Don’t forget to mention the Naked Jackass. Reinterpreting the work of doctorates in archeology with a journalism degree.
Actualy history involved? Really? We have documented proof of T Rex fighting Triceratops?
And calling it the “wet dreams of paleontologists” gives too much credit to George Blasing, who isn’t a scientist at all but a “dinosaur enthusiast.” Everything shown originated in his imagination.
Ahhh Dirty Jobs. Forgot that was Discovery channel. That is a fine show.
I agree that overall, the whole UFO/Bigfoot thing is kind of annoying, though entertaining as long as you don’t consider airing on “The History Channel” as some kind of imprimatur for mainstream legitimacy. Remember that old TV series “In Search Of…”? Kind of like that.
On the other hand, I love Cities of the Underworld (especially in HD) and a while back, their mini-series 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America – enough so that I got it on DVD. It explored the background, events and impact on the course of subsequent history of ten things that get relatively little attention in the classroom (especially now that the high school American History curriculum is getting increasingly watered down from when I was in school to allow time for “global studies”). Each segment was animated in a different style. I was particularly impressed with the ones covering Shay’s Rebellion and The Homestead Strike.
I was flipping channels not too long ago and was actually surprised to see “OMG, the history channel has actual history on it!” Of course this was during the daytime on a weekend. Whenever I run low on cash I think of pitching a show to them: “Did Nostradamus predict the Da Vinci Code and the Mayan Apocalypse?” in which the answer lies with a prison gang on an icy road, because I’m pretty sure they’d buy it.
I do like Cities of the Underworld but that’s about it. (One of the best was the WW2 underground history of NYC- the “shoot on site” orders and the special vanity station for FDR to disembark in his wheelchair.) The “stealing Lincoln’s body” documentary scheduled for next week looks good as well, but it’s odd they have to advertise it so far in advance as if to say “see!? We still do history!”
What I wish they’d make a series of is the “Tech” shows. The “Wild West Tech” series hosted by (consecutively) the Carradine brothers is one of the best shows they’ve ever produced, and I’d love to see them take it further than the west. They had a Civil War Tech special at one time, but you could get many many more episodes out of that (rifles, telegraphy, wagons, smolting, etc.) as well as Revolutionary War tech, Middle Ages Tech, even 1920s Tech. Just have a HISTORY TECH show and you’d never run out of possibilities.
If it’s about dinosaurs then it isn’t history.
Odesio
I’ll issue a challenge right here and now: name one reasonably high-profile cable network which tightened up its format and aimed for a more upscale, if limited, audience, by appealing to the highest common denominator. I, being the eternal idealist, suspect there must be (have been) some, but I can’t for the life of me think of any at all…
Comedy Central has hits and misses but it shows are of a higher caliber than they were in 1989 when it was just The Comedy Channel. Not only are they still a channel based on comedy but the shows are better. Certainly one of the few cable networks not suffering from network decay.
Wouldn’t that be PBS?
National Geographic has, I would wager, more history documentaries in any given week than History Channel. Unfortunately it’s also home to the accursed Dog Whisperer, but aside from constant Cesar Milan marathons it’s much of what THC used to be.
UKians, BBC4 does way better history programming FWIW.
How is it not history? It happened in our past, therefore it is history. Do we have “documented proof” that a T-rex fought a Trike? Probably not, but as they said very often on the show…we have bones of one, we have bones of another, we have scientists who can make educated guesses…why not have a show where they can hypothetically fight?
Do we have “documented proof” of aliens in Roswell? Bigfoot? Nessie? Giant black cats? Not in the least…but as I said in my post, we have a helluva lot more info on dinosaurs than we do on those other myths. So I would assume you would enjoy JFC because it is actually based in history and fact.
What I want to know is WTF wrestling has to do with Sci-Fi? Now if they were wrestling aliens, I’d be impressed.
I would think dinosaurs would be more of a science show, though-wouldn’t it?
When they do the “UFO” stuff, do they do the history of folklore, or ghost stories or legends, or actual UFO stuff. Because I used to love when they did “Haunted History”, and explained the stories behind it, and how the legends came about-like Vlad the Impaler=Dracula, or whatever.
Folklore can be interesting history-like the Loch Ness Monster-if they talk about how the legend goes back to the 500s, and the history of THAT-not the so-called “monster”, but the all the stories and folk tales through the years. Because, like it or not, folklore IS part of culture.
But the HCI is great-I saw a program about Ivan the Terrible the other day, and it was fascinating.
The weird thing is, it used to be Discovery Channel, it seems every 2-3 years History and Discovery Channel switch general content theme, Discovery Channel used to be FILLED with everything crypto, alien, or otherwise odd, now while it has some still it’s more focused around Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, and similar. History Channel used to either be playing WWII or have some slightly-off-normal-bit-still-History thing, i.e. the Salem Witch trials.
Either way I don’t really mind Monster Quest and UFO Files (and the new, similar UFO hunters?*), even if I’ve gotten past the “into the occult and strange” stage of my life, they’re interesting and at least RELATIVELY objective (meaning, compared to other, similar shows). What gets me is that it seems like a network mandate that they MUST go over either the apocalypse, Nostradamus, or random Bible stuff (which CAN be interesting, like Bible Battles, but usually is just throwaway) one week a month. It was amusing the first, oh, two times, but since they’ve been playing it once a month since the week of 6/6/06 to plug The Omen remake it’s gotten very, very old.
*Okay, I’ll admit this one isn’t as good. The leader guy emphatically believes the most out there crap, he is a legitimate skeptic from what I understand, but the shows get in traffic by giving him cases that push his :I believe" buttons. The good thing is, though, is that the team generally calls him on it with a 'Where did that come from?" And “uh… can you give one potential fact to support that idea?”
I assume the “It’s not history” comments are along the lines of “It’s *pre-*history” with ‘history’ being stuff that involves the recording of human civilization.
Sadly, too much of it is a bit about the folklore and then a lot about some dopes in a boat looking for Nessie, finding a bunch of nothing, showing some grainy photos and then the show declaring that the question is still wide open and we might never know if Nessie is out there or not. Rinse and repeat the same theme in the Quest for Sasquatch or Chupacabra or Ghosts or Alien Visitors or the Fabled Leprechaun Pastry Chefs of Argentina or whatever asinine thing they’re on about that week. No real evidence & a whole lot of counter-evidence but it might be true!!!
In my book, the History Channel gets a pass on any crazy shows they have because they also air The Universe. Of course, that doesn’t fit in too much with the channel, but it’s still a great show.
Can’t say that I’m glad to see that, but I am glad to see it’s not a case where “it’s watered down for Americans, but everyone else gets the unfiltered, higher-common-denominator version.”
I’m noticing that even the Science Channel seems to be sliding downhill. I believe that entropy is inevitable for most cable television networks; they start off with good intentions and intellectually honest programming, or at least programming intended for a specific target market or niche, and then find themselves getting more general to attract a broader audience. The classic example is MTV, with Discovery Channel, A&E (Arts and Entertainment, remember?) and TLC (The Learning Channel - whatever happened to that?) also prime examples.
Edit: beaten by “network decay”, which I call “cable network entropy”. Pseudoscience, poker, house flipping and reality shows; it’s basically what cable networks are all about now.
Speaking of Nessie, the most recent Monsterquest episode was about speculation that the Loch Ness Monster is now dead.
Yes, that’s right. A creature that has not been proven to have been alive in the first place is now speculated to have died. A boat used sonar and remote controlled submersible robots with video cameras to explore the entire lake bed to look for a carcass. Of course, nothing was found.