Survivorman Vs. Man vs. Wild

If you watch Discovery channel, you have probably come across these two shows some time in the recent past. The premise of both shows is basically that there's a dude in the wild and he's up against nature. Using his skills and smarts (which he helpfully shares with you), he survives. End of show. However, as I hope to lay clear in this post, there are some basic differences between Man Vs. Wild and Survivorman. As always, here they are, in list form.

1. * Survivorman is an actual expert on survival and a filmmaker. He remains the only producer in the history of television to produce an internationally broadcast series entirely written, videotaped and hosted alone. His real name is Les Stroud.
* The star of Man Vs. Wild is a wanker who went to Eton and is a son of a Tory. He owns an island and lives on a barge on the Thames. His goes by the neauseatingly wannabe macho name Bear Grylls. Sort of like the midget who calls himself Andre the Giant.

2. * Survivorman ACTUALLY goes into the wilderness all alone for a week. No camera crew. He lugs his own stuff (50 lbs), and only has a satellite phone that connects him to civilization in case of emergency.
* Bear f*@#ing Grylls has a camera crew with him at all times. Yeah, he pretends like he's alone, but really, there's a camera guy. And for all you know, an entire film crew and caravan with a hot water bath and scantily clad blondes right behind the camera.

3. Survivorman doesn't do stupid shit. If there is a straight line of distance 100m connecting point A to point B, you can be sure that Les will walk the line, traveling a distance of no more than 150m.
* But not Grylls. Bear f*@#ing Grylls will have to climb a cliff, jump a ravine, plunge through rapids, swim through whirlpools and bear hug an anthill to get from A to B, travelling (and mostly flat-out running) for 3.5 miles in 28 minutes of an episode to get from A to B.

4. * Survivorman doesn't eat crap just for the sake of eating crap. To be fair, he sucks at catching anything, so he tends to eat mostly bugs for 7 days, but he's OK with that. He sets traps, usually nets nothing, complains a lot, eats a few termites, and then moves on. For anyone who has actually tried catching any sort of animal, you know that this is pretty much how it goes.
* Bear f*@#ing Grylls on the other hand will eat crap. First of all, there always just happens to be a newly dead mammal of some sort in his path (killed by his behind-the-scenes coterie, no doubt). Then, he walks up to it and eats its most disgusting innards. Why eat dead skunk bladder when you can eat its thigh, I wonder. I have also seen him eat a "just dead" zebra with no hands. you have a knife, you idiot. Use the f*@#ing knife. He also drinks his own urine. Pees into a bottle and then drinks it. As anyone who knows the basics of survival training, you DO NOT drink urine straight. You make a solar still. Sure enough, in the one episode where Stroud was dehydrated, this is what he did. I have also seen Bear f*@#ing Grylls squeeze water out of some animal's dung and drink it straight.

I guess what pisses me off is the melodrama that Grylls tries to inject into the show. Why drink your own urine 5 minutes into the show when you have dudes a few feet from you drinking Dasani. I'm sure you have some too off camera. Jackass. (I also read that he faked some of his locations, but I am not sure of the details). But more importantly, you're misleading people. There are safe ways of adventuring, and genuinely useful tips that you should know to increase your chances of survival. And then there are stupid ways of doing all this shit, which is EXACTLY what Gyrlls does with his infuriatingly whiney out-of-breath accent. If people do get stranded, they're going to remember watching this idiot eat maggots off a dead sheep, and they're going to get themselves killed.

So, help us all out, Bear f*@#ing Grylls. Learn from Les Stroud. And if you can't, I hope the next time you jump across a chasm, its a really really deep chasm. And that you misjudge the distance.

Update: Got to love youtube. Bear f*@#ing Grylls is a fraud.