ONE
ME: So they’re stuntmen who double for children.
FLAPJACKS: They’re being totally dismissive when they say it’s a niche market.
ME: Really. How else can they apply it?
FLAPJACKS: They could stunt double for Michael J. Fox.
ME: Right.
FLAPJACKS: Because he’s short.
ME: I got it.
FLAPJACKS: Although they’d have to wiggle around a lot, I guess.
TWO
ME: What the fuck is this?
FLAPJACKS: They got rid of the original Amazing Race music and replaced it with a harder-rock version!
ME: This is total bullshit! The original theme music was timeless.
FLAPJACKS: They also have new fonts.
ME: The original fonts were time-tested and true!
FLAPJACKS: Wasn’t that a slogan for trucks?
ME: Don’t distract me from the issues at hand! They are trying to “coolify” the Amazing Race! And you can’t do that, because it is already just about completely perfect!
FLAPJACKS: They could put in a walrus with laser tusks.
ME: Hence the “just about.”
THREE
FLAPJACKS: The deaf guy doesn’t read lips?
ME: Apparently not.
FLAPJACKS: What a waste of a perfectly good deaf person.
ME: I think you need to rephrase that.
FLAPJACKS: Come on, reading lips is like being a super-spy, except everyday people get to do it. It is cool. And Lazy McDeaferson here doesn’t read lips, and instead has his mom translate for him? That is like saying “James Bond? No thanks, I think I’d rather be Larry in accounting.”
ME: It’s probably tricky. Can you read lips?
FLAPJACKS: Do I look deaf?
ME: Deaf has a look?
FLAPJACKS: Like Marlee Matlin!
ME: You certainly don’t look like Marlee Matlin.
FLAPJACKS: That’s probably for the best.
ME: Yes.
FOUR
FLAPJACKS: Preston and Jennifer are fighting only ten minutes into the new season! I think that’s a record.
ME: Which ones are they again? Are they the ones who said they fight all the time?
FLAPJACKS: Why is there always a couple who fights all the time on this show?
ME: Because there are a lot of out-of-work actors in Hollywood with dysfunctional relationships.
FIVE
FLAPJACKS: Hey! It’s Ernest!
ME: You mean Jim Varney?
FLAPJACKS: Yes.
ME: Jim Varney is dead.
FLAPJACKS: No he isn’t. Look, he’s right there, with his wife.
ME: That would be “Steve.”
FLAPJACKS: Assumed name.
ME: He died over eight years ago!
FLAPJACKS: No, he faked his death.
ME: Why would he fake his death?
FLAPJACKS: Legions of crazed Ernest fans.
ME: So let me get this straight. Jim Varney fakes his death to escape legions of supposed fans of the Ernest movies. He then gets married, builds a life for himself, then potentially ruins it all by competing on the Amazing Race, alerting said legions of supposed fans to his non-death.
FLAPJACKS: I never said it was a brilliant plan. I mean, come on. He was Ernest.
SIX
ME: The stuntmen look kind of like hobbits.
FLAPJACKS: You realize now that I won’t be able to think of them as anything other than hobbits.
ME: Tough noogies.
SEVEN
FLAPJACKS: Wait, the lawyer guy’s plan to fool the other teams into not taking the correct train is “well, we’re not sure if this is the right train, but we’re gonna take it anyway?” This is what an education at Harvard Law buys you?
ME: I bet they don’t consider that a cunning ruse at Yale.
FLAPJACKS: Would they consider it a cunning ruse at Osgoode Hall?
ME: I’m not sure. I’ll try it and get back to you.
FLAPJACKS: Don’t bother. I have decided, based on this one thirty-second segment of video, that all lawyers are much stupider than advertised and that a magical talking lion will represent me in all future legal dealings.
ME: Where would you get a magical talking lion?
FLAPJACKS: I have my sources.
ME: No you don’t.
FLAPJACKS: No I don’t, but for a second you believed.
ME: No I didn’t.
FLAPJACKS: And that is why the lawyer guy’s ruse was so stupid.
EIGHT
ME: And I see this week’s Traditional Insert-Country-Here Challenge Element is delivering cheese using what appear to be backpacks made out of wood.
FLAPJACKS: That’s how you know it’s traditional! Instead of using proper backpacks, they use old-timey wooden backpacks! Like Grandpapa used to use! Back in the days when Switzerland was called “Nazi Gold Depository,” before they invented the wheelbarrow.
ME: And instead of just driving a truck there, they have to go on foot!
FLAPJACKS: And instead of Velveeta, they are picking up cheese!
ME: That last one doesn’t work.
FLAPJACKS: Have you ever tried to carry two hundred pounds of Velveeta at once?
ME: Have you?
FLAPJACKS: In my other secret life as a daring criminal specializing in cheese food products.
ME: I am pretty sure you never did that.
FLAPJACKS: It’s a secret life.
ME: Anyway, these challenges are important, because they tell us something important about other cultures.
FLAPJACKS: No they don’t. Nobody does this stupid shit any more.
ME: No, they tell us that Swiss people like to drink beer and watch Americans do stupid shit nobody does any more.
FLAPJACKS: But everybody in the whole world likes to do that.
ME: And that’s why deep down, we’re all the same inside.
NINE
FLAPJACKS: To find the Pit Stop, they have to LISTEN for a group of yodelers? THE AMAZING RACE HATES DEAF PEOPLE!
ME: His mom will hear it.
FLAPJACKS: That’s not the point! They are anti-deafous!
ME: Not actually a word.
FLAPJACKS: Deafists!
ME: Also not a word.
FLAPJACKS: I am outraged about this!
ME: Look. He’s handicapped. There’s nothing wrong with it, but that means life is a bit harder for him as a matter of everyday course. If he really wants to prove that deaf people can do the Amazing Race just like everybody else, then that means the Race can’t go making accomodations for him just because of his disability.
FLAPJACKS: Just like it couldn’t make accomodations for Charla because she was a midget, or how they can’t make accomodations for the hobbits because they’re prone to being hunted by Ringwraiths.
TEN
ME: And that’s why Phil is the most awesome reality host of them all: because he bothered to learn the sign language to tell the deaf kid he came in first.
FLAPJACKS: If a team of Martians entered the Amazing Race, he would blink at them telepathically. That is how good Phil is.
ME: He can greet anybody in anything! There is nobody he cannot greet!
FLAPJACKS: Except people whose names end in “A.” I never knew “Amander” was a girl’s name until now.
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13 users responded in this post
Deaf people should learn to speak the language or get out. Blind people too, only they should be forced to read the language.
Damn deaf immigrants. Dey tuk mah jerb!
I’m not deafist. I just play one on tv.
The Ringwraith comment killed me.
“FLAPJACKS: Although they’d have to wiggle around a lot, I guess.”
Oh NO he di’int!
And that’s why The Amazing Race is still the best reality show around. The only way the intro episode could’ve been better is if the teams had to haul donkeys up the hill. But when you don’t have farm animals, locals laughing at goofy Americans works just as well.
2 points for the Rocket Raccoon reference
I died laughing, resurrected myself with a saving throw, and died laughing again.
Re: deaf guy and yodeling. When Jeopardy! had a blind contestant on, their accommodations were 1) he had a braille list of category names on his podium. I don’t think it had anyway of indicating which clues had already been taken. 2) They didn’t use any video clues.
They did not do anything different with the lights on either side of the board which turn on when the buzzers are unlocked (you can’t buzz in until Alex finishes reading the clue and someone backstage hits a button to unlock the buzzers). However, opinion is mixed among J! champions whether the lights do contestants any good, and since the blind contestant in question won five games, that’s probably a moot point.
So, it would’ve seemed fair not to have challenges where you have to be able to hear on this Amazing Race.
As for the cheese challenge, it seemed like everyone missed how to correctly do it. Clearly, you didn’t have to use the wooden backpack things to carry the cheese, as most of them broke and people were hand carrying cheese down without apparent penalty. Also, at least one cheese got away and rolled down the hill…and was then recovered by the team and stacked, apparently without penalty.
So the clear best strategy would’ve been to just launch 6 or so cheeses down the hill, then go recover the four closest ones. One trip up and down, and you can go faster down sans cheese. Second best strategy would’ve been to hold on to the cheese, but instead of carrying it, use the wheel shape to control roll it down the hill.
Hi-ho the dairy-o the cheese rolled away!
Well, I laughed. A lot.
English and Australian people often pronounce my name as “Lee-er”, bless ’em.
Marlee Matlin is hot! And I can say it around her and not get slapped!
I don’t know what The Amazing Race is, but it sounds like a game show. In which case, The Nostalgia Critic makes a damn good argument that Marc Summers, host of Double Dare, was a much better game show host.
I can actually understand what Flapjacks is saying when MGK posts. Maybe the latter is a translator.
The word is “audist” (from “audire”, to hear, and you can figure out the -ist part), not “deafist”. Just fyi from a deaf woman.
The new Amazing Race has started? Hmm, didn’t notice that.
What I did notice from the ads, is that one of the contestants is the guy from School of Rock.