Turf out the current lot and select a dozen new royals on a weekly basis, the format being a game show where contending families answer jaw-slackeningly superficial questions on celeb gossip, TOTP, the latest high profile paedophile suspects and what's going on in the other reality TV programs.
The winners then have a week of the high life during which they must perform a range of international duties, attend celeb-packed parties and deal with farcical staged situations, all covered by live tv and webcams. The game show questions should have already guaranteed candidates who will provide countless hours of hilarious faux pas footage.
At the end of the week the incumbents would have a chance to extend their reign by a combination of their performance during the week, audience voting and competing in the game show.
If they manage to survive, they will be required to vote amongst themselves to choose eviction candidates, the final selection to be made by audience ballot. Any royal family member who survives the full 12 weeks will immediately be appointed Ambassador to North Korea, triggering a spinoff series of calamitous gaffes with an extremely interested (though perhaps somewhat anxious) global audience.
The best part of the show would be when the Windsors occasionally get a chance to win back their place for good. And each time, the host would cry "But we don't want to give you that!" as they crash to defeat yet again. The only concern might be that Prince Philip would do too well on the asylum-seeker-lambasting questions.
This format combines the "best" features of: - Lotto Jet Set - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Big Brother - The Osbournes - Faking It (well perhaps not, who would they fool?) - Make My Day
A version of this idea was ever so tantalisingly touched upon in passing by another contributor, but this submission constitutes a full realisation of the concept.-- oscil8, Jan 20 2003 Royal Raffle http://www.halfbake...idea/Royal_20RaffleSimilar. [Monkfish, Oct 04 2004] Be advised: some of your references may be a little UK-centric for our less British bakers. Here, parochialism goes down like, uh, something that goes down really badly.
Feel free to delete this anno.-- my face your, Jan 20 2003 I hope he doesn't. I rather like the phrase "less British".-- waugsqueke, Jan 20 2003 I think the royal family are mindless unthinkingly-reactionary parasites who conduct themselves with less grace and humility than Jade from Big Brother, but I don't like this idea either. It'd probably be even more boring than Fame Academy.
Having the royals vote each other out would actually quite close to the way the royal family already works though, with each member having a spin doctor who's trying madly to put the other ones down.-- kropotkin, Jan 20 2003 Phew, glad I took out that paragraph with a Does Doug Know angle, or this would have been a REAL stinker!-- oscil8, Jan 21 2003 Sod that! The royal family rocks, just the way it is, criticise it and be flamed!-- talen, Jan 21 2003 And prod him with sharp, poitny sticks!-- talen, Jan 21 2003 Hmmm, Call a spade a spade, they are puppets so let them dance... +-- madness, Jan 29 2003 random, halfbakery