Junkyard Wars Wants You! 377
Dan Messinger writes "Bring On The Junk! Junkyard Wars is looking for new contestants to compete on the 2003 series. Teams of contestants are given ten hours to build a machine to solve a specific challenge using parts they salvage from a junkyard. In contrast to previous seasons, this year we are looking for individual applicants who are skilled at putting together sophisticated machinery and not afraid of getting their hands dirty. Successful candidates will possess a strong background in engineering, fabrication and a good mechanical 'know how.' Junkyard Wars wants applications from people of all ages, races, creeds, colors, sexes, religions, and sexual orientations, as well as people with physical disabilities. We are especially interested in applications from women and/or people of color, as previous crops of contenders have been underrepresented among these groups. Lots of kids watch Junkyard Wars and we want to show them that anyone can grow up to be the world's greatest mechanic or engineer! If you think you match the description or you know of someone who does - please log onto our website and apply: you will find the application forms as well as all of the information that you need regarding applying. Application deadline is February 28, 2003."
Underrepresentation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those groups are "underrepresented" among engineers!
Never Fails (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like fun (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not trying ot be mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK version (Scrapheap Challenge [channel4.com]) doesn't always have working machines. In the last series a car tossing trebuchet collapsed in spectacular fashion on the first attempt to hurl a Mini through the air. It is also common to see teams sitting, in true British stereotype fashion, wth a cup of tea at the end of the building time, having finished half an hour early.
Re:Sounds like fun (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like fun (Score:1, Insightful)
The old saw about 'we as a people need to invest more in education' falls apart if 'we as an economy' are paying to subisdize the education of members of seperate economies. Sure, it funds those permanent denizens of the educational institutions (who, not surprisingly, are the loudest voices in the 'we as a people....' outcry) but it represents a knowledge drain on our culture.
Re:Sounds like fun (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, put down your taco for a second and get a job, maybe then you'll understand.
Did that bother you? Maybe now you understand why making generalizations about people is a bad thing. Come on people, this is after school special 101, grow up.
Just like real life! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:sometimes I think to myself (Score:1, Insightful)
That say more about the people you hang around with and you than it does the female population in general. You've supposedly got a "cushy office" in your own consulting company and you're still referring to woman as girls. I can't imagine why they would pressure your company to diversify.
Re:TV Magic! (Score:3, Insightful)
Looking for your keys? They always seem to be in the last place you look. That's because you stop looking for them when you find them.
Re:Great show but wrong place to solicit (Score:2, Insightful)
Overweight all-talk do-nothing airchair warriors.
If you had some sort of porn watching or complaining challenge - then this would be the place.
Are you suggesting -- PornYard Wars? What a great idea! Take two teams, make them construct a video camera and film the best porn movie, all in 10 hours. The hosts will, of course, stack the junkyard with cheesy second-rate jazz musicians for the background tracks. They also might place creative costumes in inconspicuous places -- skimpy bikinis, schoolgirl uniforms, nurses uniforms, tennis outfits, etc.
The male/female ratio would definitely need to improve for this show to take off, though.
Reverse Descrimination (Score:2, Insightful)
Junkyard Wars is in decline... but can be saved. (Score:5, Insightful)
- Great host(s)
- Fantastic machine builds
- Interesting team characters
- Wonderful sense of sportsmanship, that it was all in fun
- Fair play
We had these things in seasons 1-4 and to some degree in season 6 (all British imports of the renamed "Scrapheap Challenge" with Robert). But in seasons 5 and 7, each of these things have been lost.1. THE HOSTS: In the old says we had Robert Lewellyn, who was perfect. He was funny, had clever insights, and joked around with the teams. Who can forget his impersonation of a V8 engine? The show brought Cathy onscreen as a foil for him, and that worked out fine too -- they played well off each other. Then we got George Gray. Who was about 50% as fun and interesting as Robert (but still acceptable). Now they've hit rock-bottom with Tyler, who offers no ad-lib humour, no insights, nothing -- all he does is yell -- and a generic hollywood talking head chick who doesn't even have as much personality as Tyler.
2. MACHINE BUILDS: There was a time when it mattered if your machine worked or not, and if you really tried. Teams came up with brilliant designs, and there were failures, but they had to work at least a LITTLE. And teams did things that were ambitious. On one of the old British shows, a team actually built a demolition machine with a hydraulic claw. And it WORKED! Yes, they eventually had some hydraulic problems and their radiator sprung a leak, but when have we seen anything that great in the last three seasons? Nowadays we have things like "Mega Wars", where teams get two days to build an all-terrain amphibious vehicle, and in those two days, two of the teams manage to do nothing more than strip down an existing truck and hook some empty drums on for flotation in the water part of the challenge. Or we get challenges like the Hydrofoil, where the competition is a boat that can't hydrofoil vs. a boat that can't move at all. It's a disgrace.
3. TEAM CHARACTERS: The Bodgers, The Long Brothers, The Techno Teachers, even the original Orange and Yellow teams were full of interesting, likeable characters. We all loved Anne, Nosher, Dick, and the rest of the old crews. We cared about them and rooted for them.
In contrast, the teams that won the last two US seasons have had one thing in common: they're both comprised of obnoxious, cursing, unlikable jerks with no personalities. Our only hope in watching their progress through the season was that they'd lose and we wouldn't have to see them again.
Let's face it: when we're against the teams, we're against the show.
4. SPORTSMANSHIP: In the old days teams would trade with each other if they needed something. Nowadays they just steal it. Back then, teams joked around and had a good time. Our kids could watch the show and learn how to be a good sport, that there was such a thing as friendly competition, that winning wasn't everything. Now the teams mock each other's failures, openly berate the experts who try to help them, jump on each other's stolen stuff and are all-around poor sports. We can't let our kids watch the show anymore. It sends them the wrong message.
5. FAIR PLAY: I don't think it's news to anyone that season 7's team won by cheating. Twice. And the last US season was "won" by a big cheat-off in the demolition final where both teams just ran their trucks into the walls because neither of them could make even their basic machines work. What a disappointment.
What can JW do now?
If you ask me, it's a simple matter to address these five issues.
1. HOSTS: Put Robert and Cathy together again. Period.
2. BUILDS: Talk to your experts before challenges. Make sure they have interesting ideas to present. Talk to your teams. Make sure everyone knows that their machines need to work. Do more creative editing if necessary. Find more good challenges. Ice racers, with 4-wheel drive, 4-wheel steering and homemade studded tires? Pipe sleds that need to travel inside big pipes and be invertable, with wheels top and bottom? Pole climbing machines? OK, my ideas aren't all gems, but that's 2 minutes' work off the top of my head. I'll bet Cathy & co. can do a lot better than I can -- or than what we've been getting lately.
3. CHARACTERS: Rather than making everyone on the team required to be a welder, pick teams that are going to be fun to watch and who demonstrate some imagination. If necessary, bring back teams from previous seasons. Why not? We liked them before. We'd like to see them again. Particularly some of the early teams, whom new viewers might have never seen at all.
4. SPORTSMANSHIP: This springs from #3, but is something you can enforce too.
5. FAIR PLAY: Make the rules clear and stick to them.
Making these changes would cost the show almost nothing, and would in my opinion save the show. Longtime fans would be thrilled to see a new golden age of JW, and new fans would be won over.
Re:sometimes I think to myself (Score:2, Insightful)
Every single person in my family has programmed at some point in their lifetime. That's one son and three daughters, by the way. My brother didn't much care for it, and hasn't continued with it. One sister only programmed COBOL, so that doesn't count for much. One of my sisters aced almost every class she ever took (at Michigan Tech) and is now a perfectly capable professor of mechanical engineering who is researching carbon nanotubes, and would be a shoe-in for this if she had the time.
And then you have me. Yes, I am female. Yes, I can code, and do so as a profession. In high school, I scored in the top percentile of mechanically inclined people in the USA on tests. I did quite well in most of my science and CS classes in college. I'm not trying to brag. Just saying that I am not a socialite who went to college for fun. I didn't intend on making any friends in college. I wanted to learn.
So, while I do acknowledge that I am one of very few, please do not discount scientific-minded females as a whole. It gets very tiresome to be told I can't think in a certain way just because I am female.
Re:I'm sick of this crap (Score:3, Insightful)
So you'd like people to be put on the show based on the color of their skin? And you don't think that devalues people of color? I mean, really: Do you want to be on the show because you've earned and deserve it, or do you want them just handing it over to you because your skin is the right shade of grey?
If you have the skills and abilities to get put on this show, then get there based on those skills instead of pulling out the race card.