also given a daily "allowance" while they are in town.

The producers search the country for cases that are not a real high priority and would be entertaining. Both parties have to agree that Judge Judy's decision is final and that they will not pursue it further. The producers also pay the judgement to whoever wins. So if Judge Judy finds that my roommate does in fact owe me $500 bucks, the shows producers would be the ones that actually paid me. They also give both parties $100 for appearing and I think $40 a day while they are in town.


It is a damn good deal for the defendant if you ask me. If he loses then his debt is paid by the show, and if he wins then obv he doesn't owe anything. It kind of sucks for the plaintiff though, I mean if he loses, he is just **** out of luck since he agreed not to appeal. But hey, I guess they both got a free vacation out of the deal.

I guess that I am rambling but I just find this behind the scenes stuff fascinating so I figured I'd take a minute to explain how it works to see if anyone else finds its interesting as well.

As stated earlier, my buddy was a paid actor playing a part on Judge Judy

From how I understand it, it is a mix of both real and faked cases. Both Brown and Judy are legit judges, believe it or not.

I don't know what the real attendees get, but that is paltry pay, IMO.

Not sure how I missed that post.

This seems odd, even the fine print 2 second flash of a disclaimer at the end of the episodes says that they are in fact actual cases and real plaintiffs/defendants. Was he just like a "witness" for the plaintiff or the defendant? Everything I have ever read on the subject says that only the people in the audience are actors.

He was the "defendant"in the case,and the entire thing was scripted.

The flip shows are bad, saw one where the house was overpriced in a busy street area, the sellers just so happened to get an offer above asking price and since it was overpiced the bank wouldn't give the full loan amount so the buyers put in more money to make up the difference. Yeah, BS.

They showed a house around the corner that was less and on quieter street that was remodeled.

she make a hell of a lot of ca$h judge judy.

You mean some people still don't know all reality shows are staged?

lol was watching one of those we live in Alaska reality shows and they show a bear catch a fish and it comes out with a salmon that's been sliced open and fileted.

was fully cleaned and manicured too. nothing hanging off, no bones no blood nothing. exactly like you would get it from whole foods.

how on earth that makes it to air is beyond me.

Anthony Bourdain has a running joke on his show about the hosts breaking out a "stunt fish" every time he's supposed to be fishing for a meal to be cooked and eaten on air. He'll often point out that the fish someone supposedly just reeled in has obviously been frozen and then thawed out.

ya lol it was pretty hilarious when he was "diving for fish" in Italy and they kept dumping dead fish in the water.

A house across from me just got flipped and we are in a area that's being gentrified. I looked up the house on zillow and it says the house is pending contract but there is also a blurb about how it's going to be on HGTV house hunters. I haven't seen any film crews though. Also the house is directly next to a boarded up house and across from another one. I'm really curious how they are going to show the neighborhood if they are in fact filming. This's thread makes it seem like maybe the buyers have already selected it? Even though I don't think they've filmed anything yet.

Can't speak to you buddy's case, but at least some of the cases are (or perhaps were) real, seeing as how a few have been overturned on appeal in honest-to-god courtrooms:

http://www.fact.on.ca/news/news0003/lw000317.htm

Can't exactly see that happening for a fictional TV show.

To be clear, these are not real courtrooms. They are (or were) binding arbitration, staged to look like a court case. They solicit people to drop their real cases and submit the dispute to arbitration, in exchange for a fee. So maybe they fill in with fictional setups when they can't find enough interesting cases in small-claims court that month. Or maybe they used to be real, but found that it was more efficient to start scripting only fake cases. Or maybe your friend is full of ****.

I edited a fishing show back in the '80s and the underwater fish biting hook scenes were shot in the producers garage with a large fish tank.

I think most people assume they are. Assuming it is a far cry from getting verified proof, though.

What is truly odd to me is that so many have been outed as fake and still enjoy decent ratings (Storage Wars comes to mind, iirc the YUUUUP! guy who outed the show's fakeness is even back on the show!).

My cousin was on Joe Brown's show as a witness for his ex girlfriends ex roommate. They got pretty much this exact deal.

judge judy is actually real court cases tho..

ive sat in the audience multiple times (you get paid) and have seen litigants argue in the hallways during break..

most of the other court shows are fake tho.

it's pretty obvious you can tell by the story lines which are fake

Some of the cases may be real, but not all of them. Probably hard to keep finding enough new cases each week.

I'd read Judge Judy was the most profitable show on TV.

Couldn't find that, but article below says the show generates 200M a year ad revenue, on 10M production costs.

JJ 'far and away' the highest-paid TV star.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/21/news...udy/index.html

Edit: $47M per year for JJ.

Sooo, $57 million a year for production costs? There have been 4645 episodes done as of December 2014, an average of 244 per year (which at $57 mil per year would be a little under $41k per episode). That's a believable budget for that type of show.

Survivorman is the only reality show that isn't faked

Saying it multiple times doesn't make it true.

Nothing but a cheap looking set and Judy's salary. ****ing gold mine.

They pay extras, crew, participants, post-production, and maybe some marketing costs. Still, for how much it brings in, that's low cost (even with Judge Judy's ridiculous salary). She makes a little over $211k per episode, and I bet they shoot about 6 per day. Nice work if you can get it.

At 10m cost, they are claiming that each ep cost $2,152 dollars.

They pay the audience, the audience wranglers, the bailiff, security guards, the plaintiff, the defendant, a production crew, and rent.

Each episode takes about 45 minutes to shoot, which is edited down to whatever you see on TV.

Just over $2000?