The wild Chinese autoblogosphere had been abuzz about a Chinese version of TopGear for a week now. Truth be told, it escaped my divided attention. No excuse, it will happen again. First on the story was my good friend Tycho, the intrepid red-haired Dutchman who runs the TheTycho car blog. He had an inside source at China’s state TV CCTV. Now, the matter is (semi-) official.
China’s Global Times, the English sister paper of the party-owned People’s Daily, followed-up on the Dutchman’s post and cornered Cao Yunjin. Cao is a famous Beijing-based comedian and TV show host. He was fingered by Tycho as the Chinese Clarkson. Cao confirmed that he will join another two men in hosting the local edition of Top Gear. A 30-minute pilot episode of Top Gear has been filmed already.
It will be TopGear with Chinese characteristics. According to Global Times, “producers will recalibrate how the fun is dished out to meet with censorship requirements.” UK antics, such as ” pushing a Maserati over the top of a three-story building and smashing it, may be too much violence for a fun program in China,” Cao said. “We will do more localized fun stuff.”
In deference to China’s rich agrarian culture, the pilot episode features a Cadillac racing a donkey. Both push millstones to see which is more efficient for farm work. Very funny – if you are Chinese. Cao did not disclose the winner.
Global Times even went as far as conducting a poll. They did not specify how scientific. Over a quarter of the respondents had no interest in the Chinese version, 39 percent said they would be curious to watch. No info on the remaining answers.
If we set our way-back dial to six months ago, you’ll recall most TG fans in the USA felt our version would be considerably stifled in comparison to the TGUK version. The need for History Channel to actually sell commercials (some to car companies) to pay for their programming will have/has a chilling effect upon what TGUS can actually say (conversely, the BBC is funded by the government, and Jezza, Hamster and Slow can say any insulting thing they want).
As it turns out, TGUS stinks for a variety of additional reasons (which we will no doubt debate endlessly on this thread). Rutledge is useless. The banter is stilted. The bits are all TGUK rehashes. But mostly, the writing is as uninspired as a high school poetry assignment.
However, TGChina will be censored to within an inch of its life. It’ll be unrecognizable to TG fans. But I guess, if you’ve never seen the show before (and 99% of Chinese have not), I guess it’ll be fine. As we learned in J-School, everything’s propaganda (you just have to look deep to see who is trying to spin you). TGC is educational consumerist propaganda in a communist society. “Buy this stuff, so we can continue to grow.”
(conversely, the BBC is funded by the government, and Jezza, Hamster and Slow can say any insulting thing they want).
Perhaps they can insult a car company but as can be seen from their recent Mexican faux pas, if they gore any of the sacred oxes of those who run the BBC the TG hosts will indeed get their wrists slapped.
A while back I ran a couple of sites aggregating headlines from the Indian and Chinese auto industries. You can definitely see the difference between a free press and state controlled media. When I told that to a NPR reporter covering the NAIAS a few years ago she insisted that the government in the US controls the media too. Though she agreed with me that NPR was a left leaning news agency receiving taxpayer support during a conservative administration, she still insisted that the US government controls our media as much as the Chinese gov’t controls theirs. Of course, that was when George W. Bush was in office, I’m sure she’d have a different opinion now that a left leaning Democrat is in the White House. Now she probably blames corporate interests, confusing, as the left often does, business owners with free market enthusiasts – there’s plenty of crony capitalism but then cronyism is only possible when those in the government have cronies.
Some people just can’t be persuaded by facts. Unfortunately some of those people work in the news media.
As we learned in J-School, everything’s propaganda
It’s unfortunate that postmodern thought has spread from the campus and now infects the newsroom. Sometimes facts are facts and writing is more than just a text to be analyzed.
Is what you see state control or the fact that English isn’t a native language in China and it is in India?
TGUS is so bad, I don’t know how there can be an ad-nauseum debate. Is there anything actually good about the show, aside from some of the cars?
Whomever it is responsible for that steaming pile of dog exhaust should deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves.
So I’m not the only one who felt that the banter seemed forced? I thought I was going crazy for a second. It’s all too obvious they’re trying to be exactly like the U.K. version.
Rutledge (I think he’s the larger one-I’ve only seen it once) – Clarkson
New Englander (forgot his name – kinda dippy) – May
Foust (kinda short, slim) – Hammond
Do I have it right?
I think Adam Ferrra (the east coaster) may be handling up Clarkson’s blowhard role, but because Foust actually has driving skills, I think he’s holding up the Clarkson arrogance end of things. Rutledge is more likely to be the butt of the humor, therefore more or less the James May analog. He’s more likely to chose comfort over speed. Nobody has almost died or had their teeth whitened, so who knows who’s the Hammond. I suppose Foust does get some of the ‘small guy’ comments.
It’s pretty painful to watch but there are a couple of brightish spots. The couple of segments which were not Top Gear UK rehashes were ok. I’m thinking of the pickup truck challenge and the moonshine running challenge. Oh, and the F150 Raptor sement was actually pretty good. It’s still better than Motorweek.
Dang it, I like it. My DVR is set to record every “first run” episode. I laugh pretty hard and my fiance gets a kick of how it makes me act like a big dumb kid. (There I said it.) I also think it’s improving with every episode.
I agree, I found myself watching BBC almost non stop during the last marathon of Top Gear. I think the US version should be used at the CIA to soften up terrorists.
GOT to be better than the USA version, which, in the words of Simpson’s Comic Book Man….
WORST SHOW EVER!!!
Those three are an embarrassment to America.
I don’t think that Top Gear is that bad, it’s not as good as the original.
However most car shows on US are abysmal.
What do I see on USTV,
1. Lots of car auctions,
2. 1 hour infomercials (motorweek).
3. Shows featuring expensive totally impractical custom builds on cars that should be left alone.
4. That boring guy with the handlebar mustache. (Mr Rogers meets classic car?).
5.The guy who apparently chases classic cars but never seems to be able to make a decent profit when he re-sells.
All crap if you ask me, give TGUSA a chance.