Monster Quest

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

This may not be a terribly intellectual topic, but I simply couldn't resist commenting on this History Channel program a little.

I was bored the other day and went about channel-flipping, searching for something interesting to view. Lo and behold I happened upon a History Channel program called Monster Quest just as the station was returning from a commercial "break". The premise seemed preposterous enough to be amusing...and it was! Apparently, Monster Quest is a program where supposedly educated adults go about trying to find various "monsters" of folklore and Hollywood fame, as if they really existed. They study environments and videos, interview locals, and that sort of thing. In the episode I viewed, our explorers were searching for Bigfoot. I can't resist sharing a couple of the particularly interesting moments from the hunt.

At one point, our crew discovers some mysterious tracks in the snow. Recollecting that they had just plowed the area and that no one else had been there in the interim, the team suspects these may belong to the elusive creature. But after a couple minutes of examination, one of the team members remembers something rather important: as it turns out, these geniuses are studying their own boot prints. http://goth.net/forums/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif http://goth.net/forums/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif

Later on, our "experts" are sailing down a quiet river at night, constantly blaring an irritating recording that they claim is Bigfoot's call (which bears no resemblance to the sound of a living creature) such as to lure him out. Then suddenly, *BOOM!*. The boat has been struck! The background music swells and speeds up. Perhaps they've come under Bigfoot's attack! Oh wait, no...our master sailors have run aground. http://goth.net/forums/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif

Moments like these permeate the entire episode.

Needless to say, our crew of bogus scientists does not find Bigfoot and never manages to find any two people who have seen the creature together...unless of course it was a case of one dressing up in a costume while the other made a video recording. Yet somehow the program manages to conclude that the "evidence" is inconclusive.

Somehow these people have managed to retain their jobs while mere construction workers and manufacturers have not.

It's amazing that this is what passes for informative, educational television. The program in question barely even had anything to do with history. It was roughly 95% sensationalism, 5% (completely mundane) facts, and 100% an insult to one's intelligence. What can one expect though? The History Channel is owned by Disney. I guess "magic" has to factor into everything they in influence, including the ostensible study and provision of hard, historical facts. It did provide me more than a few laughs though. I think the neighbor got kind of worried about me because of how loud I was cackling, with tears rolling down my cheeks.

I have recorded the next Monster Quest episode and can't wait to view it. On this one, our would-be experts are tracking down the Wolf Man. http://goth.net/forums/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif

[ZeroNowhere]

Needless to say, our crew of bogus scientists does not find Bigfoot and never manages to find any two people who have seen the creature together...unless of course it was a case of one dressing up in a costume while the other made a video recording. Yet somehow the program manages to conclude that the "evidence" is inconclusive.This seems to be more or less what the so-called 'educational channels' do nowadays, from the few times I've seen anything on them. Last time was with a couple of friends, and either Discovery or Nat-Geo had an inconclusive show on Nostradamus followed by an inconclusive show on the Mayans (or the other way around, I don't recall exactly), the latter essentially featuring some spontaneous preaching about global warming at the end, although it's unclear if they were trying to suggest that 'the Mayans were right!' or just using the Mayans as an excuse to chuck in something about how we must solve global warming, although without much suggestion of how.

But yes, from what I've heard they generally show these along with documentaries with an uncanny resemblance to reality TV shows. So yes, it seems that essentially the difference between educational TV channels and 'entertainment' ones is that the latter are earnest about being fictional, while the former thrive on not calling bollocks 'bollocks'.