[09x03] February 11th, 2007

ok saw the whole episode now and wow! this is some major tv right here. value time.

who was it that was afraid the show had jumped the shark after the first episode in this series?

yeah... :)
 
BlaRo said:
And we Americans aren't all retarded, inbred hicks either.
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I know that very well and didn't want to offend anyone, hell I wasn't offended by what I quoted in my previous post. But I had to bring it up, because what he said is exactly the same as saying all of America is like Alabama, a country of "retarded, inbred hicks" as you put it.

Anyway, great episode of Top Gear!
 
Man that was the most hilarious thing I've seen in a long long time.

Having lived in Miami for 2.5 years, it was kinda nice to see the old place again. And I've made that exact same road trip twice in the time I lived down there. Believe me, those are some of the most boring roads imaginable.

rheinberger said:
i just totally lost it when i saw "yeehaw junction".
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You don't know half of it! In the time I lived down there, I probably made the trip to Orlando like 20 times going to Disney World with different groups of people. Yeehaw Junction starts advertising like a 100 miles before you get there, and it cracked me up every time. And when you finally get there, it's just this little building where they try to sell you "discount" tickets for the Orlando theme parks and shows and "discount" hotel rooms.

Ok, I'm not American, I'm from South Africa an have been living in the States for almost 10 years now, and finally married an American woman. But man, I still enjoy American-bashing in a good natured way. Especially their cars.

All in all, probably the funniest TV show ever!
 
Fantastic!!

Best challenge ever...

I was just waiting for a confrontation with some local police, they scare me as well.
 
OK, I haven't even seen the episode yet, but as a Southerner (born and raised in Arkansas, time in Alabama and Georgia, and now in Austin, TX, although I'm about to expat to Dublin for a new job) I have to expect the worst. It's too easy to paint the south with broad strokes, to go with a time-tested and generally accepted caricature. And I'm not going to say it's not totally undeserved as there is still a disproportionate degree of racism, sexism, and general intolerance down here. However to color the entire south as 300-pound, inbred, uneducated backwoods hicks is just unrepresentative of the region, not to mention the US as a whole. It would be like going to weird little Yorkshire sheep village and calling out the whole of England as being just like those strange, strange little people. In Arkansas we have folks who (*GASP*) went to college, some even with MA or PhD qualifications, talk to "coloured" people (or in some case marry them, which I KNOW is sooo scandalous), practice religions other than Missionary Baptist, believe we as a antion need to reocus and regain some dignity, don't drive Hummers fueled by the blood of baby seals while driving down small woodland creatures, fire guns from our back porches at varmints, or otherwise behave like some lame hillbilly cartoon character from the 1930s.
I still love Top Gear.
(and according to Alton Brown, the South is the olny region of the US with a certifiable cuisine, which is more than I can say for the bulk of England, having lived there too. if we're too fat it's only because chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with country gravy is quite simply the best thing you could ever hope to consume...)
 
That was hysterical. One of the best hours of television I've ever seen. I'm going to watch it again tonight. Fantastic job to the TG team!
I should mention that I'm American, too. And I live in the south. It was all frighteningly realistic. Most Americans view Alabama as a whole other world...so...yeah...for a couple of Brits with "Man Love Rules OK" written on their cars *laughs*
 
Well, I'd rather not get into this thread because I fear 'ye olde flaming by Americans. Although I wonder why we only ever have that with them, and not with, say the Germans, everytime Jezza calls us all Nazis...

So back to the ep, and I have to say I really liked it. Its pretty much what Wilman described in his Blog, so either he isn't as old as he thinks, or I have magically matured over night ;-) I don't believe that the Redneck incident was staged, btw...

For the cars: Great, so funny, so fitting. I was thinking of the Hammond on donkey picture everytime they showed him in his car. It was pretty obvious that Jezza would go for a fast piece of shit;-)

At times I was almost down at the floor laughing, i.e. when Jezza came back with the Cow, but on the other hand, a quick car test in the beginning or end would have been nice. Another idea would have been to give each of them one American car to test at a certain location along the trip, lets say 3 minuted each would have sufficed...

So on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the best, I'd say we hit a solid 8.8 ;-)
 
Oh, I forgot to mention in the Miami bit of the show ... where did they find all those people able to speak English? When I lived in Miami, half the time you walk into a shop you'd have to deal with some illegal immigrant that can only speak Spanish.
 
thedguy said:
Don't most of you guys from the UK get really pissed off one someone insults your soccer teams? I've always heard that nasty fights happen at all the soccer, err sorry, football matches not uncommonly involving the death of at least one person?
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I can only recall two incidents remotely like that in the 18 years I've been alive, and nobody died in either of them. Not to mention that both riots happened roughly 4 years apart. I might be wrong though, considering we have teams like Millwall and the like.

As for the whole 'getting pissed off because somebody insults our team'; that's the domain of the more 'hardcore' supporters, the ones that chant racist songs and swear and generally ruin it for the people who are at the match to watch good football, which is the general point of going to matches anyway. I don't mind if someone insults Nottingham Forest (my team, hopefully getting promoted this season! *hopes*), because most of the time they make a good arguement.

Now, the people that insult my team for the sake of insulting it, those are the people who piss me off, because there's no sense behind it, just a string of childish mantras that they say over and over.

(It's not the fights that kill people most of the time, either; it's crowd stampedes crushing people during riots. Good thing the troublesome supporters often get escorted by police, with police horses and riot vans on standby in case anything kicks off. And that's only when there's a particularly troublesome match; most of the time police aren't needed in great numbers.)

Anyway, onto what I registered to say. Last night's episode was one of the funniest Top Gears I have ever had the joy to watch, especially the parts with Jeremy's in-car shower, him and Hammond vandalising May's air con, and Hammond telling Clarkson which way to steer via radio. As for the more...biased stuff, I took it with a pinch of salt, which you often have to do when Clarkson and America collide.

Well, okay, it was a mountain of salt, not a pinch, but you get the general idea.

In all, a brilliant episode, although more car-related things would have improved it a bit. Ah well.
 
Every country has faults and shortcomings. I have no problem laughing at the expense of the U.S. and I would certainly hope that nobody takes Clarkson seriously 100% of the time.

I know that the U.S. isn't perfect, and I certainly don't agree with everything that "we" do.

Have a sense of humor and laugh every once in a while... Clarkson is hilarious. :mrgreen:

- 1 entertained, non-angry, non-fat, American. :lol:


*edit* We are not all redneck trash... I laugh at those people too.
 
thedguy said:
I would think making some slur against various soccer teams would do a better job...

Don't most of you guys from the UK get really pissed off one someone insults your soccer teams? I've always heard that nasty fights happen at all the soccer, err sorry, football matches not uncommonly involving the death of at least one person?
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Football violence in this country at matches was wiped out many many years ago. Of course there are the occasions when there are the minority who spoil it and fighting does happen, but its very well policed. If you want to see true football violence search the interweb for the current situation going on in Italy. The way things are going in Italy is how it was in England in the 70's.

However, if you head into a certain area with a rival teams shirt on you'll get some rough treatment most likely. When I say certain areas, I mean where the less tolerent sensible down to earth people reside. But as has been stated throughout this thread every country has a certain percentage of the population who are intolerent.
 
I live in Michigan, and have been all over the state, and rest of country. I got to tell you guys, this country is mostly full of white trash, rednecks, ignorant/arrogant, intolerant, religios zealots. There are very few packets of the country where common sense is actually present. Your average Americans are paranoid, and are very very angry people.

Here in MI, I live in a very affluent area - Oakland County. It is one of the top 5 zipcodes in the US...so fortunately we have well educated and reasonable people, but you know what...if you were to get on a highway and drive about not even 20 miles you could easily find yourself amongst the stupidest people ever. And this is the case in all 50 states! Well with exception of Hawaii maybe! So 49 then...

Also what many don't realize is that Clarkson has been all over US, he has visited every single state. And I do think he's got a pretty good grasp on what America is all about.

Other things about US that are no good...

Food sucks...it is over-cooked, over processed, high in fat. TV sucks too, most popular show is "Deal or no Deal"...you know why? Cause it's easy to follow! NASCAR too - a sport which also doesn't one to be sober to follow it. The inbreds, the neanderthals here have it so good!

Point is, US is compounded of intellectually lazy...and worst of all, whenever they hear ANY criticism, they get all defensive, and debate not with facts, but with "Well get the hell out of US, we (they always say "we" as in "I speak for EVERYONE") don't want you here, but I'm gonna shoot ya fiiiirst"

US is so insecure about itself, and to make up for its shortcomings, it bombs other countries, to implement policies that benefit US and US only. It treats everything, and everyone as disposables.

At the end though, this country does offer a lot of opportunities to those who want to enjoy life to it's fullest. We have all the tools, trouble is very few people take advantage of them.
 
What is going on here? First 5th gear turns shitty now TOP GEAR? I was expecting to see some nice cars but end up with huge waste of time. I wonder what would happen if I drove around london with Diana sucks cock on my car? Or the Queen is a whore? But on the bright side its the first time I have seen great sun shine on a TG episdoe. BTW most UK girls r as fat as that cow on the camero.
 
Just finished watching the episode, read the discussion for about 12 pages, and had to post up... if this has been covered, sorry, but reading another 12 pages would just take to long.

I live in the "south". I was born in Miami, FL and live in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. I have no problems with the jokes that were made by Clarkson, May, and Hammond. They are poking fun at situations that represent a small percentage of the actual population of even the south. It would be the same as an american joking about people from UK having bad teeth... the problem I have is the perception that many early in this thread took to believing that what they saw in this episode of TG is an actual representation of what the USA is like, or even the south for that matter (including some Americans :rolleyes:). It's like me watching the movie Snatch or Trainspotting and believing that what I saw in those movies is exactly what everyone in the UK is like. Remember that this is Television, things are condensed and sensationalized for maximum entertainment. If a US station went to the UK and wrote something derogatory on the side of a car about a local football club then drove it in "bad neighborhoods", I'm sure a similar reaction to the "Alabama" situation would have occurred... right?

I invite all of you to come visit, you'll be astonished at how friendly people really are, sure there are a few bad apples here, just like everywhere else... if you choose to only look at the negative... then negative is all you will ever see.

Also, about New Orleans not being rebuilt... quite a bit of it HAS been rebuilt, but you have to understand the magnitude of the damage, it wasn't just New Orleans, it was also large portions of Mississippi that were damaged... there are thousands of people working day and night in construction to fix all the damage, but real life isn't like Television were everything is happily fixed by the end of the show, it takes time, money, and allot of work to fix all the damage that Katrina inflicted on the area.
 
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Another American checking in here. I love Top Gear and watch as much of it as I can. Yes, I have to go through a great deal of trouble to download it and save it and all that jazz, but to me it's worth it. Our automotive shows here are complete rubish.

On to the point. Clarkson has always had some good points when he bashes the united states. Too many of our citizens ARE morbidly obese. Many of our cars ARE pieces of rolling garbage with a huge engine that makes about 1 horsepower per liter. However, there are bad things about every place. And there are good things about every place. The UK suffers from a plague of STUPID automotive legislation. Your weather is terrible except for 10 days out of the year. Brits have bad teeth...yadda yadda. Certainly not God's country, eh?

Americans who are not from the South make fun of the South constantly. It is the butt of many jokes. However, putting the slogans on their cars was downright dangerous. I don't think they realized what they were getting themselves into -- they really could have been killed. SURE, there is freedom of speech -- but there is precedent about "fighting words." What they did would easily be considered fightin' words. I'm sure there are many things you could write on the side of your car and drive through London that would get you killed.

I've been to England. I stayed for a long time. You definitely have the equavilant of our lowlife Southern losers. There are many places in your country I wouldn't dare tread without a police escort. It's like saying don't go to England because London slums are terrible. But I aso saw many beautiful places and met some nice people. I fully intend to return again some day.

The United States is an enourmous country and the deep South is certainly not representive of the rest of it. TG certainly searched out the worst possible place to create this film. I live here in the US and I would never go to the deep South.

However, I understand that what was done was done for entertainment's purpose. The slogans were a little over the top and dangerous, but all in all, the show had me rolling and of course I will continue to be a fan. Clarkson has always hated the US and he makes it no secret. Hammond, I beleive, is a bit of a fan. He loves his huge Dodge Charger, and had a ball rollin' along in his Dodge Ram.

Of course, you have to take these points with a grain of salt. Clarkson is obviously biased, but I hope TG takes the crew to a nice place in the US someday.
 
mikev88 said:
I'm a long time reader of this forum but i've never registered or posted,but truly,this episode was so good i had to say what i think about it. First i knew most American's wouldn't laugh at it, because frankly they take themselves really seriously. I'm Canadian so i don't have to say what my opinion of AMERICA (not american's). As much as american's can say that it's an isolated part of their country I beleive that it would be very hard to have the same kind of adventure in any other country (develloped),i mean you go buy a car, the salesman pulls a gun on you,shows you his rifle and says he has a scope to kill people as they are running away... I'm sure you can't find that anywhere else,period. But hey what can you expect from a country with such a president, i mean just read these famous quote:

The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the -- the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice." --Washington, D.C., Oct. 27, 2003 "" --George W. Bush, 10.27.03.


"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it." ?Philadelphia, Penn., May 14, 2001

"I'm the commander ? see, I don't need to explain ? I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." ?as quoted in Bob Woodward's Bush at War

We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." ?Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002
"Do you have blacks, too?" ?to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001

"My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire." ?radio address, Feb. 24, 2001




or for an even better laugh, watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seYUbVa7L7w
there was a show on tv here in canada called "talking to american's" where they make people beleive crazy things about canada to highly educated people, including their president,their governor's e.t.c By the way, Jean Chretien was the prime minister of canada at that time and Vladimir Poutine was the president of Russia.

My final word about the Top Gear episode is they have nuclear weapons.....scary.

Forgive my spelling, i'm french canadian, i do what i can in english.
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fucking Canadians with their noses in the air
 
that was the best thing i have ever saw :lol: FL is hot i hate it i been here 5 years. give me loud and dirty long island,NY anyday :p
 
Funny Funny FUNNY! :rofl:

I think that was a great ep.! hahah! I'm going to watch it over and over again haha!

Anyways I'm a American living in Los Angeles and I do think things like that happen because lots of people here who are uneducated. Theres a lots more of them in the southern areas. But its always best to leave them alone to live in the own little world.

Live in American is not the best place in the world to live in but hey its home to me and I really do not think of moving anywhere else. But it can be scary sometimes thats for sure. I live in middle of Los Angeles and its not a cake walk around here as well but better then other States :p

Also I love American cars because of V8 power and its cheap and looks pretty good, but that all I love about American cars :p

Anyways I love this show, I wish everyone in the US can have a change to see every TG show, I think most people would love it! haha! I do :mrgreen:
 
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