TV

Online Series Burning Love Parodies The Bachelor

Ken Marino and an all-star group of friends - including Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman and Kristen Bell - spoof the already laughable The Bachelor in this hilarious series

Find “the most romantic web series that will ever be” at screen.yahoo.com/burning-love

The Bachelor gets spoofed in the deliciously funny Burning Love

Since reality television is practically a parody of itself at this point, you might think the world doesn’t need an actual parody of the genre. Don’t count out Burning Love; in fact, as a rule of thumb, never count out anything spearheaded by a former member of the comedy troupe known as The State, best known for an outrageous MTV sketch-comedy show.

In this case, the member in question is Ken Marino — formerly of Party Down, now of Childrens Hospital — and his parody of The Bachelor and other such dating competitions is spot-on and ceaselessly hilarious.

Marino plays Mark Orlando, a firefighter searching for someone to help him make some heat between the sheets in the boudoir, and he’s given a choice of some pretty unique ladies, including one who’s blind, another who prefers to go pants-less whenever possible (check out all of the Burning Love ladies) and . . . well, there’s this one woman who looks suspiciously like The Hangover‘s Ken Jeong in a wig (spoiler alert: she’s played by Ken Jeong in a wig).

The roll call of Marino’s friends and fans who appear in Burning Love is substantial, including such notable names as Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman, Kristen Bell, Adam Scott, Abigail Spencer, Carla Gallo, Paul Scheer, Natasha Leggero, Kerri Kenney, Ryan Hansen, and Jake Pavelka, a former Bachelor who doesn’t take himself too seriously. In addition, Michael Ian Black, another State alumnus, hosts the proceedings.

Getting the parody just right required way more Bachelor viewing than most actors would be willing to do.

“I want to say we watch it ironically, but I don’t know at this point,” Marino told Entertainment Weekly. “We had [Parks and Recreation’s] Adam Scott and his wife Naomi over for the [2010 season] finale. They brought roses for us and presented us with a key, should we choose to accept it. We did not.”


Originally published in TVW. For daily programming updates and on-screen Entertainment news, subscribe to the free TVW e-newsletters, or purchase a subscription to the weekly magazine.