I just love the cheap puns Bunnel always throws in, ending with in jail:
“This crook thought he could get away in a stolen vegetable truck, but now he’ll have plenty of time to toss salads, in jail!”
Those shows ARE a riot. What I’d like to see is all the stuff on the cutting room floor. Every time the bad guy gets away, or successfully hides from the pursuing cops, now THAT would make for interesting TV. Especially if you could get it narrated…
[news helicopter voiceover guy] OH! Did you see THAT? He’s hurtling those fences like a gazelle, those officers must be a hundred yards behind him…Wait! Hold on a minute, he’s crawling under that old truck! They’ll never find him there, eh Jim? Let’s go get some lunch." [/nhvg]
My favorite part of the whole deal is the inimitable C. W. Jensen, who has a serious problem with intoning words correctly.
“When YOU’RE in a po-LICE pursuit, the most IM-portant thing, is to KEEP your WITS about you at ALL times.”
One thing these shows point out that I find more true every day, and that some people don’t realize: most crooks really AREN’T the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, are they?
Fuck, I never thought about it that way. Kind of like us learning all about your culture by watching 70s Brit comedies such as Are You Being Served?
Insults your intelligence?
Funny, all the cops I know love that show.
Guess they can take it for all of its humor, too.
Lighten up. It’s all in (silly) fun. Even that Burnell guy has turned up in movies spoofing his TV appearances. For the suspects, I really have no sympathy for people who sign a release to show themselves in the filmed footage.
Fahrenheit 451 anyone? anyone?
Stuff creeps me out sometimes.
But I love 'em. The narrator grates on me the same way Johnn Madden does on the Thanksgiving Day game…sayyyyyy, why don’t we switch venues for those guys!
I just can’t stand the sound effects. Those dashboard and helicopter cameras DO NOT record sound. (except when the officer is wearing a mic and outside talking to a suspect.
But during a chase, and all that, there is no sound at all. If you watch one of those videos before FOX gets it, all you hear is a high pitch hum - electrical interferance from the engine.
So it’s understandable that FOX needs to had sound effects. But do they need to suck so bad at it? Does a car’s engine need to rev up on EVERY scene. Do the tires need to squeel everytime someone changes a direction? (no matter what surface?) Does every crash have to sound the same? And where is that clangy falling glass sound coming from. Every crash sounds like someone threw a ball through a window. I’ve seen lots of car windows broken. They don’t make much sound at all. Definitely not a loud clanging noise.
Damn! You beat me to it. My friends and I have that show down to a drinking game. It’s hilarious. Drink every time they say yours:
“He thought he could get away with x - now he’ll be doing x in JAIL!”
also:
“He just narrowly missed sideswiping the police car. NOW IT’S ATTEMPTED MURDER”. (That one’s 2 drinks). Look- it’s not attempted murder, genius. Not that I’m excusing the guy, but he’s not out to kill cops; he’s got 5 of them chasing him; he’s trying to get away. So when the cops try to run him off the road and he almost hits them, that doesn’t really count as a cold-blooded murder attempt.
1 drink every time the cop calls the suspect “buddy” as he’s arresting him.
1 drink every time they use the exact same pre-recorded “smashing car”, “truck horn honking”, or “squealing brakes” sound.
And a drink every time they do the “The irony is that if he had just pulled over, he would have only had x, but now he’s going to jail”.
And 1 drink if the driver’s wearing a wife-beater.
2 drinks for no shirt.
Chug if he’s not wearing any pants.
I hate these shows, not just because they are mindless drivel, but because the style of presentation has begun to pollute other kinds of documentary; replacing fact with wild speculation, flashy graphic reconstruction, irrelevant opinion, rhetoric and endless insulting repetition of trivia. The triumph of style over content.
There’ll be plenty of time for style to triumph over content… in JAIL!
I’ve learned that if you want to get away from the police, wear a shirt.
This criminal thought he could run from the law. But he didn’t count on the law being a racehorse on a catapult being carried by a truck that is being towed buy six hundred cheetahs and being pushed by another six hundred cheetahs. Downhill.
Ah, that’s from “worlds craziest animal powers police car chases”
Me too. Bad boys, bad boys what ya gonna do. I love the whole “Down, get down” thing. Oh and the ever so amusing sobriety tests!
You haven’t seen our version! No guns…it’s all throughly boring. NZ crims and cops need to “raise the bar” 
“Excuse me, sir, would you mind stepping over to the patrol car here?”
“Of course, officer, it’s a fair cop.”
Fucking boring. I’ll bet the Underwater Crochet Competition beats that in the ratings.
Believe it or not that is no exageration! Last week they had some plonky drunk student who refused ro walk. The cops dragged him into the cop car (well picked him up by the fet and hands and carried him) when they got to the cop station they asked him if he wanted to walk or be dragged. He opted for dragged (or carried) when they got to cell they asked if he felt like walking yet. He said “no” so they carried him into the cell. I was secretly hoping they went “bad boy” on his arse.
Ok in reality I am glad we have polite police but DAMN it makes boring tv
Keith Olberman, of MSNBC’s Countdown has taken to doing parodies of these sequences whenever there is a chase that has made the news recently, where he always ends up with a mockingly intoned “…in the BIG HOUSE!”
My Brother’s own parody title for these shows was “When Cops Attack”. And the character we really dug was that one policeman commentator that looks like the guy from the B-52’s.