Grab Bag Friday: Creature Comforts on Self Image

If you follow this blog you already know how much I loved the show Creature Comforts when it was on, so I will spare you further comment except to say thank goodness you can get the DVDs on Netflix now!

Here's a little comic genius to kick off your weekend. Enjoy!

Grab Bag Friday: Get a Job (for 30 days)

This week, Kevin and I watched two great episodes of 30 Days that had to do with being on the job.

Working in a Coal Mine is an up-close look at the day-to-day life of a coal miner. I don't think it's possible to watch this episode and not think a little harder about energy consumption.

Outsourcing follows an American data programmer whose job has been outsourced to India. He hops on a plane and for 30 days, works at a call center in India. Absolutely fascinating.

I know I've said it before, but this show is brilliant. Could someone please tell me why there isn't going to be a season four?

Grab Bag Friday: 30 Days with Morgan Spurlock

Have you seen this show?

Not too long ago, Kevin heard about a television show created by Morgan Spurlock, the guy who made the fantastic documentary Super Size Me (which, if you watch the special features on that DVD, watch out...it will turn you away from McDonald's delicious french fries for ever. I haven't eaten them since.)

So we googled 30 Days, and it turns out you can watch all the episodes for free on Hulu. We watched a couple. And now I'm completely addicted.

The basic setup is like any other reality TV show. People agree to put themselves in situations that are out of their comfort zones and be filmed. We watch vicariously while they go through varying degrees of insanity on national television.

But this is not your ordinary reality show.

Morgan Spurlock seems to be very interested in questions of extremism. Think of Super Size Me. He took something Americans do without thinking (eating fast food) and took it to the extreme, eating fast food for every meal, every day, for 30 days, just to see what would happen.

30 Days is an extension of that experiment. Spurlock takes people with extreme views on hot-button issues (abortion, gun laws, same-sex marriage), and puts them in a situation where they will have to live like the "other side" for 30 days.

For instance, one of my recently watched favorites was the episode on animal rights. An avid hunter from the South agrees to spend 30 days living with a PETA activist and her family. According to the rules, he had to spend his days they way they would spend theirs. So our hunter had to work at an animal rescue facility, and protest on the street against animal testing.

The results are fascinating. Sometimes, each side sticks to their guns and is unmovable. In the case of the southern hunter, he and the PETA activist were able to come to a kind of middle ground. The hunter, who will continue to hunt, decided that the practices in the commercial meat factories are unethical and wrong, and he won't eat commerical meat any more (even though he said his friends are initially going to razz him!) The PETA activist learned that hunters are not necessarily the evil animal-hating killers she originally imagined, but real people who can have good motives and a good heart.

I love this idea. Each time I watch the show, it makes me think about things in a way I might not have stumbled on alone. Kevin and I get into some *very* interesting conversations. And I try to think about what extreme views, stereotypes, or belief systems I might have that could use a little moderation.

I heard a rumor, that FX (the station that airs the show) is cancelling 30 Days. Please, please, somebody else pick it up. The Bachelor is fun (and believe me, I've watched my fair share), but we also need shows like this in the world.

Grab Bag Friday: Creature Comforts

Have you seen the new show Creature Comforts? I'm quickly becoming a huge fan. Created by the same people who made the hilarious Wallace and Gromit shorts & features, Creature Comforts is a 1/2 hour claymation "reality show." The concept is brilliant. Aardman sent people all over the US, interviewing regular people about various topics (zoos, flying, self-image, relationships). Then, they took those "Voices of Your Fellow Americans", and created claymation animals to match them. The results are great fun: pigs who dream of flying, a hippo who complains about always being weighed by skinny girls, a penguin who complains of always being cold.

The idea is based on an original short film that Aardman created in 2003 (which you can watch online...see below). The TV show has been running in the UK for a couple seasons...this is the first time they've done an American version, with all new characters and interviews.

On the US website you can:

• Watch the original short film (this is great!)
  
• Read the animators' blog: Eyeballs and Fishlips (it's fun to see pictures of the *real* people behind the animal characters)

On the UK website you can click on the "Making Of" where you can learn all kinds of interesting tidbits:

• The show is unscripted and unrehearsed
• The interviewees do not know what animal they will be until the actual broadcast
• The characters/animals are created to fit the voices (not the other way around)
• The animators use between 10 and 20 different mouths for different emotions
• The animators film between 3-5 seconds of material per day
• It takes four days to film one 15 second shot!

UPDATE: Can you believe they took this off the air *already*????? This was one of the few really different, really engaging shows that I was enjoying! Sheesh. I should have known that meant it was doomed. :)

If you liked the show as much as I did, click here for a list of people at CBS to email with your comments. Boy, what a typical display of media mogul knuckleheadedness.