My Kind of Town is an odd kind of show. There are some game show trappings, but largely it involves bringing in 200 people from a small town somewhere, taking them to New York (I think it’s New York), then showing them footage of odd things going on at home. Their favorite pickup truck being attacked by a fire-breathing robot dinosaur. Someone’s double-wide missing from its original spot and heading down the highway. Somebody’s dryer being catapulted.
They make some interesting choices. The host is British; I don’t know if he was the host of some British edition of this, but in any case it makes it clear that he is not one of the people he’s interacting with, he’s an outside observer, and that’s to their benefit.
There is some fun silliness in it, and some misfires (largely, when the crazy antics aren’t met with surprise from the relevant audience member), and one central problem: most of the big gags are given away in the ads.
I probably shouldn’t watch this. In some ways, it comes close to the realm of reality show I wish to avoid. But it does have a relentlessly upbeat spirit.
(But just imagine what sort of scary paperwork these people have to sign, in order to give the producers the right to do this kind of thing to their property. I mean, they moved someone’s house. And you might wonder why on earth anyone would ever sign that sort of paperwork… but I did once.)
