Idolator

A few weeks ago, we pre-emptively rolled our eyes at Ego Trip's White Rapper Show, VH1's upcoming reality-show competition in which MC Serch tries to find the next big-time professional honky. "It's on VH1," we thought, "the network staffed by people who are smart enough to know that they shouldn't spreading so much stupidy." Well, we just finished watching the pilot episode, and our verdict is after the click-through...

It's actually pretty good.

Not Bands On The Run good, mind you, but good enough to warrant a Tivo Season Pass. And frankly, the that drives us bonkers: After the damn MTV/Rolling Stone show turned out to be halfway decent, we were looking forward to a new easy-target punching bag. Plus, you're all going to think we've gone all soft.

But for all of our skepticism about VH1's increasingly sub-brow programming—the "h" stands for "Holy shit, they just showed someone pooping on Flavor Flav's rug!"—White Rapper is funny and sneakily smart, and that probaby has to do with the first two words in the title: The Ego Trip team's fingerprints are all over this thing, from the guest stars (Prince Paul, Grandmaster Flash) to the tongue-in-cheek visuals (the show's finale is too goofy to spoil, but it's one of the best competition-show send-offs we've seen since Chuck Barris started hitting the gong).

Among the highlights:
- Contestants who,—while generally absurd—are completely earnest in their love of hip-hop (our favorite is John Brown, a self-described "King of the 'Burbs" who constantly brings up his passion for the "ghetto revival" without actually explaining or understanding what it means). There's not an ironsauruses in the batch.
- A conversation about white people using the "n-word" that's not condescending or heavy-handed.
- A female MC who sincerely idolizes Vanilla Ice.
- Dildo-wielding—but socially important dildo-wielding.

So you've won this round, VH1. But we're not letting you off so easy the next time you decide to count down The 50 Greatest Semi-Snippy Liner-Notes.

Ego Trip's White Rapper Show [VH1.com]