Chasing Mummies: Oh Mighty Isis, History Channel has killed again

Cafe Society
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Take one of the most fascinating of places- the ruins of the step pyramid in Egypt.

Hire as your star one of the world’s foremost Egyptologists: Dr. Zahi Hawass.

Add in some grad students and unfettered access to the interior of Egyptian ruins.

And what have you got? The corpse of a rotted hobo soaked in bitumen for a few days and sold as the remains of King Djujifruithotep VII. It’s dreadful.

Rather than concentrate on video tours of Egyptian ruins and lectures on Egyptian history with perhaps video enhancement/computer graphics/virtual reconstructions/insights into their mythology/etc., here’s a better idea: let’s make sure that Dr. Hawass acts like as much of a self important drama queen as possible… hire that guy from FLIPPING OUT as a consultant maybe. Then get some clueless interns in here, and let’s stage their getting trapped in the pyramid to look natural (well as natural as possible when there happen to be cameras all around them) and have Dr. Hawass come play the gruff but lovable hero, and then let’s completely freaking forget we’re in Egypt and concentrate on a bunch of personalities nobody even gives a damn about.

They’re going for melodrama, not history. About the best you can say is that nobody brought in any antiquities to pawn in a big log truck that came on the ice into Egypt, but then it’s the first episode.

I have no idea if Dr. Hawass is really that much of an hawasshole, but if he is he hasn’t been on previous shows. When I first noticed him on a show it was a primetime special back in the 1990s in which a “reporter”- some woman who you know has had a friend named Muffy at some point with no knowledge of ancient Egypt and no desire to learn- accompanied him on live television into a just opened tomb; she was literally the first person other than him in the tomb for thousands of years (or at least since the graverobbers cleaned it out). She took advantage of the opportunity to sit in this ancient tomb and ask him about Edgar Cayce and UFOs.

Now, did he look at her like she was stupid and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing? Absolutely. Did he go into hysterics and call her a stupid ditz who needed to cover Ikea openings and dog shows? No… he was very nice, he explained that Cayce and UFOlogists weren’t taken seriously- he did so very non-patronizingly- and steered the conversation back to the tomb at hand (which wasn’t the tomb of anybody earthshattering important but the important part was it was newly opened).

On last night’s he’s a gruff “I don’t have time for you” and “You are incompetent!” old fart who seems to have been written for either Ben Kingsley or Wilford Brimley depending on budget. The interns are attractive, the producer looks like Josh Mostel and is clueless, and it might as well be filmed in Dayton, Ohio for all the emphasis you get on Egyptology. History Channel isn’t even trying anymore.

Anybody else see this crock? If so, what’d you think?

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I didn’t see it, but just popped in to say that your write-up was wonderful. :stuck_out_tongue: You should do this kind of stuff professionally.

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The commercials show some intern that peed her pants. (she actually says to Hawass, " I just went to the bathroom")

So, what happened? Did she get that scared?

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I posted this in another thread about the fall of the History Channel:

I can’t remember if I cried,
When I saw Ice Truckers on the guide,
Something touched me deep inside,
The day the History Channel died.

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Hey! Leave Dayton out of this mess.

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Yeah! Their chronic problems with bitumen-soaked hoboes have nothing to do with the History Channel!

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Not only that, the channel showed it 3 times in a freaking row.

So some little perky intern shows up and they have a cow because instead of a Claire <somebody> from France, a cute little canadian girl with a different name shows up, complete with documentation [letters, correspondence about her being an intern I would guess?] and they want to basically toss her out because she isn’t little french Claire, but instead some canadian female. Interns are interchangable, come on … who cares if she is french or canadian, it is a little female intern to do the girly scream on cue at some point in the staged fake show.

I have long been an advocate that Hawass needs to get his head out of his ass and just run the department normally [sitting on his ass and taking bribes in traditional middle eastern manner?] instead of out being a camera ho. If you actually watch what is going on in the Egyptian archeological community, unless you are egyptian, you dont get the good dig sites, and if you actually manage to find something interesting, your permit gets pulled an an egyptian gets the site shortly after. Only if you are majorly on television constantly and literally make the major discovery on camera and get on TV immediately do you manage to get any sort of credit for anything. That is the one reason that most digs now have a tv camera crew on them.

[It is actually very much like trying to dig in China now, the chinese don’t like the discoveries of the causcasians in Lulan - because it shows how the chinese didn’t invent absolutely everything … it is now getting difficult for nonchinese to get permission to run digs. A buddy of mine just got thrown out because he found some wall structures by flying over them on the way to his dig and he went over and poked around less than half a mile from his dig site. Not even dug a hole, just was walking around looking :dubious:]

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From what I’ve seen, Dr. Zahi Hawass is the boil on the ass of Egyptian Archaeology. :smiley: It looks like he’s been able to make it his personal fiefdom.

When the King Tut exhibit came to town, not only was his over-enthusiastic mug plastered all over every video exhibit; the gift shop was even selling “Dr. Hawass” archaeologist hats! (They did not exactly appear to be flying off the shelves).

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I fully agree with everyone saying how awful Hawass is. I have zero archae training/learning, but enjoy knowing as much as I can about the ‘old kingdoms’. It did not take long for me to get completely turned off by Hawass’ attitude and demeanor.

I did e-mail History Channel quite awhile back telling them that anything with his face on it would have me turning the channel promptly and not going back for at least 24 hours. I told them I wanted more facts and less ‘him’. I’m sure it made very little difference, but that is how strongly I feel about him. He would be better suited for the Cartoon Network as far as I am concerned. I am glad I did not watch the episode mentioned here as I probably would have thrown something at TV for such theatrics.

I forget who it was a month or two ago that posted here on Dope about their personal experience/knowledge of him and his office. That info gave me even more resolve to voice my displeasure towards how history is being presented. Appreciate it, guy (or gal), just in case he/she are in this thread :slight_smile:

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Is this the show that has the Archeologist saying “Show me the mummy” in the promo?

Because that made it a pretty certainty that I would never ever watch that show.

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They could at least replace him with the guy who does those “sham-wow” commercials. :smiley:

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I didn’t watch this show, but I’ll watch anything with Wilford Brimley. Even those diabetic supply commercials he did didn’t annoy me as much as those kind of commercials usually do.

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Just read Hawass’s bio: I had no idea this man hates him some Jews. (Not a shock I suppose, but a disappointment.)

Now if they wanted some REAL drama, that’s their avenue: bring in the most brilliant and gifted Jewish archaeologist you can find.

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Here’s what kills all these shows for me.

“Oh my goodness! An amazing ancient find! And we’re the first to see it!”.

Done in a long camera shot, of the person finding the stuff. Which means the camera guy is further along the tunnel, with lights set up, and aiming for the shot. Which means camera guy just crawled over the “new discovery”, and is further down the tunnel than the archaeologist. Just blows it away for me.

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The New Yorker ran an article about him a couple of months ago. I can’t remember if he’s respected, but he is not well-liked.

.

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I saw a few minutes of the show. Tuned in to see some female intern, apparently some recent graduate of some sort, running across the job site because she was late. Hawass said something like “I am too important, my time is too valuable. Get out.”, seemingly destroying the career of a young someone who had traveled halfway around the world to work with him.

Another young female intern shows up, this one from Canada, but for some reason they were expecting a French intern. Again Hawass goes off, “Get out. Who made this mistake? I will see that whoever did it will never work in Egypt again.”

Two budding careers destroyed in two minutes by an arrogant, egotistical asshole. So … the apparent second in command agrees to take the Canadian intern, who just been dismissed by his mightiness into the pyramid for a private look. ??? Uh??? While they’re inside, they call each other by name more often than the people on This Old House (Norm, that is really great, Norm. Exactly, Norm. Norm, can you show us how you did that, Norm.) He then leaves her alone in the pyramid to wander around.

All the scenes felt so contrived, so poorly acted and directed that it was no great surprise when the heavy breathing started and the screen went black and she started squealing “Oh, hep me, hep me. I’m stuck.”

That was enough for me. I really wish I could find a remote that would automatically change channels at the mention of Hawass. Since that probably won’t happen, I wish him the best of luck and hope he pulls a Nancy Grace and gets his own show / channel – then I can just block it and won’t have to keep my finger on the button to insta-click when he shows up while I’m channel surfing.

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I am totally shocked (SHOCKED!) that the History Channel is showing a series about archaeology. Who do they think they are?

They just need to bring back my 2012 predictions, Bigfoot and chupacabra sightings, and UFO conspiracy theories, thankyouverymuch.

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You wouldn’t happen to have a link to that, would you?

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What I loved after that scene is that in all of Egypt there was only one man who could save her- the 60 year old archaeologist at a book signing. Luckily they flashed his cartouche in the air or whatever and he goes and saves the maiden, or else by now she’d be just another skeleton buried under the desert.

C’MON!!! How does archaeology give you special experience in getting a girl’s foot unstuck in the first place, and in the second how hard is it to dislodge a foot?

Literally the only history I saw (and I didn’t watch all of it I admit) was the little pop-ups about King Djoser or whatever. The rest was all REAL WORLD: CAIRO style faux drama.

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Simcha Jacobovici?