A couple years ago, when I was hanging out with Fiona (who often comments on this blog), she became interested in genealogy. She did a trace of my ancestry and managed to connect me to all kinds of famous people, including Malcomb, King of Scotland made famous in Shakespeare's "McBeth". I believe this makes me the rightful king of Scotland.
As she kept tracing my ancestry and discovering this interesting stuff, we had an idea for a reality show. You trace people's ancestry, and at the end of the show reveal something fascinating about the person's former relatives. We thought it would be great for the history channel. Of course, we didn't know anyone in showbiz, nor have the cojones to go around pitching this idea, so we just amused ourselves with the discussion. We also didn't think to include celebrities. But we did figure to get Ancestry.com to sponsor.
This morning, I read in the paper that NBC has a new show called "Who Do You Think You Are". It is exactly the show we had come up with, including the participation of Ancestry.com, with the exception that they are tracing the genealogy of celebs instead of normal folks. I am so bummed out.
I guess the moral of the story is that you no matter what stupid idea you may have for a TV show, you should pursue it. No telling what kind of crap they will put on TV.
2 comments:
It generally has to be a pretty good story to get anyone but you interested in your geneology.
Luckily, I have several. Let me tell you about the guy who was kidnapped from London and brought to the New World and held as something of a slave...
well you know I had to weigh in.....
the US show is just a version of the UK show which is a big hit...I caught some episodes last summer when I was there. Henry Louis Gates actually kicked it all off with his first series on PBS which was about African-American genealogy. His latest series is focusing on different ethnic groups and I find the Yo-Yo Ma bits probably the most moving and he managed to almost move Stephen Colbert to tears - I haven't had time to watch the NBC show but will try this weekend - here is the PBS link http://video.pbs.org/program/1397337072/ meanwhile I still plug away on my crazy family
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