I know it's just a dumb segment, but the damned thing at least has to have the courage of its convictions. I think this is my fourth article on how Gordon is screwing up a perfectly good concept with obvious frauds and anecdotes which aren't even bear traps.
There was another one this morning, and Junior even voted for it: The guy who was going on a hot date and goes to his date's fancy mansion to pick her up. He is waiting awkwardly with her family and decides he needs to demonstrate his erudition (since he is from the other side of the tracks) by asking if they knew the definition of a word he had just learned from listening to "The Newlywed Game." The word was "masticate," but -- would you believe it -- instead, he says "masturbate"!
OK, let's think about this for a minute. I could complain that this was obviously made up, because (1) hot busty high school chicks who are wealthy tend not to go out with low-lifes like this guy claimed to be, but that at least, could happen. But (2), in the history of awkward first meetings with parents, has a kid ever, ever asked these total strangers if they knew the meaning of an unfamiliar word as a way to break the ice? But let's put these credibilty problems aside.
The real problem here is that this is not a bear trap. This was a mistake. The guy did not say what he intended to say, which is a minimum requirement for a bear trap. If the bear trap is expanded to include "stupid verbal errors which cause embarrassment," well, then, you've lost the bear-trap's entire reason for being.
Plainsman, I agree. a big pet peeve of mine is when someone doesn't care whether they are being accurate or not and that they are not following the rules of the "game" (so to speak), such as is the case with the "bear-trap" segment. Either something is truly a bear-trap or it's not. The Musers shouldn't call a funny story a bear-trap just because the story itself may be funny.
ReplyDeleteAnd since we're on the subject of a Ticket show not doing right and "following the rules of the game" in accordance to what they are supposed to be doing, I submit to you another show that is frustrating the heck out of me. I'm talking of Bad Radio and their "Gay-Not-Gay" weekly segment. Am I the only one that notices that at least 40% - 50% of the time they DO NOT actually give us a ruling as to whether the gay-not-gay story they present to us is "gay" or not??
Not only that, many times they don't even HINT as to whether they think the story is gay or not. Instead, many times all they do and all they care about is making jokes during the entire time they are supposed to be discussing if the story is gay or not! Obviously jokes are part of the segment and is part of what makes the segment funny. But come on! Isn't the segment meant to tell us whether a situation is gay or not gay?? They are so focused on trying to be funny that they many times ignore giving us a ruling as to whether the story they've just told us is gay or not.
This is something that has been really been bugging me for quite awhile. However, I will give some credit to Donovan. He seems to care at least a little more about giving a ruling than Bob or Dan does. But still, too often after they run through a litany of jokes regarding whatever story they've just read, they will then immediately go to the next gay-not-gay story and we are left wondering whether what the ruling was of the previous story.
It's bugging me so much I'm thinking about emailing them and requesting they make it a point to actually give us a ruling after each gay-not-gay story.
Of course, now that I've made this big fuss about Bad Radio and their gay-not-gay segment, the way things usually work is that probably for the next several months they will give a ruling after each and every story they tell. That would just be my luck after me making this big gripe about them. lol.
They've been doing gay/not gay like that for so long I seriously doubt they'll go back to ever actually fulfilling the purpose of the segment by giving rulings -- so I think you're safe there. I completely agree with both issues and I long ago lost all interest in the gay/not gay segment because of this. I heard the bear trap segment one time and had the exact same thought as the post. So annoying.
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