The untold story of The Hills: The After Show
The MTV Canada show made broadcasting history and redefined how reality TV was treated on air
It's been more than 15 years since Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt first appeared in the reality show The Hills and became infamous as the show's villains. With their new podcast, Speidi's 16th Minute, the pair promise to give a "masterclass in being famous."
Guest host Amil Niazi rings up Jessi Cruickshank, former co-host of The Hills: The After Show, to talk about Heidi and Spencer's latest chase for fame. During their conversation, Cruickshank reflects on how The Hills: The After Show had a surprising impact on Canadian media history.
For the full discussion, where Jessi gets into all things Speidi, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.
The Hills: The After Show popularized the aftershow format
The MTV reality series The Hills followed the lives of young people working and living in Los Angeles. It was developed as a spin-off of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County.
After The Hills aired, Cruickshank would co-host a program with Canadian actor and producer Dan Levy called The After Show, discussing what transpired in the preceding episode.
"It's so funny because we really were so young. We were best friends, and we still are," Cruickshank says of co-hosting The After Show with Levy.
The show in many ways pioneered the format of a reality TV aftershow altogether.
"There was nothing else like that," she says. "There were no reunion shows. A reality show wasn't seen as worthy of an entire show after it to discuss it."
In fact, the show was never meant to be a genre-defining hit, but a means to an end.
"We only made that show for Canadian content purposes," Cruickshank explains.
"Because in Canada we had to create a certain amount of Canadian programming based on the amount of American programming that we aired, for every episode of The Hills, our bosses said, 'OK, we'll just throw Dan and Jessi on to talk about it for 30 minutes. Problem solved.'
"The After Show was never seen as a show. It was always seen as a solution to a problem."
WATCH | The Hills: The After Show on April 13th, 2009:
Cruickshank says she'll never forget what it felt like to realize just how big their audience for The After Show was during their first taping with a live studio audience.
"Dan and I were like, 'No one's going to come.' There were, like, 100 chairs laid out and we were terrified that no one would come to fill them. And by 1:00 p.m., police arrived with dogs and barricades because thousands of people were swarming the MTV studio, blocking off Yonge Street, trying to come to a taping of our show. That was truly the first moment that Dan and I looked at each other like, 'I guess people are watching?'"
The After Show made broadcasting history
The After Show didn't just define a whole new genre of television. It also became the first show that was simultaneously broadcast in both Canada and the United States.
"No one else in the Canadian television history archives would ever want to admit that The Hills: The After Show, historically, is the first show to ever go simulcast live in Canada and the U.S.," Cruickshank says with a laugh.
WATCH | Behind the scenes of The After Show With Dan and Jessi:
Even though the aftershow was a success, the host and comedians says producing it took away some of the fun of watching reality TV.
"Dan and I don't remember The Hills because we didn't consume it in the way that a fan would. We would get early episodes, we would sit down with notepads and our team of four would watch the episodes — and often we'd get the episodes before they were finished, so you would have a producer voiceover in there.… I mean, they would create scenes with voiceover in a way that no one knew, that we knew. So we weren't watching it with the love and enjoyment that everybody else was," she says.
"Especially when we were simulcast and airing in the U.S., we were part of the machine. So you couldn't tell anyone that some of the fights were fake or that this whole storyline was voiced by a man two days ago. We had to run with it and pretend that it was all real."
Nonetheless, Cruickshank says she has many fond memories from hosting The After Show, and is proud of its unlikely place in Canadian media history.
"Our show became, really, the first sort of aftershow/rewatch show/reunion show that ever existed, so thank you, CanCon, for creating that genre — for better or for worse."
You can listen to the full discussion from today's show, where Jessi shares stories about Heidi and Spencer, on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Jessi Cruickshank produced by Jean Kim.
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