Investigation Discovery, which recently made news by revealing plans for a Mark Burnett–produced American Idol knockoff featuring prison inmates, continues to find ways to stand out in the ever-expanding cable universe. Case in point: The network’s new marital horror-story series Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry? It already had a clever, profanity-without-the-profanity name (eat it, Shatner!) and an Oprah-worthy concept. But then the network went all crazy and decided to hire John Waters to be the promotional face of the series. He’s not on the show, or a producer of the show, he’s just the unofficial spokesman — the show’s Geico lizard. How did that happen?
According to ID chief Henry Schleiff, the network wanted someone who encapsulated “the sardonic, almost mischievous humor” of Who the (Bleep), which tells true stories of people who got hitched to spouses with deep, dark secrets and double lives (it’s like the reality version of Fox’s upcoming Lone Star). “There’s a surprise aspect in the show, a shock value … and [Waters] just captures that in a nutshell,” Schleiff told Vulture. The exec actually has a bit of a history with the original Hairspray director: Waters hosted 2007’s ’Til Death Do Us Part, another nuptials-gone-bad series spearheaded by Schleiff, back when he ran the network formerly known as Court TV. Though Waters is only seen in the promos for (Bleep), “We’d love to find other projects for him that would allow a greater contribution,” Schleiff says. Maybe Waters could be a judge on Prison Idol?
