Dating shows on television go back a ways; back in the 1970s, shows like The Dating Game played with the idea of pairing singles with potential mates–sight unseen–in hopes of making a match (or some insane television fodder). The genre has grown, growing into dating shows of all types, including ABC's behemoth The Bachelor, classics like Blind Date, and awful attempts like Joe Millionaire...aka peak trash dating show nonsense.
While the dating show genre as of late turned into more of a reality television-based experience, you have to go back to the early '90s (1991 to be exact) to get the real dating game show experience. That's right, we're talking about Studs.
Personally, I remember spending summers at my cousin's house in South Jersey, trying to find late-night TV to consume after The Arsenio Hall Show was over (bad ass kids weren't trying to watch M*A*S*H, no disrespect to Alan Alda). A quick channel surfing lead us to Studs, a dating show that captured our attention primarily because, for the early '90s, it was risqué. Again, this isn't a situation where they were getting bleeped for their sex talk, but anything that elicited an audible "woooo!" from the crowds were deemed a little too "adult" for a youngster like I was.
Looking back, the show was tame as hell, but it had a certain charm.
Primarily, it was two guys (the "studs" of the show) going out on dates with the same three women. Before the show, the women described how these dates went down, and the "studs" had to guess which women said what about their interactions, ranging from how they talked on the phone to how the night ended up. It got racy, but given how some of these dating shows turn up (which includes everything from audible hook-ups off camera on The Bachelor to full-on fights like on Flavor of Love), Studs hasn't gotten more explicit over the years.
All of that nonsense aside, it's actually just the look of the show. The amount of hair spray that had to have been used in that dressing room probably burned its own ring into the ozone layer. And so much poodle hair on guys? You forget that, for a time, this was the style.
Fam, your boy has what appears to be a turtleneck, blazer, and shorts on with some high boots and some kind of perm situation, and it was OK.
Sadly, Studs got canceled after a little over two years of being on the air. Word is that it did well in the ratings, but had to make room for the fucking Chevy Chase Show, which only stayed on air for five weeks. Maybe this weekend, instead of going crazy trying to figure out what to a) do with bae or b) duck bae for Valentine's Day, you should just sit alone, fire up your YouTube app on Apple TV, and thank the heavens that Twitter fame and Tinder dating is so much easier than going on national TV and making an ass out of yourself.
