Sunday, January 9, 2011

Destroyed In Seconds

Destroyed in Seconds is a half-hour American television series that airs on Discovery Channel. Hosted by Ron Pitts, it features video segments of various things being destroyed fairly quickly (hence, "in seconds") such as planes crashing, explosions, sinkholes, boats crashing, fires, race car incidents, floods, etc. The nature of the show closely resembles Real TV. The show uses real video of real events, and commentary explaining the destruction portrayed. Most videos have stock sound effects added. Some of the events seen resulted in fatalities (but if so, very few), and all of the events have property damage.
Format
Usually, if a destruction is very horrible, dangerous, heart-stopping, or results in many injuries, the show usually goes into commercial either right at the moment of impact, right before it, or a little afterwards. When the show starts again, it reviews what happened and then explains what started the incident.

International broadcasting
In Canada, it is aired on Discovery Channel Canada. In Australia it had its first run on the Discovery Channel. It was picked up by Channel Seven and was re-voiced by Seven personality Grant Denyer to air at 8pm from Monday October 5, 2009. It will also air on 7Two from Saturday Nov 7 at 6pm. In New Zealand, it is aired on TV3 every Monday from 7:30-8:00pm and is re-voiced by 3 News sports journalist Andrew Gourdie.Real TV (commonly known as America's Best Caught on Tape) is a reality television program that ran in syndication from September 9, 1996 to September 7, 2001. It aired footage of extraordinary events that were not usually covered in mainstream news. It was often played on Spike TV and the Fox Reality ChannelThe Idea
Real TV usually showed home and amateur video. The types of incidents portrayed were often daring rescues, escapes, stunts, and accidents. Clips containing violence or injury were not shown often. The clips had a narration provided by the host of the show, and were commonly set to a soundtrack to heighten the drama. Other clips have included TV show bloopers, human interest stories, and inventions.

[edit] Hosts
The show was hosted by John Daly (no relation to the golfer of the same name) from its beginning in 1996 through 2000, with Beau Weaver announcing until 1999. During Daly's run, the show took on a theme similar to that of a news show, even featuring various correspondents to present the stories along with him. Featured correspondents included Sibila Vargas, Michael Brownlee, John Johnston, Lisa G., and Ellen K. William B. Davis, best known as Cigarette Smoking Man from the sci-fi TV series The X-Files, also made occasional appearances. Some clips were replayed during the closing credits, set to the show's theme song for most of Daly's run, although episodes with no clips during the credits had the title card on a different monitor and short credit roll. In the show's third season, in episodes with a full credit roll, the title card appeared on a much larger monitor before the clip montage, and the Paramount Television logo also appeared on the monitor after the theme song ended.

Various segments appeared in episodes, usually just as a way to thread featured videos of a similar nature. One feature that appeared often was "Quick Clips", which featured a number of quick video highlights of some amazing footage. Each episode of Daly's version had the "Real TV Quiz", which generally featured video footage of a celebrity before they became famous, challenging the viewer to guess who they were during the commercial break. Announcer Beau Weaver announced the quiz at the start of the show's run before the quiz was taken over by Daly. During season 1, the quiz was before the second half of the show. The quiz moved to the end of the show at the start of season 2. In season 4 of the show, he was joined by Kristin Eykel, and Mitch Lewis became the announcer.

When Daly and Eykel quit the show, Ahmad Rashād took over for them until the show's end. Rashād's version of Real TV had a new set, introduction, and announcer. The correspondents from Daly's run did not appear, nor did the themed segments or news show atmosphere. The show seemingly became targeted towards younger viewers, featuring more extreme sports footage, and less focus on human interest stories and celebrities. The show was canceled in 2001, and was replaced in many markets by the similar (though more humorous) Maximum Exposure, which ran original episodes until 2002 and continues to air in syndication (Maximum Exposure was produced under the RTV News banner).

Destroyed In Seconds
Destroyed In Seconds
Destroyed In Seconds
Destroyed In Seconds

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