“Joe Schmo” [ ]

On Spike TV tonight at 9

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IF you’ve about had it with reality shows and all those relentlessly self-promoting people who can take six weeks off from work – “Joe Schmo” is for you.

It’s a spoof on a hot TV trend and it’s so darn dopey that it’s funny.

The premise (in case you’ve been in solitary and haven’t seen the promos) is this: producers searching for reality show contestants pick a big, sloppy teddy bear of a guy and told him he’d won a spot on the show, “Lap of Luxury.”

Only thing is, the teddy bear (Matt Kennedy Gould) is the only one of the “contestants” who is in it for real. He’s the Schmo.

The others are actors out to fool the fool. And the stereotypes are perfect.

There’s “The Rich Bitch,” “The Buddy,” “The Grizzled Veteran,” “The Schemer,” The A**hole,” “The Gay Guy,” “The Quack,” “The Virgin,” and of course, “The Smarmy Host.”

(How they missed “The Bartender,” I don’t know, but it’s a big gaff as far as I’m concerned. There has never been a reality show without one.)

The only thing wrong with “Joe Schmo” is the schmo.

He’s such a sweet, dopey guy that we (I had a bunch of folks over to watch with me) all felt badly that we were laughing at him.

It’s kind of like laughing at the dopey kid in high school who could never quite get it right. It would have been better if Schmo was more like “The A**hole.”

Anyway, Gould is a harmless kind of a guy who dropped out of law school and was working as a pizza delivery guy when he got picked for the show.

He’s made to believe that the contestants will live in a mansion for the entire show, unless they get thrown off by the other contestants in the “Riches-to-Rags Eviction Ceremony.”

And thanks to “The Smarmy Host” (Ralph Garman), the ceremony itself is so funny, it’s howlingly shameful.

They toss “commerative plates” with the contestant’s faces on them into the fire, while reciting, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, (name of the contetant) you are dead to us!” (We played it over and over, it was so hilarious.)

In the two-hour premiere, Schmo falls for every trick – from losing the immunity challenge (the winner is the one who keeps his/her hand on a hooker for the longest amount of time) to believing the hilarious antics of the housemates.

Speaking of which – “The Polynesian Gay Guy” (Lance Krall) who is neither gay nor Polynesian, is worth the whole show. The guy is perfect.

Now, don’t read this if you don’t want to know who gets thrown off first:

They even go so far as to kill off (throw off) the black person first just like they do in the cheesey movies – and schmo still doesn’t get it.

While it’s terrible to laugh at the guy, he’s so clueless that you just can’t help it. And really – you have to give it to the actors who have to stay in character 24/7 without giving anything away.

They don’t always succeed, but if you were the pigeon, and had no idea what was going on, it would be impossible to guess that this whole thing was an elaborate ruse.

If you thought that, you’d really be crazy – or maybe just clueless.