American Inventor – Who invented this show???

Pardon me while I rant for a minute, but WHAT WAS SIMON COWELL THINKING when he ‘invented’ American Inventor? I just don’t get the premise behind this show. Yes, it’s semi-interesting to see the wacko kinds of things people create in the name of Invention. One example that comes to mind is the guy that invented a funnel you can put into your pants when you just can’t make it to a bathroom. There’s a little tube at the end of the funnel that carries the wee wee into a suitcase/briefcase type of thing.The “Inventor” claimed to have tested his product one afternoon at the bus stop. I wasn’t paying enough attention to the show to know if the silly thing had a urine-proof lining or not, and quite frankly, I’m not sure I want to know. The point is, this man invented something that encourages public urination…and honestly believed that this was going to be the next lightbulb.

Once you get past the part of the show where the inventions are introduced, however, it just doesn’t make any sense. How can you keep having elimination rounds where the items being presented never change? They actually had a round tonight on their 2-hour waste of my life where the inventors had to prove their commitment to and passion for their invention to the judges. During this process, most contestants didn’t talk much about their inventions. What they did instead was to whine and cry – yes, there were tears – about how crappy their lives had gotten while trying to bring their idea to life. “I had to sell my dog to science and let my house go to foreclosure so I could buy the $39 bus ticket to come here…” The entire round came off as a contest to see which poor slob had given up the most in the quest to realize their dream, and for some odd reason, this seemed to make a big impression on the judges! I just don’t get it. Why does someone have to lose their job and sell their kidneys in order to have a good invention?

So now that they’ve narrowed it down to the 12 best inventions created by the 12 most desperate people, what’s next? A round to see who of the remaining 12 can sing the best Queen song? That might actually make the contest a little more interesting. Either that or drop them all on Survivor Island and have snipers taking pot shots at them. We will call it “Inventor Survivor” and we’ll see who can come up with the best invention to keep their asses alive for 30 days.

Here is my suggestion for the creators of American Inventor – instead of dragging it out for 87 weeks of us seeing the same 12 inventions over and over while these people strive to come up with the best sob story, how about a series of 2-part episodes? In the first hour-long episode, they can set up camp in the city of their choice and show a selection of the hopefuls that show up for ‘auditions’ – the good, the bad, and the ridiculous. On the next episode they can show the 12 best entries in detail and choose the most innovative idea by the end of the episode. Next week, move to a new city with a whole new batch of candidates.

Of course, if one of the other networks would just put something on worth watching on Thursday nights, this wouldn’t be a problem.

That is the end of my rant. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program…

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