Smallscreen Reviews

Review: Rivers' rise on TV Land’s “How’d You Get So Rich”

By April MacIntyre May 4, 2010, 1:34 GMT

Comedian Joan Rivers during her 2010 Tribeca Film Festival opening of "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" in New York, 26 April 2010. EPA/JASON SZENES

TV Land’s “How’d You Get So Rich” returns for its six-episode second season on May 5, as host Joan Rivers chases down seemingly wealthy people on the streets to ask them how they earned their money.

The really rich Eastern seaboard blue bloods don't care for Joan's familiar ways, but out West in Beverly Hills, the nouveau riche eat her up with a spoon and gush the dirt.

We've all driven by lavish mansions and wondered, 'Who the hell lives there?' Rivers leaves no stone unturned in getting to the story behind the moneybags out there. In this engaging series she searches the country to find out how wealthy people got that way and, more importantly, how they spend their dough. It's escapist tacky fun.

Joan's fly on the wall series combines one-on-one interviews with her amusing person-on-the-street "gets."

In the premiere you will meet a south of the border millionaire banana plantation trust fund baby, a black woman with chola eyebrows who won the lottery, spending it on $200,000 Bentleys and $100,000 Rolexes, stimulating the US economy (in the luxe end anyway), and an older man who brought fake crab to American grocery stores.

Those of us New Englanders who were admonished as children to never discuss money, religion, politics or sex often sat and wondered, 'what else is there to talk about?' Well, Joan Rivers is the patron saint of "Go There" as she brazenly digs into the wallets and backstories of oftentimes rags-to-riches entrepreneurs who all have one thing in common: They worked like dogs for years and were cautious with money, until it no longer was an issue for them.

Part of the pleasure for us as viewers is how unabashed Rivers rolls around in other's fortunes. She revels in going room to room and opening drawers.

This premiere episode takes us to Austin Texas to John Paul DeJoria's manse. An Echo Park (Los Angeles) gang kid, DeJoria was a former Redken technician living in his car in 1980 who took a chance with Paul Mitchell, the two concocting "designer" haircare and the rest is history.

He has numerous other business interests, six children and is married to an ex Playboy model and now owns Patron Tequila. He has a full-on wildlife preserve in Austin, Texas at one of his 11 homes.

Joan gets to go skeet shooting on DeJoria's expansive 100 acre ranch, and there is a humorous segment showing "Annie Oakley" Joanie firing away hitting all the flying targets. A triumphant Joan blusters, "Just like Sarah Palin, except I told my daughter about condoms."

The real "get" however on her premiere episode is her buddy Donald Trump, who Rivers did the favor of appearing (and winning) on “Celebrity Apprentice,” which gave her career a big boost, along with her well-timed documentary dazzling Sundance and other film festivals.

"Celebrity Apprentice" revealed the tough cookie's workaholic roots, and also gave new life to a career that won't bow down or apologize to anyone. Thank God.

Wednesday, 10 p.m., TV Land

In these bonus scenes, Joan chats with Donald Trump on Jesse James' betrayal, kisses a girl - twice - and explores a dirty job as she introduces viewers to folks who made a lot of money in out of the ordinary, fascinating ways.

How'd You Get So Rich?