The paper examines two TV series based on self-desecration. In Episodes (2011–2017, five seasons) Matt LeBlanc plays a version of himself reminiscent of Friends’s Joey Tribbiani. The fictional LeBlanc is as dense and, in his acting profession, as inept as Joey was. Unlike Joey, fictional LeBlanc is (undeservedly?) successful and wealthy and, quite unlike Joey, he is not amiable but selfish, on the verge of being a sexual predator, prima donna-like capricious and vain, and totally unreliable. The series tracks the vicissitudes of two British screenwriters trying to adapt their critically-acclaimed BBC show into a product for the American market, suffering much damage to their artistic integrity, most of which caused by LeBlanc, imposed as the series’ star by the Head of the network. In Real Rob (2015–ongoing, two seasons) Rob Schneider – famous for his raunchy roles in such comedies as Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999) – teams up with his real-life wife Patricia to produce a series in-between the reality and the sit-com. The show follows the daily life of the Schneider family – including the three-year-old daughter Miranda. Rob is depicted as pathologically egotistical, at times a squander at times a close-fisted, gasping for a relaunch of his waning career, envious of his wife’s increasing success, and cruelly bossy to his slave-like personal assistant.

Both fictional LeBlanc and fictional Schneider mix traits from both their public and screen personae but deliberately and mercilessly push the tone towards the negative extremes – LeBlanc ends up in bed with his barely legal-age female stalker; Schneider forces his personal assistant to get a vasectomy in his stance. They come to embody the worst stereotypes associated with celebrities. In Episodes and Real Rob LeBlanc and Schneider have opted for a renewed visibility built on desecration. In the complex dynamics of stardom and fandom, fans have loved ‘heroes’ as well as ‘villains’; they have been mesmerised by grand gestures as well as by sordid scandals. What Episodes and Real Rob seems to point to is the fact that, no matter how desecrated, celebrities will still be followed and admired precisely because they are celebrities.