Please Tell Me You Saw This

I had thought for a long time that I made this up - surely nothing so nightmarish could have ever actually existed, right? There was a show on for one, maybe two (but I doubt it) episodes called "The Chamber". It was essentially The Running Man by Stephen King come to life. Do you remember the other smaller games on TV in the story? Well...

Something very close to this (a tentative dipping of the toe into the pool of depravity) happened in 2002!



Christ on a bike! Did you see the ice pile on his head? They are assaulting a person for our amusement. But, it is OK, at-home-audience, the guy agreed to it! They spray him with slush, shake him violently and THEY DROP THE OXYGEN LEVEL in the Chamber! I saw the "Hot Chamber" too, and in that one - they zapped people with electricity and would raise the temp to 150 degrees f! It was frightening and surreal. All you could do was stare and move your head back while saying "What...what?"

I watched the first episode with my dad one day. We were having dinner and zoned out in front of the tube. We sat side by side - completely silent for the duration. We left our sandwiches to wither.

Dad: Is this a joke? Is this one of those joke shows?
Me: I don't know. Is this really happening?
Dad: I think it is. Jesus Christ...
Me: This is wrong, yes? - Are we the only ones who think this is wrong? - why is this on TV during primetime, let alone at all?
Dad: I always knew this would happen one day...I just thought I'd be long dead.

I looked for years for info about this. I asked all my friends - co workers - not one person had seen it! I saw one episode and then zap - gone - never spoken about again. Finally, I found this clip and this wiki article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chamber_%28game_show%29

It turns out that they made 3 episodes. This I find the most troubling aspect. Apparently, a good chunk of the population thought it was great entertainment. Man, it was terrifying...not the things happening to the people (that was upsetting and bewildering - like taking a bite from a banana only to find it packed with a rotting human thumb inside) but the fact that a whole bunch of people along the line thought that this was a good idea...

It's coming back kiddos. SK called it, we just weren't quite ready for it in 2002.


Ah, well, there's always 2012.


*I still can't figure out how to do links (Lord knows I tried!), forgive the laborious copy and paste.