RoniMan

I love this show. On my way to the Bahamas, I took Jetblue, and was able to watch some DirectTV. I caught a couple of episodes and was instantly hooked.

This guy Bear is AWESOME! Crazy?! Yes, but awesome nevertheless!

The premise is simple, he gets "stranded" in rough conditions such as the Rockies Mountains, or the Everglades. And he shows people how to get out. The things he does are CRAZY!!!

crap! now i gotta figure out how to get the show, since i don't have cable!

gear02

I've watched this show pretty regularly. It's really good, but I can't help wonder about the camera crew and how they cope. I've read that he does the acts he does on TV, but they come back and reshoot a few of them later.

eSDee

On both accounts, I've been wathing for a while now and I also wonder how the camera crew is able to do what they are doing. Their plight is almost transparent, as you never hear about them taking most of the risks that the main guy takes. Some of the shots are amazing too, especially when they follow him underwater. It's a great show that's for sure.

Whenever people ask me about the show I tell them about the episode when he tries to stay hydrated and has to squeeze water out of a pile of elephant dung right into his mouth. So nasty! Yet hilarious and awesome at the same time.

*edit* here is the video of it (not for the squeemish):

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/382106...o_man_vs_wild/

__________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~
3 days ~ Willie Nelson

3 days I dread to see arrive
3 days I hate to be alive
3 days filled with tears and sorrow
yesterday today and tomorrow

Freelance Superhero

I just heard about this episode the other day. Didn't see it, but I did see the one in the desert where he had to take off his shirt, pee on it, and then wrap it around his head to keep it cool.

Great show.

__________________
"I can't believe you can eat that; it looks like abortion." - Augusta, of the Tard-Blog

DarkFury

That episode almost made me wretch...

Pretty much, it just teaches me to STAY OUT OF THE WILDERNESS!!!!

Unless I'm a lone survivor of a downed aircraft... I don't foresee myself needed most of his skills... but yet, I'm still hooked on watchin' the show.

(Living vicariously through the power of folks on TV. )

__________________


DarkFury's Pimptopia - Don't Hate the Playa, Hate the Game!
Home of the Original OG Pimp (accept NO imitations)

Thesifer

There is another show like this , and I always get them confused. In one of them, he doesn't really have a "Camera Crew" cause he does all of the shots himself in one way or anything. And in the other he does have a crew that he goes with.

Oh yeah, the other one is "Survivor Man" or something, and he does all of his own camera work, supposedly.


http://www.survivorman.ca/episodes.html

__________________

RoniMan

yeah, i've seen a little bit of that show too. His survival tips are a little more in depth than Bear's. However, I must say, Bear just seem much more cooler than Les (maybe it's the accent, heh)

the episode i tell ppl about is the one where he's in alaska, and in order to show people what happens when you fall thru a frozen lake, he jumps in. but the craziest thing wasn't that he jumped in, the craziest thing was that he started to explain all the probs and reasons why people die WHILE STILL IN THE FROZEN LAKE! I was like....um....can't you do this when you're not frozen?

DarkFury

Heh...

Well in this past week's episode, he did the same thing explaining how to get out of a mud bog/quicksand...

He jumped right on in intentionally.... and then calmly got himself out (all the time the mud was trying to suck him in...)

I'd have to give it to him... that guy has balls the size of grapefruits.

avlena

Graf and I hate this show. Bear tries so hard to make this false sense of urgency, and does things a person with half a brain would do. Example - he runs like a crazy man through the forest (umm... how about conserving energy, and walking??), and then stops before a small waterfall, with dirt artfully slathered on his face. Instead of going around the waterfall, or climb down the side, what does he do? Climbs right down the middle. Cuz... that's what most people would do when faced in such a condition. Yeah.

Other examples of how completely fake the show is:
-he shows how to "hunt" a rabbit by spending all day learning how to throw a stick. And then throws a stick at a rabbit and kills it on the first try. Never mind the fact that the rabbit was BRIGHT WHITE, and obviously was not part of the natural habitat of the forest he was in. Never mind the fact that the rabbit flopped over on its side, obviously a fake prop. Trying to throw a stick at a rabbit to kill it is a valuable survival technique!

-he some how manages to find a wild horse... and attempts to "tame" it. He can walk right up to it, and feed it hay. Cuz... ya know... wild horsies like humans, and would rather eat hay from their hand then the giant field of grass they're standing in. And they wouldn't shy away or anything, cuz they like humans. and survival-wise, it makes more sense to spend the time trying to tame a random wild horse then it would to search for a way out of the woods. Yeah.

I'll admit, there's some good tips in this show, but he's just so annoyingly fake. My guess is that when the cameras are off, the crew and Bear all sit around munching on granola bars, and artfully dressing Bear like he's spent days roughing it.

__________________
Have a groovy day!

DarkFury

Well avelena, I'm sure that the show isn't a full "24 hour" representation of his travels...

As far as the rabbit... are you sure it was white? I personally couldn't tell on the episode I watched... and who's to say it was actually his "first try"? Editing probably wouldn't show all the failed tries before success.

As far as the horse... I saw that episode too. And he didn't "tame" it... enough to ride it, as it ran away from him. But hey, the Indians that got their own wild horses found ways to walk up to them... so yeah it's possible to be able to not spook a horse up front if you are slow and careful. They are bigger than you are and pretty much if you show you are non threatening, you might be able to get that close without spooking them.

Personally, I haven't seen him "run" all that much... since in most cases, running might run you right into a dangerous animal. He does take precautions, and is always on the lookout for something that might be potentially hazardous. But if he was running, was he doing so to get out of a particularly dangerous place where he couldn't camp for the night and was racing the sunset to get to a safer spot?

Either way, I can see your points above and how it all seems "made for TV", but seriously... would you put yourself out in the middle of nowhere and find your way back to society any differently? He's out there to teach what to do and show what NOT to do when you do something wrong... so I can understand him doing stuff that people with half a brain wouldn't. Personally, if I KNOW that there is quicksand there, I sure as hell ain't gonna go step in it.

I'll have to watch the rabbit episode again... (it was on last night, but I missed it...) I really couldn't see if it was white or not, but I'll take your word on it. I guess if you and Graf were there, you guys would set a "rabbit trap" to catch one right?

Jcranmer

I have to say I'm mostly with Avlena on this show. Too much of it feels faked to me. I much perfer Survivorman. At least he does all of his own camera work.

In fact because he does all his filming, he ends up doing 4 or 5 times the amount of hiking in order to get the "right" shot and then having to go back to get the cameras.

http://www.survivorman.ca/

Edit: Opps, I missed the post above about survivorman

avlena

Pretty sure the rabbit was white, and already dead by the time he hit it. I'm not sure how we'd catch a rabbit, but throwing a big stick is probably last on my list, and seems less likely to catch a rabbit then a trap.

regarding the horse - I'm guessing the Indians took quite a bit of time to tame a horse enough to ride it. I'd imagine there's better ways to spend your time in the wild. though, who knows, maybe it's possible.

When he was running, it was because he couldn't camp there - but he wasn't in any immediate danger. He was just in a normal part of the woods.

like I said, he has some good tips, but the show is just too cheesy & fake for us.

Grafalgar

Dark - what avlena was talking about was a bright-white little bunny in the middle of a bright-green grassy area. I mean you could spot that little buggar five miles away. It was pretty comical.

I'll give Bear the "lesson" credit: The tips he gives are great - how to make a rope from a vine, what you can / cannot eat, always look for running water (where there's water there will be people), and so on. So I'll certainly give him that. But the over-the-top constant sense of panic he has kinda kills it for me.

Have to say the one episode that had an appropriate level of "panic" was the one where he was crossing a volcano in Hawaii - and he had to run for it to prevent his boots from catching fire. That was quite cool

__________________

eSDee

If you're trying to traverse a large piece of land so that you can get to a certain point by night time in order to build camp and avoid predators that have an advantage over you when it's dark, it's feasible that running is certainly an option. In all the episodes I have seen, he has been all about the conservation of resources.

DarkFury

Like I said... it didn't look bright white to me... but then I wasn't studying it that hard and they only showed a glimpse of it moving.

After the kill... he quickly stripped and gutted it and started cooking it to a nice golden brown / charred black color

I'll definitely pay more attention the next time they show that particular episode... just to see the "white rabbit"



EDIT... You are right about the color of the rabbit (thanks to You Tube, I found some screenshots of the kill....





However when I went looking for the video, I found this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxKENjeIPuA&NR=1



In that video, the rabbit's color is changed by the "highlight circle" around it. I wonder if that was the way the episode originally aired? (Hence not being able to tell that the rabbit was white?)

Oh well... I guess it still makes for good TV... and yet, it's still gotta be hard to hit a rabbit with a stick hard enough to kill it to eat it.

STICK KILL FTW!!!!!

attgig

i like that show better because he does his own camera work. the one where he was up in the middle of Alaska trying to survive (same one Roni referenced) was awesome. He would show shots of him walking back to get the camera. And that was realistic because in the end, he admitted he was 3 days away from actually getting to where he was supposed to, and only survived because he fortuitously ran into some dog sledders that gave him a ride back.

It just feels more raw and edgy.


(alaska episode and Canada in the fall were the best episodes. The hurricane one was the worst).

__________________

brainsmile

http://www.tv-links.co.uk/

__________________
**********************************
DCM #1 (Founder)





"Nobody beats Vitus Gerulaitis 18 times in a row." - Vitus Gerulaitis on beating Jimmy Connors after 17 failed attempts.

Grafalgar

The highlight circle made a negative of the image it encapsulated, so you can still tell it's a bright-white bunny (since only white will negate into such a strong black). You can tell it's a negative because the highlights on the bunny are opposite where the sun is coming from.

DarkFury

Such fine investigative work...

You should consider a career change.

oblongmelon

Omg that elephant dung episode made me gag so bad....I watch both Survivor Man and Man Vs. Wild..and am actually a fan of both..it kills me when BOTH guys tell you to be wary of evil spiders/snakes/scorpions then proceed to use a pile of dead undergrowth as a bed. I'd love to see one of them get bit by a big ol' rattler and see how they get out of that one!

DarkFury

Heh...

1) Keep the bite area BELOW heart level

2) Call for the emergency Rescue chopper to airlift the show's host to the nearest hospital

3) Administer anti-venom at hospital.



(We all know the whole "suck out the poison" thing isn't such a good idea.)

DaFunkyUnit

I just saw an episode of Man v. Wild the other day (never seen it before, but after seeing everyone talking about it, gave it a watch). Its the one where he's stuck on a glacier in Iceland. I gotta admit, I learned quite a bit from the guy, like the whole digging "air pockets" in your snow shelter thing But some of it seems too staged, like "Oh, how fortunate! A dead sheep in the middle of nowhere. Lets eat it!" But then again, I guess they have to do that in order to get the point across and teach what and what not to do.

__________________

Showtime

A few weeks ago my friend and I were watching one of national geographic type cable channels. It was one of those steve irwin clones and dude was going around catching the most dangerous snakes on the planet. He was doing some crazy stuff while handling the snakes and I don't know why, but after a while we wanted him to get bit. Stuff like that never happens, right? A couple of snakes later, he's acting cute with some viper and all of a sudden.... BAMM! Snake gets him in the hand and it's bleeding like a knife cut. He starts panicking and saying how he's never doing this again and it was stupid and he's going into shock. Now it's gotten good and we are looking forward to the funeral with the normal disclaimer about handling snakes, but the problem is that there was a couple more snakes on the list. They get him to the hospital and turns out he was only grazed and didn't get venom pumped into him. It wasn't a "dry" bite, he only got sliced by the fangs. Still I doubt he's as confident as he used to be around snakes.

__________________
NBA REPORT 10-11/ The 3-Peat!


1948 1949 1950 1952 1953 1954 1972 1980 1982 1985 1987 1988 2000 2001 2002 2009 2010 Reigning NBA CHAMPS!

Jcranmer

Looks like avlena just might have been correct. I just saw this posted elsewhere today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6911748.stm

Does this show have a differnt name now??

beatbox32

Is that the Austin Stevens fellow? http://animal.discovery.com/fansites...instevens.html

That show is awesome. One episode had him crawling in this tiny cave looking for rattle snake nests. I'm glad someone is stupid enough for us to enjoy his exploits!

-beatboxs32

__________________
-beatbox32



"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out." - Atlas Shrugged

DarkFury

BTW... they showed the "white rabbit" episode again a few days ago.

Heh... just like I said earlier, they had the rabbit highlighted the whole time in a "negative bubble", except for the 2 seconds they show him walking away with the dead rabbit slung over his shoulder... afterwhich he skinned and cooked it over an open flame.

Oh well.. even if some of the situations appear to be "simulated", I still think that it is a very informative and entertaining show. That guy sure has more guts than I do as far as roughin' it out in the wild... and I SURE AS HELL ain't trying to drink liquid from Elephant dung or my own urine.

Makes me gag just thinkin' about it....

Freelance Superhero

Frankly, I always viewed this show as a "production" of sorts, as many of the camera angles and whatnot are impossible to capture spontaneously. Two examples:

1) In the Moab Desert episode, Bear Grylls is following a small canyon until it starts to fill with water, and he has to decide whether to climb up or swim through it. When he begins to swim through it, we see a camera angle of him from the front (as in, Bear is swimming towards the camera), which means the camera was already set up there before Bear jumped into the water.

2) In the Alaska episode, when Bear is sliding down the side of that slope with his broken ski pole, we see his descent from several different angles, up close and far away, which means they had to have filmed it more than once. In the far away shots, you can't see anyone else (i.e. cameraman) sliding down the slope next to him.

Having said that, I don't think it takes away from the show at all. It's still entertaining to me, as well as informative. As for the false sense of urgency, well, when you're sliding down the side of a mountain at 50mph, skydiving from a hot air balloon, or swimming through freezing glacier water, those are all definitely life-threatening situations. If given a choice, of course normal people wouldn't jump into a freezing river just to demonstrate how to get out of it, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he actually DID it, and that there is actual danger in doing it. I still find it fun to watch, so I enjoy the show.

Kevster

Ok the 'White Rabbit' episode is where he's in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. This just happens to be my back yard growing up (well the northern part of them, anyway). I did a lot of hiking trips when I was in scouts and learned a lot about survival tactics in the those mountains.

While he was somewhat informative, he really should have stayed with the river. There are numerous plants and roots that are edible in the Sierra Nevadas, and if you know what to look for you won't go very hungry. Granted, there's also a lot of poisonous plants or plants that are poisonous unless you cook them, so you can't just go hog-wild sampling everything. To agree with everyone else, I thought that rabbit was just a bit too convenient, especially since it probably should have been a white-tailed jackrabbit.

__________________
I think over again
My small adventures, my fears.
The small ones that seemed so big,
For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.

And yet there is only one great thing, the only thing:

To live to see the great day that dawns,
And the light that fills the world.

-old Inuit song

gear02

I'm sure it was planted. He's said in the past that it's a dramatization of what could happen, not what did happen like survivorman. On Wikipedia, it talks about how on that episode with the Wild Horse, the horse was actually brought in and not local.

oblongmelon

I caught one of the shows the other night and Bear Grylls was drinking his own piss..that kind of made me sick.