What the demise of Bravo TV has really cost you by Nick Bryans

Wait, so, no more traffic cops?

Bravo is gone. It’s like losing a friend, albeit a perverted/borderline sex-offender friend, harboring a weird obsession with monster trucks. Yeah, the recession has hit the softcore pornography market hard, and Bravo has been officially pulled, with some of its shows purchased by Sky. Most people,  upon hearing the news, probably responded by saying ‘Bravo? To be honest, I was never that interested in high speed chases up the A272 anyway’, but these people really haven’t appreciated what they will have lost.

Bravo, as a channel, was just about as masculine as it gets. A TV station populated exclusively by testosterone-fuelled extravaganzas and ‘Tits! Tits! Tits!’, all the while showing unwavering reticence to the homoerotic nature of programs such as Spartacus, endless hours of professional wrestling and strong man competitions.  It’s like the local chav down the pub who’ll sink fifteen pints of best then ask for a friendly brawl, or to compare cock size (in fairness, I did grow up in Brighton, and this type of person may be exclusive to Sussex-based public houses).

Weirdest episode of Cops i've ever seen...

One show known to most is Dog The Bounty Hunter, which is essentially based around a lawless religious zealot who captures on-the-run criminals whilst wearing some of the oddest clothes ever designed by humans.  On paper, what can be wrong by that? Imagine a cross between the Pope and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen goes vigilante, and you get the drift. I have an issue with a number of aspects of this programme. Firstly, I don’t really know what a bounty hunter is, but I know it isn’t a copper, so presumably it’s just civil justice in its purest form. It’s no different from you and me loading up a van and kicking doors down (I smell sitcom!).

Sun, Sea and A + E is one of those programmes that makes you lose all hope for humanity. It shows semi-literate holiday makers going to Spain and ending up in hospital for a variety of reasons: including getting too drunk, getting into fights, having accidents, not wearing enough sunscreen, etc. The most harrowing thing about this is that rather than using it as evidence that they need some sort of reform in their lives, most celebrate the fact that they are on TV whilst pissed, sunburnt and involved in a beachfront brawl. Most notably Jack Crewin, who posted this on the show’s production company’s message board.

I was filmed on August 31st after I fell off a 4storie balcony and survived. They told us they’d e-mail us the date, and the new series is on this week and no e-mail? :(

Wow.

My money is on the IRA. Pub carpark = home advantage.

Deadliest Warrior is seen by some as the most bizarre program ever shown by Bravo. It pits armies, gangs, forces, etc. from history against each other in hypothetical battles. Basically, you know when you’re a bit cut in the pub and you claim that Luke Skywalker could batter Leon Trotsky? That. But even more distasteful. These hypothetical battles are re-enacted using actors (I say ‘actors’, these people seem the sort who would be rejected as extras on Hollyoaks for being too wooden) and a sort of shoot ‘em up style kill gauge at the bottom of the screen. I have no clue how they decided on a winner, not that it matters, mind. Previous battles in the past have included Somali Pirates v The Meddelin Cartel, Nazi Waffen SS v Viet Cong, Mafia v Yakusa, Kung Fu Master v Jedi Master and, possibly my favourite, The Taliban vs The IRA in a pub car park. I have never seen a dumber show than this. Ever.

He's hard, I know; his publicist AND make-up artist told me...

Bravo liked geezers, and what better show than to get Danny Dyer, the man canonised by the word geezer, to present a series about other hard geezers. Danny Dyer’s Real Football Factories was the result. It consisted of Danny Dyer wandering around car parks and boarded up pubs, talking to football club gangs about various fracases they had had with other football gangs. It was Emmy award-winning stuff. We saw an old garage where they had a fight, and an old underpass where, again, a fight was had. I mean I could go on…..

Along with Danny Dyer’s Football Factories, Bravo had keen a keen interest in factual programming. Is That A Nail In Your Head? was a collection of video and image-based accounts of bizarre medical experiments and accidents from around the world, including a man whose face was mauled off by a bear, and an ear grown on a mouse’s back. It was a like a medical themed cross between 999 and You’ve Been Framed. They had a more sincere section where they showed ‘against-the-odds’ medical recoveries, but with that as a title, you’re watching this for two things: nails and heads. And possibly an X-ray of said nail in the aforementioned head.

Bravo also had an obsession with Monster Trucks. Monster Trucks, all over the channel. Essentially big fucking trucks on big fucking jumps. What more do you need to know?

Virgins live in a forest; with sexy consequences.

One thing, though, that became synonymous with Bravo was soft-core porn. You know the deal, tits, bit of bush (if you’re lucky), some provocative kissing, and maybe, just maybe, something resembling a silhouetted blow job. Phwoarrr!  Some of the more famous and imaginatively named titles to appear on Bravo over the years included, Das Crazy Sex Show, Vegas Virgins, Porno Valley, The Pleasure Planet,  13 Erotic Ghosts, The Virgins Of Sherwood Forest, The Exotic Time Machine,  Naked Encounters and Femalien. If I ever write my memoirs, for the chapter concerning my life between the ages of 14 and 18 I’m just gonna re-print this paragraph. Yep, I think that sums up the highlights of that particular age bracket.

So with Bravo gone, one reflects on a channel that was essentially kept afloat by the lack of widespread internet access. Times have moved on and Bravo is no more. But we should just take a moment to remember a channel that attempted to exist solely without any artistic merit or dignity. Bravo; the people’s broadcaster.

Comments

1. Wardy says:

   January 13, 2011 at 11:06 am

   Deadliest Warrior is one of the finest programmes ever created
2. sel says:

   January 13, 2011 at 2:42 pm

   My esteemed colleague Wardy is correct.

   Deadliest Warrior was amazing if only for the fact that any American based warrior such as the CIA or the Navy Seals would automatically win because they were American. You could’ve had The CIA versus The Sun (the hot glowy thing not the paper) and the CIA would’ve somehow managed to extinguish the sun using a straw and a semi-automatic rifle.
3. Leonie Smith says:

   January 21, 2011 at 3:48 pm

   You didn’t even mention the Japanese game shows. Ninja Warrior! Takashi’s Castle! The one “Banzai” Brian Blessed presented (I have a vague feeling it was Banzai something-or-other). Mad as a box of frogs. Brilliant. And will be sorely missed.
4. Nick Bryans says:

   January 24, 2011 at 4:25 pm

   Think that Ninja Warrior and Takeshi’s Castle were on Challenge TV. And Banzai was on Channel4/E4.

   Jesus, I need to get out more.

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