When Toasters Attack

It’s Toaster Week on Discovery Channel

Yesterday we went to the aquarium in Cape Town, South Africa.

The aquarium is great, lots of interesting stuff, but without a doubt, the number one draw is the Shark Tank.

It is enormous and people stand mesmerized watching the sharks go by.

The night before, we had watched I Almost Died on Animal Planet at 2 am. (jet lag).

On the Almost Died episode, a teenager from Tennessee has his leg bitten off by a Bull Shark while he is swimming in Florida.

Nice.

I suppose this is why the Shark Tank is so popular, as is Shark Week, (thank you Steve Cheskin).

Next to the Shark Tank in the Cape Town aquarium is a sign that says:

4 – Number of people killed by sharks in South Africa last year

54 – Number of people killed by toasters in South Africa last year

Which needless to say got me to thinking about a show I am pitching to Discovery, indeed a whole concept:

TOASTER WEEK.

or mabe

WHEN TOASTERS ATTACK

Of course, we’ll have to do lots of recreations.  Scary music. Creepy shots. In the kitchen at breakfast.  Deep voice-over. “It seemed like any other breakfast for the Feldman family one sunny morning in August. Seemed like….” Cut to menacing toaster.  Bread gets stuck. Interview “then a piece of bagel got caught in the toaster, so my wife got her fork….”

Zap. Lightning bolts. Screams. Crescendo music…

David Zaslav, are you listening?

Yesterday, we completed a one-day VJ seminar here in Cape Town, in partnership with the Media Academy.  They filled the hotel conference room with lots of journalists from SABC. As television only came to South Africa in 1976, it is still a relatively young medium. There were also reporters from the national papers who are just edging into video.

They’re all interested in learning to use small HDV cameras and laptop edits to create content.  And they’re all very much into the news.  Well, this is South Africa and news here abounds.

But they are also mesmerized by the idea of creating content for cable.

Until only  a very few years ago, there were only 4 TV channels here.  Now, with cable starting to expand, you can get 50, if you pay.

They tossed around a lot of ideas for what they thought Americans might want to see from South Africa on cable.

Invictus aside, it really only comes down to one thing:

…..and it isn’t toasters.

Even if they ARE ten times more dangerous than sharks, apparently.