tellhimfred.com

All right. This could very easily be seen as insensitive, so let me first give a general disclaimer.

I believe that Dateline’s “To Catch A Predator” series is by far the best show on T.V. It’s central premise is something I can absolutely stand behind: Catching and exposing sexual predators and putting them in jail. Honestly, how could you possibly argue with that?

For those who don’t know, here’s how the show works. Dateline works with a group called Perverted Justice. The group goes into chat rooms posing as underage boys and girls. Older men start getting into explicit conversations with them and they eventually set up a meeting. The men think that they’ll be meeting up with, say, a 13 year old girl who is home alone.

To make the eventual case stronger, the undercover from Perverted Justice will often ask them to bring condoms and alcohol to show intent. These guys know exactly what they’re doing; there’s no confusion.

When the man arrives at the house, an actress that looks very young will come to the door and tell them to come in. She’ll have an excuse like “I’m just getting out of the shower. Let yourself in and have a seat.” The predator will normally do just that…..and then….

Bam. Chris Hansen from Dateline will step out and start grilling the guy, usually asking “What are you doing here?” This is when all the lies and excuses start. Hansen will then let them know who he is, and that the conversation is being filmed. The film crew then comes out.

At this point, the guy will leave the house, and when he walks out the door, he’s immediately surrounded by police, arrested, and brought in. This continues over and over. In fact, here are the statistics from Dateline’s own web site:

Now, this all sounds like some pretty serious stuff, and it absolutely is. But once you get used to the fact that these guys are absolutely the scum of the earth and that there is no actual danger, you have to laugh at how they’re presented. NBC does the show in a way that makes light of the situation.

Watch the show a couple of times and you’ll pick up a pattern. The same excuses are used time after time, and you know they’re telling lies. And since Chris Hansen has a transcript of the chat in hand, he picks out the lies as they’re told.

This past week, I thought: It would be very easy to make a drinking game out of this show. So that’s just what I did. So, without further introduction, here’s the very first shot at the Catch a Predator Drinking Game.

Obviously it needs many, many more rules. This is just the beginning. Add some more rules in the comment section, and I’ll be sure to add them here.