As it turns out, there is nothing remotely deviant or outrageous about Kid Nation. After months and months of speculation over child labor issues, the producers’ moral ambiguity and bla bla bla… it ends up being every kid’s wildest dream: camp without adults and the opportunity to win 20 grand every four days. But that didn’t stop them from crying… a lot.
The 40 (now 39!) children of Bonanza may still need therapy when they’re adults, but not because they were traumatized during the filming of this show. They’re just going to be permanently embarrassed that America saw them frothing at the mouth for 40 days without Ritalin. There were so many hilarious non sequiturs in the first hour alone, you wouldn’t be surprised if Bill Cosby was prompting them from behind the cameras.
Kid Nation does have more structure than I would have imagined. The arbitrarily chosen town council chose teams early in the first episode (blue, green, red, yellow), and after a fairly grueling contest, the pecking order was chosen. The red team gets paid a dollar a day to absolutely nothing (aristocracy!), the blue team gets paid 50 cents a day to run the stores and the town saloon (merchants!), the yellow team is paid 25 cents a day to feed the town (cooks!) and the green team is paid ten cents a day to cleaning up after everyone (losers!).
It’s no surprise that the first casualty comes from the greens. Eight-year-old Jimmy spent much of the first episode sobbing, and despite the heartwarming encouragement he received from the other children, he hit the road at the first opportunity. Jimmy didn’t go home because he was homesick though; he went home because he was on the crappy team and didn’t want to spend his summer vacation emptying porta-potties. I don’t blame him.
One star has already emerged: 11-year old Jared from Georgia (pictured above). When he’s not chasing farm animals and providing the show’s best social commentary, he’s making statements about how he hopes he doesn’t have to “poo” for the entirety of his stay. Jared’s bio and questionnaire on the show’s official website offers even more insight into his strangely brilliant mind. What is the one thing he would change about America if he could? “The media is often one sided with most issues in this country and it would be nice to have the whole story.” Jared is the type of kid I ignored when I was his age and find myself wildly entertained by now.
If you weren’t hooked by the awkward behavior and constant possibility for disaster, scenes from the next episode had to have been enough to reel you in. “We’re thinking about killing a chicken,” announces council member Mike, in a rare moment without tears. Well, Mike, we’re thinking about watching that.
Most of these kids are SCARY smart.
And Jared’s undiagnosed autism is more like AWESOME-ism.
But my favorite crazy child on screen will forever be “robot” Harry Altman: http://www.filmforum.org/archivedfilms/spellbound/spell8sm.jpg
I wonder what Harry’s up to these days. I think he was from northern Jersey.