Techtite's TV Reviews!

"Even if Thomas [Edison] ranted like a jerk, onlookers would say, 'Hey; he's Thomas freaking Edison.' Yet Hall rants like a jerk, and ...who is this guy?"

---from the review

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A Series Concept That Even The Wright Brothers Couldn't "Fly". Look; nobody expected the next Einstein to audition for reality TV! But this series could've only succeeded if it attracted actual, honest, dyed in the wool inventors, and sorry, it could never have done that. Think of it. When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created the world's first personal computer, did they need "help" to get started? No! People that innovative don't need help with something as trivial as the line, "Want one? 1,000 bucks, please!" While this series did indeed get a few bizarre innovations coming through their door, even the best of them are not "inventions." Some are cute ideas, sure, and the majority of them might very likely become the next Rubik's Cube with proper marketing, but...it will be an uphill battle. Sorry.

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American Inventor

A Review by Techtite

Does anybody know when American Inventor begins? Yeah, I know; TV Guide says that it's been on for weeks. I read that, too. So I tune in to ABC and see what's on during the time slot for American Inventor. Only this isn't about inventing; it's more like "American Casting Call," with hundreds of halfwits, and around two dozen slightly good ideas scattered about, like 24 grains of salt on a beach. Where is the supposed show that "honors" technology, innovation, and our future? This just isn't what it should be...and what it is, is pretty painful to watch.

Here's the format this show should have been: cast around a dozen innovative inventors, prior to the series premiere. Do not show us all the imbeciles who simply made it to the casting call! Then give these inventors a major task in the business world each week. Make their first task a race to get anyone, from dawn to dusk, to sign a pre-order form for their prototype product. The one who gets the most pre-orders is "immune" from elimination that week. A later challenge would be getting the highest bid for their product on eBay. Another challenge would be trying to sell their idea to the boardroom of ABC. That sounds like a promising reality series to me.

Herein lies the problem with this series: it's just a casting call...week...after week...after week. Can a casting call alone be interesting? Perhaps. Let's just say this one is not. Each episode so far has been 5% inventions and 95% "Put me on TV! I'll do anything!" One guy "invented" a poncho with a pouch inside, when you want to pee in public (yes I'm serious). Another guy invented a "wand" for warding off mountain lions. Another guy "invented" a stuffed blue toy that speaks to you like you're twelve, that (whispered) "Everything is going to be alllll riiiiiight." Then there was the guy who dressed like a spaceman, who "invented" a sort of ant farm for his pet beetles. Imagine watching 55 minutes of this and 5 minutes of "real" inventions, every single episode. Egads.

You may ask who has been hired to bring order to this chaos. Well, that would be the American Idol style panel of judges, which includes a representative of big business, a representative in marketing, a representative from the advertising world, and a representative from the inventor world. You may ask who that last guy is, seeing as how the biggest names in innovation were over a century ago. Well, allow this series to introduce you to Brad Hall; a guy who supposedly invented...well...um...something. If you think this quartet boils down to three people in business suits, and a fourth dude in a Hawaiian shirt, you'd be right.

An optimist would tell you that a judges panel with three good judges is 75% good, correct? Sure, okay; yeah. Let's go with that for a paragraph, and praise said three judges. My favorite of the three is Ed Evangelista, an expert from the advertising world. He always gives just the right "zinger" to the crackpots without being horribly cruel about it, and at the same time, when someone comes in with a good idea he's from the advertising business, so he knows what sells. Not that the other two good judges are disinteresting: Mary Lou Quinlan (a marketing expert), and the series' "Simon Cowell" Brit judge, Peter Jones. Yes indeed; this judge panel has three good judges. That's good news. Yep.

Then there's Brad Hall. I don't want to be mean, because, after all; this guy actually invented...something. Some tabloid gossips say he invented the unleaded battery; others say he came up with crystal Pepsi. Yet neither of these rumors explain why he is such a pompous jerk on this show.  It would be one thing if this was a world's fair in 1906, and judge number four was Thomas Edison. Even if Thomas ranted like a jerk, onlookers would say, "Hey; he's Thomas freaking Edison." Yet Hall rants like a jerk, and...who is this guy?!? He's even caustic to the other judges, who, to be brutally honest, actually work for a living, so please shut up, Hall. I think my tolerance level for Hall expired as early as the premiere, when a young teenager came in, with an amusing invention, and Hall said something like, "I'll talk to you the way I'd like to have been spoken to at your age...No!" You almost wish one of the other inventors sardonically intervened, whispering to the kid, "Listen to Hall. He invented Crystal Pepsi...!" That would've been entertaining. A chubby Hawaiian shirted dude acting caustic to kids...? Not so much.

In the end, it all comes down to who these four judges picked to be in the finals. Take a look at the following list of semi-finalists, with the "final 12" in bold type. These are amusing products, but are there any inventions, here? I'll let you make the call: 

• A special sandbag shovel with a funnel in the handle for making sandbags much easier.
• A dental floss device invented by a quadriplegic man, which he has called "The Quad Flosser."
• The Solar Power Rock and Roller is a cooler that is solar powered for sunny beaches and whatnot.
• A Video Jewelry Box that photographs the look your wife gives when opening it.
• The "EZ-X Portable Gym" is modular exercise gear in a bag.
• "101 Cookie and Cake Kits" allows amateur cooks to make an edible house (or anything they wish) under a snow-globe style plastic cover. Neat.
• The "Receiver's Trainer Pole" for better Football training.
• The "Flush Pure" Filter for the potential "spray back" of flushed toilets (though for it to work you need to put the lid down, kids!)
• The "Cookie stacker" which allows for stacks of cookies in any typical Tupperware container.
• The "Spherical Safety Seat" is, well, just what it sounds like.
• The "Character Building Buddies"; a sort of Build-a-Bear kit, yet with "unique" stuffing materials like stuffed hearts and whatnot.
• A "Word Ace Game" is basically an electronic word game.
• The "Mobile Family Plot" is basically a box for "multiple cremated entities." If you thought this meant a single box with multiple compartments of multiple loved ones, you are correct.
• The Rest Room Door Clip for public rest room doors with broken locks. Now this is what I'm talking about; simple yet needed!
• "The Headliner" helps wig wearers with perspiration under wigs.
• "The Here Comes Niya Doll," which is a cute ethnic doll that speaks English and Spanish and more, and yet I can't help but wonder if the lawyers for Dora the Explorer aren't a little miffed...
• A "double traction bike" which has additional pedals for the kid who wants to ride on the bike's handlebars.
• A "Toner belt" which extends a tight line for exercising.
• The "Un-brella" is apparently a more portable umbrella.

If you think this isn't much of a list of "inventions," you're in bad company. I say "bad" because every time ABC or this series attempts to make these lemons into lemonade, something goes afoul. For one thing; every semi-finals show so far has been preceded with a whole hour of more casting call crap. Yes, guys; we get it. It took a lot of hard work casting for this show, and this is the best you could cast. We. Get. It.

Produced by American Idol's Simon Cowell, this series obviously wants to be the next Idol. Only Simon was not the creator of Idol; he is merely among the judges. No; Simon's most noteworthy TV creation to date has been a haphazard reality date series called Cupid. While this series is far better than Cupid, it is a few light years away from Idol. The good news from all this is: Simon is learning. Unfortunately, he's still got a long way to go...but keep trying! A new innovative idea is right on the horizon.

---Techtite

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