I just saw an ad for this last night. It's a new reality show on the National Geographic Channel about a group of professional jousters. It starts November 15th at 9:00 eastern. Here's the link which has some video clips. Looks interesting.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/knights-of-mayhem/
Seems cool. My son just made me play all the videos for him so it looks like I am going to have to record it for him.
This is going to be great, I think. :)
yeah i saw the previews for it too i'm interested
I thoroughly enjoyed this and plan on watching again next week. :) Though I have to say, I found myself liking the Black Knight a little better than Charlie....I guess just not so much "flash and bluster". :D
Charlie was too much of an arse for me, I like the other guys alot better.
As for letting my 4 year old watch it, not so much.
Yeah I like Sir Patrick better, he just keeps it real and a mentor/teacher to the new squires instead of being a huge egomaniac and throwing his weight around 24/7. Yeah, sometimes you have to like the bad boys....and Anderson's attitude towards Patrick is particularly heinous considering he's the one that taught him. What a thankless job right?
To me a teacher will always be a teacher even at my age. Say I ran into an old HS teacher or my old Karate Master tomorrow at the store... I'd be "Mr. X how do you do, remember me?"
I know some of these guys from here and many others from different troupes, and Charlie thinks the world revolves around him and has, in the past, talked a lot of stuff about himself that wasn't true even on national TV. Gives true knighthood a bad name. Not saying he isn't good at what he does because he is, but he also has been taken down. Also, the thing I find funny about this series is the fact he keeps saying he is world champion, yet, the show only shows championships against his own troupe. Of course when you go up against your own guys... I have been to World Championship Jousting tourneys and there are guys from "all over the world". Patrick is just the opposite and needs to be hailed as what a knight should be. I still like full contact because that is the way it was. And the show as a whole is good as long as you can look past the "Charlie Drama". Just my 2 cents...
Lord Clisto
These guys perform at the Estes Park highland Games in Sept. A few years ago Charlie got REALLY Pissed when he thought the black knight put a bad hit on him. He actually took off his gauntlets and through them at the feet of the black knight and got in his face. Everyone was like WTH. He seemed a poor sport
Charlie is like a baby. He has to win no matter what or else he pick up his toys and moves on or gets rid of the threat so he can win. He needs to grow up.
He sounds like my 6 year old nephew, everything is a race until he is not winning then its high tragedy.
So while at the Estes Park Christmas Parade of Lights... the Black Knight was there. He actually has a jousting academy in Estes Park. Knights Edge Jousting Academy (KEJA)... sadly cannot find anything on the net accept in Facebook.
When he walked by Tom and I we gave him a HUZZAH! to which he gave one back. And then said to watch the Black Knight defeat everyone on Nat Geo's Knights of Mayhem... I yelled back... Especially Charlie Andrews. Got a smile out of him for that
So this whole going off the grid thing; that's where he went :) This KEJA thing, would love to know more. Would love to see Black Night knock the sh*t out of Anderson. Love the name "Knights Edge".
Quote from: Lord Clisto of York on November 16, 2011, 11:37:10 PM
And the show as a whole is good as long as you can look past the "Charlie Drama". Just my 2 cents...
Oh, but producers just LOVE that! I guarantee they're going to exploit the drama for all it's worth. There's always gotta be at least one person on reality TV who causes friction, that's just par for the course. :D
I'd love to check the show out, but I don't have NatGeo. Will have to wait for the DVD...
I always appreciate a reminder why we stopped watching television in 1997. Interesting to note that TV has gotten worse since...or is it the audience that has dumbed down? Sometimes I wonder...
It's really not too bad a show, if, as is said, you can look past some of the drama.
One of the things it got me thinking about was how the Black Knights horse was scared of the armor...I imagine way back when they had a way of training the horses so this wasnt a problem?
The issues with training were one of the reasons that the expense of a good jousting horse would be roughly equivalent to a private plane these days.
Wow...I wonder if you could desensitize a foal from a young age to armor....but then of course it takes time for them to reach adult size and such.
Private plane. :o
We saw the show this last weekend at TRF, and it was obvious that Charlie is the only one who gets to ride the well trained mount, so even my 10 y/o daughter could tell it was rigged from the start. Jake's mount, the black Friesian, seemed to actually be struggling to lope down the lists, stumbling and lurching a bit with every pass... and Joe's mount, the other blonde Belgian, was skittish and unused to the noise of the crowds and the flash of the sun off the armor, it seemed. It was only the mount that Charlie rode who stood patiently, ran smoothly and had the power and stamina for the job.
If they want to even pretend it's a fair competition they should switch out the horses in both training AND performance sessions, just so everyone has a better chance of getting a good pass, and each mount gets more well rounded training and experience. I doubt Charlie is going to let that happen, however...
The show revolves around Charlie, not the Knights of Mayhem. It is a drama of his passion and life with the others as seconds that he can make look bad so he looks the best. That's all it is. If it was actually about the sport and had more people competing from all over the show would be better and maybe he would get sponsorship for the sport. But not under these conditions.I am probably more upset at Nat Geos own mindset in even doing this series the way it is. It isn't really like them and I have written them as well about it. I like the jousting itself and some behind the scenes things people should get to see, but keep it real to the sport and not about the drama of one arrogant persons life.
Lord Clisto
I'm just curious, is NatGeo affiliated with TLC, A&E, Discovery, and History Channel? I've noticed that those channels have really gone downhill in recent years and are mostly about infotainment rather than the arts or education. Not familiar with NatGeo's current programming, but it seems that it's going along that same route.
Quote from: Rani Zemirah on November 30, 2011, 05:07:49 PM
We saw the show this last weekend at TRF, and it was obvious that Charlie is the only one who gets to ride the well trained mount, so even my 10 y/o daughter could tell it was rigged from the start. Jake's mount, the black Friesian, seemed to actually be struggling to lope down the lists, stumbling and lurching a bit with every pass... and Joe's mount, the other blonde Belgian, was skittish and unused to the noise of the crowds and the flash of the sun off the armor, it seemed. It was only the mount that Charlie rode who stood patiently, ran smoothly and had the power and stamina for the job.
If they want to even pretend it's a fair competition they should switch out the horses in both training AND performance sessions, just so everyone has a better chance of getting a good pass, and each mount gets more well rounded training and experience. I doubt Charlie is going to let that happen, however...
We probably saw the same show, Rani! So sorry we missed YOU! (again, argh!) But your comments are exactly what I thought too. The horses were NOT happy with the environment and we did not find it very entertaining so we left. Definitely not impressed.
In the last day or so I've actually become slightly acquainted with a couple of the jousters, via facebook (although not the ones who were riding during the show we watched), and they seem to be very decent, down to earth guys who just want to propel the sport into the public eye. I'm all for that, although I would rather it happen without all the drama everyone is talking about, I suppose. I still haven't seen the TV show, itself, but I'm going to download the first episode and watch, just to see what all the hype is about. I do know that any worthwhile endeavor will have it's growing pains, so I hope these guys can all get past the showboat stage and move on into the real heart of the sport, and give us all something to really appreciate and admire!
And Kett, I am soooo bummed that we didn't get to meet and hang out! I can't believe the number of people I DIDN'T get to talk to last weekend... ::)
Quote from: Rani Zemirah on December 03, 2011, 01:42:33 PM
I can't believe the number of people I DIDN'T get to talk to last weekend... ::)
Someone more technical than I needs to make a Rennie Tracker app! ;)
Ooooh!!! Now THAT one I'd actually pay money for!!! LOL It would totally have to be like the map in Harry Potter, though! Only visible if you had the magic phrase... ;D
That would be fun. No more hunting for people who forgot their roses just point and click!
Quote from: Rani Zemirah on December 03, 2011, 01:42:33 PM
I can't believe the number of people I DIDN'T get to talk to last weekend... ::)
We missed seeing you and at least four other people asked us where you were!
I know... I was looking for you, as well! I never did make it to a meet n greet, unfortunately, and it was so wet on Sat. that we only got about 3 hours inside, all day. We didn't do very well with finding anyone on the inside, but we did see quite a few people in the campground. Sherwood shouldn't be quite as hectic, I'm hoping... :D
Anyway... back on topic. There is suoposed to be a big tournament on the show tonight, and I'm planning to download the episode from the net when it's available. So far I'm not all that impressed with Charlie Andrews, but I'm beginning to like a few of the guys on his team, specifically Talon, Brian, Jake and Joe, and I'd like to see them do well.
Sadly it is a freaking reality show, so it will continue to feed off the dislike of Charlie and keep him center of attention >:(
There are ways to train a horse to get used to things that can spook it. Rodeo cowboys do it with their mounts, the other jousters do it as well, it just takes time. Just like how you don't put a guy on a horse who hardly knows how to ride let alone handle a weapon while trying to control the mount. Jeeze that is one of the things that ticked me off. Along with the fact that the assistants were not garbed up while they were working the field at the festivals that they were at.
They are not knights but rather men at arms. There is a differance, while all knights are trained in arms not all men who can use arms are trained as knights. There is a component of morality that appears well beyond this Charlie character, involved in being a knight...
I had not been able to catch an episode until last night, and could endure only 10 minutes of it. I was amazed they could make such a thrilling sport so boring.
It also reminded me in some ways of soccer. Generally speaking, people in the USA don't watch it because they don't understand it. So it baffles me that they would show a jousting match on this show, and not explain the scoring.
Other than those two major and unsurmountable errors, I thought it was pretty good. :-\
This was the worst show I have seen in a while. Not only was it incredibly boring, the main character had commentary that was completely wrong. I'm pretty sure other joust troupes don't allow anybody off the lanes to compete in the events, which was what was inferred. I'm pretty sure festival insurance policies forbid that. While working at a Renaissance Festival may not be everyone's first choice of a job, it is one of the few places hanging up a "help wanted" sign for jousters. Not a lot of call for men on horseback pointing at each other with what looks to be balsa wood lances.
I do feel it's inappropriate for Charlie to put down the festival industry in general. It's not like joust tournaments are a big draw outside of renfaires either, the "tournament" depicted in the episode I saw had a LOT of empty seats, it looked like they had tried to spread the viewers out to make it look more crowded.
I'm not sure where this was filmed, but some of the sections had tents in the background, which made it look like a temporary show, an afterthought even. It didn't look like anything ready for prime time, in other words. There are shows that could provide a better backdrop for the images, but they weren't used. It could look professional and interesting, but it failed quite spectacularly.
Also...where are the European jousters, we saw some in England earlier this year that rode fully armored horses, and they didn't even have jeans on under their armor like these guys.
I was so hoping this would be good..oh well. Sorry Charlie, try again.
From what's been said online so far, I gather that it's pretty incredibly expensive to travel internationally with a jousting horse, armor and accoutrements, and a staff of retainers to help with everything, and a lot of the guys on this show are just regular guys who have shown a willingness to get up on a horse and take the hits.
Unfortunately, it's true that most of them have received no formal training in the classical tenets of knighthood, but they really aren't styling themselves as medieval knights, but simply as heavy armor jousters, who just happen to use the term "Knights" in the name of their team. There are actually some heavy armor jousting competitors (such as Dustin Stephens and a few others) who have some formal training, and Faire backgrounds, who have been jousting either in theatrical performance troupes or on full contact teams for a while, and these men display the Knight's code of chivalry they were trained in, even when they've been filmed candidly for this show. Even on Charlie Andrews team there are some who show this behavior naturally, without having any training at all.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Andrews chooses to display such contempt for the very venue which has given modern day jousting it's audiences for the last half century, or so... and even more so that he seems to want to turn it into the equivalent of a UFC event on horseback, complete with all the trash-talking, back biting and profanity. I believe it might just be his saving grace that a few of his team members show more courtesy, sportsmanship and outright class than he seems capable of at this time. I think they would likely be somewhat better off without him in the lead...
I saw a commercial last night that next week is the finale for the show. Jousting is a tough and expensive business at best. I have not been a fan of the show or of Charlie but he can joust. I just wish they would have had more competitors from around the country and not just the Knights of Mayhem Group. Maybe History channels Full Metal Joust will be better, if they ever air it.
It cant come to an end too soon for me. Like I mentioned before, I love full contact since it is what it was, but, there also has to be the entire knightly background and performance to go with it to make it interesting. Not one mans obsession and drama. They are only jousting against each other and not the WORLD so Charlie cant claim world champion except from prior World tourneys. These include jousters from everywhere. I have been to a few and it is fantastic to see different styles and armor compete. So, with that said, I think Charlie in acting like he has and does all the time has actually killed his cause for his so called sponsors and dream. If he would learn the way of the knight and perform it within his jousting, he would have had a better chance. No one likes Bullies and this show was all about promoting one. Shame on Nat Geo for not thinking this thing through as well.
Lord Clisto