wmansir

The Car Show - Hosted by Adam Carolla - 10PM Speed Channel
I listen to Carolla's podcast and I've been surprised at how little he has been promoting this show. Today might have been the first time he actually plugged the date, time and channel for the premiere. I don't know if it's a refreshing nonchalance or an indication of a lack of enthusiasm for the final product.

Thrush

Cant be any worse than the US version of Top Gear.

Superman07

I'm surprised he didn't end up hosting Top Gear US with it on Speed channel. I can't imagine it gets a lot of viewers on the History channel, but I suppose it did well enough to garner a second season. Anyway, the previews for this at least look interesting so I'll check it out.

mugwump

He filmed the original pilot for the US Top Gear but by the time it was picked up by HC he was working a failed sitcom pilot for another network and couldn't do it. I guess this is his attempt to do a similar show now that he has nothing but time.

Achtung

Apparently the overall ratings for Top Gear were middle of the road, but HC liked that the show attracted a lot of younger viewers. FWIW, I think it definitely got better over the course of the season. And Jeremy Clarkson is on record as saying he liked it.

On one of Carolla's older CarCast episodes, he talked at length with Eric Stromer about them filming the Top Gear pilot for NBC (along with Tanner Foust, who made it over to the current version on HC). Worth a listen--sounds like he really enjoyed it and wished it had worked out. But NBC fucked it up like most everything they've done over the past few years. (IIRC, they used the failure of that awful Knight Rider reboot as an excuse not to air Top Gear... seriously.)

Anyways, The Car Show looks potentially interesting as long as Carolla doesn't try to make it all about him. I know that to some extent, he shares that trait with Clarkson, but the trio on the BBC TG have enough chemistry to bring Clarkson down a peg when it's needed.

Here's the trailer. Not totally sure why John Salley is on this--is he just supposed to be the newbie perspective?

<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xzyBFLwP2kQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Osiris3657

Let's be honest, Sally is on there to bring diversity to the cast and a black audience.

DJLinus

Yeah, I listen every day (more or less, depending on the guest) and was also surprised how little he mentions the show, given how much he pimped out the hardcover, softcover, and audio editions of his book, his live shows, etc.

It's a real shame that he couldn't do it. Adam Carolla matched with the Top Gear brand would've been ideal for both parties. A friend of mine - a real car nut and Top Gear (UK) fan - says that Carolla has easy access to some cars that Clarkson doesn't, what with his coziness with Leno and others.

I know one shouldn't make a sweeping judgment based on the first episode of a series (see: Seinfeld), but I left after that first Top Gear US and never came back. I guess since I'm not really a car guy, I tune in to these kind of shows more for the personalities and found the chemistry and humor between the hosts lacking (the UK guys are great).

mugwump

I'll give the premier episode a solid "meh." With all the visual noise on the screen it was really hard to even concentrate on the show. And Adam was clearly just reading his cue cards -- hence the specs -- which seemed a bit unrehearsed. And then he wasn't even there for the biggest bit on the show the 24 Hours of Lemons.

As for the rest of the cast I can't remember any of them except for Spider who I'm actually looking forward to seeing jammed into those tiny sports cars.

wmansir

The show has potential but is rough around the edges. In general the segments seemed to be squeezed between the commercial breaks. Some of the segments could have used some room to breath, others didn't have enough material to fill the limited time they had or weren't worth airing at all.

0-60 : I like the PTI-ish format, but the topics weren't all that great (Camery ?)and it could be produced better, like actually showing the new Porsche when they are talking about it.

Lemon: Probably the best segment. Could have gone 2 breaks. The major issues were they didn't do a great job setting things up and they never really got a good narrative going for the segment. Maybe the car dying screwed up their plans, but if that's the case then they shouldn't have put it in the first ep. I would have liked for them to spend more time with the other entrants, of which we only got a few glimpses.

Mojave Mile: Pretty much a failure. Host was OK, but the segment/goal never really drew me in. How could they not film the speedo and show it as he approached the end of the mile? Epic fail on the producers part. Again, we only saw glimpses of cool cars.

RR Ghost: Not a bad segment, but the filmed section, just like the Porsche segment, didn't really show off the car very much. It was mostly the same view I would get if one drove by me on the street intercut with Dan Neil dictating his review from the driver's seat. Production failure strikes again. Studio bit was fine.

Car Show Game show: Seemed like a time killer.

Interview: Again, a clock killer.

Final word (or whatever it was called): Horrible, but maybe with a decent topic it could be better.


Hosts: The only one I didn't care for was Salley. Wasn't funny, didn't have anything interesting to say and seemed to be playing the token "every man"/car wuss.

Neil is actually pretty good. There is a half hour "carcast" with Neil and Carolla that's pretty interesting and shows off Neil's car credentials pretty well.

Superman07

Man, this was painful to get through. It was like a blended cocktail that looks great, but you find yourself spitting out as soon as you take a sip. Somebody obviously sat down and said, "Hey, I know! Let's mix The View, Sports Center, Jerry Springer, Jeopardy and PTI together. It will be brilliant!"

Adams jokes were not funny, and he seemed to be phoning everything in. Why did he get to be away from the Lemons event? I bet every other night driver was still around with their team. Cutting to him "asleep" was very uninspired and not funny.

I did think the behind the scenes interviews promoting the show were good, but once produced it falls apart. I know TG US took almost the full season to really break in, but it seems like this already started off worse. Perhaps it will improve, but I'm not very confident.

Derrich

This show isnt getting any better. The hosts have no chemistry and the segments look like they just pulled videos from their previous personal shows.

The Ferrari segment was a waste of time. This guy is using a bunch of elegant prose to describe the car but we barely get to see the car in action. And then they spend more time talking to a guy who owns one? I dont need to see a rich a-hole telling me how his 350k car 'wasn't right' when he bought it and how he needed to customize it.


The NYC race was just goofy. Why did they use 2 random people instead of the other hosts?

The 'drive a stick' thing could've been decent, but they just threw out the entire competition. Are we to assume the any other 'contests' are just elaborate comedy bits? Top Gear (USA and UK) at least make you feel like there's an actual winner/loser and the hosts care.

Adam isn't as funny as he thinks he is. The writer guy is trying way to hard to come off as an intellectual. John Salley and the bald guy are the only ones I want to listen to, which is weird because they're the 2 'add-ons'.

D

Mabuse

I've watched all the episodes so far and it really is a mixed bag. I always loved Carolla on the radio and he is brilliant when he just speeks off the cuff and unrehearsed, but every time he's in front of a camera and on script his schtick just doesn't work and the laughs fail. He sounds so unnatural when he reads his material.

Put simply, everything in the studio more or less works but all the pre-taped segments are utter failures. Either the footage is poor or incomplete or they've got the footage but no content or opinion about the car or the premis doesn't pay off (like the stick shift challange). The segments are all poorly produced with too much cutting and too much techno music, all stuff I know Carolla hates. They also seem to be scrambling to fill the hour. An interview with an NFL guy who owns a lot of cars isn't interesting. The guy doesn't even have an interesting collection. All his cars are less than 10 years old and he has one of everything...woop de doo!

It's a mixed bag, but has potential. I actually think John Salley has a lot of charisma and is funny and at ease on camera.

wmansir

I agree, Mabuse.

The segments are mostly weak. They are often lack direction and feel rushed.

You're right about Carolla. I think a part of it is that he's admittedly near illiterate, but even when he's doing pre-rehearsed scripted material, not off a prompter, he just doesn't seem comfortable. He's much better improving, either in the studio or in the segments. I like Mr. Pulitzer, he comes off a bit snobbish, but has the knowledge to back it up. Matt's fine too.

Salley is charismatic, but he just doesn't have much of substance to say, beyond bringing the POV of one of the rich guys who buys the supercars they often look at.