Watching the very last Extreme Makeover. They rebuilt several houses in Joplin Missouri after last years devastating tornado.
They’re saying in the wrap up that Extreme Makeover built 200 homes for needy families. 200 families lives were forever changed for the better. That’s one hell of a legacy for a tv show. Something that Ty Pennington and the thousands and thousands of volunteers should be really proud of.
Somehow canceling this show just seems so wrong. Same way in canceling America’s Most Wanted.
Sometimes tv can be a lot more than entertainment. It can make a difference in lives.
I got upset thinking of the long list of people on the shows waiting list. There’s a lot of needy people that need houses.
Extreme Makeover usually picked Foster Parents that needed a bigger house or families with sick kids. Very deserving people. There won’t be anymore help for these people now.
How many fugitives were found & arrested thanks to tips on America’s Most Wanted? Five Thousand? Ten thousand? I’m not sure. They did a lot of good with that show.
I hope that you’re aware that there are programs all over the country that build homes for deserving people without the shamelessness of that show. Here is one. Here is another.
There are a lot of families enjoying the holidays in a new house thanks to this show.
Its true the show was often over sentimental. The stories were told in a way that tugged at hearts. I understand they were after ratings just like any tv show. The advertisers are interested in how many people see their ads and buy their products. That’s always how tv works.
But ten years from now those houses will still be there. Hopefully most of the people found a way to pay the taxes and kept the house.
I enjoyed the show in the beginning. It started off as a renovation show. It actually showed them making over the homes. Was pretty interesting to see the work they did in a short amount of time. Some damn good work. The families were mostly normal people who needed their house fixed.
Then it started to drift. The families all needed a sob story and they showed less and less of the actual renovation. Got to the point that you needed a house full of conjoined twin primordial dwarfs to even be considered. And instead of fixing the house they just knocked it down and put up some prefab crap on a slab.
Haven’t watched it since it started to drown in treacle. I’m actually surprised it was still on.
I’ve always had a problem with HOW MUCH they spent on those houses. I mean, for the amount of money they spent giving one family more home than anyone could ever possibly need, they could have given ten families a decent sized home. I hated the show for that fact and that it was entirely about ratings.
They pretty much said what I was going to say. I think they could have helped a lot more people if they didn’t feel the need to build McMansions for every family.
I had a problem with how ridiculously customized they made the house. It’s one thing to make a house accessible or have enough bedrooms for all your numerous kids, but it’s quite another to give each room a specific theme, with stupid things like a basketball court built into a 5 year olds bedroom.
For one thing, most kids are going to outgrow those hobbies and want something else. But more to the point, the producers of the show have now saddled the family with a giant monstrosity of a house that they can’t possibly hope to sell because it’s filled with stupid crap and is still in the same bad neighbourhood they lived in in the first place. And they can’t afford the property taxes. Great!
You also do know that many of those people were compounding the problem living beyond their means thanks to the large line of credit they could take out against the new structure.
This week your 8 year old wants to be a princess. Next week an astronaut. But her bedroom is now a castle and you don’t have the money to change it. At least you won’t have to worry about her sneaking a boyfriend in there when she is 16.
Yes, you are absolutely correct.
The point is that giving people who have no idea how to manage money an asset they can’t afford is NOT helping. It’s makes great TV, it’s a fantastic platform for product placement and it gives naive viewers a nice warm fuzzy feeling. What it does NOT do is address the issues that brought these families to the situation they are currently in.
The idea, the concept, of the show was not horrible; helping people find decent housing.
Unfortunately, the show turned into a maudlin presentation of finding the saddest stories and then building a stupid McMansion for these people. As mentioned, not particularly practical nor financially a sound move for many families once the camera crew went away.
A far better idea would have been to incorporate an entire neighborhood - simply update and fix existing homes in a two block area, build a park in the center, and get some social workers in there to help get a community watch set up.
Or build an entire apartment complex with a day care center, rec room/gym and help build a community and make the neighborhood stronger.
Again, the show sort of started out OK, but then went off the deep end. They simply didn’t take in the entire environment, neighborhood, economic and social needs. Plus, can you imagine the resentment by the neighbors and their kids when they would see this mini-Disneyland next door, and they don’t even have a working heater in their house?
And lastly, no matter where you live, how would you feel about a new house being built across the street that sticks out like a sore thumb, has been publicized to death, and now makes your house look like a shanty?
How can they sell the thing? If it’s in a bad or even average neighborhood, well, you can’t expect to sell it for what it’s worth if it stands out like a castle in a trailer park. Like in Detroit - the occasional showplace in the middle of a wasteland.
The later seasons, the EM people have been careful to find a grant or provide an income (sometimes a rental unit on the property) so that the taxes and mortgage are taken care of. They did at least fix that particular issue.
My kids’ dentist’s office was a victim of Extreme Makeover. The quality of the work is…mixed. There’s an utterly gorgeous inner hallway full of marble and pretty pretty. The lobby looks like hell. Literally, like a raging inferno abode for damned souls. They took black and red paint and swirled it over fake stucco on the walls. Lots of the paint and plasterwork is chipping and peeling. Half the cool looking track lighting doesn’t work anymore. There are two or three fantastic modernized treatment rooms, and a dozen more back around the corner which are like something out of a Stephen King movie. These “rooms” are nothing but flimsy drywall and a single coat of teal green paint (no primer) and don’t even have full walls. They’re also completely lacking in doors, so you can often hear the sobs and screams* of the patient in the next chair, separated by a half wall and a flimsy room divider.
If the work they did there is representative of the work they do in these homes, it all looks great for the camera and starts crumbling before the last gaffer rolls up his cords and leaves. Not exactly great for the resale values.
*okay, that’s hyperbole. The dentists aren’t a bad lot, so there’s rarely actual screaming. But still, I don’t want to have to overhear conversations that don’t concern me held in moderate tones …
