Smile Your On Candid Camera !!

[Eamonn]

Having to manage my time during the day, by not sitting or standing for too long, I have fallen prey to day time TV.

Man oh Man, if you think that prime time is bad day time sucks!!

I ended up watching Court TV. A totally new way of wasting time.

 

http://courttv.com/trials/taped/candidcamera/candidcamera_ctv.html

This was what I suppose must have been the trail of the day.

If you follow the link you will see that Candid Camera,posed as airport security and had a guy go through the X-ray scanner that is normally used for baggage.

The guy did suffer a bruise to his leg. He sued the Airport. They settled for $95,000. He sued Candid Camera and Peter Funt, he ended up with another $300,000.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that I'm a big fan of Candid Camera, it's an OK show, which at times can be very funny. It has been around for a very long time and there was a British Candid Camera. I have always seen it as being clean fun and at times as good clean fun.

I do see that the guy got hurt and do think that he should be compensated for his injury. I don't have any idea what the going rate for a bruise is?

The jury found Funt and Candid Camera guilty

for negligence, false imprisonment and intentional misrepresentation, but cleared them of claims of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

While I was watching the show I started to think about Camp Fires and some of the Camp Fire skits.

Candid Camera, has for many years used everyday people as the fall-guys for their jokes. Audiences on both sides of the pond have for 40+ years laughed at the show. Most would rarely if ever give a moments thought to what the fall-guy was going through. For a very long time, at least when I was a kid this sort of comedy was very much a part of Camp Fires. Some poor unsuspecting person would end up looking like a twit or end up getting wet.

In todays kinder, more caring society we would never allow anyone to come off looking like a twit, just to amuse others.

I think that $395,000 for a bruise is way over the top. But putting that aside. Do you think Candid Camera is hazing?

Eamonn.

 

[lasteagle83]

Hazing? I don't know - have they had a younger kid go looking for a left-handed smoke shifter yet??? :-)

[Fuzzy Bear]

Life is full of humor. Writing extra material is excessive. Keeping your composure is the challenge. I don't see CC as hazing as much as being simply unnecessary.

FB

 

[scoutldr]

The difference between Candid Camera and camp hazing is that the "victims" on CC have to sign a release agreeing to their humiliation being made public. That's not to say that I consider snipe hunts, smoke shifters and bacon stretchers to be "hazing". In my mind, they are cherished Scouting memories of a good time.

[OldGreyEagle]

Well, you all know I would have to weigh in on this, Hazing is nothing more than bullying a younger, weaker, unsuspecting victim that has no place in the Scouting Program. If this is to be another argument on the merits of Hazing, go to it, There is nothing in the cyber world that will convice sadists what they see as harmless fun is as outdated as a black-faced Minstrel Show

[BSAT17SPL]

The problem with the world today is that everyone takes things so seriously now adays and no one has a sense of humor, people need to lay back and smell the coffee instead of the money. "Oh boy, i got a bruise i'm going to sue you for 300,000 dollars." Do you want to know the worst part, THE JUDGE AWARDED IT TO HIM!!!! Think before you act.

[OldGreyEagle]

BSAT17SPL, I undestand you are new here, I have posted this before, but am copying it forward so you wont have to hunt it down. Read this story, and then tell me how fun you think it was:

 

It was a long time ago, in a place far far away, well, actually Chicago area, about 1965 or so. I was a bright young scout, really Gung Ho. I thought being a scout was the bestest thing in the whole world. On one summer campout. we drove for what seemed like hours. We got to the campsite and set up.. The Troop used an Army surplus 16X16, that thing was huge, and it was heavy and we all loved it. After the tent was up and the gear stowed, Charlie, the SPL came over and told me he needed my help. I was in like 7th heaven. Charlie was like a god to us younger scouts, he had his license and his own car. It was a 57-58 Chevy, it was painted candy apple red and roared like a jet, that car was cool. Rumor was he shaved everyday and had a girl friend. I fairly floated as we walked over to the group of older cooler scouts. Finally I was going to be part of the in crowd. I was to be the bag man on a snipe hunt. It was simple, all I had to do was stand on the Snipe trail and hold the bag open and the Snipe would run straight into it. Now, wait I said, I know what a Snipe hunt is, and I am not going to do it. I felt a lot let down that Charlie thought I was stupid enough to fall for a gag like that. So then Charlie says, well, you are right, but you know, Snipes are birds and we happened to have driven into where they live. So, I bought it. I went out and held the bag, and held it, and held it and held it. Well, back at camp the older scouts sure were having a party at my expense, they had this kid who knew about Snipe Hunts out on a Snipe Hunt, it was glorious. The adults on the trip knew what was going on, and reminded them that I was supposed to be brought back to camp about 1 am if I didnt show up first. Back at the Snipe Trail I stood, bag open. I knew Snipes were rare birds and figured we had driven long enough to get in their range. I waited, and waited. Along about dawn I figured I had waited long enough. Seems the older scouts got their signals crossed and everyone thought someone else would get me, but nobody did. I got back to camp as breakfast was being made, and when I was spotted, the whole camp cheered, laughed and hooted. I was not having a fun time. I remember thinking, remember this moment, remember how hot your cheeks feel, how angry you are, you are never ever going to feel this way again. A few months later it was the Fall Camporee. Charlie again asked me for some help. I asked him what, I was more than a little suspicious of anything he said at this point. He told me he needed the Camps Canon Report. It has the schedule of the Camporee on it and it was floating around the camp and people would get it, copy it down and pass it on. So, after being assured it was real, I went off. Gol dang it if every troop I visited had just had it but passed it along minutes before I got there. I went to over 10 troops before a kindly old scoutmaster who knew my dad from work asked me if I had ever been on a Snipe Hunt,. I almost fainted. The rage, anger, fear, humiliation just ran through me like an electric shock. He had done it to me again. I walked back to camp, slinked actually, imagining all who saw me were laughing behind my back, pointing me out as that absolute and complete idiot. When I got back to camp, I walked up to Charlie and told him I was sorry, but I didnt get it, but I would go after it first thing in the morning. I never did go after it and I never talked to Charlie again. I never did anything he said and completely blocked him and all his older buddies out. I learned never, ever to trust what a boy leader said because they were out to get me. As time went on, I made sure that no other scout ever went through what I did. I would tell all the new scouts about snipe hunts and canon reports and all that. I told them if anyone asked them to do anything that didnt sound right, to ask me first. I had a few angry older scouts, but I didnt care and I was getting big enough that nobody retaliated. I eventually was elected Senior Patrol Leader because the scouts knew I would not betray them

 

[BSAT17SPL]

All that stuff is harmless fun, no one got hurt and if the scout thought intuitively he would have gone out on the canon report and when he found out that it was a joke, turned it around on the SPL. I belong to a Fire Dept. and when we get a new guy in we ask him "Where's the water hammmer?" now he could spend hour looking all over for it, there's no such thing, it's a phenomenon. When you shut off the water to quick the line will give a great jerk. Now, yeah, he's gone looking for it for hours but, in the process he not gotten hurt and, he's been softened up, as I like to call it. Everyone takes things way to seriously.(This message has been edited by BSAT17SPL)

[Eamonn]

Hi BSAT17SPL,

In our Council I think that I'm known as being very much a fun type guy.

At times when I read through these forums I end up thinking that some people need to loosen up a little and remember that this Scouting stuff is all about fun.

Even as a Wood Badge Director, I was part of the staff that helped everyone celebrate Bushgunushaka Day. We had dancing Bushgunshaka Girls, meals of Cabbage and sauerkraut served with kobeissi. We had photos of Saint Bushgunshaka in the Gilwell Gazette. (A staff member with a mop over his head!!) It was a lot of fun. No one got upset and no one got hurt. However we knew that we were on thin ice. If someone had got the idea that we were being disrespectful to the Slovak community, we would have pulled the plug and just moved on.

I think we have to be very careful when we use the term everyone. Sure a lot of people can "Take it" but there is always the risk of hurting someone. I sure as heck don't ever want to hurt anyone.

Then of course we have to be very careful that what starts out as being "All in good fun" just isn't fun.

Eamonn.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Having fun is generally inclusive. Making fun of someone excludes one or more. The Cub Scout No-put down rule is good to always follow. Humor changes, as seen in BL over a period of decades. Read "Think and Grin" from BL from the fifties to the present to see what was funny then and now. Even if a person thought some of those things were funny, they might not hold any humor now, in spite of the changes from becoming an adult. Hold it, don't read T and G for the last fifty years. Just take my word for it.

 

One of my worst (funny) experiences came during a WB course where a past course director visited to check things out. He was one of the group that ran WB for that Council. The competition to be part of the staff was competitive and the competition to be on as many courses as possible was even more so. His 'fun' was filled with venom and was meant to hurt or destroy anyone that he thought did not fit his standard for being part of the "Team". After his funny little attack was completed, I decided that group was not one that I cared to be associated with from any distance.

 

Most in Scouting are remarkable individuals that have a sense of fun. Humor is difficult to define but most of us know and understand it when we see or hear it.

 

FB

 

[BSAT17SPL]

I'm very interested in this forum for the sole fact that people don't ahve to do what they are told, BUT tonight I was an unexpected victim of some HARMLESS fun. I was eating an icecream, on a stick, and was asked, "Does tha icecream smell? Becuase I had a bad one yesterday." No like any person would I put the icecream upto my nose to smell it and the next thing i knew i had icecream in my nose. Did I go straight to the local courthouse and file a lawsuit, NO. It's harmless fun. NO ONE GETS HURT.

[FScouter]

BSAT17SPL -

"...if the scout thought intuitively he would have gone out on the canon report and when he found out that it was a joke, turned it around on the SPL."

 

How would the boy turn it around? Do you mean he should dump a bucket of water over the SPL's head, or push over the outhouse while he's riding the porcelain pony, or whack him with a 2x4 ? How would you suggest the butt of a hazing joke turn it around? Just looking for some good ideas I can pass on to the new kids.

[BSAT17SPL]

FScouter,

The question you ask is a good one, but I have answers. The next time that scout is on a campout and is cooking for the troop, secretly add some hot sauce to the older scouts food, or soak the toliet paper is super glue so that when is on in the latrine he's got no toilet paper, or the younger scout could remove all the older scout clothes during the night so that the he'sgot nothing to wear in the morning.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Physical humor escalates. Someone pushes your nose in an ice cream, you hide his clothes, he hits you up the side of the head with a toilet paper roll, you trip him on the trail, soon a fight breaks out, why? Because of fun. "We were just having fun." is almost always the reply.

 

Nobody gets hurt is the first idea but in reality one person's feelings get hurt. In other words, there was little physical hurt but something emotionally did happen.

 

Watch the 3 Stooges. With them, they slap each other or hit each other with a 2 X 4 up the side of the head and then they are on to the next scene. Why don't they fight? Because they act like they forget the incident and because it is an act meant to bring a laugh to those that watch. In other words, personal feelings are intentionally left out.

 

Most people do not forget when an injustice has been done to them. Most do not reply with the same amount of "fun" as had been done to them and when a person's feelings are hurt. There is a tendency to not get even but to hurt them more than they hurt you. The reason? A person attempts to "teach a lesson" not just push their face in it. The lesson is for it to not happen again.

 

The second reply and the reasoning never works because the first act is generally only part of the problem and cannot be corrected with a reasoned act that is like the first one but more. It is generally understood as a challenge to 'top this'.

 

The other person will top your reasoned lesson. The lesson of justice will not be understood because only the challenge will be learned which must again be topped. Thus, a fight will break out.

 

Think about it and observe. I think you will agree.

 

FB

 

[BSAT17SPL]

FB,

Good post, but it all comes down to my point the world nowadays takes things to seriously. The world has become a place of fighting and courts.

 

 

-BSAT17SPL

"Lighten up and smell the coffee,

not the money"