Friday, March 2, 2012

Survivorman: Kid's Show?

I had never thought of "Survivorman" as a great show for children, until I watched it with some.

I was visiting my friend Everyday Father and we were watching The Blues Brothers on VH1. He was dumbfounded that while every word in the movie even close to a curse was carefully censored, the commercials for shows like Mob Wives were PG-13 level raunchy. As the movie ended, I saw that "Mob Wives" was actually coming on next, so I quickly flipped to the first nature-based show I could find.

I thought the kids would find "Survivorman" dull - instead they were entranced both by the exotic locations and by a human being actually interacting with them. I worried they might be disturbed by scenes of Les Stroud hunting, but they understood he only killed what he needed for food and the scenes were handled tastefully (unlike Bear Grylls gratuitously drinking reindeer blood on his "Man vs. Wild").

More than anything, the kids appreciated Stroud's to-the-camera assessment of his situation. Anytime the kids asked, "What's he doing?" it was only a matter of seconds before Stroud was explaining it to them.
 

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