1. We Made Children Cry And Get Beaten Up
Channel 4Ahh kids. I believe they're the future. And they're also delicate little flowers that should be protected and not used and abused like TV show props. Wrong. We used and abused them like TV show props. The basic format of both shows for the most part was watching kids play games competitively, sometimes for bragging rights, often for a wee bit of fame and even for some fairly good prizes. Now we had a crude audition process and the parents had to sign releases which covered the legal side of things. The problem is the parents were so excited their precious snowflakes were going to be on telly they wouldn't read said release. Which if they had they'd know that TV is basically a sham - a faked up world were 'up, up,' is 'down, down', 'left, right' is 'right, left' and B is A. So when kids would freeze up - and they did like deer in halogen headlights - or the console would freeze up as unfinished games often did, we would fake the outcome. This left several children who might have won the challenge - had the game not crashed - often been shown to lose. Or if the kid statued on camera we might quickly replace them with a less motionless one. Or we might cut the segment altogether because it was crap. Any number of things happened resulting in crying children, taunted and smacked about a bit at school, all accompanied by insanely angry parents. How insane? How angry? Well at one point a family so disgusted with the goings on they organised a picket at the Hewland offices. Their baby beat that other child at Mortal Kombat, so how
dare we not show the finishing move? But we weren't legally allowed to. Why? Because Channel Four said so and it's their playground, so their rules... it wasn't even our fault. However, I'll save those rules along with many other shenanigans - such as the time one of our famous presenters took a dump in the boss's desk drawer - for another list! Stay tuned, kids!
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