Man vs. Wild Proven FAKE by BBC!

16193 Views 20 Replies 16 Participants Last post by laststarfighter, Jul 31, 2007

jtown0620

Discussion Starter · Jul 24, 2007

Heres the links:

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

http://www.reuters.com/article/televisionNews/idUSN2439321520070724?pageNumber=2

Does that make this show nothing more than a sophisticated version of Jackass!

I mean he did drink his own pea and water from elephant dung!

In summary of the above links Bear had the raft prebuilt for him in the deserted island episode and it was actually Hawaii, where he stayed in a hotel instead of sleeping in the wild. Also the "wild" horses were not so wild. Funny because if you remember he still couldn't jump on it's back and ride it!

I think they list a couple of other things. Discovery said the show will start running with a disclaimer that some things have been "dramatized"!

To be fair I think most of us new it was fake but non the less entertaining.

Watch out survivor man! You may be next on the BBC hit list!

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

DanB

· #2 · Jul 24, 2007

omg, next they'll tell me that wrestling's fake, or Flavor Flav wasnt really looking for love, or that all of those other "reality" shows are staged. What or what shall I do?

nataylor

· #3 · Jul 24, 2007

No way is Survivorman fake. If Les is cheating, he's doing it the hard way. If you've seen the rafts he's built compared to what Bear came up with, you'd know that was all done by him.

I suspected Man vs. Wild was a sham from the beginning. With a whole production crew following you, there's too much opportunity to cheat. Now we find out that that it was way more than slipping Bear food and water, or giving him a tent and sleeping bag at night.

ewolfr

· #4 · Jul 24, 2007

I'm just picking, but this part is plain stupid:

"For example, he often directly addresses the production team, including the cameraman, making it clear he is receiving an element of back-up."

Bear clearly states at the beginning of each show that he is followed by a camera crew otherwise how would they get the footage for the show?

nataylor

· #5 · Jul 24, 2007

ewolfr said:
Bear clearly states at the beginning of each show that he is followed by a camera crew otherwise how would they get the footage for the show?

He could do it like Survivorman Les Stroud, and do all the filming himself (which makes the survival situation that much harder, and that much more impressive).

Sir_winealot

· #6 · Jul 24, 2007

It would always amaze me how he'd climb down the side of an impossibly steep cliff .... or down a huge tree to get to a river... through a hole in a cave barely large enough to squeeze through ...and be followed by his camera crew?

I found this perplexing.

laststarfighter

· #7 · Jul 24, 2007

Sir_winealot said:
It would always amaze me how he'd climb down the side of an impossibly steep cliff .... or down a huge tree to get to a river... through a hole in a cave barely large enough to squeeze through ...and be followed by his camera crew?

I found this perplexing.

Yes, his cameramen are obviously much better at getting around than him.

I always assumed they scouted out his route prior to filming. He keeps on running into fortunate finds just when he needs them. Maybe a carcass or a tree to use as a bridge or a water bottle just as he's about to go on a raft in the ocean. Nobody gets this lucky.

newsposter

· #8 · Jul 24, 2007

way to crush my wife's world....she watches these kinds of shows

Jayjoans

· #9 · Jul 24, 2007

the ONLY episode I watched was the one where he was very hungry, so he got a stick, rubbed off all of the bark and practiced throwing it at a tree stump in the hopes that some sort of edible varmint would stumble into his path. Lo and behold, in a beautiful grassy green meadow, in walks a bright white little bunny rabbit, stage right. He clonks it on the head from 40 feet out, and now he has a nice BBQ bunny dinner.

Methinks that bunny woke up that morning in a cage in a pet store, having no idea he would be clonked on the head, then propped up in a grassy field only to be clonked again by a stick thrown from 40 feet away. Sort of a bad day for the bunny.

Jeeters

· #10 · Jul 24, 2007

jtown0620 said:
In summary of the above links Bear had the raft prebuilt for him in the deserted island episode

Actually, it says that somebody built a raft for him to show how it was done, then they disassembled it.

He's freely said in the past that he's not a fullblown expert on the array of environments he goes to. And that he therefore usually pre-meets with local residents or guides ot whatnots who are familiar with the area he's going to enter. So they can teach him some of the tricks that locals do to survive which is what he then shows us when he's out in the field.

Not that I'm excusing the other claims such as retreating to hotels at night, etc; I just don't see the raft issue as being any sort of revelation; it's already admitted modus operandi.

omnibus

· #11 · Jul 24, 2007

The first screen that pops up in the credits at the end of the show lists somebody as "fixer", what does a fixer do?

Bob Coxner

· #12 · Jul 25, 2007

This killed the show for me. I'll be waiting for the new season of Survivorman, which I thought was better anyway.

jtown0620

Discussion Starter · #13 · Jul 25, 2007

I'm really waiting for a response from Grylls. Discovery all but said the allegations are true by stating the show will be more "transparent", the old shows will be "reedited", and it will now run with a disclaimer. But Bear, in all his interviews, made such a big deal that he received no help from the support staff (camera guys). Funny thing is the show is very dramatic, with him eating and drinking God knows what, if they would have just stated that the show is a survivor guide instead of an actual man surviving the elements alone with nothing more than a knife, flint. and water bottle I think they would have still gotten the same audience.
I'm interested to see the first episode taped after this controversy.

littis

· #14 · Jul 25, 2007

It was ruined for me when in one show he said all he has is his flint, knife, and water bottle to "show you how to survive". However, he parachutes to the destination and says he is going to keep the parachute because it might come in handy later.

Now I just watch for the entertainment.

MickeS

· #15 · Jul 25, 2007

Sleeping in a hotel is pretty bad.

jtown0620

Discussion Starter · #16 · Jul 25, 2007

MickeS said:
Sleeping in a hotel is pretty bad.

I guess it really depends on the hotel. If it was like a Days Inn I think I'd take the outback!

WhiskeyTango

· #17 · Jul 30, 2007

So I just watched the Scotland episode this weekend and I had a lot more trouble getting through it than I thought. All I could think of watching it was that it was set up. I noticed there wasn't a new episode this weekend. Is the season over or has the show been pulled or something? Just seemed like a strange coincidence that the week after the FAKE revelations come out that the show isn't on anymore.

Carlucci

· #18 · Jul 30, 2007

jtown0620 said:
if they would have just stated that the show is a survivor guide instead of an actual man surviving the elements alone with nothing more than a knife, flint. and water bottle I think they would have still gotten the same audience.

Maybe it's splitting hairs, but he has always said at the beginning of every episode:

"I'm going to show you how to survive...."

He never says, "I'm going to survive....."

So, for me, as long as he's living up to the promise that he's showing us what we could do if we found ourselves in a survival situation, I still enjoy the show.

Jeeters

· #19 · Jul 31, 2007

WhiskeyTango said:
So I just watched the Scotland episode this weekend and I had a lot more trouble getting through it than I thought. All I could think of watching it was that it was set up.

Yeah, I felt the deer he found was totally a set up. Given the weather he was in, and that it was about to get dark, he'd have been in some deep trouble if he hadn't found that deer right when he found it. I don't see how he could have made it through the night.

gtarent

· #20 · Jul 31, 2007

Carlucci said:
Maybe it's splitting hairs, but he has always said at the beginning of every episode:

"I'm going to show you how to survive...."

He never says, "I'm going to survive....."

So, for me, as long as he's living up to the promise that he's showing us what we could do if we found ourselves in a survival situation, I still enjoy the show.

The problem with this is that he gives really bad advice. He unnecessarily climbs, risking falls for very little reward (climbing a cliff to get 2 eggs, using more calories than he got from the food). He drank his own urine for hydration, which would be equivalent to drinking saltwater. He always gets himself wet, once again for very little reward. He blindly jumped off a cliff, not knowing the depth. He has traversed an unknown ice cave. He also swam under an obstruction in a river without knowing how far it extended. All very poor examples of how to survive.

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