Have you seen Man vs Wild on the Discovery Channel? I know, nobody watches the Discovery channel unless your science teacher taped something (on VHS) and brings it in, but I swear it’s worth it.

Man vs Wild is about Bear Grylls (Yeah his name is f’kin BEAR) who is an Ex-British Special Forces soldier who basically knows everything about anything that exists. He’s broken his back in three places, climbed Mt. Everest at the age of 23 (the youngest British individual to ever accomplish this feat) and he took an inflatable raft across the frozen North Atlantic Ocean… just for the hell of it.

The concept of the show is to throw Bear in these crazy environments, where real, stupid, or real stupid people end up and have no clue how to survive and/or be rescued. These include the rainforest, the everglades, desert, Alaska glaciers, etc. You name it, besides the Bronx, and Bear has been there. Anyway, he has to keep surviving and keep living out there until he makes contact with civilization. Those people sure will be surprised when they rescue him and his camera man.

(Don’t make a mistake about having the camera man there. He is protected with his gear etc but Bear isn’t living the pampered life. He’s truly living through this stuff. Sure, if his life was ever truly and completely in massive danger they could radio out or something but he’s gone through a lot worse then I would ever consider.)

Some of the best parts are where he gives all these small stories of (example) “A man was jogging in the everglades and fell in the mushy mud pits, he was stuck there for six days unable to escape and they found him covered in mosquito bites and entering a state of delirium when they found him… but he lived!” Most other stories, people die to show the true dangers of the area.

Some of the things that Bear do just are mind boggling and you know that no regular human being would ever do these things successfully, such as crossing an Alligator filled river or taking an old boat from an abandoned lodge through a glacier lake or eating a raw fish while it was still squirming in his hand.

New Episodes air Friday nights at 9 PM but they show reruns quite frequently. Do yourself a favor and get the TiVO to get rolling in the classics ASAP. The more we can get these ratings up the more ridiculous places Bear can go survive in.

EDIT: Just to reiterate how amazing this show is, here is just one line from the episode of Australian Outback which airs Friday July 6th: “Bear puts himself in the position of a lost tourist to demonstrate how to prevent sunstroke, find bush tucker and explain why drinking your own urine could save your life.“