Relive the Adventure

A black man and a white man are attempting to hail a cab on the same New York street. Which is more likely to get the cab? What if the black man is Yaphet Kotto, who has acted in over 50 movies and TV programs such as Alien, Roots, and Live and Let Die, and the white man is a convicted felon?

This was one of the questions posed and tested by TV Nation, possibly my favorite television show of all time. In 17 episodes on 2 different networks, TV Nation changed prime time reporting forever. They did not just report the news, they made it by setting up situations to punctuate what was, and still is, going on in the world.

They hired an out of work Russian spy to investigate the shows they were competing against. They sent a Mariachi band to a KKK rally. They lobbied congress to have an officially declared "TV Nation Day." TV Nation was informational, but still entertaining enough to leave me laughing hysterically several times an episode. TV Nation was indeed programing at it's finest.

Adventures in a TV Nation chronicles the many high lights of the show, from the Johns of Justice to Crakers, the Corporate Crime Fighting Chicken. It tells the stories featured in several episodes and also tells the story behind them, better explaining why they chose to do the various stories and giving little tidbits that were not included on the show.

The book also contains a list of all the shows and segments, and even has all of the polls. Where else do you find tidbits like "70% of American women have never had an emotionally satisfying relationship with a republican" and "34% of those who voted in the last election believe Forrest Gump was a documentary"? The polls were actually scientific polls done by the firm Widgery and Associates. They also have short blurbs about the stories that were censored from broadcast.

This book is a fabulous way to relive the hey day of TV Nation. It is also a great way for someone who never saw the show to find out what it was all about. That, however, is not what the book is about.

In 1994 and 1995, a group of people went on network television and took on the system. They used creativity to expose problems in today's society, and this book is about how they did it.

Adventures in a TV Nation makes you feel like you can do it too. Michael Moore more than inspires, he dares you to try to change this world after reading this book. Sure, not all of us are on NBC and FOX's bank rolls, but we can still fight for what we believe in. This is what the book is about.

Included in an appendix of resources that you can use to continue the fight. In some of the chapters, there are ideas that you can follow to fight or fix the system. The people involved in TV Nation honestly started making changes, and this book is asking you to continue the fight.