Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Trust me I have a masters degree


It has come to my attention that the sweeping TV show hit of 2007 is a game show designed to prove that adults are no smarter then the average 5th grader. Being over here in China has prevented me from watching such exciting TV, but from what I heard this show is taking over the TV airwaves. I believe it is on once a week now, although I would assume that FOX will put it into any time slots where they need viewers, hence it will be on at least 5 nights a week come summertime. Since I have not seen the show, in order to intelligently discuss this instant classic show, I took the quiz online. Well, needless to say I got all 7 questions right and it ends up that I am smarter then a 5th grader (glad to see that the 18+ years of education came in handy). Some observations that I have after hearing about this show:



  • Did FOX run out of good reality show ideas? I mean whatever happened to such great reality show concepts as "If robot octopuses attack" and "My mom, my sister?".

  • Jeff Foxworthy is the host, does he not know that FOX is mocking him by having him as the host? It's one thing to be a goofy game show host, but from what I hear he is taking the gig seriously. And I think we can all agree that he had a nice career with his whole "You might be a Redneck if..", wait a second, okay now I see why he took the job.

  • FOX is actually doing a service to society as they are not so quietly blasting the US education system. No, I don't expect everyone to know what a Nimbus cloud is, but based on the quiz I took, it should be pretty easy for someone to figure out the answers the questions (for example, no I don't now how many ounces of water are in 3 pints, but when I was given an answer set, I knew that 8 ounces of water equals 1 cup and I deduced that a pint is more then a cup, my answer choices included 12 (obviously wrong), 24, and 48, so even estimating based on my assumption gives me over 24, so it had to be 48). Anyway, if you can't answer the questions like the one above, maybe you should put down the remote and open up a book (or at least watch a documentary).

Anyway, I guess its a show that kids and parents can watch, and it is definitely a step up from the really low down reality shows that FOX was producing (remember Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance), just don't let Foxworthy tell any Redneck jokes and you should experience continued success for the next 4-6 months.


IN: What else do I have to say, Are You Smarter then a 5th Grader is clearly where it is at in the TV world.


OUT: Playstation, specifically Playstation III (PS3). Now I know the economics behind it, fact is for all the articles that talk about Wii outselling Playstation it merely has to do with not only the price being lower, but also the fact that there were more Wii systems available to the public then PS3. Still no excuse, and actually maybe a showing that the Nintendo super power can still flex its muscles. Listen Nintendo destroyed Atari out of existence, Sega just couldn't compete (I mean how many people looked forward to the release of Sega Saturn?), Playstation came out and everyone thought the tide was turning. But alas, after a few hick ups, Nintendo has come back. Simply put, even with the factors noted above, Nintendo knows its gaming market, and they also are keen on what they need to do to beat out the competition. I don't think Nintendo is going to destroy Sony's Playstation or Microsoft's Xbox like it did Sega (mostly because these companies have more resources from other products that it can use to back the marketing of a gaming system then a Sega ever had), but I have to give big props to Nintendo for making a nice comeback. A few years ago I would have said that Nintendo is the modern day Atari, getting ready to get wiped out as the Nintendo generation is getting older, but I think it might live to see another day, sorry Sony.

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