This is a very fun and also a very informative show. It's fascinating to observe the building process, which is the bulk of the show and often the most dramatic as the build team is different every week and usually has a nutjob or total dimwit mixed in with the techies and wrench-heads.
For new viewers who are waiting with bated breath for the DVDs or for classic episodes to re-air...SPOILERS lie ahead.
My only disappointment is with the so-called challenges, which are obviously fixed and dramatized. The fact that Richard Petty beat Jessie James in the Mini Cooper/snowmobile race is more a show of respect for Mr. Petty than a testament to his snowmobile skills.
To clarify: Petty would have won anyway.
The only requirements for successfully meeting a Monster Garage challenge is that the modified vehicles appear stock (a rule almost always stretched nearly to the breaking point) and that they be functional both as vehicles and as whatever random device they've been modified to emulate. They don't necessarially have to perform the second function WELL, as in the sinking (but not sunk) New Beetle/airboat or the 5.0 Mustang/lawnmower that was clearly more show than mow.
The silliness of the challenges never detracts from the fun of watching them being built, however, and even the most preposterous scenarios can be fun in themselves...as in the school bus/pontoon boat race, won by the Monster team by forfeit when the crew of the real pontoon boat abandoned ship to join the party on the Monster boat.
But too often the footage of Jesse's performance will be sped up to make him appear to be leaving his opponent in the dust, which is really just insulting to the viewer. When the Monster machine is obviously no match for it's real-life purpose-built counterpart, I think it would be more fun to watch the vehicles be put through their paces in more task-based challenges.
Or just downplay the importance of the challenge altogether. What would be more fun: watching the Monster Garage's Ford pickup-based tree-shaking nut harvester go head-to-head with a common tree-shaker? Or watching as the crew took their shaker out into the streets of Long Beach under cover of darkness, prowling for innocent parking meters and mailboxes to victimize?
I suppose that might not be the wisest thing to record and broadcast on television...but you get my point: if they showed as much creativity in the presentation of the Monster vehicles as they do in designing and building them, this show would be truly unstoppable.
For new viewers who are waiting with bated breath for the DVDs or for classic episodes to re-air...SPOILERS lie ahead.
My only disappointment is with the so-called challenges, which are obviously fixed and dramatized. The fact that Richard Petty beat Jessie James in the Mini Cooper/snowmobile race is more a show of respect for Mr. Petty than a testament to his snowmobile skills.
To clarify: Petty would have won anyway.
The only requirements for successfully meeting a Monster Garage challenge is that the modified vehicles appear stock (a rule almost always stretched nearly to the breaking point) and that they be functional both as vehicles and as whatever random device they've been modified to emulate. They don't necessarially have to perform the second function WELL, as in the sinking (but not sunk) New Beetle/airboat or the 5.0 Mustang/lawnmower that was clearly more show than mow.
The silliness of the challenges never detracts from the fun of watching them being built, however, and even the most preposterous scenarios can be fun in themselves...as in the school bus/pontoon boat race, won by the Monster team by forfeit when the crew of the real pontoon boat abandoned ship to join the party on the Monster boat.
But too often the footage of Jesse's performance will be sped up to make him appear to be leaving his opponent in the dust, which is really just insulting to the viewer. When the Monster machine is obviously no match for it's real-life purpose-built counterpart, I think it would be more fun to watch the vehicles be put through their paces in more task-based challenges.
Or just downplay the importance of the challenge altogether. What would be more fun: watching the Monster Garage's Ford pickup-based tree-shaking nut harvester go head-to-head with a common tree-shaker? Or watching as the crew took their shaker out into the streets of Long Beach under cover of darkness, prowling for innocent parking meters and mailboxes to victimize?
I suppose that might not be the wisest thing to record and broadcast on television...but you get my point: if they showed as much creativity in the presentation of the Monster vehicles as they do in designing and building them, this show would be truly unstoppable.