Well…I was going to put a placeholder here until the comments solidified in my head but I think I’ll just start and then come back…this one is going to be about the British show “Top Gear” and its pale, bastardized American version that aired on History this past Sunday night….kind of telegraphed my feelings, huh? Come back after pool in Ada and I’ll complete it…
Okay…I’m back and feeling kind of weird…the chicken I had for lunch may have been borderline…but, we’ll see…if you’ve never seen the show “Top Gear” on BBC America, it a car show with three middle aged men as the hosts; that sometimes like each other and sometimes show the uniquely British contempt that is reserved for the “wankers” that is not only directed at each other but the world as a whole. I think where they are successful is that it is basically allowing these cranky hosts to be the normal, funny people that they are…not the perky, young, always “on” hosts that infest most of American TV. That brings us to the History channel’s americanization of the show, using the young, perky, hosts that I just hate. It starts with Tanner Foust, whose 15 minutes of fame should have been over long ago. The same can be said for one of the other hosts, the never funny Rutledge Wood that I’ve seen and avoided in many Nascar broadcasts, and the other one that I’ve never heard of…the three of them trying to match the smart banter of the BBC show with their own lame version. It only took about 10 minutes of the first episode for me to gag and quit watching it…what’s wrong with having some funny middle-aged Americans hosting the show…or heaven forbid, a woman? Just my thoughts…and I may come back later to say a little more…but if I feel like this, I won’t…one last thing before I head out…the one most important thing that I think the American producers missed is that Clarkson, Mays, and Hammond in the British version are extremely intelligent, well-read individuals, and come across that way…and the hosts of America’s version come across as “Jackass” lite who don’t bring anything to the show but reading the script….does everything have to be dumbed down for us Americans?