Last night (11/09) I watched the Discovery Channel’s “Rocket Challenge” show, which showed people launching their model rockets at a contest in a field in Kansas. At the beginning of each of three one-hour segments was the “TV-MA” rating, which I thought was rather odd, especially on the Discovery Channel. As I watched the shows I didn’t understand what made the series “TV-MA.” There was no bad language other than the occasional bleeped-out swear word (you hear more swearing on “American Chopper” and “Monster Garage/House”, all of which only get “TV-PG” ratings). There were no big disclaimers other than the usual “don’t try this at home, kids” warnings. The only show I am aware of which gets a “TV-MA” rating is “South Park”, for which such a rating is clearly warranted. I don’t see why TDC would want to put such a rating on this show, however. There was nothing on it that I wouldn’t have allowed a child to watch. In fact, there were many kids on the show itself launching model rockets.
Oh, Rocket Challenge. The title says “Rock Challenge” and I was going to say that maybe it earned a “TV-MA” rating because it mentioned cleavage.
Guess not …
I didn’t see the show, but the kids were probably supervised when shooting off the rockets, right? Were the rockets made with easy to find things around the house? I would imagine that the TV-MA rating is to protect Discovery Channel. They probably don’t think kids should be shooting rockets without supervision.
I didn’t realize I messed up on the title until after hitting the submit button (dammit! :smack:)
The kids were supervised and the rockets were not all made from everyday items. In fact, for the larger rockets a person had to be certified in order to purchase the engines.
If they didn’t want kids to try building their own rockets I’m sure they would have had a big message at the beginning of the show advising them not to try it on their own. The only time something like this was mentioned was when one of the people said “don’t try this at home” while he was rigging up his rocket and preparing it for launch.
Maybe a mod can fix the title for me. People might think the title refers to a rock-climbing show otherwise.