BeigeJournal

This Dr. Fun cartoon features a character who could get on Outdoor Outtakes for sure.

I am warming to the show. They have found an amazing number of people willing to be videotaped doing things that, frankly, constitute asking to be laughed at. Kayaking down a ski slope? Snowmobiling across a fast-flowing and decidedly unfrozen river? Attempting to descend a slope that normal people would repel down on your bicycle/motorcycle/quad bike/snowmobile/skis/jet-ski/roller blades? I’ll laugh. There seem to be a lot of people who want to see just how general purpose a specialized vehicle can be in the hands of someone who does not fear injury or damage to the equipment. Snowmobiles on liquid water. Wheeled vehicles on snow. Jet skis flying through the air to land on, well, land. Wheeled vehicles on water. Snowmobiles on dirt. Snow skis on rock. I can’t say that I understand the apparently widespread desire to slide along a railing, particularly one where the nearly inevitable fall will be rather stimulating, but it’s fascinating to watch. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone try to jet-ski along a rail, but it’s only a matter of time.

I don’t find most of the clips of animals pecking, biting, or spitting on people all that funny, but the goofy stories told with video of creatures doing whatever they do are generally pretty funny.

My least favorite outdoor outtakes involve spectators getting hit and people engaged in more-or-less reasonable, albeit high-risk, activities crashing, all with laugh track. It’s one thing to laugh at someone trying to ride a jet-ski down a ski slope, another to laugh at at a spectator getting hit by someone who might have been doing something basically reasonable in the first place. Fortunately, the supply of video of truly amazingly stupid activities seems to be abundant, so it seems that we see rather less of the semi-innocent victims than of the “Hey, watch me slide sideways on my skis on this bridge over the frozen creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! Ouch!” people.