From: "GuessWho"
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: ABC's "When cars attack"
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 20:53:27 -0400

Well, they aired it again this evening...

If any of you began to watch from the middle of the show, yes, it WAS a joke. And yes, it DID take me a few minutes to realize that they were kidding. I sat there for a few minutes thinking to myself "they CAN'T be serious", yet fearing that they were... I started to laugh out loud when I finally realized it was, indeed, a spoof.

ABC created a great parody of the "unsolved mysteries"-type show. The "claim" was that cars (and other vechiles) are sentient beings that rememeber when their owner abuses them and "retaliate" by causing accidents.

It had all the stuff these shows always have - "spooky" music, slo-mo of videos with the amazing "evidence" discovered by it, claims that the power to be are hiding the truth from us or are too stupid to realize it ("we are checking an area that is yet to be investigated by..."), "experts" for hire with unknown credentials ("we have talked to america's formost..."), the insinuating language that makes you reach "your own" colcusions without actually saying outright that they thinks cars attack people ("is this a coincidence, or perhaps it is...") - and of course, a serious looking host with all-black clothes and an authoritative voice, filmed against the backdrop of a "scientific laboratory", to name just a few of the show's targets.

I finally realized for sure that it WAS a spoof when I looked more attentively at this "laboratory" - it was not a real one, but one of those "chemistry sets" you see in the movies which was filled with "mysterious liquids" that are - of course - all smoking and in VERY strong colors of red, green, and blue...

There are other "insider's clues" that this is a spoof in the show, too. But they did such a great spoof, I just hope nobody took it seriously! I know *I* almost did!