ABC series is a study in contrasts

A pampered Manhattanite teaches a lazy New Jersey husband some lessons.
By FRAZIER MOORE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The differences are huge, and "Wife Swap" makes the most of them.
In a so-called preview of this ABC unscripted series (10 tonight), Bambi Pitts runs a lax household where her three kids run wild amid the family menagerie of 25 pets. What a shock for Bambi when she swaps with Caprice Policchio, a strict, obsessive-compulsive mom whose happy home is defined by rules for both sons as well as her husband!
Then, on the official premiere of "Wife Swap" (Wednesday at 10 p.m.), we meet Jodi Spolansky, a multimillionaire heiress with a businessman husband, three children and a pampered lifestyle, who trades lives for two weeks with Lynn Bradley, a school-bus driver from rural New Jersey with a lazy husband and two teenage daughters.
Big differences!
In a recent interview, Jodi says she and husband, Steven, gave the show a whirl thinking "what a great way to step outside your life and see how someone else lives.
"Did I think I'd be chopping wood? No," she says with a laugh. "But I knew that no matter what situation I was thrown into, I would be able to handle it -- and that no matter what they threw at me, I was going to be able to turn it around. And that's what I did."
Changing images
Jodi knew she was setting herself up as a stereotype.
"In the beginning, I come across as this spoiled Manhattan woman who does nothing but eat lunch and go to the gym," she notes. "But by the end, I showed everybody that I wasn't just that."
The villain of the tale, she readily acknowledges, is her husband, seen as a selfish Alpha male who makes house guest Lynn cry.
"He's really the nicest guy and the best father!" Jodi says. "But he speaks his mind."
Maybe so. But "Wife Swap" isn't the first reality show to, um, enhance the truth for the sake of storytelling.
And rather than wallow in its arranged culture clash, the episode moves toward an uplifting moral: We're all more the same than it may seem on the surface.
At the modest Bradley home, Jodi panics at the prospect of cooking for her surrogate family. And she butts heads with mulish Brad, who expects her to assume his wife Lynn's other duties, which include cutting firewood for sale.
Getting along
But they eventually make their peace.
"I told him, 'This is a TV show, and we can argue the whole time and look like idiots. Or you and I can try to get along, and understand one another as human beings.' And that's what we did."
By the end of the hour, everybody parts friends (and have stayed in touch since the episode was taped last winter).
Even better, Brad learned some lasting lessons: The pain of his wife's absence, and, under Jodi's tutelage, how to be a more supportive husband.
Although Brad "feels like he's getting a bum rap" on the show, Lynn reports that, since then, "he participates more in the chores around the house. It worked out real well for me."
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.