By Pat Dunn

What: "Celebrity Paranormal Project"
Where: VH1 cable channel
When viewed: October 27, 2006
Episode #1: "In Sanatoruim"
Official show web link: http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/celebrity_paranormal/series.jhtml

VH1 is a cable channel devoted mostly to music videos, but they have lately been adding a new genre of programming they call "celebreality", hence their shows featuring former child actor and radio DJ Danny Bonaduce, or wrestler "Hulk" Hogan. "The Celebrity Paranormal Project" seems to be their attempt to combine celebrities with the trend for ghost-hunting shows.

The premise sounds interesting: The show recruits a number of famous people, sends them to a "severely haunted location" somewhere in the United States, provides them with a variety of camera equipment and "high-tech" devices for paranormal investigation, such as thermal imaging cameras and electro-magnetic monitors, gives them a lap-top computer to provide instructions for the night's activities, then leaves them alone with the presumed ghosts until sunrise.

The location chosen for episode one, "In Sanatorium", was the abandoned Waverly Sanatorium in Kentucky. Originally built to provide modern treatment for hundreds of TB patients from the late Twenties to the mid Fifties, the institution was also used as a care facility for elderly patients, before being closed down and allowed to fall into disrepair several decades ago. Waverly Sanatorium was featured last year on a "Ghost Hunters" episode, and has been the subject of a documentary film made by the same independent film producers who recently shot a horror movie there. Its reputation precedes this recent flurry of attention, though, with many people reporting paranormal encounters of ghostly sounds, smells, apparations, poltergeist activity, "shadow people", etc.

The celebrities selected from this investigation included character actor Gary Busey, who is a believer in the paranormal; actress Donna d'Errico, who was on "Baywatch" and doubts the paranormal; actor Hal Sparks, best known as a star of Showtime's version of "Queer as Folk"; Jenna Morasca, who won one of the "Survivor" reality-game contests; and Toccara, who appeared on a season of "America's Next Top Model", according to VH-1's website. (I'll confess I hadn't heard of any of the women.)



Supposedly the celebs aren't told before-hand where they're going or what it will entail. Also, supposedly there are no camera crews, only hidden cameras and the handheld cameras the cast themselves use on each other, as well as the helmet cams they wear when sent out on location. A trailer is provided for them to use as a command post, where they set up the lap-top and start the "investigation." They go out in pairs to different areas where hauntings have been reported, and are given instructions and in some cases equipment. In one of the wards, a thermal camera supposedly picks up a human-like image on an unoccupied bed. In the fifth floor operating room floor, a "man's shadow" supposedly passes a light at the end of the corridor. On another floor, Hal is tossing toy balls and calling out for "Timmy", the ghost of a young boy who is said to play with a ball and to leave them in unexpected places, and a ball Hal *didn't* throw is seen dropping from the air and rolling to a stop in front of him. This gets Hal selected for an automatic-writing experiement in the famous roof-top room 502, where a nurse is said to have committed suicide. He comes back with scrawlings depicting a sketch of a hanging woman and the word "wrong" written several times. The final task sends all five to the "heart of the haunting" (in this case Room 502) to do a ceremony which is supposed to release trapped spirits.

At the summary, Gary says he heard the "roar of a mechanical tiger" (possibly just Donna's hysterical screaming), but he came through the experience and is the stronger for it. Toccara said nothing weird happened to her, so she still isn't a believer.

I have been told this is the Americanized verison of a UK television program called "I'm Famous and Frightened"; if true, one can only hope the UK version wasn't as bad as this one. As serious ghost investigations go, I give this a 2 on a scale of 10.

What do you think?