2008 Woodie Awards
"Top Gear" vists U.S.
Nick Martens
Issue date: 2/23/07 Section: A&E
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Have you ever seen a tiny man crash a jet car at 300 miles per hour? If not, you have been missing the most daring television show of the millennium. The show is "Top Gear," Britain's-and the world's-most popular automotive program.
Why am I bringing up an English car show in the Pacific Northwest? Well, thanks to the internet, the show now reaches a global audience. A simple Youtube search for "Top Gear" yields dozens of results, and bbc.co.uk/topgear has hours of official clips.
Also, for the more torrent-oriented (toriented) student, finalgear.com provides access to full episodes. It may sound like I am endorsing piracy here, but since it is a BBC show, Top Gear has no commercials and generates no revenue. This means that downloading it does not adversely affect the show's creators.
The question still remains why you would want to watch a bunch of ugly British men drive cars around. In fact, I would venture to guess that most of the students at this school are hardly interested in cars at all, making the purpose of my writing this all the more perplexing.
Thing is, I was not interested in cars either when I first saw this show. The brilliance of "Top Gear" is that it is not actually about cars. The cars are just a platform for the show's signature brand of dry British humor. "Top Gear" is entertainment, not journalism.
Take a recent episode as an example. The three hosts ('presenters' in British parlance) flew to Miami and were given a thousand dollars each to buy a car. The purpose of the trip was ostensibly to test these cars, but the presenters' hijinks and adventures were the real focus of the episode. They bought cars from men with guns in their back pockets, strapped dead cows to the roofs of their cars, and generated one of the best Youtube clips of this young year.
The clip in question has the presenters faced with a challenge. They are about to enter Alabama, and are tasked with decorating each other's cars with slogans that are most likely to get them arrested or shot. The three jalopies ended up with neon phrases painted down the side such as, "Hillary for president" and, "man love rules OK."
Why am I bringing up an English car show in the Pacific Northwest? Well, thanks to the internet, the show now reaches a global audience. A simple Youtube search for "Top Gear" yields dozens of results, and bbc.co.uk/topgear has hours of official clips.
Also, for the more torrent-oriented (toriented) student, finalgear.com provides access to full episodes. It may sound like I am endorsing piracy here, but since it is a BBC show, Top Gear has no commercials and generates no revenue. This means that downloading it does not adversely affect the show's creators.
The question still remains why you would want to watch a bunch of ugly British men drive cars around. In fact, I would venture to guess that most of the students at this school are hardly interested in cars at all, making the purpose of my writing this all the more perplexing.
Thing is, I was not interested in cars either when I first saw this show. The brilliance of "Top Gear" is that it is not actually about cars. The cars are just a platform for the show's signature brand of dry British humor. "Top Gear" is entertainment, not journalism.
Take a recent episode as an example. The three hosts ('presenters' in British parlance) flew to Miami and were given a thousand dollars each to buy a car. The purpose of the trip was ostensibly to test these cars, but the presenters' hijinks and adventures were the real focus of the episode. They bought cars from men with guns in their back pockets, strapped dead cows to the roofs of their cars, and generated one of the best Youtube clips of this young year.
The clip in question has the presenters faced with a challenge. They are about to enter Alabama, and are tasked with decorating each other's cars with slogans that are most likely to get them arrested or shot. The three jalopies ended up with neon phrases painted down the side such as, "Hillary for president" and, "man love rules OK."
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