Culling The Commentators

Sports commentators being annoying is nothing new. They tell you about something as if you hadn’t just watched it yourself. They fill your head with statements of the obvious: “They’re gonna need to score more goals than the other team if they expect to win.” And in most cases they are dreadfully unfunny.

A few years ago the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) had a strike and Canadian Football games were forced to be broadcast without any commentators at all. Ratings went up.

But now the commentators have arisen onto a new plane of existence, reality TV. In the early days of Reality TV the hosts had a simple job, introduce the contestants, let them speak for a few seconds, introduce the current challenge and collect a nice paycheck.

But in more recent shows the hosts have taken on a larger role. Instead of guiding the show, they became the center of the show.

Take for example the ill-fated American Gladiators remake. The show had all the things that made the original series from the 80′s and 90′s a favorite: insane and athletic Gladiators wearing silly costumes beating the crap out of every day people.

But then they added Hulk Hogan and one of Muhammad Ali’s daughters. Now don’t get me wrong, Hogan was my hero growing up and I’m pretty sure that Laila Ali could snap me in two without breaking a sweat. But I didn’t come to watch an old but still roid filled wrestler banter with a female boxer.

But the banter took longer than any of the challenges. It got so bad that by the second(and final) season they literally fast-forwarded through some events,  just telling people the score. Then they’d cut to Hogan calling the crowd Gladiator-Maniacs and have the people howl at being recognized by a man who was relevant during the same era as mullets and acid-washed jeans.

And now there’s Wipeout, with John Henson, John Anderson as the hosts/commentators and Jill Wagner as the sideline reporter.

The show itself is good mindless fun. People getting hit by large foam obstacles and falling into mud and water on a near constant basis. But once again, the two Johns have to spoil everything by non-stop chatter laced with jokes that would make Pauly Shore shake his head in disgust.

The only person who isn’t annoying is Jill Wagner who actually interacts with the contestants, laughs at some of the better wipeouts and doesn’t act like she takes a short bus to the studio.

I like Wipeout and would love to see it last on TV for years to come, but in its current state, namely being the Two Johns show with people falling behind them, it probably won’t last another year.

So what can be done?

They could do something drastic and use the Joe Rogan technique.

What is the Joe Rogan Technique?

Joe Rogan hosted Fear Factor for 6 seasons on NBC, back when NBC actually had an audience.

Despite almost every person who has ever watched TV stating that they never watched Fear Factor, the show enjoyed great success.

It had stunts similar to both American Gladiators and Wipeout, although they did add a gross stunt in the middle of each episode where people would have to eat maggots or liquefied rats.

The big difference however, was that the show was actually fun to watch and in the end it brough in $600 million dollars of ad revenue over those 6 seasons.

You still haven’t actually told us what the Rogan Technique is though?

Alright, the Rogan Technique was that Joe Rogan was actually on site, talking to the contestants instead of the audience. He would take everyone to the location, tell them what they were about to do and even give verbal smack downs to the trash talkers. He’d also shout out encouragement to people during the stunts and ask the other contestants for their opinions.

In essence, he personalized the show. Instead of just another dumb jock or babe doing a stunt we learned a bit more about the contestants other than their name and occupation. That made us more willing to root for them instead of seeing them as lifeless drones whose only personality traits were told to us by two dorks standing in front of a green screen.

Fear Factor wasn’t about Joe Rogan, he didn’t make stupid jokes and he wasn’t looking for everyones approval. He just talked with people and made it entertaining.

Wipeout could do the same if they got rid of the two Johns and just let Jill take over the whole thing and we saw the whole episode from her viewpoint.

Jon And Kate Who?

The World’s most punchable couple

When I’m not watching the TV I’m usually reading about TV. That’s how I’ve known all about what’s been happening on the show Jon and Kate Plus 8 despite never once watching even a second of the show.

And as you might know, but don’t really care, Jon and his beloved wife Kate are getting divorced. This has led to every media outlet making many Jon Minus Kate and other math related puns in their coverage of this spectacle.

All the good puns have already been used and I’m left with Jon and Kate Plus Who Fucking Gives A Fucking Fuck. It’s not as catchy as Jon Plus 4 and Kate Plus 4 but it gets the job done.

Now unlike most of the media outlets who are criticizing Jon and/or Kate for their horrible marriage and the horrible effect they’ve had on the kids, I’d like to congratulate Jon and Kate.

Why? For their dedication. Not to each other, but to the show. Yes, the show must go on. And while the show has been put on hiatus Jon and Kate have assured the viewing public that the show will return.

Right there, that’s commitment to a show. Your life is a mess, your emotions are out of whack and the first thing you think about is how will the viewers react to the news that the show won’t be on for a month.

I mean Christ on a Christmas tree this couple is brilliant. In the rest of TVland if an actor is hard to work with and gets into fights with other actors they end up either quitting or getting fired.

These two people can’t stand to look at one another without seeing their old love-of-their-life’s face as a giant fist-magnet and they still want to do the show.

This is where I finally see the appeal of reality TV through a network executive’s eyes.

It’s not just the low cost for the cast and crew. It’s that the cast will do anything, ANYTHING, for the directors and producers.

When stars from shows like CSI and Everyone Loves Raymond wanted a pay raise, they didn’t show up for filming. They’d call in and say they had just come down with a case of being a douchebag.

Stars might show up late for filming, costing thousands of dollars in delays. If they had a rough flight or a bad night’s sleep they might not come out of their trailers until a team of therapists is sent in to reassure the fucker that they are a beautiful snowflake, unique and wonderful and asked “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could, maybe, perhaps go and film your scene now?”

Kate gets told “Your husband hass been sticking his penis into one or more vaginas that don’t belong to you, how does that make you feel? Oh, and can you look into camera 3″ and she complies faster than a dog that’s just been beaten.

In addition, as a sign that they were not going to let the show fail, Jon and Kate went on air and thanked the show for helping their family when it’s rather obvious that the only thing the show helped out with was to get Kate a new face and Jon get a new STD.

It would appear that the order of obedience is to the TV show first, money second, the marriage and then the kids.

As the closing act, Kate filed the divorce papers mere hours before the divorce episode aired. I imagine that once you’ve built up the nerve to go through with something like filing for divorce, you don’t want to hesitate for a second. But Kate won’t wipe her ass until the network tells her to.

So while Jon might want nothing to do with Kate, TLC thinks  she’s a keeper.