I am, of course, talking about Top Gear....
For those of you who do not know, Top Gear is a fantastically good TV show from Britain, where the three presenters James May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond whimsically drive, thrash, bash and entertain us viewers with their antics in cars. Be it doing something ridiculous (The Budget Cop Car Episode), wildly adventurous(the Bolivian 4x4 Challenge) or down right ground breaking (Driving to the North Pole in a Toyota Hilux), The Original Top Gear from the BBC is one of the most entertaining and greatest shows ever to grace the TV. You actually enjoy what they do, what they say, and for people like me (with taste and a brain between my ear parts), we wait with baited breath for the next episode of this charismatic bunch and their automotive antics. Truth be told, all three are guys that I would love to have a beer or several dozen with and shoot the breeze on anything with a motor.
Then came Top Gear America...
Now, I do understand there is an old saying that goes like "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" or something like that, but this does not mean that such a thing should occur.
Top Gear Australia, for example. I have watched a few episodes, and some I have enjoyed, some have been So-So, and some I have passed over to watch something with Zombies in it.
No offense to the guys who host it, or the show itself, but I just....I'm just not feeling it. I just go "Eh" and find something else to do. Why? I don't know. Maybe its the camera work. Maybe I just don't like the challenges....I don't know, but it doesn't attract me.
And I imagine that there are other versions of Top Gear (insert random country name here), but I just don't really care to see them.
But then the worst of the worst happened: Top Gear America.
IS.
HORRENDOUSLY.
AWFUL.
The fact that I wish for this blog to be somewhat family friendly is the only reason this page isn't littered with vile and profuse explicitives and obscenities to go along with my three word description.
Which still isn't an adequate description.
This version of Top Gear is just sickeningly bad. The presenters are seriously the most idiotic and bats*%t stupid people I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. Seriously, if these guys know anything at all about cars other then cars most of the time have four wheels, I will eat my leather boots. None of them are likeable, I am pretty sure the short guy was picked to be this show's version of Richard Hammond, and no reason else, and you are left with a chunky Itailan guy with an ear torturing east coast accent and a dickish demeanor, and a fat guy in glasses with a dickish demeanor and the intelligence of a Chia Pet. None of them show any sort of interesting attributes, and none of them show any sort of maturity what so ever.
I know that the Original BBC Top Gear hosts are a bit immature and goofy at times, but it is not painted all over their show and faces and challenges like a bad tattoo or disgustingly grotesque and derogatory graffiti painted on a train box car like the American Top Gear bunch.
The shows themselves are not very good either, hosts or not.
I have watched.....3 episodes, and each one has thoroughly annoyed me. The challenges aren't even original really, the newest episode that hasn't offically aired yet, to prove a point, is a blatent and poor copy of the BBC Top Gear Homemade limo special, right down to the open top limo and the one made out o the front halves of two cars. Seriously, they have to even copy the original show's ideas, and pass it off as their own. What a bunch of losers...
Number One, the Great American 4x4 challenge. Admittedly, one that I think they may have come up with on their own. Absolute crap. If one of the host's American made truck fails, they are doomed to drive a Toyota "Jihadist" pickup.
Here is the first example of the show's failing: This toyota pickup the hosts must drive has a Solid Axle swap, probably an engine swap, and has been so heavily modified as an off road vehicle that it probably can't even be called a Japanese truck.
In addition to this, the two trucks that break down, they break down and NO EFFORT IS MADE TO FIX THEM, or limp them, or tow them, or anything.
To make a point, BBC Top Gear's Africa Road car special, Jeremy Clarkson's Lancia Beta fails once a day, only to be forced back to life with some tinkering to finish the challenge, and Richard Hammond sank his Opel Cadet, towed it out of the water, and FIXED it. And this is pretty much par for the course on ALL of the original Top Gear episodes.
Dear Rutledge and the other two American Top Gear morons: Its called a tool box. Should be used, I don't know, when a car breaks. Make some effort you sissies.
NUMBER TWO: The GM Peoples Choice Car Challenge. The hosts take two American Made GM cars and a Pontiac Fiero and do a series of challenges to see which is the best and which GM, now owned by the American people, should build again.
Um, Way to rip off the BBC Top Gear British Leyland Special. The show challenges, all the same. No use of any imagination here... All I did was roll my eyes and grimace.
NUMBER THREE: The Great American Pickup Special. The hosts each bring a one ton American pickup truck with duel rear wheels, extended cabs and big engines, both gas and diesel. The contenders are a Ford F350 Super Duty, a Dodge Ram 3500, and a Chevy 3500HD Silverado. All decent trucks, but the three trucks the presenters brought were essentally all Cowboy Limousines.
The challenges include a drag race, a burnout contest, a hill climb, and then the presenters screw around by pulling down some powerlines, a small tarpaper and sheetrock house, and a railroad tender on wheels... None of which were actually decent tests to show the truck's pros or cons, or if they where, these three morons were too busy screwing around like methhead squirrels or those dumbshit rich kids who thrash their vehicles because mommy and daddy will buy them a new one.
Granted, the Big Pickup is sort of an American Only kind of thing, but Top Gear America's hosts screwed it up. I should watch a show and have the comments coming out of my mouth not be
"Why am I not getting paid to do this? I can pretend to be an absolute dumbass on TV too!"
Seriously, what the hell did these guys do to get where they are....because I can do it too.
Seriously, I could do better, and not only that, I could pick two of my many car knowledgeable friends to co-host, and not only would us garage born, trial and error by wrench car enthusiasts be better with the cars, we would be better with making the show interesting and the audience like us and WANT to watch the show.
Dear Top Gear America: I can do better. Stop making me think you are produced by the same people who produce "Jersey Shore"
Dear Original Top Gear: You rock. Please continue brightening my day.
This is here because it is pretty.
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