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"Invasion of the Hidden Cameras" Review By Shawn McKenzie 07/14/2002 What do you get when you cross a hidden camera show with Farrelly Brothers-style gross-out humor? A recipe for hilarity? Not! You get a tasteless show that isn’t very funny.
Unlike Jamie Kennedy’s recently renewed hidden camera show on the WB, FOX’s new “Invasion of the Hidden Cameras” is tasteless. “JKX: The Jamie Experiment” is actually a very clever, funny show (though I don’t really watch it anymore because I only have so much patience for hidden camera shows.) “Invasion of the Hidden Cameras” derives its humor from driving people to the brink of tears or rage before revealing the joke. Tell me if this is funny: an emergency medical technician gets drunk and begs strangers to help him with an emergency involving someone dying over a walkie-talkie. Another guy wants to get drunk after just having a liver transplant (straight from the hospital too…hospital gown and I.V. included.) Newly hired couriers for body organs are made to think that they accidentally ruined them when the bottom of the cooler holding them drops out. A man goes into a veterinary wanting to get a sex change for a stray dog that looks like the one he accidentally backed over with his car (which happens to be owned by his brother who just got out of jail for murder.) Finally, a gag that I have already seen on many other hidden camera shows (including “JKX”)…the one where a son introduces his parents to a despicable woman that he intends to marry. Come on!
Okay, they made me laugh a few times, but overall I just thought the show was in bad taste. Many of the victims threatened to call the police and some were just livid. Even after many of them found out that they were jokes, they still seemed mad. Their fascination with dead things is just disturbing. Another gag involved a man who tries to talk taxi drivers into driving him to the morgue to drop off his dead grandmother (wrapped in a blanket) before catching a flight to a business meeting. Next week involves a clown and a magician that are booked to perform at a function and find out at the last minute that it's a funeral and their job is to cheer up the crowd. Also, in the cruelty to animals department, comedian Doug Stanhope searches for a shipping service that will help him send a dead cat (a fake cat, wrapped in tin foil) to his ex-girlfriend. Fun stuff, huh?
If this weird stuff appeals to you, watch “Invasion of the Hidden Cameras,” though I ask you to please seek some professional counseling before coming to my house!
Ratings System:
DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW!
Try to catch this show every week...
If a better show is on, tape this one...
If nothing else is on, maybe this will be good...
If this show is on, change the channel immediately!
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1/2