Today's post about the Palm Beach Butt Crack Patrol reminded me of something my oldest son and I caught yesterday while flipping channels during Twilight Zone marathon commercials: another "To Catch a Predator" with Chris Hansen.
My concerns about the blurring between "Only Ones" and "Authorized Journalists" notwithstanding, we do generally find the show good for a few laughs at the loser idiot scumbags, and yesterday was no exception. But they've started doing something I don't remember from earlier shows: Now, in addition to the bellowing horde of weapons-ready tacklers, they've started having some guy in a ghillie suit emerge from the bushes to make first contact.
For some reason, it struck us as really funny, maybe because we weren't expecting it, and our first reaction was to wonder why Chewbacca was making a cameo on Dateline NBC. Then we started laughing and extrapolating fantasy scenarios about other ways to scare the hell out of people, for instance, jumping out of the bushes roaring like a monster while wearing a team mascot costume, or as the Mugato from Star Trek...
But that was just stupid boys having stupid fun, and the larger point was not lost: Here's Chris Hansen confronting these guys alone but for a hidden camera crew that emerges at the finale, possibly unwisely for being unarmed, and then the amount of force present to make the arrest just really stands out starkly against that.
Maybe I'm the one overreacting here, but I remember a time when these kinds of deployments were reserved for murderers, bank robbers, desperados...
Ah well. It's all just entertainment anyway, right?
My concerns about the blurring between "Only Ones" and "Authorized Journalists" notwithstanding, we do generally find the show good for a few laughs at the loser idiot scumbags, and yesterday was no exception. But they've started doing something I don't remember from earlier shows: Now, in addition to the bellowing horde of weapons-ready tacklers, they've started having some guy in a ghillie suit emerge from the bushes to make first contact.
For some reason, it struck us as really funny, maybe because we weren't expecting it, and our first reaction was to wonder why Chewbacca was making a cameo on Dateline NBC. Then we started laughing and extrapolating fantasy scenarios about other ways to scare the hell out of people, for instance, jumping out of the bushes roaring like a monster while wearing a team mascot costume, or as the Mugato from Star Trek...
But that was just stupid boys having stupid fun, and the larger point was not lost: Here's Chris Hansen confronting these guys alone but for a hidden camera crew that emerges at the finale, possibly unwisely for being unarmed, and then the amount of force present to make the arrest just really stands out starkly against that.
Maybe I'm the one overreacting here, but I remember a time when these kinds of deployments were reserved for murderers, bank robbers, desperados...
Ah well. It's all just entertainment anyway, right?