Showtime cable channel, whose previous forays into reality television have included last fall's Freshman Diaries and the adult entertainment industry centered Family Business, has announced that it has ordered a pilot for Make It Cool, a new Queer Eye For The Straight Guy-like reality series in which a group of "hip African-Americans" will help horrifically "uncool" people of all races overcome their "uncoolness."
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"A lot of the coolest stuff emanates from the black culture," Showtime entertainment president Robert Greenblatt told The Hollywood Reporter. "That culture seems to have the hold on stuff that is going to be cool tomorrow -- they know it today."
While admitting the program would have some similarities to Queer Eye, Greenblatt emphasized that Make It Cool would be "far edgier" than the hit Bravo series. "I think the dialogue between different cultures and races will be more explicit and frank," Greenblatt explained to The Reporter. "This will be more sociologically interesting than what fork to use and how to make a mushroom roulade."
Make It Cool -- considered to only be a working title for the program -- is expected to star three or four "cool" African-Americans and was brought to the network by the Jay Blumenfield and Anthony Marsh, two of the co-executive producers behind Family Business (which is executive produced by Arnold Shapiro and Allison Grodner -- the same team behind the last three seasons of CBS' Big Brother.)
Assuming the network likes what it sees in the pilot, the series could make it onto Showtime's schedule as soon as this fall.