Trivial Pursuit: America Plays

I have finally seen the end of civilization as we know it.  

No, it's not a financial collapse or secret government conspiracy, it's "Trivial Pursuit: America Plays."

We have finally managed to find everything that is wrong with our culture and our education and distill it into a half hour of shame.  

Let's dissect the show a bit.  

The people on the show are clueless

We have a number of dumb asses, picked from the LA talent pool of stand-ins get up and attempt to answer disgustingly hard questions like "name 3 of the original thirteen colonies"  (answer "Philadelphia")  or "name a major superpower of the east" (answer "Asia").  

Yes the questions are that easy

I think most of us admire long lasting quiz shows like Jeopardy, but this show makes a mockery of that heritage.  Even when the questions are about history or economics, they writers of the show usually manage to slip in a pop culture reference.  

"America" is playing at home?

An interesting twist to the show is the addition of about 20 people that ask their own questions of the in studio dunces…I mean contestants via video.  If the final round is lost, the 20 "at home" contestants get the money.   The show plays up the fact that they are from all over the US, but it appears to me that they just set up a camera in a shopping mall and asked random people to read cue cards.  I wouldn't be surprised if the people asking the questions were in the audience.  

Peter Brady must want to jump across the podium and smack these poor clueless bastards.  

Host Christopher Knight (aka Peter Brady) is not bad as the host.  I think if I had to pick the best part of this train wreak it would be him.  I'm guessing that they shackle his feet to the podium.  To his credit, he doesn't even blink at the contestants when they say the stupidest answers.  I want to play poker with this guy.  

So in summary, skip this show.  I don't believe I'm saying this but go watch "Millionaire" or something a little more stimulating.  Better yet, pull out a history book and do some reading.  TV really is rotting our brains.

Addendum: why the hell was I watching this?

I was watching this because I came across it on a otherwise dull Labor Day.  I wanted to know what I was missing on TV during the week day.  Now I know I'm not really missing anything at all.  The things I put myself through for this blog.