Les Maçons du Coeur: Bad dubbing made worse.

     Ok,  I've always one been one to love a trashy American show dubbed into French or Italian, but I finally found one that I had to turn off.  I normally love to spend jet-lagged hours watching Walker, Texas Ranger starring Chuck Norris speaking Italian.  Trust me, it makes the show that much more ridiculous so that it's totally worth watching.  Today though, while surfing the French boob-tube, I happened upon an atrocity:  Extreme Makeover: Home Edition en francais.  Holy Crap.

     Some of you may already know this, but, I HATE Ty Pennington, the face of EMHE.  Hate is a strong word, and I'm stickin' to it.  I think I might actually like the show if it weren't for Ty.  The idea is nice: help honorable people in need by building a better living space.  I have never understood why it was necessary to have a Kermit-The-Frog-looking man scream and screech into the camera (and a loudspeaker) for the entire hour of the show.  Worst Television Voice. Ever.  (At least 1 other person on YouTube agrees with me)  Apparently the French syndication decided that Ty's irritating voice was an inextricable aspect of the show, because they found a dubbed French voice of equal horror.

     Another thing I cannot stand is when shows that are dubbed keep the original sound playing in the back.  This normally happens on the news. Think: interview with foreign leader when you hear a second of the original sound with the translation reading loudly over it by the reporter.  Yuck!  If you're going to dub, at least do us the favor of getting rid of the original track.  It hurts my ears and my brain.  I know that the small Mexican boy does not have the voice of Peter Jennings.  Equally, I know that Ty Pennington doesn't sound like a screaming French man.  So, imagine Ty screaming "MOVE THAT BUS!" with an immediate (but slightly off) overlay of "BOUGE LE BUS!"  Terrible.  Terrible.  Double yelling. Doubly awful.  Did I mention that there were 30 seconds of roller coaster scene in this particular episode in which Ty was yelling?  And did I mention that they dub just the yelling, even though that needs no translation?  Why?!  This clip doesn't come near what the entire show is like, but just so you see what I mean: click

     By the way, they renamed the show in French "Les Macons du Coeur", or, The Masons with Heart.  Ha!

The one Good thing about the French program is that there are no commercial breaks in French programming, so the whole thing is done with in 40 minutes.