New MTV Reality Show to Target Schlitterbahn Waterpark

As you may have heard, Schlitterbahn Waterpark – the massive expanse of water rides, germ-infested tube-streams and jaundiced kiddie pools in New Braunfels, Texas – may be the focus of a new MTV reality show, Waterpark, in which the park’s employees – mostly adolescents from 16 to 22 – will be put under the lens. The show represents an effort by MTV to attract a younger demographic of viewers. Schlitterbahn has reportedly agreed to filming, as long as the show's ultimate content stays within community standards of decency. Casting started last week, and the show is scheduled to be released next summer.

On its age-old quest for “real-life drama”, which began with The Real World in the 90's, MTV has cast out a wide dragnet in recent years trying to discover new & interesting human scenarios in which entertaining & emotional events unfold as a matter of course. And what could be more inherently dramatic and unstable than the lives of teenagers? "There’s lots of real-life drama,” said a supervisor at Schlitterbahn. “There's no script needed with high school students.” Austinist, for one, can’t wait for the first episode.

We anticipate the usual reality show blueprint, adapted for this new younger demographic:

• The cast: The “bad kid,” a stoner who hates his parents; a naïve, pretty country-girl who gets her heart broken by said stoner; the comic relief; the gay kid that has to deal with his small-town Texas environs; the slutty girl who sleeps with everyone and wears too much lip gloss; the goth chick who smokes Reds and talks shit; the jock who gets his manager pregnant. We also anticipate that ethnic diversity on the show will be directly proportional to the United States population as a whole.

• Dramatic events of note: Break-ups, teen pregnancies, parking-lot fistfights, getting busted by cops/parents (read: misdemeanors and/or groundings), peer pressure, acne issues, performance of menial tasks (fishing dirty diaper out of the Lazy River, helping overweight woman get unstuck in the Soda Straw tube ride), workplace hierarchical disputes (“My boss sucks” or “I hate my boss”), domestic violence (“Pa hit Ma”), and perhaps even some teen identity crises to boot. Hopefully some bizarre felonies will be committed as well, but we don’t want to get our hopes up too high. We've been disappointed before.

Since the death knell for reality TV sounded years ago (and some might say the same for MTV), this entertainment format has just gotten sillier and sillier. And we love it. We’re Tevo’ing this one, right after our Marx Brothers re-reruns and our favorite feel-good shows on Lifetime. May the hilarity of reality TV never die. Hurrah!

*Images of Schlitterbahn taken from Wikipedia*