The Untold Truth Of Undercover Boss

Undercover Boss uses the genius tactic of pretending to be some sort of "win your own franchise" game show—complete with a fake host in some episodes—to dissuade employees from figuring out they're on Undercover Boss. Amazingly, few workers see through this flimsy facade. Maybe it's because in every episode, the bosses must change their appearances.

According to a TV.com interview with producer Eli Holzman, the bosses are allowed to choose their disguises, which usually involve wigs, makeup, and fake facial hair that looks like it was purchased on clearance the day after Halloween. This leads us to believe the businesses either choose the most gullible employees they have working for them to participate in filming, or they actually know what's going on but play along in hopes of being rewarded at the end.

Fans of the show will recognize that chosen employees often have some type of visceral connection with their boss, such as a family member coping with a similar illness, or falling behind on the mortgage like the CEO did before finding success. While these similarities aren't the specific reason the employee is selected, Holzman admits, "If there are two people who do the exact same job in the exact same way, and one of them as soon as you see them, you laugh uproariously or cry because their story's so amazing, and the other one it's crickets and you're really bored, we're going to go with the really good one."

The takeaway here: if you and your coworker are the best burger flippers in the kitchen, make sure he or she isn't secretly a war hero or stand-up comedian when the Undercover Boss recruiters come calling.

Not every undercover big wig enjoys their TV experience. Steve Joyce, CEO of Choice Hotels International, felt exploited by the show's producers. "They look for something personal to torture you with—for me, my mom had died from Parkinson's a few years before. And I hadn't really dealt with it. So every chance they got they brought that up," he told The Wall Street Journal.

Joyce also felt the show created the narrative that he didn't know what it was like to do most of his company's positions, despite the fact that he had worked his way up through the ranks. "They deliberately sabotage you so you don't do well and you look stupid," he said. "They had me cleaning the pool in Orlando in late June at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. It was like 110 degrees."

Joyce did say the experience forced him to confront his pent-up emotions regarding his mother's death in a positive way. "My mother made me promise to always have a place for the family to get together for vacations," he said. "...I bought a beach place two weeks after that show." We're not exactly sure that's the healthiest coping mechanism, but if he's going to give the wife and kids a hug on the deck, sure, why not?

The most beloved part of every Undercover Boss episode is the ending. The head honcho reveals his true identity and starts making it rain with cash, vacations, and college tuition payments for the employees who were duped by the elaborate ruse. It's a tearjerker every time, even if it is a cheap emotional trick.

The reward concept seems straightforward, but CEO Doug Guller of Bikinis, a Hooters-style bar and grill, somehow misinterpreted it, offering one employee the following incentive: "If you can make it through six months and you're a rockstar...I'm going to put you in touch with the best [breast augmentation surgeon] in town and we'll make this happen!" Wow. Even for reality TV, that's sleazy with an extra side of sleaze.

It was while watching the real-life PR disaster of the opening of British Airways Terminal 5 that reality TV producer Stephen Lambert had a brilliant idea. According to Lambert's book, Undercover Boss: Inside the TV Phenomenon That Is Changing Bosses and Employees Everywhere, the kernel of the concept for the show came from British Airways head honcho Willie Walsh's response to a reporter's question about whether he'd suffered traveling inconveniences using the very airline he runs. He responded, "I can't because people in BA recognize me."

That simple truth led Lambert, who had previous success creating the show Wife Swap, to pitch the idea to Channel 4 and they agreed to "a two-episode cycle," according to executive producer Eli Holzman, who spoke with The Futon Critic. Lambert and Holzman were then able to bring the show to CBS and make it the reality TV juggernaut it is today, with one interesting difference: in the British version, after the emotional one-on-ones, the boss never reveals the ruse in front of the entire company via a celebratory screening of clips from the episode. Holzman says he thought Americans would want a "big celebration," and the companies involved have confirmed that to be true. The celebrations have supposedly been a big morale booster..

Attempting to copycat the success of the show, Rear Admiral Dave Thomas, Commander, Naval Surface Force Atlantic, went undercover for a day as an E-3 (a much lower-ranking seaman) aboard USS Whidbey Island. Admiral Thomas, who was in his 50s at the time of the filming, cleaned rust off the deck using a "needle gun," and participated in training exercising for the LCAC or Landing Craft, Air Cushion. There were no tears, hugs, or monetary awards at the end of his day, but his his fellow seamen did attempt to act surprised that they'd been working alongside a superior officer all day. Though many who watched contended the jig was up before it even began.

According to commenters on the Surface Force Atlantic Facebook page, there's no way anyone would have believed a man of Admiral Thomas' age would have been an E-3. Not only that, but according to some, it was obvious that most of the supposed TV crew were actually part of the admiral's security detail, which would have sent up another huge red flag. (Maybe next time he should try a nose ring or some fake tattoos. That's worked for the real show.) But hey, it was a good effort, and an admirable gesture on behalf of a military superior to try to get an idea of what his crew goes through every day.

Most companies enjoy a healthy shot of positive PR from being on Undercover Boss, but almost exactly one year after house-flipper-turned-seminar-guru Armando Montelongo's episode aired, over 150 former students of his seminars filed a class action lawsuit against him. Their suit alleges that his seminar course, which purports to instruct people on how to get paid to flip houses, "is a lie, and their widespread promotion of that lie over a course of years violates the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO")." Among the accusations are bizarre claims that Montelongo "studied a film about 'mind control cults,' and used it to develop the AMS programs," and that advanced programs costing participants up to $54,000 are nothing more than schemes to get participants to keep buying additional seminar products.

Montelongo has refuted the allegations, telling InTouch Weekly that the participants in the lawsuit are people who "decided that continuous hard work is not for them." He also claims that some of them have started rival seminars and are "colluding to come together to try to bring down No. 1."