We just finished watching the PBS program Texas Ranch House which is a mini-series that attempts to teach a little history about ranch-era Texas by dressing a bunch of volunteers in frontier costumes and transporting them “back in time” to 1867 to run a ranch and herd cattle and see how long they can put up with the jerk in charge.

They’ve done several of these: Manor House, Frontier House, Colonial House. Everyone is given a role and inevitably some of the volunteers are put in charge and other volunteers are completely screwed over. Like, when they hand out the roles, someone gets to be Lord of the Manor and lounge about and feel smug and someone gets to be The Maid and clean toilets. Holy crap! It’s as much an experiment in human behavior as it is about history. I suppose it has some educational value although that seems to be mainly this: don’t volunteer for PBS shows with the word “House” at the end.

Still, it’s fascinating to watch. I can imagine the producers planning out the day’s torments while they sit in their comfy trailer and drink their morning espresso while the lab ratsparticipants are eating moldy food and trying to milk goats and not get bitten by snakes. “Hey,” one producer will say. “Tonight let’s steal their horses.” And the second one replies, “Genius! Also, the supply wagon is delivering today. Lets poison some more of their food.” And they high five.

No, if the lovely and talented wife and I were ever to volunteer for one of these shows it would have to be Future House or Castle of Never Ending Pleasure and Contentment, uh, House. Basically, any place where someone would take the kids off of our hands for a couple of months and we could do nothing but be entertained and drink. And without cows. Well, except for the medium rare variety.

Comments

1. nikkirae on 2006-05-12 20:54:03 wrote: LOL!!!!! I wanna go too…. begs Though I’ll take mine rare. grin -n

2. simon (of the big sort) on 2006-05-13 10:20:55 wrote: I want Future House, myself. Then again, if it’s all run by Microsoft, I’d be worried.

3. Pewari on 2006-05-13 12:09:45 wrote: Count me in on the Castle of Never Ending Pleasure and Contentment House - that sounds more like my style.

4. The real NACHO on 2006-05-14 19:00:23 wrote: you really hit the pBS on the head…the crook family were real richards… the next two installments will be Crack House and Hoe House for 2007 Nacho

5. Norby on 2006-05-26 00:21:37 wrote: This series is my wife’s favorite - we have almost all of them. And yes, please sign us up for “Clean, neat and quiet house.” -//

6. Kimba on 2006-06-09 07:42:30 wrote: I’m sorry, I’d give anything have been a part of Regency House, Manor House, the 1900s House, or the 1940s House!! What an amazing experiment into the past! Now, the American ones (Ranch House, Frontier House, etc.) forget it!! Those would be hell on Earth!

7. Kathy on 2006-06-29 09:42:42 wrote: I watched some of the earlier “house” shows - thought some were dumb, but did learn a lot from 1940s House. So, when they started advertising the upcoming Texas Ranch House (I live in Texas) I was really interested. I watched every show. It was terrible… I don’t know where they found the volunteers, but they certainly mis-cast the cook and the family who were supposed to be the ranch owners. The guy who was supposed to be the ranch owner sat around “running” the ranch - though, later it came out that he did not even keep correct records - expecting his “cowboys” to do all the work. On such a little ranch (only a few hundred cattle were expected) any real ranch owner would be a working owner, out on the range every day. The rancher’s wife was a real waste - she had no idea how to run a household, let the garden go to waste, and tried to but into all the areas of ranch life that were none of her business. She was completely incompetent at the duties she was expected to due, actually she was incompetent at everything, but she liked to think she was running things. They got a guy who was a chef in real life to work as the cook for the cowboys - it would have made more sense to get a person with some experience camping! I don’t think any of these people, with the exception of a couple of the cowboys, had any idea what life was like in the time they were supposed to be experiencing.