http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/0...nim/index.html


LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Mary-Ellis Bunim, credited with creating numerous reality TV hits, including MTV's "The Real World," is dead.

Bunim, 57, died in Burbank, California, Thursday after a long battle with cancer, her publicist said.

She began her television career in soap operas. Then, in 1990, she and Jonathan Murray combined the documentary nature of news and the dramatic intrigue of soap operas to create The Real World.

She also co-created "Road Rules," "The Love Cruise," "Making the Band," "The Real World Road Rules Challenge," the reality feature film "The Real Cancun," the real-life daytime drama "Starting Over," and "The Simple Life," Fox network's major prime-time reality hit of the 2003 season, starring Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.

"Mary-Ellis was a one-in-a-million partner and friend, and I will always treasure our incredible years of collaboration," Murray said. "Even as the family at Bunim-Murray Productions mourns her loss, we will honor her memory by remaining committed to her ideals of creativity, adventure, and excellence, both on the screen and in our lives."

Bunim is survived by her daughter, Juliana.

Good for her.

please tell me your happy that she no longer has to battle cancer.

Huh?

That is just ridiculously unappropriate.

Or you guys could just ignore the troll and talk about the thread subject. But naw....thats not as fun.

on the one hand, I never take pleasure in the fact that someone has passed away from something as horrible as cancer..

on the other hand, look at all the shit she was responsible for and the genre she helped spawn..

make of it what you will.

Why don't you just tell us?

You want to see people with no souls? Visit the Yahoo message boards on the topic of this story....Everyone over there is rejoicing, saying that she is in hell, and that they ****ed her corpse. It was sad that they felt the need to be so cruel.

If Osama Bin Ladin died of cancer, are we also not allowed to say anything "inappropriate"? There are just too many people in the world and too many people that I don't know for me to care about every single death that happens. All I know is that she inflected the same amount of terror in us as Al Qaeda, except using the tv instead of weapons. It's a shame she died of cancer though. At least I can say I know one person who died of it. The chick who created the Real World.

And Lara is doing the same thing, but she's using stupidity.


Added: Oh, I see you edited your comment to sound less mean. Kind of.

I love reality tv and am glad for her contributions. It's weird to see some of the responses, but I don't really care.

I don't understand why people are so antagonistic to reality tv in general though. IMO, scripted tv has been the best it's ever been the last several years. So I don't see how the existence of reality tv is negatively affecting anybody.

Are you seriously comparing this chick to Bin Laden?

I guess we should just be happy that most people who post here are smarter than to post something that stupid.

I occasionally enjoyed the Real World and Making the Band. It's just too bad those shows were way overplayed by MTV.

Cancer is taking everyone out.


But all the money still goes to AIDS

Maybe Lara Means is a SAG member.

Though I selected this post, there are several of you who should take this as a warning... thread crapping is not an acceptable practice. It's even worse in a thread like this. If you have nothing more to offer than snide comments, I'd suggest that you say nothing at all.

Quote:

Originally posted by nny
I don't understand why people are so antagonistic to reality tv in general though. IMO, scripted tv has been the best it's ever been the last several years. So I don't see how the existence of reality tv is negatively affecting anybody.

OT

Plain and simple..."scripted non-reality" shows are expected to do as well as "reality" shows in the ratings. Nowadays, they aren't allowed to develop an audience. They want that "reality" instant gratification. In addition to that, "reality" show cost a LOT LESS to make. Which makes "reality" shows all that more appealing to networks over "scripted non-reality" shows.

Quote:

Originally posted by Giantrobo
Cancer is taking everyone out.


But all the money still goes to AIDS

OTē

I always think of Chris Rock when stuff like this happens. He asked "When was the last time we cured a disease?" I think he guessed polio was the last disease to be cured. I mean, really...our technology is getting better, yet people are still being affected by cancer, MS and other diseases.

The other thing that pisses me off [and then i'll shut up], are all these people who have different "foundations". [To use Giantrobo's last example] Since there are SO MANY AIDS "foundations" set up doing research, how does one "foundation" know that they're not researching something another "foundation" has come across a year or two ago? Why isn't there one MAIN foundation with many satellites, if you will, sharing information so a solution can be found that much faster..

Knowhutimean?

The Real World is just as bad as organizing the killing of thousands of people?

And as to your other comment, my mother once told me, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

My mother always told me to always tell the truth.

If that's the case then you are living in the wrong city.

Well the mods have told you to shut up. So do it.

I've never heard good things about these people and the shows they make, but it's hardly a day to rejoice if one of them passes away.

Still, if someone genuinely is "happy" that someone from tv has died, while repulsive to me and most, why shouldn't they be able to say it here?

I can't say that I feel bad for anyone here, that might be upset by a post, but I am sad for her daughter and those who knew her and loved her.

Thanks for responding and I appreciate your argument, but I disagree. If there were no reality shows on TV, it's true that there would be more quality scripted shows tried out just for the simple fact that more time would need to be filled, but I doubt the networks would be any more willing to support these shows. These shows would continue to get cancelled and be replaced by mediocre sitcoms and CSI and Law and Order clones.

People still bitch about Once and Again and Family Guy getting cancelled even though they both ran for 3 full seasons. Quite possibly the best drama ever, My So-Called Life, didn't get a full 22 episodes. Quite possibly the best comedy ever, Police Squad, only ran for 6 episodes. Scripted shows are no worse now than they ever have been. I think it may just seem that way because there's so many more shows on TV and we hear so much more about what's happening with them.