Man (and 8 crew) vs wild: behind the scenes

Isn't this a bit of a dead horse? For posterity's sake:

I never understood a lot of the derision that Bear Grylls gets over his "fake" survivor show. I think these people really miss the point.

Grylls shows viewers some of the often wild and very entertaining things people can do to survive out in hostile elements, like a teacher basically. If he can teach his lesson within the course of a half-hour episode, and then go back to a hotel at night, more power to him! That's the type of show I want to do.

Les Stroud did the survivor reality show and if you compare the two you'll see Stroud's show is a lot more...boring, because Stroud actually needs to survive. So his show's got a lot more of the finding a stream, making a fire, foraging up some food, and a whole lot of sitting around conserving energy. Because the point is to survive. Meanwhile I can watch Grylls eat a grub 3 inches long and wear a turban he peed on.

Diff'rent strokes fer diff'rent folks.

Grylls never said he was one man out against the elements, and in any case no one should voluntarily put themselves in such a situation. If you watched his show you have no reason to feel deceived considering a lot of the camera angles clearly show that someone is with him, filming his exploits. I mean, come on.
 
I've actually learned from Les and I don't find him boring.


Of course it is obvious that Bear has a camera man with him, but I didn't expect 2 camera men, a sound engineer, a director, a safety consultant, etc....
 
boness said:
Bear Grylls --- He will get people killed--
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That's why I think they should put a stronger disclaimer in front of the show like:

This is for entertainment only, I have 8 people with me for support. Don't do any of this if you are in a survival situation including climbing down waterfalls, hiking through 40 degree water instead of on land, drinking your own pee, hike into a cave thinking maybe it will be shortcut, eating raw food when you can cook it on a fire, etc.


I think most of us realize it for entertainment, but if your a 15 year old kid with no outdoor experience it might not be so obvious.
 
Grylls illustrates skills. Yes, I agree that he is often reckless and some stunts border on stupidity but the brief is first to entertain and then to educate. This is TV aftre all and advertisers pay the way. Myslef, I learn faster when I am enterained and interested. But, his skills does not prepare you for a real survival situation unlike a continous diet of bugs is your cup of tea. But that he has an incredable variety of skills .....I always see something I can learn from him although the BS filter has to be at max. setting.

Les on the other hand is real world, lack all the flash and often shows the dark side of being reliant on only your own skills. I think you start with Bear but Les is what you can expect when you step into the bush.

Mears has not been brought into the fray and I prefer his down to earth and very scholarly approach to wilderness skills and situation. Shows tremendous respect for the wilderness and local culture. Purely to educate and little time for flash. Kind of like a mature Grylls ;)
 
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i wonder if all eight of those men watched or helped him shove a tube up his assssssssssss!
 
Folks should really stop trying to personalize the MvW show format to Bear Grylls. It's (very) possible that he has little to do with the format of the show or perhaps even the sensational antics. In other words, even if he wanted to do a Les Stroud type format they may not let him because....it doesn't sell, period. This is easily evidenced by the obvious advertising and online support the channel has shown MVW versus Survivorman. If you want to watch a puristic show on survival watch Ray Mears online, if you want to sell advertising space at a premium then produce Man versus Wild. He will (or should) get no more people hurt or killed than Jackie Chan has. If he gets people thinking twice about preparedness before they venture into the wild then GOOD, mission accomplished. Most of the other stuff is GIGO for the general population, just like everything else on television. btw- to those who would claim Grylls is a complete fraud as an outdoorsman, go be the youngest person in your country to summit Mount Everest then come back and talk about it.
 
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Skytorn said:
Isn't this a bit of a dead horse? For posterity's sake:

I never understood a lot of the derision that Bear Grylls gets over his "fake" survivor show. I think these people really miss the point.

Grylls shows viewers some of the often wild and very entertaining things people can do to survive out in hostile elements, like a teacher basically. If he can teach his lesson within the course of a half-hour episode, and then go back to a hotel at night, more power to him! That's the type of show I want to do.

Les Stroud did the survivor reality show and if you compare the two you'll see Stroud's show is a lot more...boring, because Stroud actually needs to survive. So his show's got a lot more of the finding a stream, making a fire, foraging up some food, and a whole lot of sitting around conserving energy. Because the point is to survive. Meanwhile I can watch Grylls eat a grub 3 inches long and wear a turban he peed on.

Diff'rent strokes fer diff'rent folks.

Grylls never said he was one man out against the elements, and in any case no one should voluntarily put themselves in such a situation. If you watched his show you have no reason to feel deceived considering a lot of the camera angles clearly show that someone is with him, filming his exploits. I mean, come on.
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Interesting observation.

Can't think where exactly, but on another forum anyway: Someone pulled up a breakdown of what kind of stuff was being searched for, blah blah. Essentially, the discussion went on that Grylls is starting to romp into the lead over people like Mears precisely because he is so entertaining to younger people whereas Mears is dull by comparison. The thrust of it was that active able folk are more drawn to the adventure type stuff whereas Mears doesn't really do much survival stuff now, he's gone more natural history / paleo.

I take both of them as providing good light entertainment and don't have a vested interest either way, but I see where they are coming from. I agree with a lot of what you said about survival being boring [in real time] anyway, and I can certainly see it where a when a dusty old academic spewing out latin names is wheeled on to; spend an afternoon of gathering grass seeds in a basket, then toasting them, winnowing, mixing with water and baking again, only to have the basket full of seed turn into a lone grim biscuit the size of a Zippo could be a turn off. It might be interesting to some of us, it is moderately interesting to me, but it not really adventurous, dynamic, and contains bugger all survival information from any threats I perceive to me as realistic. By contrast, Grylls may not have been always been as candid as Mears [ e.g. to Mears – how did you make that cross cut in the tree stump to make that fire – on that WE used a CHAINSAW from ONE OF THE TRUCKS], but his version of touching on survival is a bit more energetic and youthful, so he is raking in the younger audience it seems.

I don't have any problem at all with what Grylls is doing if it is both entertaining and attracts younger people to be interested in this kind of stuff. I know I read a bunch of useless and misleading stuff when I was in my youth, and I'm certain many others had difficulty in separating wilderness fantasy fiction from reality even though the book was clearly drawn from the fiction section of the library. Provided it gets them hooked I'm hopeful that when it actually comes time for them to do it themselves the real world will come along and beat the BS out of them. But if glamorizing it and all that gets them in to begin with, good enough. Romantic notions and glamor stunts can all be sorted out later. Reading Tarzan never hurt anyone I've met.

“TV only affects those kids whose parents behave like TV personalities”

-David Byrne
 
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Aubrey said:
I think you start with Bear but Les is what you can expect when you step into the bush.
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That's how I see it too. Bear is plain silly sometimes (to not say moronic), but he does entertain most folks that don't have the knowledge that people like us have. So as a TV show, ie, something to entertain, his show is ok. It's good to pass the time and more interesting to watch then at least 90% of what I can see on TV.

Is it an educational show? We all agree that some stuff that he "teaches" there is basically bs. That's why I think that everyone here that gets all railed up against him is because he doesn't make the fact that his is just an entertainment piece, and not a documentary. Maybe if he did so we wouldn't complain so much.
 
boness said:
Bear Grylls --- He will get people killed--
Click to expand...

I have to agree with this one. When I see him jumping many feet into water, following a river into a underground cavern (and coming out the other end), careening down a mountain side etc, I can see someone following that; getting hurt and dying.
It does make interesting viewing for most. It is poor advise to follow.
 
BushcraftBrainTrust said:
That's why I think they should put a stronger disclaimer in front of the show


I think most of us realize it for entertainment, but if your a 15 year old kid with no outdoor experience it might not be so obvious.
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that is a great point, he is very entertaining but even les has a disclaimer on his show saying he is a professional and you should never put yourself in a survival situation on purpose
 
i'ld rather watch Macgyver it's much more realistic and educational and i never saw him eat deer crap to stay alive or hike up ratings i didn't know that bears were gay!(it's that assss thing again) you can save yourself from dehydrating by putting bird poop h2o up your asssssss what's next feeding yourself by shoving a gerbil up there toooooooooo! he lost me as a veiwer forever after that one!
 
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:yawn:........

Yep....Bear has a crew..

and a great job.

Dont believe everything you see on tv. Or on the internet. :eek:

Im sure the slap chop will truely let me "slap" my troubles away, and Hydroxycut will have me become a fitness model in 2 weeks, and the American Chopper douchebags actually fight like cats and dogs, and Bill Orielly hates porn. Yep...:rolleyes:
 
I am old enough to remember that Dirty Harry was blamed for a number of accidental shootings by children. Some things never change. BGs show isnt any of a worse influence than any other. Antique Roadshow recently stated that anything Popeye related is declining in value due to it's "violence". The more I tune in, the more I tend to tune out. All a bunch of crap.
 
The other day i was at the local book store looking at survival books. A kid and his mother walked up to the rack and the kid wanted the SaS survival book. his mother was not pleased by the price and asked the kid to look for another book. i (trying to be helpful) suggested the Book by les (Survive) saying that it was a very good book and has alot of helpful tips to survive anywhere. the boy looked at me and snickered, then explained to me that les was the worst survival expert and that he was no where as good as bear. i then started to explain that bear has a fairly large support team and that les does his show solo. the boy looked at me like i was dumb. after a short stare down he snickered again! so i took that as a que turned and walked away. thats the last time i try to be helpful in the survival isle.

i will say that bear has a far more exciting show and that's why he is so popular with the youth of today. the music is intense, he fights snakes (EXTREME!!!) and does a wack load of reckless things. Les on the other hand is SURVIVING, boring to watch for the youngins. but a tad bid more educational.
there is my 2 cents.
 
Skytorn said:
Grylls never said he was one man out against the elements
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Are you sure about that? Because 'Man Vs Wild' seems to say exactly that!

ROLX51 said:
i'ld rather watch Macgyver it's much more realistic and educational
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I got sick of MacGyver because I would watch an episode and think "that's just stupid, that wouldn't work like that!". I do enjoy Mythbusters episodes where they bust MacGyver myths though - pretty much confirming what I had been thinking years ago before I stopped watching MacGyver.


I have never seen an episode of Man Vs Wild - from what I have read it sounds like a rather stupid show with more emphasis on being shocking and grossing people out. I find Survivorman quite interesting and there are many good videos on youtube that you can learn useful stuff from.
 
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