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Q: How scripted was "Supernanny"?

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

To some degree it depends on who you ask, but the consensus answer seems to be "not as much as you'd think."

"Supernanny" was a reality TV show that originated on the U.K.'s Channel 4 but was reproduced for various markets. The U.S. version imported not only the format but the nanny herself: Jo Frost. It featured stories of families whose kids' bad behavior pushed them to the desperate end of asking a reality show nanny for help.

The families and their problems were certainly real. There was proof of this in the number of times the families subsequently ended up in the news, such as when one family's kids burned their house down, and the time Frost reported a family to the Department of Children and Family Services.

As for the actual, on-screen interactions between Frost and the families, this is where the staging comes in. For example, Channel 4 board member Roger Graef said publicly that children were often "forced" to cry for the camera, in the British version at least.

However, Dylan Young, one of the children featured on an episode of the U.S. version, went on the popular social media site Reddit to talk about his experiences, and he said that it wasn't a matter of scripting so much as provoking.

"There were situations they would put me in just to get a rise from my brother and sister."

Because the family's problems were real, he said, it was just a matter of reproducing the things they were going through for television.

"A lot of it was scripted -- it is a TV show, after all -- but at the same time they just basically followed us around like we were living our everyday lives."

 

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