Underplayed Gems

What Would You Do? (2008)

What Would You Do? poster
Genre
television news magazine, hidden camera show
Country
United States
Length
16 seasons, 137 episodes
Rated
M
Rating
7.9 of 10 from 12 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This show uses hidden cameras to film strangers in public settings who do not know they are on TV. Actors create staged scenarios involving conflict or illegal behavior to see how real people will react.

observationalcuriousthought-provokingunsettlingengagingrealistictense

What happens

What Would You Do? (commonly abbreviated as WWYD, and formerly known as Primetime: What Would You Do?, through the program's fifth season), is an American situational hidden camera television series, which has been broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) since February 26, 2008. Created by Chris Whipple, the show (with a social experiment format) follows the reactions of passing strangers, as they encounter conflict or illegal activity in a public setting, unaware that it is all staged, and being recorded with hidden cameras. Throughout all of its seventeen seasons, the show has been hosted by news correspondent John QuiƱones. Appearing periodically on ABC's Primetime from 2005 to 2007, What Would You Do? became an instant success for the ABC network. Following the 2007 writers' strike, ABC ordered the first season of the show. The series was annually renewed for a second, third, fourth, and fifth season. Starting with the sixth season, the show began to feature guest appearances, which included Barbara Corcoran, Howie Mandel, and Meredith Vieira. Following the seventh season, What Would You Do? aired its first Christmas special in its eighth season. This was followed by guest appearances by Daymond John and Pnina Tornai in the show's ninth season, Winnie Harlow in the show's tenth season, and an era without guests in the show's eleventh and twelfth seasons. A 10-year anniversary special was aired in 2017 as the season finale of the thirteenth season, titled "What Would You Do?: Then and Now", featuring scenarios originally aired on Primetime and in season one being remade with the same actors in the same locations. Following the fourteenth and fifteenth seasons of the show, ABC announced that they would air episodes filmed before the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the show's sixteenth season, as well as a special hosted by Gio Benitez as part of the sixteenth season's season finale. In May 2023, ABC renewed the series for a seventeenth season after a three-year hiatus. In May 2024, ABC renewed the series for an eighteenth season. As of January 8, 2025, 161 episodes of What Would You Do? have aired, including ten specials. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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