Wife Swap is an American reality television program which airs on the
ABC network. This program is basically how the name sounds; two wives trade everything except beds and the fireworks start. For the first week of the trade/wife swap the guest wife has to abide by the rules left by the previous wife; but when the second week rolls around all hell breaks loose. The producers make sure of this by teaming up families for episodes that have completely different backgrounds, moral beliefs, etc. This program has quickly become very popular around the world especially in the UK.
As you can expect this program has been the cause of many controversies; most of them being legal arguments over copyright infringements. After the
Fox Network was out bided by
ABC for the Wife Swap franchise
Fox came up with their own versions of the program called Trading Spouses. Of course this did not sit well with
ABC who decided to sue
Fox. To take care of this lawsuit
Fox just sold the rights of their program to CMT thus ending the lawsuit. One of the more humorous controversies that have arisen is the one with Jeffery Bedford in 2005. Jeffery signed onto the show only to find out that his wife would be swapped out for a gay man. This did not sit too well with Jeffery and when he decided he had enough he stopped helping
ABC produce the episode. In-turn
ABC threatened him that if he did not comply and finish the filming of the episode they would not pay for his wife to get back. Jeffery Currently has an open lawsuit against
ABC; he is suing them for about 10 million dollars. I am not sure this lawsuit is going to go anywhere because in the contract he signed it states that spouses can be of any gender.
Overall this is a pretty funny program, who could have thought that by just switching wives you could have a very successful television program? This show has become so popular that numerous spinoffs have been created such as Boss Swap; in addition many shows have made parodies of this show. Shows such as the Chappelle's Shows and The Simpsons just could not help themselves. If you are looking for a laugh or two check out Wife Swap on
ABC, this is not what I would call quality programming but it is pretty darn funny.
