Watch Junkyard Wars: Reality TV Even Dopers Can Love!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I noticed today that a crazy, wacky imported (from England or Australia) TV series – that I once caught at 3am, never to be seen again – is going to be on tonight, Wednesday 7/12/00. I know many of you Dopers will enjoy it.

It’s called “Junkyard Wars” on the Learning Channel (TLC). Here on the east coast, there will be one episode on at 9pm and another at 10pm (also to be repeated in the wee hours); check your local listings for your airtimes.

Here’s how it works: Two teams of reasonably experienced engineer/hobbyist/tinkerer types are let loose in a junkyard with the challenge to create a REAL working device in one day. The two episodes I saw involved building a one-man glider, and a cannon.

On the following day, the devices are tested against each other in three trials. The team with the best-performing device wins.

Trust me, a Limey Good Time will be had by all!

2

Yeah…I saw a bit of it last week…it smacks of those Mel Gibson Flicks…Mad Max and The Road Warrior…thats what it reminded me of anyway.
Not too shabby a show.

3

Ooooh!!! This is a wonderful show!!! Which one was it? I’ve seen the flying machine episode and the cannon episode. Are there others?

4

Just told a couple of co-workers about this show. Saw the ones on TLC last week. I thought they showed an episode on gliders and on power pullers. I think the cannon one airs tonight along with some other contraption.

That’s some mighty fine watchin’, boys…

5

According to http://www.tvguide.com, the other one is “amphibious vehicles”.

I’ll definitely have to watch it!

6

Amphibious vehicles??? Holy cripey, I can’t wait! Now, I just have to find a friggin’ city that has TLC on cable…

Damn you TCI!!!

7

Just the other night I caught a few minutes of a TV show where there was ‘Robotic Wrestling’ or something like that. The object was to either disable an opponent’s robot or push it out of the ring. Did anyone else catch this? I would love to see the whole thing if it comes on again…

8

I have to admit I found this show a hell of a lot of fun to watch. I would have enjoyed less comentary and more of the building experience, however. I saw the power pullers and flying machines. Tonights episodes should be good.

-niggle

9

I would like to take a moment to welcome Origato to the SDMB. Anyone who makes their first post talking about giant fighting robots is OK in my book.

10

The battling robot show is “Robot Wars.” I’ve seen it on PBS late at night on Friday or Saturday.

“Junkyard Wars” and “Robot Wars” are pretty good but my favorite live action combat show is “Iron Chef.”

I love cable!

11

I didn’t much like Robot Wars (if that’s the bot-battle show I saw). They’re radio-controlled! I want autonomous bots!

12

First of all, while I too despise the recent offerings of “reality TV” let’s not dismiss it as “bad TV”. Anyone remember a little show a few years back on A&E called “The Straight Dope”?

Secondly, this is good fuckin’ TV! I mean really good! I hope it sticks around for awhile. I have a curse that any TV show I really like doesn’t make it for more than a year. Ok, I think TSD made it for two.

Lastly, I have a number of questions to throw out to the teeming millions, mostly about the amphibious vehicle episode.

Two generic questions I have are:

How many shows do you think are tossed out because neither team can complete the task? I really thought they were both going to sink for awhile, but then i figured, no way they would put that on TV.

How did the civilians beat the Royal Services two episodes in a row?
[sub]Sorry, but you Brits love to knock the US Forces. Heh.[/sub]

Amphibious Vehicle episode questions:

There were no lunch breaks (at least shown) on the cannon episode. This one they seemed to be lounging around having lunch and laughing it up. Seems like 10 hours isn’t a lot of time to build an aquatic vehicle from junkyard parts. Wouldn’t you skip lunch for a day considering the monumental task and the short deadline?

What happened to the metric sytem in England? When the commentator said the water was “so many” meters deep someone in the biker group made a snide comment about it properly being “so many” feet deep. Also, in both episodes, they referred to speed in MPH. Most times I’ve heard an Englishman talk about measurements, they’ve scoffed at Americans for clinging to the english system.

loot-tenant or left-tenant? All four members of the Royal Navy team were lieutenants. Three of the pronounced it in the traditional British way, but one of them (sure sounded British) pronounced it in the North American Tradition. Is this normal of any British dialects?

[sarcasm]Uncle Beer, please don’t move this one to GQ![/sarcasm]

13

I thought it was funny when the Army’s cannon shot the entire barrel instead of the projectile. Should’ve kept the bullets on the lathe just a few more minutes…

Re: The Bikers building a better amphib than the Navy: The Navy should’ve known how to float, but the bikers probably had more experience scrounging for parts.

I’d like to do something like that…anybody want to be on my team?

14

I hope you get to see the whole series (4 heats, 2 semi finals and the big one). First shown in UK last year. The amphibious craft was my absolute fave - I don’t want to give too much away but the shot of the biker gang crossing a lake on an old Land Rover was too much!

This was the third series made and definitly the best. I expect a new one this autumn.

15

The official web site. Includes details of how to enter for next series (probably too late but maybe the series after that)

16

You want autonomic robots?! Go watch professional wrestling!

WWF = Wealthy Whores of Fakery

I’ll let the rest of you nit-pickers decide if ‘autonomous’ or ‘autonomic’ is the correct word in this context.

C’est la guerre…

17

I saw this on TLC last night! I saw the amphibious vehicle one and part of the cannon one. They were great! I hope they make more, it’s a truly excellent show.

And those pansy-assed British military types lost twice. Losers. No wonder we have to save your ass at least twice a century.

18

the next one looks great as well. It looked like some sort of underwater vehicle and a car without wheels. Funky.

It’s to bad they only shoot the series for summer programming.

-niggle

19

This show has definitely moved way up on my “Make time to watch list.” The aquatic vehicle episode was great. I fully bought the idea of the Navy team destroying the bikers, but it was interesting to see everything tht went wrong with their design.

Plus, this show does provide a nice group of lessons in physics, engineering, design, etc.

20

Just a reminder: JW is on again tonite (Wed. 7/19)!

Episode #1 - A marine salvage device

Episode #2 - A walking machine

Enjoy!