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Animal Games

Editorial Review

Editorial Review

Narrated by British football commentators John Motson and Jonathon Pearce, this documentary takes animals from different "nations", including mammals, fish, birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians, and scales them to human size to see how their athletic attributes measure up when pitted against each other.

Animal Games has the "athletes" compete in a range of events from the high jump to the 100-metre sprint, often revealing surprising results. For example, a tiny ant can lift 54,000 times its body weight; it would then be able to lift roughly 432,000 kilograms if it were the size of a human. Putting the fact into that sort of context makes animals seem a whole lot more impressive.

Regardless, the show is aimed squarely at children and its premise is unabashedly gimmicky. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the program there is little time spent on explaining how the competitors do what they do. Furthermore, the program's limited footage forces the program into replaying similar scenes over and over again.

Animal Games premieres on Animal Planet on Saturday, August 23, at 6:30pm.

Patrick Tangye, August 2008

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