"Extreme Dodgeball" Airs on Game Show Network

Apparently, this is the summer that America returns to fifth grade. Ben Stiller's goofy film "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" sold the country on the idea that dodgeball is cool. The Game Show Network (a fine argument against deregulation of the airwaves) has taken the idea one step further -- dodgeball isn't just cool, it's extreme. One is unsure whether to laugh or cry.

The game itself passed from gym class fashion once those who were bad at it became teachers and school board members. Arguing that it taught bad values, educrats banished it from the school yard. Actually, the game taught lessons very valuable for 20th (and perhaps 21st) century America: the big and strong are usually heartless, the nimble survive, friends change loyalties quickly, and red rubber balls sting when they hit bare flesh.

Keeping the contemporary tone while longing for simpler, more immature times, dodgeball is now "Extreme Dodgeball." Marketing people discovered that "extreme" makes a product "edgy." Therefore, the middle-aged clowns who produced the thing for sale use the adjective as often as possible to communicate to their step-children's generation that a purchase is in order. Extreme knitting, extreme tea drinking and extreme lounging may all come to pass before the term is rendered obsolete.

In any case, the "teams" in the "league" include "The Stallion Battalion" (jockey sized to remind everyone of the small kids who took the most abuse at dodgeball but who sometimes won because they were nimble), "The Sumo Storm" (extra sized humans of limited mobility), and "Silent But Deadly Mimes" (who may or may not be French). The rules are the same as ever: get hit with the ball and leave, catch it and the thrower departs, last one standing is the winner.

The addition of a referee is a flaw; the game in the gym was always better for the arguments over the honor system under which the competition occurred. And it is surprisingly dull to watch. With the dodgeball revival, can "extreme duck, duck goose" and "extreme freeze tag" be far behind? They would all be a marked improvement over "Fear Factor", "Survivor" and everything in Fox's summer season.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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