Psychopathic Television For Sadists

Good grief, what kind of a tv show is this?? And who are these giggling heads that find it all so funny?

I like practical jokes as much as the next goof, but this... this goes way too far.

Years ago, I used to love watching a French Canadian program called "Surprise Sur Prise", which was a French version of Candid Camera, except that it aimed its practical jokes to target celebrities instead of regular folks. Two jokes per episode, with the victim interviewed afterwards, reliving their situation and getting the opportunity to slip in a plug for their latest movie, or album, or concert, or whatever they were up to next (a neat quid pro quo for getting the celebrities to participate for free, and to consent for the humiliation to air on national television up here).

One time the show pretended that a celebrity was being invited to be "in on the gag", to set up a friend, whereas in fact it was the other way around; it was the friend that in on the conspiracy, with the celebrity herself being set up. The celebrity (a tv actress, as I recall) was being shown some "new scenes" revealing the new, "edgy", direction the producers wanted to take the show in, so that she would get an idea of what kind of gag they wanted to play on her friend. The videos she was shown were all set-ups, each more shocking than the last, with the hidden camera focused on the celebrity's growing unease at participating in such cruel practical jokes. The humor was in the celebrity's discomfort, and her disbelief that people could be so sadistic. One of the fake pranks they showed her, as they discussed possible tricks to play on her friend, in fact, was a fake assassination plot not so different than this one in the Japanese tv show: the friend is pretending to be asleep in bed, when machine-gun wielding masked men burst into his bedroom and spray the room (with blanks), with special effects squibs burst all over the bed, pillows and walls, while the friend, playing his part to the hilt, shrieks and thrashes about in mock terror.

The fake assault was all intercut with the shocked expression on the celebrity's face as she begins to question the sanity of the producers of this famous (at the time) tv show.

That program had some wit to it, some redeeming cleverness behind the manipulation of its intended victim. This, below, this to me is just... sadism, straight up. Or am I losing my sense of humor as I grow older?





[HT Breitbart TV]