August 11, 2000

12:02 AM

RealityRunis apparently real; 'Roger', the world's first 'Reality Runner', starts evading the masses on the 14th of this month. He has a 10K USD bounty on his head.
posted by dplanet (12 comments total)

wow, $100,000 if you are not found within 24 days. Hell, most of my friends don't even know I exist .. it'd be easy for me to hide. I want to sign up.
posted by mkn at 12:53 AM on August 11, 2000

This sorta reminds me of Burger King's "Where's Herb" ad campaign in the '80s. If you spotted "Herb" in a BK, you'd get a fair amount of money ($5K or $10K maybe).

So anyhow, one day an elderly couple came up to my dad while we were eating at BK and asked him if he was Herb. My dad then had to reveal that unfortunately he was not the nerdy Herb. I felt sorry for the old couple.
posted by gluechunk at 4:00 AM on August 11, 2000

I once read a book about thing. It's called 'The Running Man' by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman. The only difference being that when they 'caught' the running man, he was killed.
posted by jedrek at 5:10 AM on August 11, 2000

Yes, the book The Running Man was very different from the movie, more of a free-roaming bounty hunt than the arena-based combat of the flick. There's another Running Man ripoff planned for this fall's influx of "reality" shows; it's called "The Runner", and it seems that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have been developing it with ABC.
posted by harmful at 5:59 AM on August 11, 2000

I was just going to mention Running Man. Weird how an Arnie flick can be so accurate in what future tv will be like.
posted by tiaka at 7:28 AM on August 11, 2000

Rollerball! Rollerball! ... Jonathon! Jonathon! Jonathon!
posted by dhartung at 7:49 AM on August 11, 2000

I don't think this is a television show. It doesn't say anything about it being on TV on the website. How would you make a show out of this anyway? It would be pretty easy to wander around Berlin until you saw a guy with a bunch of cameramen around him.
posted by donkeymon at 8:11 AM on August 11, 2000

The movie sucked so bad. Cheezy eighties bs. A hockey player with exploding pucks? It sounds like a power-ranger enemy. The book was so amazing! It was Richard Bacman's (king) first. He wrote it in 3 days flat. The book was great, the movie was less than satisfactory.
posted by Satapher at 9:03 AM on August 11, 2000

The best thing in the movie was Richard Dawson (of "Family Feud") as the evil show host. He was *much* more believable in Running Man than on Family Feud...
posted by Tubes at 9:19 AM on August 11, 2000

Richard Bachman's first novel was "Rage," and with the recent re-releases of all Bachman's paperbacks "Rage" is the only novel that was held back.

I guess the story of a high school student taking his class hostage hits too close to home these days.
posted by Awol at 9:43 AM on August 11, 2000

I really enjoyed Richard Bachman's 'Bachman Books'. Four stories, none of them supernatural. Just good, plain storytelling.

This was a while back (7-8 years) but I think I read Rage and The Long Walk (a gameshow where you walk till you die) 5 or 10 times. Good stuff.
posted by jedrek at 10:16 AM on August 11, 2000

Awol: I am very sure you're right.

But I loved the story, loved it.

Wonder if that makes me dangerous :>
posted by Sapphireblue at 12:22 PM on August 11, 2000