‘Baggage’ Was One Of The Wildest Dating Game Shows To Ever Exist: This Is Our Tribute

The shortlived dating game show Baggage gets people through tough times. Just when you think your ex is the shittiest guy, you’re presented with a real-life person who’s gone on television to declare: “I drugged an ex and killed his fish.”

Let’s talk about this show, presented by the King of Drama himself, Jerry Springer.

Baggage aired in the US from 2010 to 2012, with Baggage: On The Road, where they travelled around the US shooting the game show, screening in 2015. There was also one British season, hosted by Gok Wan, in 2012. Brits did not like it.

In every episode a person – complete with an overseas adventure-sized piece of luggage – was looking for a date. They were presented with three potential partners, who each had three pieces of luggage: small, medium and large. Inside these cases were emotional truths about these people, ranging from having just gotten out of jail to never talking to their family. Normal areas! We all have our dad shit!

At the start of the episode, three suitors would reveal their small piece of baggage, so we could learn a bit about them. It was always something like: “I wear a tiara all the time.”  (This is an absolutely real piece of baggage.)

Then, in round two, the luggage would get mixed up. And the person with the least appealing emotional damage would be sent home, like, for instance, “I am a member of a female fight club.” (Again, absolutely real.)

Later, the remaining two people would try to prove their worthiness, sometimes in song and dance. It was gross and weird. They then answered questions from Jerry.

But then in the final round, the remaining contestants would reveal their most fucked-up shit, like, “I promised my dad I’d stay a virgin until marriage” (real), and a winner would be chosen.

Except that winner could choose to bail out – because there’s still the lead person’s baggage. If it says something like, “I expect my husband to be a stay-at-home dad” (also real), you could just say, “Outie!” and get tf out of there.

Baggage is a show a lot of us found back in 2012, thanks to Girls, with Shoshanna showing the series to Hannah early in season one. Of course they then admitted their baggage – that Hannah had HPV and that Shosh was a virgin.

It’s a question I think a lot of people who became low-key obsessed with the series would ponder. What’s my baggage I’d be ashamed to reveal to the world? And would anyone still desire me once they found out about it?

So now that we’ve thoroughly explained the premise of Baggage, we need to demonstrate just how unhinged it could be, as well as oddly hopeful.

The thing about this show is that it kinda proved that there was a weirdo for every weirdo out there. That we all have our issues and quirks and we’re all actually OK.

Take Sherry, who slept with a ski-mask on, and made jewellery out of her own teeth and skin.

This man just told poor Monica, who is afraid of clowns, that she would get over her fear if they had sex as clowns.

These three pieces of baggage were all extremely good: “I’m a real-life runaway bride,” “I have no female friends,” and “I use my vibrator 4 times a day” (get it, girl!).

They literally went and found this woman a bowl of cow brains and grasshoppers to demonstrate her deep weirdness.

And this condensed literally all of the reveals into two minutes and 30 seconds of pure joy. And by that, I mean, Shira had a bad day this day.

This man remarkably kept his composure while a woman explained to him that she needed to watch videos of obese men having sex in order to get off. Yes, that is the sentence.

Everything here was fairly underwhelming, until we got to the woman who loves to dote upon her dog a little too much (don’t we all?).

Don’t we all feel better about our weird kinks now? Happy dating!