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Episode 20 - (PREVIEW) Hazed and Concussed in Argentina (ft. Aoife)
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Wipeout Canada! A single-season hallowed tradition. An entire television show was premiered on extended cable in 2011 showcasing Canadians being forced into near concussions and vomiting by running around on a hazardous endurance course. We watched three episodes of this show so you don't have to.
Featuring Aoife! Check her out here!
https://twitch.tv/postmpanda
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Shawinigan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Stó:lō (Stolo), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) first nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.
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Transcript
Patreon Preview and Subscription Encouragement
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello! Please enjoy this preview of this Patreon-exclusive episode. If you're interested in hearing the episode now, please consider subscribing to us by visiting patreon dot.com-slash-a-winnigan-moments. We aim to have a bonus episode on Canadian-related topics each month, and will use the money we raise to help support the show and our work. Thanks!
Commuting Distances: North America vs. Other Countries
00:00:20
Speaker
I think it's very relative, because like over here, like a Uh, what is like a relatively normal drive for an old American is like insane travel for someone here. Like something like commuting between two cities in this country is kind of absurd. People do it, but it's not normal. And like in like America, I'm guessing the same in Canada, like the amount of driving that you do is absolutely crazy. It's not normal.
00:00:52
Speaker
It does get sort of overblown, like ah undisclosed location in British Columbia where I grew up. like Yeah, we all drove into town, but the drive was like 15, 20 minutes. like i I used to cross more ground when I worked in Burnaby taking the train than I ever did like driving into town.
00:01:14
Speaker
Like the Saturday before I saw you when ah over the summer IFA, I was in London um and ah the Olympics were on and I had this the idea to hop on a train from, you sorry, not from Houston, from St. Pancras and go to what to Paris. And that's what, a two and a half hour, three hour trip, right? Well, it's Eurostar, so I think it's two, two and a half hours. Yeah. And then like London to to Scotland, where I am.
00:01:41
Speaker
is, uh, four hours. Yeah. Yeah. So like this idea I had was like, well, going through, uh, customs would be really quick for me. So why don't I do that and then go all the way to Paris, go check out like very briefly the Olympics and like, just leave at six in the morning. I'd be there for eight 30 and then come back. Like, I think leave at like one or two back to London.
00:02:04
Speaker
and then go to the show that I was supposed to go to that evening.
Public Transport Insights in Edinburgh
00:02:08
Speaker
And like in any other world, like if i if if if it wasn't for the fact that I'm North American with my mentality about this, you would think that I'm insane. yeah i don't I don't know. because like people in North America will often justify their need for an automobile because they're like, Oh, I drive so much every day. But I think it's often overblown. Like nobody's actually driving like, with 100k commute that there's like a dozen unless you really need to most certainly do like, there are people who I that's just that's not borne out by statistics. The average commute is under 40k.
00:02:45
Speaker
it's still The average commute is under so is still under 20. Yeah, but even 40k by London standards is incredible. like Central London, for example, is like where New Westminster is located. and like Imagine commuting from Lions Bay to New Westminster every day, it would suck. Communicating with London is an entire separate thing as well because of the undergrounds. London is one of the two bits of the UK that has good public transport.
00:03:12
Speaker
What's the other one? Edinburgh. Well, fair enough. And no wonder you'd say that. Well, yeah, we've got, um, we're one of the only places in the UK that has publicly owned public transport. hyper except Your tram is really useless. That's the one thing, like, I know you're going to say something else, but like it's, it it is useless. If you're like trying to go from Waverly anywhere, like my hotel was so required a one kilometer walk from the tram. You can go to the bus then.
00:03:39
Speaker
Well, I didn't think about it when I got onto the tram and I realized how far of a walk I had with my suitcase to the hotel. The the tram does take you to basically the central bit of Edinburgh, where you can get a bus to anywhere from. And transport transport in Edinburgh is capped at £5 a day at most, unless you're travelling on night buses and stuff or going to the airport. But I pay for unlimited transport outside of night buses in Edinburgh. I pay £60 a month.
00:04:08
Speaker
That makes sense. That's actually not that bad. It's about the same price as a one zone pass here. Cause we have a three zone system here. And, but we also, the only, like everything is all unified here, except if you go to the airport, then you pay a surcharge, unless you have a monthly pass, then you don't pay the surcharge. Exactly the same here. So when I traveled home to my parents for Christmas, cause I fly because trains, trains, expensive except to London are really expensive and really unrival.
Commuting Statistics in North America
00:04:36
Speaker
So it's actually faster for me to fly, even though it would be a four and a half hour train. Um, it's faster and cheaper and it's the first time where I haven't had to pay like 14 pound return for the train for the tram. Okay. That's 42 miles that you just link average this look at the map, 68 kilometers. Yeah, that is. So I rolled out a job that I applied for because the commute was 42 kilometers.
00:05:06
Speaker
Okay, but remember, so that's, that's daily miles traveled. So the commute, the commute is actually the average. And again, I i really want to stress average is only 21 miles. Also, if you look at the map, it's a, it's a few rural outliers that are weighting the average higher than the actual median commute is half of that. But then New York.
00:05:37
Speaker
You kind of have to disregard New York, right? Because New York is going to just skew those numbers massively. Well, that's why you look at the median and like looking at the median, it seems like it's more in the like under 30 ballpark, which is what I've seen before. I can't find the somebody who somebody crunched the actual medians. Oh, this is a fun website because underneath this, it just then goes onto this every single major city.
Podcast Introduction: Hosts and Guest
00:06:04
Speaker
ah Columbus. Oh, wow. They just, well, if they have Philadelphia, what do they have here? America, Philadelphia, the Salt Lake City and Columbus. Three metropolitan areas that I constantly think of in the United States, Philadelphia, me and one of them, I guess, was Salt Lake City and Columbus. Like the only time those cities names ever come up is like if there's a hockey game. Well, at any event, I feel like we got enough for the cold open, shall we start? Perfect.
00:06:30
Speaker
All right, let's do this. Stats matter. Averages lie. Fuck off.
00:06:41
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to She Winnegan Moments. My name is Heather, and I use she or they pronouns. ah on On average, my name is Tamarack, and my median pronouns are it it's, and my mode pronouns are they them. Fuck off.
00:06:59
Speaker
We have a guest. We do have a guest. Why don't you introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Aoife Chihat. Aoife, why are you on this show today?
Exploring 'Wipeout Canada' with Aoife
00:07:07
Speaker
Because we were having a discussion ages ago about TV and a certain show came up that we have in both of our countries. That's right. IFA is our first foreigner. In fact, she has never been to Canada yet. So IFA is alluding to a TV show called, well, I don't really want to say it. So let me just play the opening track to this particular TV show.
00:07:40
Speaker
The Wipeout Course, a hallowed tradition, a story trying to competition, athleticism, and achievement. One of the most revered fields of combat in the history of sport. And now, it's come north of the border. It's time to show the world just what us Canadians are made of. Show mama your balls! Oh, here we go. That's right. We're here to talk about TV-Tropolis, now Detour's TV show,
00:08:08
Speaker
Wipeout, Canada. And now you may notice they appended Canada to this because it is in fact of, it's a show that has been aired in a number of different countries. And of course, IFA is the one that introduced me to this particular TV show.
00:08:23
Speaker
Oh wait, we're not talking about Wipeout Quebec. Is there a Wipeout Quebec? I watched the wrong, there is. Jesus Christ, of course Quebec has one. ah It's hosted by Jonathan Torrens and Enes Esmer with Jessica Phillips as the on-site reporter. And if any of you are wondering who these people are or what Wipeout's all about, let's dive into this here. So Wipeout is basically Takeshi's castle.
00:08:46
Speaker
That is the best way to say it. It's like American Ninja Warrior. I think Ninja Warrior is like a brand that goes around and that sort of thing. And in this case here, it's a bunch of people competing to win, guess what? $50,000, which adjusted for inflation is only about $70,000. That's such a small amount of money. Is it though? Maybe it's like different circumstances, but like that's like two and a half years of my salary.
00:09:16
Speaker
yeah that's a de That's a decent amount of money and also like, it's, I actually kind of like this. Hey, it's like a year of salary for like a high paid tech worker or multiple years for a retail employee. That's fair. I will grant you that. Like that's the the thing that I like about that is I'm life like, like $1 million dollars or $10 million. dollars The thing is like, and people actually have very reasonable answers when you ask them, what will you do if you win the $50,000? They actually like have stuff that they say. Yeah, well which is kind of nice. When we get into some of the contestants, which I was rather meticulous about for the two, two of the three episodes that we're going to be talking about, one of them would probably do the best with that money. But like, if you live in Vancouver and you're like, wanted to buy a house, $50,000 might help you try to buy a house, but it isn't like that much. It'll get you a down payment on a down payment. Oh, that's painful.
00:10:15
Speaker
So, like I said, it was hosted by Jonathan Torrens and Ennis Esmer, who are like not anywhere near where they were filming this, which we will talk about after we talk about the first episode. And Jessica Phillips, who was actually on site. Torrens is an actor and TV host. He got a start on the CBC show so Street Sense, that sense with a C. And then he made later appearances on Degrassi, the reboot that happened in the early 2000s, as well as a recurring character on Trailer Park Boys.
00:10:45
Speaker
So he has a little bit of a pedigree going into this show. And then there's Esmer. Esmer is a actor who's known for roles in shows like The Flash, Children Ruined Everything and The Listener. And then Phillips ah is a model and her credits aren't as diverse. But what I did find her Instagram and she seems like a rather decent person.
The TV Tropolis Network and 'Border Security' Critique
00:11:09
Speaker
Like she was posting photos of her and her kids for Pride. So like I ended up like going like, OK, you know,
00:11:16
Speaker
You seem okay, I can probably like you. Now, this show was actually one of the earliest shows on TV, Tropolis, which launched in 2006, which was owned by, I think then, Ken West Global, then eventually became Shaw Media, and then eventually became Chorus, because who the hell knows who owns what these days? And this network was famous for a TV shows such as Border Security. Have any of you ever seen Border Security? I love a bit of security. Wait, is this a Canadian one or is this like... There's a Canadian version and it's in the Australian, Kiwi, American, British, yes. Because the one that has area centers is the Australian version. I have seen all of them. The thing about the the Canadian border security one is ah it takes place largely in the very backroom's ass looking section like security section of Vancouver International Airport.
00:12:14
Speaker
Well, they did all their production. And it's cargo terminal. They eventually did start putting some episodes in Toronto. I want to talk about that show in the future because it got in trouble legally. And so what they did is instead of filming it in Canada, they just started filming it at the US border instead. So that way they wouldn't be subject to privacy laws anymore.
00:12:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah it's that's it's this is a show for the future. like Border Security is probably the most fascist show I've ever had to endure, and I ah watched it out of sheer curiosity and horror. Yeah, it's glory to Arstotzka, the fucking TV series. like It's bad. Wipeout Canada got 46,000 applicants.
00:13:00
Speaker
and only selected 250 for this show.
Contestant Personas and Challenges on 'Wipeout Canada'
00:13:04
Speaker
And let's just open up by talking about a few people on in particular. let's Let's introduce some of our characters. You're a walrus whisperer? I was born within a native ability to communicate very effectively with animals. Okay, teach me.
00:13:28
Speaker
That means back to you guys what they think they're the only ones around here who can speak walrus That means let's get it started So everybody had to come up with her persona on this show. And some of them are wild. Some of them are incredibly cringe. The best ones were in this first episode and the rest of them... Yes, yes. Please tell me you captured Cheese Lord. Yes, I did. We will talk about Cheese Lord because I very much appreciated Cheese Lord.
00:14:02
Speaker
there's also There's also the subplot in this episode, which I hope you capture. I did capture this. This episode I put the most love and care into because I couldn't in the other ones. like This show kind of has one gimmick going for itself. It's just people getting hurt for 50 grand. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, that's all they've got. Every single person has one personality trait.
00:14:23
Speaker
that I will make. And also put a pin in the people getting hurt for 50 grand. Because also a lot of people get hurt for not 50 grand. Yeah. The problem is it's like in addition to people getting hurt and people having personalities, there's a little bit of bullying going on in this show. So let me ah just dive right into the next character that comes on to this show.
00:14:48
Speaker
I am standing here with Kevin Turnenkopf. Um, actually it's the incredible Megawatt! Megawatt! Megawatt! Megawatt! So you just have an echo every time you say that? I don't know what you mean by the echo!
00:15:05
Speaker
Well conducted interview. In case you're wondering about that censored bar, let's just say that suit does not leave a watch to the imagination. So we thought you could use some insulation. Well, let's not give them too much credit. That's better. I love. You do see a stick at one point. You do? Yes. When they're showing one of the highlight reels, they forgot to censor it and you it is quite prominent.
00:15:30
Speaker
So like it was a smart decision to do it. it's very like it So for those who don't know, the benefit a of seeing this is that the guy is this Kevin guy is in a Zentai suit running through the course. If you want the picture in your head, find the season of Taskmaster UK that Phil Wang was on. His horrible, horrible jumpsuit is basically the exact same thing.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, another example would be if you aren't able to get yourself access to that is just go watch a Canucks game from like 2014 with the green suit man, and I'll give you an idea as well. So they filmed this. What are those guys also? Very hot. So where they film this is outside. Those suits are made of very, how could I put it, not breathable material. So he has to be boiling inside of this thing.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah. And then the incredible heat stroke, heat stroke. I did have a question about this man. Yes. They say at one point he's from the energy province. What does this mean? This is Hunger Games shit. he's from I believe he's from Alberta. Okay, so that's is that because they mine coal?
00:16:40
Speaker
or something. Well, no, it's where the oil sands. Yeah, it's where a lot of oil and all that comes from. It's basically Canadian, Texas. Yeah, it was very hunter games. It's where we turn pristine forest into gloopy sand with a little bit of oil in it and wring it out of the sand in the most expensive and destructive process imaginable. Yeah, it uses very small amounts of water, trust me, bro.
00:17:08
Speaker
um Yes, it uses just a tiny bit of all the water in northern Alberta. In this game, you have to go through a whole bunch of challenges. You have to run across these like lily pads sort of things that are, like I'm guessing, filled with air so they just sort of bounce off. Amazingly, they don't dislocate your ankle in the process.
00:17:29
Speaker
And if you fall off, you fall into muddy water. um And you get all muddy and everything like that. And if you get onto the other end, you get then got to slide down this other ramp, and then you got to do all these jumps and everything. And then you got to do this in under a specific amount of time.
00:17:43
Speaker
it's it's It's a little bit less challenging than American Ninja Warrior because realistically this thing is designed to fuck with you no matter what. Whereas with American Ninja Warrior, if you watch that, it's people who actually train to do this have like, you know, raw carb abs and like can probably like climb with just one pinky finger or like one index finger or a pinky finger or whatever. it's This is a show meant for chumps.
00:18:12
Speaker
or Takeshi's castle where they the the the things are meant to fuck with you, but they are like soluble. I think we see one person make it past the pent ultimate challenge, the big balls.
00:18:26
Speaker
only one person only one person actually clears them in in the slate of episodes we will watch those balls look like they're designed to just like just throw you off like I don't know how you're supposed to land on them properly like you can't land on your feet that's an easy answer but do you like land on your chest and then just hope that you spread out far enough that you don't slide off in any direction But that's great. How do you get to the other two, right? There's just no elegant way. The one guy who did it landed on his knees, stood up, jumped, landed on his knees, stood up, jumped, landed on his knees, did it the slow, boring way, but they did comment on it. They comment on it on one of the later obstacles when people do this, but that's the only strategically sound way to go about it. No, you can just peg it, though. I've seen ones where people just peg it and make it over. It's very possible to get over the big red balls
00:19:16
Speaker
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