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Ask 'Junkyard Wars Diva' Cathy Rogers
Junkyard Wars (and the British Scrapheap Challenge) have long been popular with Slashdot readers. Now Cathy is co-host of a new show, Full Metal Challenge, that also involves teams building strange machines out of this and that. Take a look at this 'Cathy' fan site (and possibly her less interesting official biography), then ask away. (Usual Slashdot interview rules.)
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
Flamebait flamebait flamebait. This is simply a stupid stereotype. Oh, and British shows always play to the HIGHEST denominator? ( weakest link)
On Junkyard wars it always seemed that the teams had something in running condition before the end of the time limit. Was there ever a time when a team had ABSOLUTELY nothing worth sending into competition? (Wouldn't make for much of a show though...)
I also often wondered about the number of working vehicles that show up in their "junkyard". The last episode I saw showed one of the teams walking up to a tractor saying "Looks good" and proceeded to drive it back to their base. (This was the episode where they had to make a boat thingy that looks like those old ferry's from Tom Sawyer era).
Oh, there are a tremendous number of stupid British shows; no one's disputing that. And there are plenty of highbrow American shows, for that matter. But there exists a specific problem with importing foreign (British or otherwise) TV to America -- it seems that it always has to presented as Foreign And Literary And Important for the expensive-wine-and-public-broadcasting crowd, or dumbed down for the Budweiser-and-pro-wrestling crowd. What's missing is the middle ground.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Just because he lifts weights, doesn't mean he's dumb?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
from the FAQ on the website (one of the replies to this parent has the link) they say (paraphrase)"Not only do we plant working/semi working materials, but if a team is having problems we even hint at stuff they might not have found"
I guess the lawyers would say "Well, it IS a junkyard, but its a junkyard where things have been planted. So technically, it's not lying"
The worst offender is "Trading Spaces" which does not indicate during the show that there is an entire team of workers behind the scenes that compelete most of the actual painting, sewing, etc.
blockquote:
Once inside, I met the sewing coordinator. The very existence of the sewing coordinator was for a long time a closely-guarded secret. His name was in the credits, but they never referred to him on camera. The need for a sewing coordinator is obvious; any given episode features a huge amount of sewing, some of it very complex, and the homeowners and designers simply wouldn't have time to do it all themselves. The sewing coordinator, therefore, stays behind the scenes and makes sure things get done on schedule. Later in the day, after he had finished all his tasks and packed up his equipment, I caught up with him and asked why he was never shown on camera. He explained that it was a logistical decision. Each episode, he pointed out, already features eight "characters," and adding a ninth would be tricky. Makes sense.
this taken from This behind the scenes review
It wouldn't be so bad if watching that show hadn't empowered me and my wife to completely redo everything when we moved into our town house! We painted every room, we re-floored the kitchen and basement, we fixed up dry wall, changed lighting fixtures and took down all the ceiling fans, put up shelving and cabinetry... pant pant pant,
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Have any (and if so, which) of the constructs ever made you fear for your own life? I'm surprised none of them have ever had a major meltdown that sent the crews fleeing the scene.
Wow, someone didn't take their happy pill today :-)
This is far from the dumbest thing I have heard on slashdot.
The point he is trying to make is that yes it is made for tv. Duh! However, in most junkyards you can ask the owner where things are and if you are looking for a good motor, you could find one is a few min. The junkyards by me would even ask what type of engine I would like.
I think that you are hungup about the word Junkyard. I believe in their definition is means a place where they dump their junk. Their junk just happens to fit whatever they are building.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
No, I'm hungup about the pretense and introduction that tries to portray that they dropped two teams in a real junkyard and look at what they've created. Again, the show clearly tries to sell itself on the accessibility factor: The "you could go and do this at your local junkyard!" kind of personal factor. I believe that's a bunch of BS.
Let me put it another way. Imagine that there's a show called "Hidden Gems" that randomly goes to households and asks to see in their basement, and their team of appraisers look for hidden gems. Of course, 99% of the time they'll find nothing but old smurfs and coke cans. Now what if, in the interest of making it exciting, they stocked a basement full of precious antiques, hired a homeowner to act shocked and talk about how it was passed down by their ancient grammy, and then portrayed a scenario where everyone had great antiques in their basement. Would that be "ay okay" to you? It wouldn't to me: It's lying, plain and simple.
Junkyard Wars is a scavenger hunt for planted materials. Is it necessary to make it interesting? Perhaps. Does it bother me that they try to pretend that it's something else? Yes.
After clicking "no" three times to the "do you want to install and run Macromedia Flash?" dialog, I gave up and hit the back button.
NOTHING on that page could possibly interest me that much.
Does nobody else on the planet know that Flash is useless suckage? Just say "hell no!"
Junkyard Wars is one of my favorite shows on TV, however it seems to me that they intentionally do not show the real engineering (calculations, technical and theoretical principals, etc.) without first lowering it to a third grade level. Is this due to the show having a wide range of age groups and technical backgrounds? I have always felt that there is a demand for showing what really goes into the planning and design of these projects. What is your opinion on this? Could we see a more geek oriented JYW type show in the future?
--
"I've figured out what's wrong with life: It's other people." -Dilbert
I agree. They need to have more challenges like creating a rocket, or a cannon. Or better yet, have each project somehow involve turning the other team's project back into junk, thus completing the junkyard cycle of life.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
On Junkyard Wars, I've always wondered about the stuff that goes on that isn't aired. Such as:
:-)
* How is the junkyard (or scrapheap) seeded or items removed from it
* How much/detailed are the plans that the experts come up with done ahead of time
* In the show, all we ever see is the contestants being told "Build a railroad engine" - do they actually get all of the rules at that time, or does only the expert know all the rules of the challenge (having been explained them ahead of time)?
* How often do you have to "help" a team that doesn't look like it's going to finish (Help them find a missing part, tell a team that the other team has the key part, extend more time, etc)? I know some of this happens, and it's reasonable because if one team never finishes then that's not a very interesting show
* Anything else intersting (especially to us geeks) that happens in the challenge that doesn't make the show?
Right now, Junkyard Wars is my favorite show, and it looks like Full Metal Challange will be cool too. Good luck with the new show!
-Chris