Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From 'Room Raiders' The Producers Tried To Keep Secret (13 items)

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  (#2) The Blacklight Became Banned Because Of The Infamous Jackson/Timberlake Halftime Performance

  The first season of Room Raiders used the infamous blacklight - the tool used to swipe over people's floors, pillows, and sheets to expose sexual activities. After the first season, the blacklight disappeared, but what happened to it?

  When Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson showed a bit too much skin during their Super Bowl halftime show, MTV got in big trouble. MTV produced the halftime show, and the FCC wasn't too happy with how Janet's pasty ripped off.

  This started a wave of FCC crackdowns on suggestive TV shows, including Room Raiders. While they could get away with censoring sex toys, they had to completely scrap the blacklight. 
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  (#3) The Production Team Found A Live Bobcat While Scouting One Teen's Bedroom

  In the days before heavy background checks and pre-screenings for reality TV shows, it was easy for innocent-seeming nut jobs to coerce their way on the contestants list. To avoid any mishaps or dangers, the crew went through the entire house for a pre-raiding process.

  During their pre-raids, the production crew found tons of illicit objects - from drug stashes to weapons. It wasn't uncommon to find a gun underneath someone's pillow or in their sock drawer. In one incident, one family kept a wild bobcat as a pet, and the crew asked for the animal to stay in another room during filming. 
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  (#7) Teens Had To Hide Their Childhood Photos To Not Ruin The Element Of Surprise

  Since Room Raiders was a dating reality show where the contestants were supposedly shrouded in mystery, family and childhood photos could not appear anywhere in the house. If the seeker found out what the contestant looked like, even as a baby, it would ruin the element of surprise.

  The production team kept up the blind dating aspect of the show by having contestants remove photographs themselves. To some, this was a dead giveaway the show was Room Raiders. Some of the contestants left things in their rooms, as a "what-if" scenario - including adult materials and other scandalous items.
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  (#9) Contestant Reactions Were Totally Unscripted

  Everything the teens on the show said was a natural reaction to what was going on, though the filming for Room Raiders wasn't in real time. The production team added quips and gimmicks to try to encourage the kids to talk about the events. Aside from giving the contestants some content-worthy encouragement, the production team never verbally staged anything. 

  The crew let the kids have free-reign over the other person's bedroom and allowed them to make their own judgments based on what they found.
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  (#11) Producers Claim They Never Planted Anything, But Some Items Seemed Strategically Placed

  Everything found in the rooms raided by MTV belonged to the contestants. While the production team admits to making the more scandalous things, such as dirty magazines and personal gadgets, much easier to find, the crew never planted anything. They had no intentions of framing anyone for anything they didn't actually own - after all, most of these contestants were underaged kids who lived with their parents.

  Before the seeker came in to investigate the contestant's room, the production team went in to dig up the hidden goodies. If someone had an extra-sexy edition of an adult magazine buried at the bottom of their seemingly innocent magazine collection, for example, producers would move it to the top of the pile.
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  (#12) Being Cast On The Show Wasn't Easy

  Though Room Raiders consistently received a long line of applicants, it wasn't an easy show to cast. First of all, the network's target demographic was the upper/middle class, so a potential contestant's living situation had to fall into this category. They also only cast young members, and most contestants averaged an age of 18.

  So applicants would have to be between ages 16-22 and have their own room, which was often an issue, as most of the contestants still lived with their parents. Everyone participating also had to live locally. For production purposes, all contestants in the episode needed to live within 15 minutes of each other.

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