I have a lot of non-car-enthusiast friends. When conversation moves to my work at TTAC, one of the most common responses I get is, “I’m not all that into cars, but I love Top Gear.” To which my answer is usually, “Well, you should check out TTAC because you might develop a new-found appreciation for our four-wheeled friends.” But, self-promotion aside, Top Gear may be the best thing to happen to cars since the development of the V8. The British show has simply refined the formula for pro-car propaganda to perfection. Which is why The Jay Leno Show’s “Green Car Challenge” is so galling. The segment manages to completely rip off Top Gear’s “Star In A Reasonably-Priced Car” segment, while leaving out all of its most compelling elements. Top Gear’s race takes place around a real track (developed by Lotus no less), making its results a compelling measure of celebrity racing ability. Plus, its use of truly pedestrian vehicles never smacks of product placement and provides an entertaining counterpoint to the pervasive images of celebrities in the latest, hottest whips. In contrast, Leno’s track is a pathetic excuse for a raceway, his car is a shameless plug for Ford and the whole spectacle is coated in an unnecessary layer of gimmickry resulting in wholly uncompelling results like this latest Rush Limbaugh-piloted run. Leno may be the closest thing America has to a Jeremy Clarkson, but his Green Car Challenge is an unmitigated travesty that does great dishonor to the comparison. Thumbs down.
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TTAC is criticizing someone for ripping someone elses material?
Holy hypocracy!
Chill out Eddie.
I doubt this was a surprise to Top Gear.
The segment manages to completely rip off Top Gear’s “Star In A Reasonably-Priced Car” segment, while leaving out all of its most compelling elements.
Yeah, but neutered humor is Jay Leno’s whole brand of funny.
Top Gear lost me with their faked Tesla review. Artistic license and opinions are fine but there is such a thing as truth.
I’d run over Al Gore twice as well! Especially with my Jeep.
Go Rush!
I finally caught the new show a couple of days ago for the first time and managed to sit through it so I could see the car challenge at the end. I was certainly hoping that Jay would have something more original for his “prime time” show but it appeared to be a total rerun of The Tonight Show.
With regard to the Green Car Challenge, I also had higher expectations. Granted, their location in Burbank isn’t quite as conducive to a full-on track experience as an old airport in England, but still…
As a shameless plug for Ford, why feature the good-looking Euro Focus? As a reminder of the fact that we don’t get their coolest rides here in the U.S. it succeeds… as a draw to go check out current Ford products in showrooms it’s a big fail. Also, if Ford has ever contemplated offering a battery-powered version of this car to the public I’ve never heard it.
As this clip shows, electric cars can be great fun to drive, but by featuring it on such a slow track does it reinforce the belief that they are just glorified golf carts for those that don’t know better?
The ONLY reason I watched was Rush. Watching him back up to run over the Goracle twice was priceless.
Since NBC turned to this new show with Leno in order to fill 5 hours of airtime each week on the cheap, would you really expect them to pop for the costs of running this faux race on an actual course?
The only thing more annoying than Leno’s tired act is Limbaugh getting out of his radio rat-hole.
In unrelated news: Rush Limbaugh has secured a place on the list of CO2 emitters, right between coal-fired power plants and trees.
Did Rush pee in the bottle first?
I agree completely. Top Gear is a great show and the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car is a great bit. When I heard of the Leno version, it sounded like fun. I figured I’d watch the show when that was part of it. Then I saw Drew’s race. Never again.
I’m actually really happy that Leno’s show is on five days a week. We have TiVo and limited time to watch our shows(little kids, one TiVo) and this gets rid of a whole time/channel for a week.
Yeah, it is overly hokey. And worse, Ford’s placed a product you can’t even buy (not even in gas powered form) in the states. Fail x2.
i can’t believe anyone has the stomach to watch Leno. he’s a douche bag.
I’ll agree, that was really stupid. The state of programming on network TV is just abysmal – so bad, in fact, that I’d suggest that Dexter needs to go to work on whoever programs for the networks.
Why hasn’t anyone done a Top Gear style show here in the States? I refuse to believe Brits are bigger gearheads than Americans.
Well, this was not in any way meant to be a serious US version of Top Gear; it’s just Leno being Leno, in a forum where his guests are allowed to be themselves too.
I thought the clip was funny, but it’s not enough to make me start watching or DVRing Leno.
First time I clicked on this, the banner ad at the top was “Watch Jay Leno! Weeknights at 10!!”
Either the Google algorithm needs a little work to identify a negative article, or there’s no such thing as bad PR is gospel.
Top Gear lost me with their faked Tesla review. Artistic license and opinions are fine but there is such a thing as truth.
You and me both. And for the record, I found this funny.
I think the race skit will get boring fast, but whatever.
The one thing that bothers me is the “this car is not available in the USA” disclaimer. It’s a great looking hatch. The North American Focus makes a Corolla look exciting.
I find it interesting that NBC would not even show the public the pilot of the US version of Top Gear. It was completed and I heard it was great (though probably not as good as the true Brit version). Instead, NBC throws the pilot into a vault where it is never to be seen and all we get is this hokey version of the “Star in a Reasonably Priced Car” segment.
Why do they think we only like hokey stuff like this and Crash Course??? I mean the closest thing the US ever had to a damn good show about cars was Rides on TLC and that didn’t last either. That show could have evolved into something even better than what it was.
I love and respect Jay Leno as a “car guy” and his compassion for the working class of Detroit, but this whole segment really sucks my ba//s!
Why hasn’t anyone done a Top Gear style show here in the States?
Because American TV executives treat television the way American auto executives treat cars: ram it through focus groups, keep the costs down and stick to the formula. Innovation means risk and risk means blame and blame is poison, so you don’t innovate—you recycle and hope you get lucky.
Ever wonder why TV consists of four shows about vampires, CSI & Order:Fill In the Blank Special Cold Case Squad and Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire Big Brother On An Island In Fear? It’s the same reason you won’t get Top Gear USA: it’s too off the wall, too subtle, too cerebral and—most importantly—to sponsor-offensive to fly.
Big Media is so very cowardly that they make GM look avant garde.
I think the race skit will get boring fast, but whatever.
I imagine that they plan to add new twists to it frequently. If not, I have to agree with you.
I’m just glad that the USA will be able to see the superior Ford Focus that is sold in Mexico and then compare it to the utter pile of garbage we get.
And is TGs track developed by Lotus? I thought they just sectioned off a challenging part of their airfield.
Oh, and Jay Leno is not funny. Niether is Letterman.
Not a lot of what you see on American TV is. A lot of this has to do with it coming out of the stand-up school, which tends to lean heavily on topical humour (SNL is terrible for this: very little of what comes out of SNL is funny two or three years down the road). A larger part of the problem is that it’s so very formulaic: the jokes are practically telegraphed three months in advance, and the same routines are run episode after episode.
I blame it on the fact that guys like Leno—who can be funny if they’re off-leash—are big Teddy Ruxpins for a back-room committee of writers and producers who control a huge swath of what gets produced. Laughter is supposed to be spontaneous, and committees are anything but.
This is interesting, considering that American comedic literature is actually very, very good; probably as good or better than what the British do. Sad, really.
Juniper: My point is that I wish Leno had ripped it off more faithfully or not at all. His segment is more parody than homage or plagiarism. Also, blogging and TV production are two very different animals.
P71: Yes and yes.
Well, Patriot/Caliber/Compass/Avenger/Sebring/Journey was a big innovation for Chrysler. They could’ve just continued Neon. Did they get many accolates at TTAC for innovating? No wonder nobody wants innovate anymore.
@ stevelovescars : Also, if Ford has ever contemplated offering a battery-powered version of this car to the public I’ve never heard it.
you must not be paying much attention – Ford has announced 6+ months ago that they will offer a BEV version of the next-gen Focus. Magna will provide the BEV drivetrain :
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/20/autos/ford_electric/index.htm
the next-gen Focus will be based on the current Euro car, so the BEV for Leno is based on that. from a design standpoint one can safely assume that the global focus will look more like the current Euro car than the US one, so that’s the best way to go.
I was disappointed that it wasn’t a larger track which would actually provide the celebrities a chance to drive quickly. perhaps logistics of a track site and the demands on the time of Leno’s guests worked against something more like the Top Gear track. adding the carnival aspect with the cutouts on sticks/streamers/ping-pong balls is additional lameness.
psarhjinian :
September 25th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Because American TV executives treat television the way American auto executives treat cars: ram it through focus groups, keep the costs down and stick to the formula. Innovation means risk and risk means blame and blame is poison, so you don’t innovate—you recycle and hope you get lucky.
See, that’s what baffles me – how expensive could an American “Top Gear” be compared to, say, paying the cast of “Desperate Housewives”?
I mean, talk about your dream lineup – run NFL football on Sundays until 7:00 or so, then “Top Gear”? If you want to sell ANYTHING to men, there’s where you put your ads. That seems like a can’t-miss to me.
Who in their right mind would allow that drug addict behind the wheel of anything.
FreedMike: Why hasn’t anyone done a Top Gear style show here in the States? I refuse to believe Brits are bigger gearheads than Americans.
I think part of it is that there is more concentrated – and more effective – opposition to the automobile in Great Britain. Clarkson is good because he lives in an environment where he must be prepared to make his case for why he loves cars on a regular basis. This requires both more thought, and the ability to articulate those thoughts in a clever and memorable way.
Here in the U.S., opposition to the car is more localized, and even then it really isn’t all that effective. San Francisco and New York City may take measures to discourage driving, but they will have no effect on people in, say, Kansas City or Harrisburg, and it’s unlikely that those ideas will travel much beyond the city that introduced them.
Plus, Americans are more likely to accept cars as a necessity. With a vast distances, a car is still a liberating factor. Live in rural Pennsylvania, where mass transit is not feasible now nor will it ever be, and you will understand why people consider the car a necessity. Plenty of states are even less densely populated than Pennsylvania. Great Britain is a much smaller country.
In Great Britain the effort is to encourage people to give up driving, here the effort is to encourage people to buy a Prius (or Fusion Hybrid, or Insight, etc.).
The U.S. attitude favors the “car as appliance” line of thought. Europeans can view the car as more a luxury. After all, the train line or bus is there if the car doesn’t work, or you don’t feel like driving that day.
That is good and bad. The U.S. buyers demand reliablity and comfort, which is why popularly priced European cars haven’t made much, if any, headway in the U.S. market. On the other hand, that attitude has made the Toyota Camry the best-selling car in the U.S., something that no doubt baffles the British.
Even efforts to get people to give up cars end up backfiring over here. Zipcar recently unveiled an office in a Pennsylvania college town. The most enthusiastic customers are college students who can’t afford a car and can now use a vehicle from Zipcar on a regular basis. So the number of cars on the road really isn’t reduced…
psarhjinian: Innovation means risk and risk means blame and blame is poison, so you don’t innovate—you recycle and hope you get lucky.
You’re right to a point…but Lost, and Desperate Housewives were actually quite innovative (for their time), as is the new Flashforward. Pushing Daisies was also quite good, but the audience didn’t want it.
psharjinian: Ever wonder why TV consists of four shows about vampires, CSI & Order:Fill In the Blank Special Cold Case Squad and Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire Big Brother On An Island In Fear? It’s the same reason you won’t get Top Gear USA: it’s too off the wall, too subtle, too cerebral and—most importantly—to sponsor-offensive to fly.
Remember that Dancing With the Stars, Survivor and Big Brother were originally European reality shows whose formats were imported to the U.S. The best reality show by far, and a very good show in its own right – The Amazing Race – originated here.
Spend time in Europe, and you will discover that each nation has its share of schlocky television shows, too. They aren’t all glued to the screen watching Masterpiece Theater or the latest high-brow adaptation of a Jane Austen novel.
It has always been that way. Are You Being Served?, for example, wasn’t any better than Laverne & Shirley, and hasn’t aged any better, either.
Quite a few regular network shows in the U.S. are very good, and the series on the premium cable channels easily match anything from Europe in quality and originality.
Jay Leno was the opening comedian at a concert I went to in about 1975. He was actually quite amusing. Sadly no more.
Top gear is great. After that clip I will go out of my way to avoid watching Leno’s show.
That focus with a decent engine is something I would actually look at. I hope faygo is correct that we will see it here, although I’m not ready for electric.
Geez , I keep hearing the Leno show is a dud and this clip only reinforces that. Rush Limbaugh in an electric car..what’s next, George Bush discussing alegbra.It’s not funny , it’s just stupid. Bill C.
See, that’s what baffles me – how expensive could an American “Top Gear” be compared to, say, paying the cast of “Desperate Housewives”?
Desperate Housewives doesn’t offend sponsors. Top Gear, without saying “Car XXXX is Shit” is kind of pointless.
Remember all the trouble Mr. Farago got into for saying the Subaru Tribeca had an, ah, feminine grille? BMW (who is unrelated to, and competes with, Subaru) pulled their ads. Now, have you heard what Clarkson has said about any number of cars? “Flying vagina” is milquetoast by comparison.
Top Gear USA would have been, at best, chock full fart jokes and stabs at the fallen celebrity of the week (eg, the last week would have been all Kanye West, all the time). There would also be the occasional car.
Pimp my Ride is the closest thing we’ll ever get to Top Gear.
“Because American TV executives treat television the way American auto executives treat cars: ram it through focus groups, keep the costs down and stick to the formula. Innovation means risk and risk means blame and blame is poison, so you don’t innovate—you recycle and hope you get lucky.
Ever wonder why TV consists of four shows about vampires, CSI & Order:Fill In the Blank Special Cold Case Squad and Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire Big Brother On An Island In Fear? It’s the same reason you won’t get Top Gear USA: it’s too off the wall, too subtle, too cerebral and—most importantly—to sponsor-offensive to fly.”
that is BRILLANT!!!!
@Spitfire You are spot on. The MSM analogy to “old” Detroit is perfect. Another broken, dinosaur industry that’s outlived its usefulness and needs to die.
I’d think, though, that Leno has enough sway with NBC to get almost whatever he wants. He a car guys car guy, so surely he can’t seriously think this celebrity Green Car Challenge-in-a-painted-parking-lot stupidity is anything but…stupid. Then again….?
“KarenRei :
September 25th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I think the race skit will get boring fast, but whatever.
I imagine that they plan to add new twists to it frequently. If not, I have to agree with you.”
Yeah they plan to change the color of the ridiculous ping pong balls and streamers. Thumbs down, and the finger.
limbaugh given any sort of attention, thumbs down. The jackass is a bigot.
This segment would have been more interesting if they used go-carts. Really, it’s like a little go-cart track.
On the other 2 times they did this segment, it seems like Leno wants to keep it serious, but nobody else does.
Me:
I think the race skit will get boring fast, but whatever.
KarenRei :
I imagine that they plan to add new twists to it frequently.
Very punny Karen!
Why hasn’t anyone done a Top Gear style show here in the States?
Because automakers are some of the largest advertisers on American television. As the LA Times learned, they can’t be offended: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/business/media/11adcol.html
The BBC has no advertising. Funny how that allows for better television.
“Who in their right mind would allow that drug addict behind the wheel of anything.”
Real nice comment there. I hope that this person or nobody in his family ever gets an addiction to prescription drugs, prescribed by an MD. Sort of like one one columnist said at the time; “liberals have finally found a drug addict they can hate.” Despicable.
Some of you guys are way too serious!!! This was just a little bit of fun.
Remember that Dancing With the Stars, Survivor and Big Brother were originally European reality shows whose formats were imported to the U.S. The best reality show by far, and a very good show in its own right – The Amazing Race – originated here.
The problem isn’t that American TV can’t come up with a good show, it’s that they very often don’t dare to unless someone else tried the formula first. Reality TV’s way was paved by, of all things, PBS, although it didn’t get real traction until “The Beach” led to “Survivor” whose low costs and high ratings sent execs scrambling for content.
American TV is very, very formulaic and very risk-averse.
Spend time in Europe, and you will discover that each nation has its share of schlocky television shows, too. They aren’t all glued to the screen watching Masterpiece Theater or the latest high-brow adaptation of a Jane Austen novel.
This is true, and as someone who has been laid up in an Italian hotel with a flu I can agree with you, and that has a lot to do with Italian TV’s ownership being a lot like American broadcast television and very unlike the BBC.
You’re right to a point…but Lost, and Desperate Housewives were actually quite innovative (for their time), as is the new Flashforward. Pushing Daisies was also quite good, but the audience didn’t want it.
…
Quite a few regular network shows in the U.S. are very good, and the series on the premium cable channels easily match anything from Europe in quality and originality.
Premium cable channels have a lot more latitude than the broadcast networks: they’re not as beholden to advertisers and creative control is generally more in the hands of the artists and less in the committee.
US network television is very bad. For the occasional Lost (which wouldn’t have made it without Survivor’s trail-breaking the “Hot People Marooned” concept) and Pushing Daisies (which only lasted one season, mostly because of the writer’s strike), there’s a an awful lot of awful, far more than in publicly-funded TV.
This is a personal bone of contention: I don’t think art (and yes, this is art, in a way) should be designed by committee and intentionally risk-averse. I think that’s a really effective way to stymie social evolution. It doesn’t need to be offensive, but it should be excellent, challenging and fresh, not dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.
Top Gear, stale as it seems to be some days, would never, ever make it onto American broadcast TV for that reason: it’d be bound to offend someone. Can’t have that.
Sort of like one one columnist said at the time; “liberals have finally found a drug addict they can hate.” Despicable.
Yes, well, if you make your living condemning, degrading and dividing people in the way Mr. Limbaugh does, you had better be squeaky clean youself.
Personally, I don’t care that he was addicted to painkillers. I do care that he has the gall to make moral judgments of people in spite of that. It’s like an inverse version of Gore Vidal’s arrogance about addiction.
I would dip my testicles in a food processor before I would believe anything that Limburger has to say. I think I hate Rush more than just about any else in this world.
In defense of American tv (I spend most of my posting here defending American cars and now I have to defend our tv too?!) Europe doesn’t have anything that can touch “Lost”. Easily the most intelligent and detail oriented show on television. (Well “The Wire” might be, but it’s too whiny for my tastes.)
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that if Rush Limbaugh hadn’t been involved with this, a lot of the negativity towards the segment would be non-existent. In fact I’d go so far as to bet that this article wouldn’t have been created if he hadn’t been included. Kudos to those who are posting solely in regards to the automotive aspects of his show.
Jay Leno is a funny guy, left to his own comedy. And he’s a car guy and is no dummy. He can be corny on his NBC job, but he’ll suck it up to feed his Duesenberg/steam car/1000hp Toronado addiction. I would think that Jay wanted to mimic exactly that Top Gear segment — he was even ON that Top Gear segment so he knows how it works — but it looks like the TV execs watered it down into corporate pandering. Yuck. I’m not blaming Jay on this one.
This is a first; an intelligent conversation on the Internet. geeber’s comment alone is excellent. Has hell frozen over?
I’m writing, on my own, an essay on the difference on the American and European car cultures. I’ve always wondered why Americans see cars as appliances. My aunt, for example, is not a car person and usually just drives her dull gray Camry from home to work and back.
Perhaps this is why our cars are so bad; we Americans don’t appreciate our cars because gas is so cheap and the drive is boring and dull. We Americans also don’t demand more from our cars other than to get from point A to point B. We don’t care for things like design or handling or interior trim, just comfy seats and cup holders. That may also perhaps explain why automatics are far more prevalent than manual transmissions in North America compared to Europe.
Finally, many have asked why Top Gear could never come to an American network and I think I have the reason why: there aren’t enough episodes of the show to justify putting it on the schedule. For example, Top Gear usually has less than a dozen episodes per series – series 11 last year had only six episodes – while an American television season has around 26 episodes. It’s not cost effective to transplant a British show to an American network and creating an American adaptation would be the best network option, if not for the fact that I’m concerned it would run out of interesting material and be forever compared – and criticized – to the original. An American Top Gear can’t win.
I think even if the American version of Top Gear had actually made it into a series, it would’ve been lousy. Most of you probably haven’t seen Top Gear Australia, but it’s excruciating. They are allowed to rip on cars they don’t like, and it’s still horrible.
Top Gear succeeds because of Clarkson, Hammond, and May, pure and simple. Their ridiculous stunts and antics are hilarious because they are such great physical comedians, and the three of them work together in a way that you cannot simply replicate with three random people. Fifth Gear is watchable, not nearly as good as Top Gear, but watchable, because they know they don’t have presenters in that league, and so they don’t try to copy the Top Gear formula.
Top Gear Australia tries to copy the formula exactly, minus the funny presenters, and it’s unwatchable.
Adam Corolla is no Clarkson, and he was going to be teamed with two guys with no broadcast experience. It would’ve sucked, hard.
Clarkson, lying on the ground behind his “Mercedes Big” after pushing it five feet saying “I’ve got Ebola” is a kind of funny that you can’t duplicate.
That Rush “race” was beyond ridiculous. It took that caricature of an ass that is Rush Limbaugh and displayed him in a clown costume which did nothing more than expose his banality. I think even Jay was embarrassed.
Irony: the ads on the top and the right of this piece are for Jay’s show.
Davekaybsc : “Top Gear succeeds because of Clarkson, Hammond, and May, pure and simple. Their ridiculous stunts and antics are hilarious because they are such great physical comedians, and the three of them work together in a way that you cannot simply replicate with three random people.”
Bingo.
I’ll bet Ford was thrilled when Rush got out of the Electric Focus, singing the praises of electric propulsion, just after double-donking the Al Gore and Ed Begley cutouts. This kind of hypocrisy is classic Rush.