Intervention (TV Series) - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

As of 2012, the edgy humor video site funnyordie.com has featured two parodies of Intervention. One of the first Intervention parodies to appear anywhere, Kristin Chenoweth's short "Intervention with Kristin Chenoweth", was released August 27, 2008. The video features Chenoweth giving a gay crystal meth addict a cheerful Broadway-style singing intervention. More recently, in April 2011, another Intervention satire debuted on the site, this one entitled "Intervention Intervention", featuring Fred Armisen playing a man addicted to the television show Intervention.

Toronto-based television station CFTO-TV created a series of spoofs in early 2009 starring local weather personality Dave Devall. Devall would act as an "assistant" to families needing "winterventions" for family members ill-dressed for Canadian winters as part of advertising for that station's news shows. These commercials aired almost a year before the first A&E-produced episodes of Intervention that were shot in Canada and featured Canadian addicts debuted on A&E.

On April 16, 2010, a video entitled "Best Cry Ever" was posted on the popular video-sharing site YouTube, featuring a clip from Season 7 episode "Rocky", which told the story of former professional boxer Rocky Lockridge, who lost everything, including contact with his sons, to drugs. The clip centers around a dramatic scene in which Rocky is seen crying amongst his relatives. As of November 2012, the original video has attained more than 35,000,000 views and has become an Internet phenomenon. A Saturday Night Live sketch featured an Intervention parody with guest host Jon Hamm crying in a similar fashion. The season 3 premiere episode of The Cleveland Show also parodies "Best Cry Ever", when Cleveland breaks down after his old friend Peter confesses that he still cares for him; this gets the attention of Cleveland's friends and the Evil Monkey.

The April 28, 2010 episode of the TV series South Park parodied the show by doing an Intervention-style documentary on character Towlie in the episode Crippled Summer. The episode includes on-screen text blocks to provide subtext or details, and culminates in a scene where the boys confront Towlie about his drug addiction. The counselor insists, as the real-life interventionists often do, that all parties be allowed to "say whatever they need to say" to one another during the course of the actual intervention, which leads to Cartman endlessly harassing Kyle with insults and racial/ethnic/religious slurs.

A season 3 episode of the HBO television show True Blood contains a segment with Hoyt's mother attempting to intervene in Hoyt's relationship with newborn vampire Jessica. Hoyt's mother turns up at his workplace with Summer in tow (whom she believes Hoyt should be dating instead of a newborn vamp), along with the local school's guidance counselor. Hoyt says he has work to do and doesn't have time to talk, but the guidance counselor, acting as the "interventionist", stops Hoyt from leaving, parodying Jeff VanVonderen's traditional intervention opening lines ("I'm here for these folks who really love you like crazy, and want you to hear them out, and then you can say what you want to say"). The characters then read their letters out loud, all of which open with "Dear Hoyt" (similar to letters the families normally write to their loved ones as part of the interventions depicted in Intervention).

In the 30 Rock episode "Queen of Jordan", which subtly parodies several reality TV shows, Jenna tries to get more screen time for herself on Angie's reality show by convincing Pete to stage an intervention for her alcoholism, even though she is not an alcoholic. Pete tries to teach her a lesson by actually arranging for her to be sent to rehab; knowing she won't be featured on camera if she is away from the show, Jenna knocks her designated escort unconscious and escapes back to Angie's party.

In a skit from an episode of Tosh.0 that first aired October 18, 2011, host Daniel Tosh turns his normal "Web Redemption" segment (where a person or group who appeared in a notorious or embarrassing online video are given a chance to explain themselves via interview/event recreation) into an "intervention" for a Wisconsin man named Tim, whose videotaped trip on shrooms turned into a YouTube sensation. Tosh reveals the redemption segment is really an "intervention" about 2/3 of the way through when he lures Tim into leaving the room with him on the pretense of going to see "a Lady Antebellum laser light show"; when they open the door to leave the interview room, Tim discovers they are in a small hotel conference room, in which Tim's "family and friends" are gathered all around. Tosh uses Jeff VanVonderen's trademark intro ("These people love you like crazy...") and introduces Tim's mom and dad, some other people "who are probably early for the next intervention", and a clown who's "addicted to smiles" that Tosh invited because "these things are always so depressing." Tim's father starts off the family portion of the intervention by reading his own letter; it begins with "we're here because we wanted a free trip to L.A." The interventionist quickly determines that Tim hasn't yet hit rock bottom and rescinds the offer of rehab until he does. Tosh and Tim are shown next attending a drug party, where they re-enact many of the crazy things Tim said and did in his notorious YouTube video, and a black screen with white text reveals that two minutes have passed since they began their drug party. As Tosh decides that Tim has now hit rock bottom (since they find the dead body of the clown from the intervention beside their hotel bed), they head off together to the rehab center. But when "Amy Winehouse" answers the door at the "rehab center", the pair realize they must have overdosed (a subtle satire on one of Ken Seeley's assertions during Pre-Intervention talks, when he stresses that some addicts don't hit rock bottom until they're dead). As they enter Heaven, the screen fades to white, where black text (instead of the usual fade-to-black with white text summarizing the addict's time in treatment) says simply that "Six months later, they are still happily dead."

In Millionaires 2012 single "Drinks On Me", the show is referenced in the line "This ain't no A&E, you won't see me on Intervention."