Last year I got super obsessed with the Survivorman series, which features a somewhat whiny, absolutely Canadian, but ever-resourceful Les Stroud in the seemingly unlikely role of lone survivor. And he really seems to be alone, too. At least he makes a big deal about carrying his cameras and such. Good TV, I tell you. (Wikipedia)
Then along came Bear Grylls on Man vs. Wild with his somewhat curious good looks, British accent, and willingness to get buck naked on TV. Yep. I love that one, too. Lots. I don’t care if he has a camera crew or even if it’s partly fake. Nowhere else will you see someone jump into a Scottish peet bog over his head wearing nowt but a pair of blue boxers. He’s also the only person I’ve ever seen drink pee on basic cable. (Wikipedia)
Now I’ve seen all of the reruns of both shows, and I’m wanting more. I wonder if this is one of those passing things like my FoodTV obsession.
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Side note: Bear may be a faker, but the director of that This Is England skinhead movie mentioned here earlier may be more real than anyone anticipated.
Yeah, I too am a fan of both Les and Bear. I caught Survivorman a couple of years ago just by chance and tried to watch any episode I could since it seemed to be on at random times but eventually got more popular. I actually got Season One on DVD last year.
My grandpa was a total survivalist and had tons of books about it, made his own knives from scratch, and other similar stuff so I read a lot about it as a kid from his books and have kind of always been a bit interested in it. Of course growing-up in the Rambo-era only added fuel to the fire.
I didn’t like Bear as much at first but have learned to enjoy him. I think it was because Les seemed to have to do a lot more work and obviously didn’t have much of a budget to do it with (hence why I bought Season One directly from him). And yeah, he has to be the only person I’ve seen drink pee and also the liquid from elephant shit on basic cable…