Is there anything more cathartic than seeing a celebrity get punk’d on Punk’d? Not the part where the prank is happening and they’re all freaked out, though. The best part is when it’s over and they realize that their chauffeur didn’t really murder a homeless person or their mansion didn’t really explode. Nobody likes to see people get upset, but everyone can enjoy seeing a celebrity be happy. It helps us forget how bad our own lives are.
Unfortunately, the world has been Punk’d-less since the last revival in 2012, but BET has dug the show out of the grave that MTV stuffed it in and is finally bringing Punk’d back for another round of making celebrities feel uncomfortable for a few minutes. That comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which says “no talent was announced,” so we don’t know who will be hosting this latest update of the prank show. Ashton Kutcher masterminded the original Punk’d on MTV, but THR says this one will be “’tailored’ for the BET audience,” which we’re going to assume means that he won’t be involved.
BET also picked up a new sitcom starring Brandy Norwood (as in the famous Brandy), a singing competition hosted by Kelly Rowland, a show about the history of record labels from Ludacris, and special event broadcasts about Muhammad Ali, Hurricane Katrina, the O.J. Simpson trial, and “an exploration of race and justice in the U.S. that will view the hot-button issues through the lens of events from the Rodney King beating through the recent deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.”