I'll go with a bit of an odd ball one to start. I'd like to take Michael Savage off his radio show and give him a No Reservations like show for like a season.
Back when he was Michael Weiner he got masters in ethnobotany and anthropology with a PhD in nutritional ethnomedicine, traveled all over the world to remote locations to learn about how indigenous cultures used (mostly) plants for health reasons. He hung out in circles with people like Allen Ginsburg, traveling with him and many others. Writing books like these:
Earth Medicine—Earth Foods: Plant Remedies, Drugs, and Natural Foods of the North American Indians, New York: Macmillan Publishers USA, 1972, ISBN 0-02-625610-X
Plant a Tree: A Working Guide to Regreening America, New York: Collier Books, 1975, ISBN 0-471-57104-0
Bugs in the Peanut Butter: Dangers in Everyday Food, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1976, ISBN 0-316-92860-7
Man's Useful Plants, New York: Macmillan Publishers USA, 1976, ISBN 0-02-792600-1
The Taster's Guide to Beer: Brews and Breweries of the World, New York: Macmillan Publishers USA, 1977, ISBN 0-02-625600-2
The Way of the Skeptical Nutritionist: A Strategy for Designing Your Own Nutritional Profile, New York: Macmillan Publishers USA, 1981, ISBN 0-02-625620-7
The Art of Feeding Children Well with Kathleen Goss, Warner Books, 1982, ISBN 0-446-97890-6
Nutrition Against Aging, New York: Bantam Books, 1983, ISBN 0-553-23642-3
Secrets of Fijian Medicine, San Rafael, Calif.: Quantum Books, 1983, ISBN 0-912845-02-3
Vital Signs, San Diego: Avant Books, 1983, ISBN 0-932238-20-3
Dr. Weiner's High Fiber Counter, New York: Pinnacle Books, 1984, ISBN 0-523-42211-3
Getting Off Cocaine, New York: Avon Publications, 1984, ISBN 0-380-67900-0
I listened to the start of his show on the way home for a while some years back mainly to see how much he could work himself into a fury about BORDERS! LANGUAGE! CULTURE! before the first break. Which was entertaining in and of itself. But occasionally he would ignore politics or briefly touch on it to lead into stories about his days of traveling around islands and learning about these things, spending time alone in jungles gathering plants and then seeing what they'd do based on tales told by the locals. It was a drastic tone shift and he showed an innate ability to storytell at length and show his original passions.
One night stuck out to me when he completely ignored whatever the Marxist Islamic Gays from Mexico were doing to destroy us that week to instead talk about his favorite Chinese restaurant in San Francisco which was/had closed down. For like an hour and a half he discussed meals he had there, the dishes, some of their roots in ethnomedicine, especially with the Chinese concepts of balance in meals, along with stories about his friendship with the owner and his coming to America story. (I'm sure he's fine with the cognitive dissonance.) Took calls from others who had enjoyed the restaurant and their good times there.
They were remarkably fascinating and unique discussions from an unlikely source.
Of course, these kind of long rambling and informed stories aren't what made him rich, raging about foreigners and gays undermining BORDERS! LANGUAGE! CULTURE! while getting himself banned from the UK is what's made him a multi-millionaire. I'd still be interesting in seeing such a program. Especially considering having been a fan of and watching Bourdain's transformation over the run of A Cook's Tour, No Reservations and Parts Unknown.
And if we could hook him up for adventures with Zamir, gravy. He could always travel with his son I suppose, creator of Rockstar energy drink, to get the hip young kids to watch.
It'd probably bomb in the ratings and lose huge amounts of money, but if anything that's a major qualification for me to be creating TV programming.
Anyway, I can't remember the one other I had in mind but an example I could point to is taking HSN pitchman Mike Rowe and sending him on all those Dirty Jobs. The ones that I've had come to mind are mostly ones that would make for a TV show since otherwise you couldn't really see it happening and I assume I want to.
For non-people, replacing the Senate with cats. C-SPAN2 would be the TV show for this.
