You have no doubt been on God-awful dates before. Perhaps you even start looking for hidden cameras and half expect (or hope) Ashton Kutcher and Jamie Kennedy to stand up from a table nearby and high-five one another.

Ashton and Jamie are reserved strictly for celebrities, yet we common folk are still not safe from being taken on a hellish ride on a unique comic dating program. So the next time you are on a terrible, awful date, you can at least pray that an African-American little person in a red devil costume will come dancing over to your table...

"Hell Date" on the BET Network is a show in which an unsuspecting person thinks he or she is going on a regular dating reality show. In actuality, the date - and all the people involved in the date's activities - are actors who are creating a tailor-made date from, well, Hell.

In one of the episodes, an actress was portraying a woman who was pregnant, yet still inexplicably going on a date with a man named Michael. She was rather convincing as she got morning sickness during a Pilates class and later ordered the biggest banana split the store had, topped with pecans, walnuts, coconuts, and gummy bears, among other sundries. It was quite a disgusting looking concoction, and bonus points have to be awarded to the actress for taking more than a few bites.


While Michael was enjoying his ice cream, an "employee" of the eatery and someone who knew her came up to the table to tell his date that she had heard she was pregnant and should be going to church more. This outspoken ice cream-scooping employee then began yelling at poor Michael. Just when one would suspect him to get up and run, or the employee to take a swing at him, in walks the little devil to tell Michael he was on "Hell Date" while dancing a little devil dance . . .

On the other half of the show they turn the tables, and an unsuspecting woman, in this case La'Karsha, is taken for a ride by a male actor portraying a 25-year-old virgin from, once again, Hell. He played it well, acting nervous and admitting he'd never been on a date but that his grandmother dressed him up and talked him into it.

The highlight of the date came during a salsa dancing class in which the all-too-unfamiliar female contact made him a little too excited. So exited, if you catch my drift, making us a little curious what they used to portray such realistic-looking excitement. Then, after receiving what he claimed to be his first drink ever, he eagerly chugged the entire margarita in one gulp. He then became overwhelmingly turned on, came over to her side of the table, and began to get hyper frisky.

However, just as La'Karsha was getting up to leave, who should come strolling in but our favorite little person. What was particularly rewarding about this episode was that the devil, the actor, and even La'Karsha herself all danced in unison, almost immediately. Perhaps it was the relief in knowing that she wasn't really on a date that horrible that prompted her to join in and sing along with them-a song that only seems to have one line, "Hell Date."


I must confess, I was singing and dancing along too, on my chair alone, very pleased with myself to have found such a quirky gem of a dating show.

Story by Matthew Swanson
Starpulse contributing writer