TV Shows that Deserve a PH Version
Mar 21, 2016 • Abu Poblete
4. Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!!
How it goes: If The Joker ever conceives a TV show, this would be it. Downtown no Gaki no Tsukaiya Arahende!! contrives on to test its contestants’ the patience, self-control and capacity for self-humiliation—to perverted extremes.
In the “No laughing” Batsu Games, for example, contestants must keep from laughing while enduring comically ridiculous set ups. Some of them are impossible to unsee: like eating marshmallows under time pressure while straining against a rubber band wrapped around one’s face; or having someone’s naked butt quashed against one’s face. You never quite know whether you’re laughing out of nervous pity or sheer WTF feels.
Why a Pinoy version is a good idea: Because we know Pinoys are much weirder than the Japs (or probably not… Because they come up with the weirdest shit ever).
Like this game
and this game.
3. The 1900 House
How it goes: This show literally took throwback to a different level. Out of 400 families, one family was made to live like they were in the tail-end of the Victorian era—as in living in a house built in the 1890s all with a safety room, telephone, scullery and a washer but without anything from the modern age like electricity, insulation and heating.
Why a Pinoy version is a good idea: Pinoys are sort of stuck in the 1800’s too. We’re still pretty much colonial-minded. Our traffic and internet move like a carabao in a mud-wallow. And a lot of our cops still strut like guardias civiles. We’d be right at home in The 1900 House.
2. Canada’s Worst Driver
How it goes: The title says it all, this show is all about finding the next worst driver of Canada and that’s a title you really wouldn’t want to get. The show rounds up 8 really bad drivers and challenges them on every episode with different obstacles to conquer or bungle through. Otherwise their licenses (confiscated at the beginning of the show) will not be given back to them.
In each episode, one contestant is “released” from the competition if he succeeds in the challenges and has proven that he’s learned something about non-lethal driving. At the end of every season, the final three bad drivers will battle it out for the distinction of being the worst.
Why a Pinoy version is a good idea: We have no lack of motorized imbeciles. (like this guy or this guy). Bring on your worst, Canada. Philippines is hell on wheels.
1. Dadagiri
How it goes: Dadagiri is just like any game. They take in contestants willing to do difficult challenges until the one to survive all of them becomes the winner. The unique thing with Dadagiri is that the contestants don’t have to go through any kind of physical ordeal. Instead, it’s an excruciating mental and verbal abuse from the show’s bullies.
The show hires real, serious bullies whose sole talent is to rip into people and reduce them to pathetic, tearful wrecks. A lot like Lee Ermey as Marine drill sergeant on first day of boot Camp in Full Metal Jacket, but with much more extreme prejudice. Not surprisingly, it gets out of hand. One bully, Isha the goddess, was so into it that she suddenly slapped a contestant without thinking. The contestant then slapped her back and asked for a public apology from the producers.
via Why a Pinoy version is a good idea: Filipinos are just as into bullying as any other folk. The problem is, when the shoe is on the other foot, we’re pikon. We instantly escalate the matter to the level of “bigotry” and “paninira” to “denial of freedom of speech.” For a Pinoy Dadagiri, we open with a free-for-all among Manny Pacquiao, Vice Ganda, Cathy Garcia Molina and the entire 2016 batch of UPLB. Imagine that. The idea of bullying with consent might just be the best thing that could happen to Filipino TV.
Think we’re ready for drag queens to dominate our televisions? Sound off in the comments below!
