‘I'm a Celebrity’ drops oddballs into jungle

updated 10:13 p.m. ET May 31, 2009

LOS ANGELES - Spencer Pratt would like to see his new bride get back to her roots. Former "American Idol" contestant Sanjaya Malakar wants to be known as more than a mop top. And former Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich says she needs the paycheck.

NBC, for its part, is fervently hoping that TV viewers will be drawn to them as part of the oddball casting mix concocted for the reality series "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!" debuting 8 p.m. ET Monday.

The participants, dropped into the Costa Rican jungle for a month, will be put through audience-dictated challenges to gain food and other supplies. The goal is to emerge as king — or queen — of the jungle and win most of prize money to donate to charity.

The amount of money for charity hasn't been announced and neither has the pay the celebrities will get for themselves, network spokesman Gary Mednick said Sunday.

Others scrabbling for their very survival — or at least public images — are actors Stephen Baldwin and Lou Diamond Phillips, model and TV host Janice Dickinson, former basketball player John Salley, professional wrestler Torrie Wilson, and Frances Callier and Angela V. Shelton of the comedy duo Frangelina. Baldwin and Dickinson are reality show veterans.

Viewers will decide who goes home each week.

Will viewers tune in four times a week?
NBC will be testing the audience as well. After its two-hour Monday debut, "I'm a Celebrity" will air from 8-9 p.m. ET four days a week — Mondays through Thursday — for its three weeks. In its final week, it will air Monday and Tuesday, June 22-23, and conclude Wednesday, June 24.

MTV, which is a partner with NBC on the series, will air a Sunday marathon of each week's episodes with new footage and cast commentary beginning June 7.

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Whether viewers want to spend a big chunk of their month on the show will be answered in the ratings. The cast members, at least for now, expressed no qualms about how they're investing their time.

Pratt said he wants to see wife Heidi Montag shed "The Hills" baggage she's carried, including designer labels, that don't represent her true spirit. The MTV reality stars married in April.

"You can't really understand who Heidi is unless you see where she grew up: 500 people, one street is the whole town, in the middle of the mountains. She can easily go from the mountains to the jungle," Pratt said of Montag, a native of Crested Butte, Mont.

"Me, I'm afraid that's a different story. I've got four PDAs that are used 24/7, and I live and breathe my media empire, so I can't even imagine getting unplugged," he said.

Montag is game, but dismisses Pratt's description of their jungle stay as a honeymoon.

"Trust me, this is not my honeymoon," she said.

Malakar, 19, said he welcomes the opportunity to be seen as more than a succession of hairstyles and intends to do some soul-searching.

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"It will help me to come into myself and realize who I am and who I want to be, and to show people who I am without the `American Idol' hair and makeup and the stage," he said.

Malakar also is eager to get his hands on the prize money, which he said will go to a charity his father founded to help needy children.

Money also is on Blagojevich's mind. She and her husband, ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, are unemployed and he's facing federal fraud charges. His plan to appear on "I'm a Celebrity" was thwarted by a judge who wouldn't let him leave the country.

Rod Blagojevich pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he schemed to sell or trade President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat and use the governor's office to squeeze campaign contributions.

"My husband is an honest man. I truly believe that he will be vindicated. But in the meantime, we have to earn a living," Patti Blagojevich said in May.

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