Adam Carolla's 'The Car Show': The Staff Grows Larger
Speed TV is prepping a rival to 'Top Gear USA.' Amazingly, it might not suck.
By Sam Smith Apr 27, 2011 5:04AM
"With the exception of porn and Peter Jennings," my grandmother once said, "television is a waste of time."OK, my dear departed gram didn't say that. She said the Peter Jennings bit, but she left off the porn comment -- preferring, I'm sure, to leave such things unsaid. Everyone knows grandmothers like porn. It's one of those rules of life, like "the sun rises in the east" and "American car TV shows suck." You just accept it, and ...
Wait, how did we get off (no pun intended) on this subject? I'm having a hard (again, no pun intended) time remembering where we were. Oh, right: television. Wastes of time. Ahem.
With a few exceptions, automotive TV programming is horrible. Because nature abhors a demographic vacuum, people regularly attempt to fix this. The latest try is Speed TV's "The Car Show," set to air this summer. The cast includes comedian Adam Carolla. Respected car journalists Ezra Dyer and Aaron Robinson have been hired as writers.
Here's a fun bit of conjecture: The show might not suck. Also, in mildly related news, I screen-tested for it, but because I'm a jerk-faced nerdweed on camera, I didn't get picked. The world is better off for this. At least that's what I'm telling myself.
Of course, you're not supposed to say that. Prospective TV talent is supposed to be all nice and pretty under pressure. As my wife regularly reminds me, I'm a mess: a neurotic Jew from Kentucky, a frizzy-haired rambler with perpetually grease-stained fingernails. Depending on your perspective, this is either hopelessly charming or remarkably obnoxious. I can only assume the producers of "The Car Show" found it the latter. (My wife insists it's charming, but she was drunk when she agreed to marry me, so she's probably deluded by regret. I believe her anyway. I am also modest.)Still, "The Car Show" is happening. My presence or no, you should probably watch it. The cast -- Carolla, Dan Neil of The Wall Street Journal, former NBA star John Salley and Internet cult hero Matt Farah -- was announced a few months ago. The car-specific writing staff of Robinson, a technical editor at Car and Driver, and Dyer, a columnist for Automobile Magazine, was officially added this week. All of these guys are talented. Most of them know the business, love the subject matter and might actually know what makes for good television.
The show's format is set to loosely mirror that of Fox's "The Best Damn Sports Show Period," which is to say a bunch of dudes sitting around talking about cars and doing weird stuff in the margins. Or maybe the weird stuff will be front and center. Farah has already let on that he's been asked to drive a tank, which means I hate him and am now obligated to tune in.
Either way, this is refreshing. Six months ago, I sat on a couch with Carolla and Robinson and made small talk about automotive ephemera. It was strange but educational. Carolla looked at me like I had a third nipple on my forehead and was the biggest doofus on the planet. One guy talked a lot about how the Mazda Miata made him feel like a woman (cue enormous eye roll). The lameness was often palpable, but in the middle of everything, I caught repeated glimpses of bona-fide entertainment. It gave me hope.I mean, sure, if they don't want a good-looking, wise-ass genius car nerd who happens to have the best voiceover voice in the business, it's probably for the best. I'll just go back to being the kind of staggeringly handsome, screen-test-acing dude whose seven-figure hosting contract got lost in the mail.
(In addition to being modest, I've been told I'm mildly delusional. Don't believe a word of it.)
Images courtesy Speed. For reference, the tall gentleman in the first shot is Salley, the bald one is Farah and the other guy is Neil. If you don't know who Adam Carolla is, you probably don't have access to the Internet and aren't reading this anyway.
[Source: Speed.]
3Comments
Apr 27, 2011 5:13AM
I like Top Gear and have watched it for years but, I'm not a fan of the Top Gear here in the US. They copy the same material, jokes are pretty dry and I think they are trying to hard. The BBC Top Gear is a lot funnier and lets face it, they were the ones who started this whole car show thing to begin with. I like Adam Carolla, and he's funny and not to mention offensive at times, I'm not sure how his show is going to work but I wish him luck.
Apr 28, 2011 9:07AM
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