The Home and Garden television channel (HGTV) is currently looking for Cal Poly students to be cast in a TV special entitled “What’s With That Crazy College Dorm Room?” The show will be an offshoot of the weekly series “What’s With That House,” hosted by comedian George Gray to chronicle college students with outrageous decorative skills and living situations.
Show producers want students who have or know someone who has an extreme and crazy living space to apply and let their cameras and America in to see it.
“We are looking for something that would make you stop in your tracks, more than just posters, and say wow, that person has really just gone to town,” said Christopher Poole, co-executive producer of “What’s With That House.”
The contestants are not limited to dorm room residents; this show is looking to explore student quarters both on and off campus.
The special is in the early stages of production and has yet to film any segments but they are casting from colleges all over the country.
“We heard of a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has a ton of mechanical gadgets that work all over his room,” Poole said. “That is the crazy, interesting stuff that would be fun to include in the show.”
This is the third special for the HGTV series that already released “What’s With That Crazy Christmas House” in early December and just finished filming “What’s With That Really Expensive House.”
The idea of the show and its specials is to get an up close and personal look at the extravagant and the strange of living situations. The show interviews friends, family and neighbors of the homeowners, trying to give viewers a look at living spaces they may not see every day and the stories behind them.
The program is currently in its second season and frequents the networks list of the top 10 rated shows. The regular series airs on HGTV Sundays at 10:30 p.m. and replays Mondays at 11 p.m.
“It is a fun show with a good sense of humor. Not your typical TV program,” Poole said. “It is one of the shows on HGTV that appeals to younger people and the comedian host George Gray is great.”
To enter yourself or a friend as a contestant, you can log onto the LMNO Productions Web site at www.lmnotv.com/collegeroom/. This page gives students the casting page and all of the show information.
Once the students have been chosen, the network will make several stops in a variety of college towns throughout the country. The production company is hoping to cast the special by the end of the semester, and it is estimated that filming will take about a day per room.
“I haven’t really seen anything too extravagant in anyone’s room yet at Cal Poly, but I think these types of shows are interesting because you can tell so much about someone just by seeing their room,” English freshman Shelley McKendree said. “There are a lot of creative people here in San Luis, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they found a candidate in the area.”