Fall TV Alert! MTV's Celebrity Rap Superstar is Not a New Twist on Reality TV

What reality TV shows star stars from other reality TV shows? Give up? OK, time's up; there are few shows which actually showcase the hidden talents (and I do mean hidden) of otherwise obscure celebs from reality TV shows.

It is the next hybrid of the reality show, the reality show to market the talents (whatever those are) of those who have appeared in reality shows. Except for NFL star Jamal Anderson, every contestant in MTV's Celebrity Rap Superstar has a Hollywood pedigree and the show seems to want to be a factory for producing serious rap talent, as laughable as that may seem.

MTV's Celebrity Rap Superstar is one such show, a mockery of modern music in which an actual rap superstar is paired with an otherwise unsuspecting but oh-so-eager wannabe celebrity who thinks they can become the next K-Fed.

Judging the eight hopefuls are actually DMC, or Darryl McDaniels, one-half of rap pioneers Run DMC, as well as Da Brat, the diminutive but feisty ball of energy currently getting airplay on reality TV shows like The Surreal Life and Big Boy, a longtime L.A. radio personality.

Though the show's producers claim it has "a talent lineup like no other" in a press release, the fact of the matter is that very few of these celebrities can actually rap. The one who can, Shar Jackson, is of course more known for her role as K-Fed's ex than anything else.

Shar may talk like a valley girl, but she raps like Queen Latifah, before the Queen became this generation's next Oprah.

Jackson will likely parlay her serious rap talents into an album or two, a Revlon commercial and perhaps her own ring tone in the very near future. At the moment Jackson, or Shar-J, as she likes to be called, is currently destroying the likes of hair band god Sebastian Bach, as well as the ever-pink paparazzi blogger Perez Hilton and even Hef's No.3, Kendra Wilkinson, who shakes her assets lots better than she can rap. Add into that nauseating mix one Jason Wahler, known as much for being this generation's Eddie Cleaver on MTV's The Hills (and any other show he can get) and you've got a recipe for entertainment, if not much else. (Well, the entertainment quotient is still there though America booted Wahler last week.)

Nobody actually said that all musicians were paid for their talent, and God only knows the numbers of rappers are in the hundreds who have had one hit and forever disappeared into some city's smog, only to turn up on the evening news or International House of Pancakes.

On CRS (or Can't Read Scripts) the idea is for the rapper to learn a new song with the help of their real-life rapping tutor leading up to every episode and nail it in their performance in front of a studio audience. The ones who do rap well in CRS move on to the next round so they can look more hard, more ghetto fabulous and more like what MTV wants them to look like, while wannabe rappers like Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite can go back to acting.

And, supposedly, you at home have a say in who stays and who goes home, but honestly, nobody knows if that really is the case. It's possible that the phone lines are jammed every time Wilkinson starts shaking what God gave her and so she should be considered a serious threat to Jackson, as well as another actress, Countess Vaughn, who are the top two rappers in the competition thus far. Perez Hilton and Bach have also stirred up some excitement with their decent rapping skills so they should be considered also.

Sound familiar? It should, since you've been watching American Idol for years, wondering how talented those singers really were. CRS is no different; in fact, it just cements the idea that Americans and TV watchers are just looking for something entertaining on TV, no matter how ridiculous the premise.

Check out Celebrity Rap Superstar on MTV several nights a week, with a new episode every Thursday.