u l t r a m o o k i e

Hear hear. I’m also a fan of both shows, but Les wins hands down on the stupendous badass-o-meter. I’m not entirely convinced that Bear doesn’t cheat occasionally. Some of the things that happen and some of the shots the crew gets are just a little too convenient.

All Canadians are bad-ass doncha know. Eh!

I think Bear does dangerous/risky things. Like slide down the face of a glass-ier (as he calls it) or scramble up and down sheer rock walls. He does stuff for the camera, notice how he’s always out of breath after a particularily daring stunt? Everything looks staged - whoa look at those fancy multiangle shots above and below the ‘dangerous’ crevass? Also the time he pee’d on his scarf to cool off his head - in the very next shot it’s dry again. Very believable.

If you were really stranded alone in the wilderness you would go about survival how Les does it, slow and deliberate. Some of the things Bear does are downright stupid. Hopefully no one gets hurt from his ‘advice’.

I didn’t watch this stuff until one day channel surfing I came across Man vs. Wild. I was hooked instantly. While I will agree that some of the stuff Bear does seems staged and possibly foolish I still think he’s a bad ass. After getting hooked and watching all of Bear’s episodes I saw Survivorman listed. So I figured I’ll check it out. So in the episode I watdched this guy Les is on a boat “deserted”. Well he started whining about losing contact with his survival boat I thought he was going to cry or wet himself so said WTF and I turned it off. Maybe this was a weak moment in the series but a “survival boat” what the hell? I’ll give survivorman another watch or two but if he starts crying about losing radio contact with anybody I’ll just assume he’s a pussy and find some other way to waste my free time.

Right now I’m watching Man v’s Wild and the Rookies episode is on. I can see a life jacket under his gray sweater when he jumped in the water. See what I mean? Then’ all of a sudden’ the jacket is no longer on when getting out of the water. Countless of erros. I’m just saying dont say you’re surviving when, truly, you’re not, that’s all I’m saying. It’s o.k to watch just for entertainment, but not survival. Every single one of his steps are carefully calculated. Survivorman is the only one truly surviving. He is no pussy, Skeptic, he sure aint. Imaging you being in that air raft yourself in the middle of the ocean…Everything is not as easy as it seems, man. He told you himself in that episode…He slept in swamps, jungles and the such, but the ocean was, by far, one of the eeriest places he’s been on earth at night. Most is esier said than done, Skeptic.

The main difference is Survivorman does things that are practical to his current situation. Bear goes to great (and disgusting) pains to show you extreme measures that you CAN use.

I like both but I have to say that I prefer Bear. His show is more exciting regardless of the camera crew or not. Besides..Les tends to whine about having to film himself most of the time anyway.

Well you see Bear Grylls HAS to have a camera crew for one reason. Man Vs. Wild shows extreme forms of survival on purpose. This is why Bear uses a camera crew..how else would he get shots of him climbing a perfectly smooth tree with his shoe laces or down the sheer face of a waterfall. The things Bear does means he needs a camera crew. Discovery has both of these shows because one is normal survival tactics why the other is for the most extreme situations.

They are both great shows but I do think Survivorman is the better of the two. I could just be nitpicking, but Man v. Wild has some moments when the camera crew just seems to do magical things, like in the Everglades Episode. He had to climb a tree to get over a deep area with some alligaters, they film him getting across but the camera crew obviously cannot get across that way, so something has to happen that leaves some questions to the overall validity of the show.

I have to say that having watched both, Bear wins hands down! After watching suvivorman a few times i notice he very rarely seems to catch anything, and usually by the end of the show I end up feeling sorry for him as he comes across quite pathetic really. One example was his attempt at an igloo which was woeful, he then had an “ingenious” idea of catching some food. It involved him sitting behind the wall of his igloo whilst he placed a scrap of food on top of it, the plan was when a bird came to eat the food he would grab it with his hand, suffice to say it didnt work much like most of his other traps!

These are both TV shows for entertianment. Of course both have to go home eventually, both have families. Maybe Les does remind us of his camera equipment and a radio or something the same. But, Les can get into trouble at any given moment and we would not know about it until his crew finds his body and rewinds the tape. Bear doesnt have that problem. Think about it!

Edward Michael “Bear” Grylls

–passed UK Special Forces Selection, serving as a sabre soldier, trained in unarmed combat, desert and winter warfare, combat survival, medics, parachuting, signals, evasive driving, climbing and explosives
–Lieutenant Commander in the UK’s Royal Naval Reserve
–at the age of 23, the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest and return alive
–owns an island on the Welsh coast, which includes a nature reserve
–lives on a converted barge on the River Thames with his wife Shara and his sons Jesse and Marmaduke.

BAD-ASS.

i think that bear wins hands down because the pansy les always uses manufactured goods to help him and thats not the point off the show like in the episode he is stranded out in the ocean he had a raft food fresh water a pump to keep the raft full and had a rumber dingy be hind him which he sleeps in because his large manufactured raft with a tent on top is “wet” but see Bear made his own raft that he had to be wet to get on and bear doesnt cook most of his food hince the snake he ate raw while it was stile squirming Bear has also never been rescued from any of his trips Les thats not the case he has been recued from neumerus trips i guess thats all

BEAR ALL THE WAY

I agree that Bear is more hard-corps. Its ok not to be as cautious when a crew is with you. Bear even stated in an interview that his crew can get involved in a life or death situation. Has Bear ever been out for 7 days? I would like to see Bear do a lost at sea show. Remember when Les ate the “squirming” scorpion? Didnt Les do a show with a pretended arm injury for at least 2 days? Les doesnt have a flint……..

hope Les will have new episodes soon, I have watched the reruns until my wife thinks I’m crazy.I recently had quadruple heart bypass surgery. watching survivorman helped me make it through some hard times, the show helps me to relax and forget my problems for a while. Bear is ok but les is my favorite.

These guys ought to do a crossover show in which they are both onscreen at the same time with no camera crew. Just the two of them. Les does his own thing and tries to steal the show from Bear because after all, he controls the camera. He can film Bear in all the wrong spots, like Bear taking a dump or picking his nose.

Then, we can see these guys mock each other and get into a fight. Bear would probably win because he has the military training. Anyways, I admit I find the Bear show more entertaining, but I respect Les Stroud for doing it all himself. Les will be hosting Shark Week this year so at least he will get to be on one of my favorite series this summer.

~C

I think that of the two, Les is the better at surviving. Man vs. Wild is more of an instruction show. Bear shows you what to do in certain situations in different places. Like if you got caught in quicksand, how to get out of it. If you are really hot, how to cool down, etc, etc. He is just showing YOU what to do if you are in those situations. Les is just out there trying to survive. Period. So the shows are really very differant. Man vs. Wild, instruction show. Survivorman, Les surviving for you entertainment.

Well, i like both shows, but only when i watch Survivorman, do i think ‘Les, you’re the man!’

Maybe it’s true that Bear doesn’t get help from the camera-crew, but i’m convinced the crew is shooting him energy bars and bottled water when the camera isn’t rolling.

Survivorman is more authentic too because of all the mistakes he makes. It only goes to show that even an expert does them, and not only does he learn from his mistakes, but so do we. And some of the things Bear does is just outrageous. Not only are some of the stunts things you should NEVER do while trying to survive, but that many of the things he does require expert training to begin with… and if you’ve been trained in no harness mountain climbing, i’m sure you would already know when to use it and how.

Also, as much of a fan of Les as i am… i really hope he doesn’t do more than another season or two. I really don’t want him to get too extreme and putting himself in serious danger. And if anybody thinks when Les does is easy, try going backpacking for a week with all the gear you can travel, and it’s hard enough. Now try doing it with nothing but a multi-tool, no food or water, no shelter, no fire starter, and 50lbs of camera gear that you need to film yourself. Anybody who’s ever backpacked for more than a couple of days can appreciate how difficult it is.

Les for me.

Les and Bear are both awesome!!! I saw someone who listed all the things the make Bear ‘bad-ass’. How about for Les:
-Lived a paleolithic existence for a year with his wife.
-Led survival courses in northern Ontario.
-Award-winning documentary film-maker.
-Renowned Blues harmonica player and professional musician.

Why does everyone have to compare them? They both do crazy stuff a lot of people can not do.

Bear is better because Les just stays in one place while Bear tries to find his way out. If you are lost in a dangerious area, you should always try to find a way home, instead of just waiting for help that may never come.

In the one episode i saw of survivorman, Les had to put up a beacon thing on his raft and get picked up. Also, 90% of the time he is just sitting or walking whilst complaining about sitting and walking. MvW is much more exciting and entertaining which is what usually look for in a TV show. Maybe if i was going to go on a solo hike in a place I’d never been and no one lives, I’d watch a few episodes of survivorman, but since i dont see that happening any time soon, I think ill just stick with Bear.

Bear carries a flint in some episodes because nobody wants to watch him rub sticks together for 15 minutes every episode. I am confident that Bear knows how to make a fire without a flint, as I have seen him do it several different ways in several different episodes. I prefer that he brings a flint going forward so we don’t have to watch him wine about making a fire for 15 minutes every episode like you do in survivor man.

Survivorman has been known to bring a flint too. Les reminds me too much of that annoying hippy Grizzly Man. And I really get tired of his whining. Yeah, I know its hard. Thats why you, the expert, are getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to do it.

So he sets up his own camera. I don’t really care. It would be a lot harder for him if he wore 15 pound weights on his show too. That doesn’t make it more interesting for me. This is television. Interesting camera angles are part of the medium.

And for those of you who accuse Bear’s camera crew of slipping him energy bars and stuff, what is to stop Les or Bear from bringing their own? When it comes down to it, the camera crew doesn’t make any difference, as its just as easy to cheat without them.

Man vs. Wild is definetly the better show. He tries to get out of and area and travels far and wide with nothing but a pocket knife, canteen and flint. He has a two man camera crew because when you’re traveling miles through the mountains and rainforest it’s hard to film yourself. The guy was British Special Forces he could survive by himself for a life time anywhere.
Survivorman is boring and the guy just sits around whining for a week before he is saved. He is also more equipted and never in as dangerous situations as Bear. Yea he does it himself but thats cus he just sits around. Another thing, how can a guy who almost starves to death for a week at a time be so chunky and out of shape looking? He must pig out while not filming or he’s getting fed.
I learn much more from Bear than I do Les. Everyone needs to stop whining that Les does it himself and is more realistic. I believe that Bear isnt getting help cus if the man was in the Special Forces than he can do it by himself. I’d like to see Les climb across 100 foot ravines by hanging from a tree with only his arm strength. Yea there’s usually an easier way cus the film crew gets across but he’s showing you how you gotta do it if there isnt any easy way across.

I agree with justin. Survivorman is a sissy. I’ve backpacked for many years and survivorman has taught me nothing. Even My wife “who is canadian” says Les is a sissy. I believe the shows are ment to teach us how to survive and Bear does that. I also recall someone saying that Bear would get you killed with some of his stunts. Well… if your that pathetic and out of shape then go around the obstacle. As for me I like learning new ways to get out of difficult situations.

yeah well i know teh right anser to eberyting and eberyon is an idoit hwo htinks im rong… Almost everybody posting stuff on this page sucks at using simple grammar and punctuation. Les Stroud is a much more down to Earth and likeable guy than Bear Grylls, but obviously Discovery Channel realized the very real fact that Man vs. Wild is a much more exciting and TV friendly show.

Mitchell, you are smart. Soo smart. Whats it like?

I like both shows.

Bear is much more positive, which isn’t surprising because he’s a motivational speaker. He’s always stressing the importance of not giving up. I also like his bits of trivia obviously culled by his research staff.

Les is more human. He’s what you would hope to be like if you ended up in a situation that he puts himself in. His is a much more realistic journey, and one that feels more authentic - not a National Geographic documentary.

As for Canadians being badasses, I don’t know how anyone could doubt that given the fact that Hockey is their national “sport”. Hockey isn’t even a real sport - it’s a fistfight on ice. Brutally entertaining but sport? Come on…

I am indeed very smart dp… it feels just like that feeling when you yawn too hard and you end up passing out. And then when you wake up you’re in a magical land filled with mushrooms and caterpillars with giant appendages who ask you to marry them. Do NOT marry the caterpillars however, as they are succubi who will drain you of your manhood. Instead, run the opposite direction and you will find the legendary Robocop Pizza where you can “cook it up your damn self”. Once the Robocop pizza has been consumed it is once again safe to take a nap.

That, dp, is what it feels like to be so smart.

On a side note, Les Stroud is coming back to the Discovery Channel to do another season of Survivorman.

Wow,, I find it hard to believe there is even a discussion as to which is “better”. Ok, I guess if you define “better” as a guy who bitches and moans about his prediciment(that he put himself if) CONSTANTLY, rarely makes a decent shelter(if he does it looks like a three year olds “fort”), is content to eat a few berries and wait for his producer to come find him, then,, yeah,, I guess Les is “better”. The fact is these shows claim to show you how to survive in the wild,,the focus of MVW is to educate about food options/actual shelter making/navigation using nature/etc. Les takes a rifle,seal meat, and a gasoline soaked rag into the wild one episode,,I dont even take a rifle camping,,this guy is a joke and whines like a b*tch,,,

No doubt. Les actually shows you what you SHOULD do to survive, Bear puts himself in predicaments that would risk injury - how many times do we need to see him take on rapids while grasping onto a “raft”?? seriously…he jumps in rivers that are 50 degrees (?), exposing himself to broken bones (as he says things like “my knees are taking a beating!”), and exposing himself to hypothermia (as he says things like “it’s getting dark, I’d better get out of this freezing water and get dry!”). plus, I get the sense bear is out for like 2 nights tops.

Les wins, if only because he doesn’t jump into rivers. Seriously, any little barb wire, small sapling or rock could paralyze him. I am a 4 year infantryman, worked seven night shifts in an adjudicated youth program where we made fires with sticks, and have experience from northern Great Lakes in winter for a week to my present Sonoran Desert (albeit Tucson) home. Bear is in shape, but Les shows more caution while alone. If I had to show a series of back-back clips to a novice, I’s show Les hands down. However, both certainly show the need to learn all you can.

of course Bear puts himself in dangerous situations. he does it so that when tourists are being stupid on end up in situations like him they can get out. (if they watched the show). do you think all those times he talks about people getting caught in the same situation he’s getting into he’s making it up? and unlike Les, Bear isnt afraid of a little danger. the man was freakin SAS it takes alot to scare him. and he’s not gona bitch for the whole hour of show about how cold and hungry he is. i love how Les lives off crappy berries and can’t even catch a squirrell and Bear is making spears, and bows and fishing poles. thanks to him i know how to do all that if i get lost in the woods and get hungry. im not eating crappy berries im getting a rabbit and some fish. it’s funny how people always say that Bear’s show is fake cus he has cameraman. well just cus Les films it himself doesn’t mean he’s alone people. Is he filming straight through 7 days? do you watch an hour straight of uncut film? NO. will somebody tell me why Les is chubby for a guy that starves for a week at a time? anybody?

From the the London Times, July 24/2007

“TO LIVE up to his public image of a rugged, ex-SAS adventurer, it must have seemed essential for Bear Grylls to appear at ease sleeping rough and catching his own food in his television survival series.

But it has emerged that Grylls, 33, was enjoying a far more conventional form of comfort, retreating some nights from filming in mountains and on desert islands to nearby lodges and hotels.

Now Channel 4 has launched an investigation into whether Grylls, who has conquered Everest and the Arctic, deceived the public in his series Born Survivor.

The series, screened in March and April and watched by 1.4m viewers, built up Grylls’s credentials as a tough outdoorsman. In a question and answer session on Channel 4’s website, he recalls how station bosses pitched the venture to him stating: “We just drop you into a lot of different hellholes equipped with nothing, and you do what you have to do to survive.”

But an adviser to Born Survivor has disclosed that at one location where the adventurer claimed to be a “real life Robinson Crusoe” trapped on “a desert island”, he was actually on an outlying part of the Hawaiian archipelago and spent nights at a motel.

On another occasion in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains where he was filmed biting off the head of a snake for breakfast and struggling for survival “with just a water bottle, a cup and a flint for making fire”, he actually slept some nights with the crew in a lodge fitted with television and internet access. The Pines Resort at Bass Lake is advertised as “a cosy getaway for families” with blueberry pancakes for breakfast.

In one episode Grylls, son of the late Tory MP Sir Michael Grylls, was shown apparently building a Polynesian-style raft using only materials around him, including bamboo, hibiscus twine and palm leaves for a sail.

But according to Mark Weinert, an Oregon-based survival consultant brought in for the job, it was he who led the team that built the raft. It was then dismantled so that Grylls could be shown building it on camera.

In another episode viewers watched as Grylls tried to coax an apparently wild mustang into a lasso in the Sierra Nevada. “I’m in luck,” he told viewers, apparently coming across four wild horses grazing in a meadow. “A chance to use an old native American mode of transport comes my way. This is one of the few places in the whole of the US where horses still roam wild.”

In fact, Weinert said, the horses were not wild but were brought in by trailer from a nearby trekking station for the “choreographed” feature.

“If you really believe everything happens the way it is shown on TV, you are being a little bit naive,” he said.

Channel 4 confirmed that Grylls had used hotels during expeditions and has now asked Diverse, the Bristol-based production company that made the programme, to look into the other claims.

“We take any allegations of misleading our audiences seriously,” said a spokeswoman for the channel.

The latest suggestion that Channel 4 may have breached viewer trust comes as the broad-caster’s supervisory board prepares to issue new editorial guidelines to suppliers in order to stamp out alleged sharp practices that mislead viewers.

“Born Survivor is not an observational documentary series but a ‘how to’ guide to basic survival techniques in extreme environments,” the spokeswoman said.

“The programme explicitly does not claim that presenter Bear Grylls’s experience is one of unaided solo survival.”

Nevertheless, the disclosure is likely to disappoint fans of the Eton-educated adventurer, who at the age of 23 became the youngest Briton to scale Everest. Just two years before that he had broken his back in three places after his parachute ripped during a military exercise.

On screen he has emerged as a natural performer, with stunts such as squeezing water from animal dung and sucking the fluid from fish eyeballs.

Grylls could not be contacted for comment this weekend as he was trekking in the Brecon Beacons with his four-year-old son.”

No wonder Bear doesn’t whine like Les! Anytime he wants a beer or a glass of champagne, he just gets one of the cameramen to open the bottle for him. Tough work, you British cock-up of an ex SAS chest beater! Now, what make of helicopter dropped you off on the top of Mt. Everest, you utter and complete fake?

And as for those TV viewers who thought Bear was really tough, I have an ex SAS fold-up version of London Bridge going cheap, you suckers.

Mitchell Fitzronaldson, you sound cleverly hunky. I would like to meet you and divulge in your intelligence. Tell me more about these magical lands and robocop pizzas you speak of.Oh, how I wish to go there. I personally like both shows, however, the guy who pronounces glacier “Glass-ie-er” annoys me.

A fake? Bear is a fake? man he must have fooled the whole British government to become SAS. you know know that i think of it i dont really care who’s whos is more real. all i know is that Bear teaches me a lot more than Les. I doubt is Bear is sleeping in lodges but if he is i dont really care beause he is still better than Les and would out last him in the wild.
wmba is full of crap. Bear earned his way into the hardest military training the British military has to offer. (im not saying it’s better than the U.S.) Wow! Bear wasn’t able to comment because he was with his son! what a bastard! wmba you’re an idiot. Bear a fake? dude common really? is he using a stunt double? i dont think so. Bear is better than Les on any level. Special Air Service! top Bitish special ops! yea he’s a fake.

Justin asked…

“do you think all those times he talks about people getting caught in the same situation he’s getting into he’s making it up? ”

maybe not…however there seems to be quite a bit he has made up.

Justin stated…

” i love how Les lives off crappy berries and can’t even catch a squirrell and Bear is making spears, and bows and fishing poles”

it was also reported bear doesn’t actually make some of the tools, huts, rafts, etc. he watched a crew of consultants make/build then disassemble the raft. on film he only had to lash together a few pre-cut logs with his pre-made twine.

Yeah, I don’t think anyone is saying Bear is a complete fake as a person- you don’t like trip and fall and accidentally climb Mt Everest and become an SAS officer, but there is no doubt his show is a sham. And while he gives some good information about survival, when it comes to actually being alone in a real survival situation I’m with Les by not jumping off 60′ cliffs into raging 40 degree rivers. It’s just a little too over the top to be real no matter how cool he is.

Ha, good stuff Mitchell.

check this out:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3412744&page=1

i dont care if MvW is fake…its good entertainment….id rather watch a guy eat a turtle and jump into ice water than watch a guy complain about camera gear all day

thats just my 5 cents

I think both shows are bad. Bear always says the same thing in every episode, I always know when he’s going to make a comment about someone that died in each place, it’s getting old and boring already.

In the episode where Les is lost in the snowy place. He has an ax in his plane, just answer one question how many planes do you know of carry ax’s

Man vs wild is still my favorite but i found it funny when he found the metal boat in alaska. The boat was in a GREEN grassy field. When he lifted up the boat the grass was green underneath the boat. If the boat had been there for any decent period of time the grass under the boat should have been yellow and dead. So clearly, the boat had been recently placed their for bear to “find”. It is still a good show though.

man vs wild wins hands down. Les sucks!!! all he ever does is sits there with his thumb up his ass bitching and moaning

ok i read some of these comments and im sick and tired of all of you people thinking bear is any better. look we all know bear is getting help off set and none of you have the right to deny what is true. sure bear accomplished all of that on his own but les is a common musician! part of what les shows in many of his episodes is that an close to average person can do all that he does. and yah les complains sometimes but that is only because he is real! bear is most likely complaining 10 times more than les, its just off screen. and yah les gets picked up sometimes, and that is the aim of the show: to be REAL! REAL people get missing peoples reports filed by their friends and family. then, search parties are sent out. LES IS REAL. for all you people know bear could be filming what he says is an hour in multiple months. its simply in increments.

Both guys are good outdoorsman. The comments from some of you people don’t make any sense. Did you actually watch the shows? Survivorman has more integrity and less fluff than MvW. Baer takes chances that a normal hiker shouln’t. Also, Baer cheats on almost every episode. He admits it. When he floated down the river, he had a life jacket on. He doesn’t carry his own camera equipment. The wild horses were flown in. He’s been spotted staying in hotels when he’s supposed to have been out in the wild. There’s more….but you get the point. MvW is totally staged, but if it entertains you, so be it.

Bear would kick les’s ass im afraid. Discovery channel made him wear a lifejacket when going down the rapids. It doesnt take away from the legitamacy of his ideas one bit. Man Vs. Wild is hands down a better survival show. And i am willing to bet Les has a way of contacting help if he runs into trouble. Guaronteed.

ps. he climbed everest. and crossed the pacific ON HIS OWN. if his contract said no camera crew im sure he would care less.

I cant stand Survivorman. If it isn’t boring the hell out of me it’s making me laugh watching Les pathetically trying to survive. I forced myself to watch a couple episodes to see why people think he is so great and the ultimate outdoorsman. But after watching him for a couple hours (it was a marathon) i came to the conclusion that this man isn’t anymore capable of surviving in the wilderness than i am.

Every episode i watched consisted of him almost starving to death by the end of a week. most of the time all he eats are scraps that he is given or bite size berries and other little plants. one episode he was actually trying to catch a seal and then later after he failed he put a seal bone with meat on it (which he was given) on top of his makeshift igloo hoping to catch a bird in his bare hands to eat. I laughed out loud at that one! he was later saved that episode by a native with a dogsled team and food. (he was 2 days away from town by dogsled and faint with hunger).

Les is not a “survivorman” and and anyone who wants to argue can go watch an episode where he barely beats starvation after a week. I laughed again after two back to back shows he says almost the same exact line. he kept saying that this place and that place was my hardest time yet. (he was in the woods full of plants and animals when he said it one time). HE DISPLAYS A PATHETIC ATTEMPT AT SURVIVAL FOR A MAN WHO HAS IS OWN TV SHOW ON THE SUBJECT.

Now for Bear. So many say that Bear cheats and stays in hotels and has help and does this and that. A couple of you guys whined that Bear had a life jacket on when he jumped into rapids. (Les wouldnt wade across a waist deep river in one episode.) Does anyone know what the SAS is? It is Britains premiere special forces outfit. Equivilant to many of the U.S. special forces. You all must know by known that bear is a SAS veteran and still in the reserves. (He is only doing tv because he broke his back in a parachuting accident.) Does anyone want to tell me that he had a camera crew and a life jacket during the hardest training the British military has to offer? You idiots think he was staying in luxurious hotels while the rest were rolling in the mud and jumping out of airplanes? Maybe he made a quick stop at a Holiday Inn while on his way up Everest.

I dont give a flying freak if the man gets a life jacket or is given a candy bar by the camera crew, he is tougher and smarter and has more balls than anyone in this room who has the nerve to insult him. The shows are a walk in the park compared to the training he did and the operations he could had done that we will never know about. He doesnt even need the money!!! His father was a knight and they own their own island. He is doing this because he wants to. Stop with your girly tabloid gossip and think logically. He is given is trusty knife, a canteen and a flint and he survives on that and his training to get him over miles and miles of wild terrain. (Les usually stays in the same area most of the week.)

I have learned more of what to do from Bear and what not to waste calories on from Les. Anyone who thinks Les could survive longer in the wild than Bear is a fool. Bear has years of survival training from one of the worlds elite special forces and Les is a “musician” with a harmonica. One show is exciting and dangerous to teach you and the other shows a man struggling in the wild for a week on a couple berries. I dont care if the commando gets s camera crew while he scales cliffs and dives into raging rivers. The point of the show is to educate while entertaining and the one does that while the other bores you and shows you how you can’t make a fire.

Justin, you are a joke. Why are you talking about the SAS and Everest? The discussion is on which show better shows you how to survive. It doesn’t matter what Edward “Bear” Grylls did in the past. Stay in the present man.

Now, let’s talk about what these guys are doing in the present. Les is SURVIVING, on his own, for seven days. He does what he says. Each show is packed full of survival trips and tricks. Les shows you how to minimize your caloric output while finding food, building fires, and making shelters. If you have a limited amount of food, you have to conserve energy like Les does, not expend it wildly like Ed.

Ed, on the other hand, goes into the wild with a camera crew constantly assisting him - and lies about it. When the going gets too tough, he stays in a comfy hotel. Sure, he does some pretty badass stuff - but its not the kind of stuff you’ll learn from any real life survival expert. His show depicts a false reality of a badass conquering the wilderness. Yeah, it’s entertaining, I enjoy it, but it doesn’t teach you how to survive in the wilderness. Everything about his show is changed to make it more entertaining to people with small attention spans. Even his name, Edward, is changed to “Bear” to make him seem cooler.

If you want to spend time talking about your man-crush on Ed, go somewhere else. That’s not the discussion at hand.

i believe i did talk about the topic ac patriot. if you were paying attention you would know that. Les is not succesfully surviving he is struggling in the wild for a week and barely making it out alive. Are you watching the same show i am. he burns more calories failing at stupid attempts to find food and make shelter. i dont think he ever gets more than 500 calories in him after a week and he is burning thousands in his failed attempts. this man cannot survive in the same place for anymore than a week. I really dont understand where your getting these thoughts that he is a born survivor. Why is he always starving and barely able to stand after half the episodes. thats not what i call a survivorman. I actually LEARN from Bear, something i dont get from Les. Im sick and tired of you people saying he is cheating. You bring me actual proof that he is staying in hotels and getting help. anything a picture a documnet something. give me proof! and ill back off. Bear succesfuly shows you how to make shelters and where you can find them. he shows you how you can make equiptment to actually catch REAL food. (as in meat not little berries). and he shows you what plants are good to eat and what they can be used for. Hes not telling you to jump into raging rivers and wade through quick sand. He does it to explain to you how you can do it and SURVIVE through it if it is absolutely neccessary. oh and the name “Bear” probably came from his old SAS buddies. try him in hand to hand combat and you might find out why they call him Bear.

Les, by far is the winner, and although im not going to be putting a huge paragraph here, I just think Bear gets off with some things, a little easily, like finding a shovel and a rowboat, or finding a rope leading to no where, that magically brought him to a village….

I’ve only watched a few mins of MvW, but the parts that I saw, Bear was doing some needless stuff, just to do it. If you are stranded, somewhere you do not know, I’m guessing your not going to climb a tree, just to do it. Also, I’ve seen the guy, take parts of a zebra, and put it in his pocket, then walk past some hungry lions. Now, not saying that lions are going to molest him in his sleep, having dead, rotting flesh in your pocket, and not getting out of the wild that day, Im guessing your goign to wake up with something in your pocket that you did not put there, usally, the mouth of something.

Les, does all of his camera stuff, all of it. Sure he complains about it, but who wouldnt? I mean, he makes a valid point reminding everyone that he has to go pick up all the cameras he left because of the cool shot he wanted. Les, to some of you might be a sissy, but he carries his gear, is left with the bare essentials, and teaches how to stay in one spot if your lost, so you can get your bearing and the strength to get to where you are going..

Lets see bear in alaska, or you know, a boat in the middle of the ocean, although I’m sure the Camera Cruise would be right of the Stern of the ship.

The title ‘Survivorman’ is a little misleading. I expected to see a bushcraft expert. Someone who could be dropped in the middle of nowhere and not just survive but thrive off the land. To be able to live there comfortably and indefinitely, demonstrating all the techniques needed to survive. Concentrating on the smaller finer points of bushcraft survival, the stuff Man vs wild doesn’t have time to focus on.

What I actually viewed was what appeared to be your typical everyday lost american tourist (I know he’s Canadian but american sounds more insulting) who was struggling with the simplest of tasks showing complete and total incompetence in the field of survival or bushcraft. The guy cant even make a decent shelter, I mean come on, its one of the first topics you study in order to learn survival/ bush techniques. And for someone who basically goes camping for seven days in the same spot, you would think he would be good at making a shelter at least.

I think the guy will have a far more successful career behind the camera rather than in front.
Maybe if he asks Bear Grylls nicely he might let him be one of his camera men… Think Les might need to get in shape a bit before they’ll actually consider him though.

zach the rowboat leaked, and he had to swim to an iceberg and climb out. he almost died because of this convenience. you are a moron.

He almost died? Wow, im sure the Camera crew didnt have some sort of long cable like substance that they could have thrown in at him, some sort of black cable, that might go into cameras….

Yep “D Train” I’m an idiot, I mean, it must be fate, him ’stranded’ in the wilderness to happen to stumble over a rowboat and wouldn’t you know it, it leaked…

Thank God Bear is like Chuck Norris, and he could walk on the water…..

….idiot.

Zach….. What a F**king idiot!!!!!!
Even if they did have a rope they could throw the guy, whats that going do? stop him from drowning?….
You honestly think the SAS would recruit somebody that couldn’t swim?

Have you ever swam in freezing water? have you ever heard of hypothermia?
In those kinda conditions you cant keep you c*ck outer your pants for more than a minute to pee or it’ll freeze off!

Do you even know what it takes to join the SAS???
They train around 200 recruits from various military backgrounds, and I don’t mean just any recruits, these guys have to be the elite of their chosen field of expertise, and have to of proven their skills in combat on more than one occasion.
From these 200 only 2 - 4 people will actually make it.
They have the toughest training regime in the world… Fact!

One of the tests they do is as follows: -
One man is sent out into the countryside with a half hour head start wearing baggy pants, boots with laces and a waterproof jacket. He is then pursued by an entire army consisting of TA, choppers and dogs. The TA are equipped with night-vision goggles, infra-red and heat detectors as well as the choppers. The goal is for the recruit to try and evade the army for 7 days surviving off the land only using those items of clothing (no knife, flint nor any food or water) once he is caught or after he has evaded them, his reward is…..
7 days of torture!!!!!!
I don’t just mean torture, I mean real torture. They need to know that he can handle any form of torture that the Iraqi’s or anyone else can deliver. The army are taught to hate the SAS guy they have captured, pure hate, just as though the enemy had captured them.

If you make it into the SAS, you train 7 days a week 364 days a year.
They get Xmas off, how nice.
This training consists of the killing house…… I don’t want to go into to much detail, but you can probably research this on the net. (it’s live ammo training in a combat house, training to master the art of confusion to distract the enemy)

It was an American-British SAS officer that went back to america who started the american spec-ops.
Since the americans witnessed the Iranian Embassy siege in the 80’s they have relied on the SAS to help train their own spec-ops and both country’s often hold demonstrations of their technique and skill and share training secrets.

As was once said by the fictional character Colonel Samuel Trautman in ‘Rambo; First Blood’
“an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a man who’s the best, with guns, with knives, with his bare hands. A man who’s been trained to ignore pain, ignore weather, to live off the land, to eat things that would make a billy goat puke” - the same can be said for Bear Grylls….. Badass!

Don’t be fooled, thugs and ‘hard’ men can’t cut the SAS, it brakes them down into maggots. The people capable of passing SAS training are the soundest and most down to earth level headed people you can meet.

Lmao, I just saw one of your above comments….
“I’d like to see Bear in Alaska” - Done, Watch it you might learn something.
“I’d like to see Bear in a boat in the ocean” Hahaha, He was dropped into the ocean WITHOUT a boat and showed viewers how to survive, not only this but then how to make it onto a cliff face from the crashing waves and tretious currents, then survived on the island un till he could actually live their indefinitely….. but what if you couldn’t? well then he shows how to make a sea worthy raft and how to survive on the raft…..

Then you watch Les string 3 logs together and try to stand on them…. only to fall off. What a joke.

Perhaps you should actually watch the show before you start running your mouth!

Lmao, I just saw one of your above comments….
“I’d like to see Bear in Alaska” - Done, Watch it you might learn something.
“I’d like to see Bear in a boat in the ocean” Hahaha, He was dropped into the ocean WITHOUT a boat and showed viewers how to survive, not only this but then how to make it onto a cliff face from the crashing waves and currents, then survived on the island until he could actually live their indefinitely….. but what if you couldn’t? well then he shows how to make a sea worthy raft and how to survive on the raft…..

Then you watch Les string 3 logs together and try to stand on them…. only to fall off. What a joke.

Perhaps you should actually watch the show before you start running your mouth!

Wait, wait wait…

Bear was in the ocean, really?

Tell me, how…did…they film it?

I mean, was the Camera Crew…like, just using a really good zoom from the Island,

or, maybe they…were on a boat..

Huh.
Damn Magical Camera Crews and they’re magical ways of magic.

And Andy.

Im not saying that the guy couldnt swim, I’m just saying that I really Seriously doubt that the camera crew would go “Shit, this guy is drowning, but wait a min. can’t intervene due to the reality of the show.

So calm down, I never knocked the SAS and the way the can kill someone with a spoon and dental floss, just saying out of the shows, Les’s is better, without a Camerea Crew, it has to be, (not maybe, not kinda) harder. Bear could be all badass as he wants to, he could even be Chuck Norris, he still has his own, personal, magical camera crew.

You Les lovers are a joke! the only arguement any of you guys use is that Les films by himself so he must be a badass! hey i could film myself hiking through my woods too i must be a badass! oh guys and guess what. Les is not stranded by himself to die if something goes wrong. he has a way to communicate with his crew to get him out if he cant take it. he even said so in one of the desert episodes. i beleive his words were something like “if this gets much worse i might have to call this off” .how can he call it off if he’s all by himself? obviously he isnt stranded with no help. oh and why does Les get a bunch of equiptment to use when Bear has almost nothing. just his knife, canteen and flint. how is Les so cool Zach? he is near death after the end of every episode. the man is not even in shape for that show im waiting for him to have a heart attack. again the only arguement you have that Les is better is cus he films it himself and you idiots are all conviced that the SAS vet is getting help because there is a guy filming him. get a better argement or some proof. which nobody had might i add or the show would have been off the air by now. oh and good SAS info Andy. personally i like Navy SEALs better and think they have harder training but its close. they should get a retired SEAL to do a survival show that would be cool. but i bet Zach and everbody else in here would say he was cheating somehow.

No… it’s not magic Zach, are you ready for this? ….
They where swimming with Bear. That’s right Zach, Bears camera crew are capable of swimming in the ocean and filming at the same time. I wish the same could be said for Les….
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing Les’s camera abilities, he is very good with the camera and I’m sure if he got eaten by a bear (no pun intended) or staved to death, he will of caught it all on film, and probably from a good angle to.

Now then, lets forget the whole camera issue, because at the end of the day this is a show on survival rather than a documentary on how to film yourself.

Lets take a look at Les’s ’survival’.
Now we all know that Les uses tamer locations, mainly flat ground with an abundance of water and wildlife, but this is probably because he has to film himself. Yet still he struggles and goes day’s without food, and tries to survive from eating a couple of berries here and there.
How long could Les survive like this… I mean sure it worked in the sense that he’s sill alive, but what if he was out there for more than a week, what if he was marooned for a month.

Trap making.
Yes we’ve all seen Les try to set a trap for animals, but how many times have these trap’s worked? Do you ever get the impression that he just watched one of these being made on TV and tried to copy it? He never seems to be confident in what he’s doing, it’s like its the first time he’s actually tried it before. Now the only successful trap I’ve seen him make is when he caught that turtle from making an ‘m’ shape out of sticks in the water, which wasn’t actually a trap for a turtle as it could of just turned round from the way it came in, from the beach. Now whats to stop Les from just picking the turtle up from somewhere else and putting it in his trap! oh wait, silly me, Les films himself, he can’t possibly be cheating…

Ok so he’s ‘caught’ his turtle. What does he do with it? he chucks it away, yes thats right. He eats its legs and throws the rest away.
Now if he had watched Bear Grylls he would know exactly how to cook a turtle and open the shell.

Who saw Les try to make a deadfall trap? (the one that took 30-40 attempts)
He was like a small child, pathetic.
At the end of it all he forgot to put the food on the stick so it didn’t work. Now apart from common sense with it being the main point to the whole exercise, it should of been instinctive to put the food on first.
And why after say the 5th attempt did he not try to make a different deadfall trap, he kept trying the same one over and over. There is more than one way of making similar deadfall traps, maybe if he was a true survival man he would know these.

Now one of the worst thing’s that can happen in a survival situation apart from injury/death is loosing your moral, it is vital to maintain this in order to stay alive. How long before Les starts moaning, he’s the kind of person you meet who is always too cold, then when you flick the heating on.. yup you guessed it, he’s too hot.
5 min’s into day one and he’s already winging and moaning. Not the kinda guy you want to go camping with. I suppose he would be helpful with survival, in the sense that I could eat him to aid my own survival.

Hi Justin, yeah man Navy SEAL’s kick ass. I have the utmost respect for anybody that can pass any form of Spec-ops training as words cannot describe how tough that must be. And the mental discipline required must be immense.
I’d love to see Les try to ’survive’ the regular army.

Face facts, Les would gut Bear like a fish with his Leatherman Wave Multi-Tool, $69.99 at Sports Authority.

Oh, Andy, relax.

I think that both shows r good, but if they were to fight bear would crush les.

im with ny city boy.

Wasn’t it recently discovered that Bear had been staying in hotels during his “wilderness survival”? Like his behavior on the show didn’t obliterate his credibility. From what I’ve seen, he’s a showman, not a survivalist. Meh.

Les Stroud is out there by himself and shows safe, rational ways to survive. And he doesn’t mind allowing the public to see when it doesn’t work out exactly as planned, just like in a real survival situation. HE’S the real deal.

If it came down to who would actually survive in the wild - which, as I understand, is the actual premise of their shows - it would definitely be Les Stroud. Who cares which of them would kick the other’s butt? Bear wouldn’t live long enough to get the chance.

Thank you Jill

yea Bear is a fake and he does cheat on his show but he is still better then les. i just saw the eposide of surviorman were he goes to the amazon. he gets foot fungis and keeps on saying that he might have to “call it off” and its not losing a foot over. then 3 cameras break down so he goes to an abandoned shelter that the producers told him about. then a jaguar spots him so he runs to an amazon village that he was told about. the amazon people treat his fungis gave him food and protected him from the animals. i thought he was suposed to do all those things. not one time did he catch any food other then 2small shrimp even though he tried. les is no survior he would die if he was left in the wild for more then a week. he never catches nothin, sometimes he will nibble at some berries, mushrooms or some other dumb shit that has no nutrients or calories.by the end of the show he can hardly stand then gets rescued.
on the other hand bear drinks piss and rotten zebra meat that he finds prolly cause they give him a shit load of anti parasite medicine and anti biotics but they both teach dumb shit. i remeber bear said it was safe to drink piss and les said that piss had toxins and wasnt safe to drink. anyways neither of them show how to survive good.
bear would destroy les in a fight

I looked at a couple pages of this forum and some things people say are as stupid as they come. “Les a sissy” … You try lugging around 50 pounds of camera equipment while trying to survive. I dont care if you dont like the show, but at least show some intelligence.

Personally, I enjoy watching survivorman more. M versus W is entertaining, but I can watch shows far more entertaining with actual wit and cleverness. All Bear does is Jackass skits like getting water from poo. Survivorman is a perfect show for a wednesday night after work when you want to relax. He gives very helpful tips.

Unfortunately, shows like man versus wild are forcing survivorman to be stuck in even more extreme locations. Like Kalahari desert: where its gets to 140 degrees F.

I love how people insult each other on the internet rather than just getting their point across in a friendly manner…

I LOVE both shows. Bear is much more of a bad ass, but since I am not, I can relate to Les better. The stuff that Bear does would require a lot of energy. Being stranded for so long using as much energy as he does, one would die. I mean, eventually your body would start eatting away at your fat and then muscle. Les just shows how to conserve energy better than Bear does. However, Bear is more of a risk taker. So he shows you how to get out of the more severe situations that one attempting to survive would come across.

I like that Les is common like me and shows me a simpler, less bad ass version of how to survive (and yes, complain, just like I would). But I also like that Bear is the bad ass that he is and shows me how to be a bad ass if I needed too.

Can’t we all just get along and appreciate these shows for what they are? One man who has no camera crew who whines and doesn’t really show you how to get out of an intense situation, (like a lot of us would) and the other who has a camera crew and shows you how to get out of the intense situations, and of course is a total bad ass in “real” life.

Okay; once and for all… Les Stroud couldn’t survive in a KOA! He is the biggest crying whimp! In his last two shows he didn’t make it. The one in the jungle he gets trench foot. It shows him pouring water from his boots. I’m here to tell you that you don’t wear boots in the jungle! You wear self bailing type footwear and no socks. At the begining of the show, his whole idea, it says; “No food, no water, no shelter”. He stayed in a pole barn! In the desert he had 5 gal. of water, PB&J and a hugh egg! And a piece of chocolate in his pocket that didn’t melt in the desert heat! Yes, Bear Grylls is not 100% real just like Les is not. But Bear does more in an hour then Les does in 5 days. No, he doesn’t stay 7. The first day is almost over when he starts, and he’s done early on the 7th. I could go on. But the bottom line is … he’s a whining, out of shape, fake, un-professional boring guy who sold his show only because he is a cameraman and it costs less that way. He would have died in almost all his excurtions without help. For survial info. Bear and Les are useless. For entertainment Bear is great. For whinning and stupidity, Les rules!

I think you should look at it from both ways. Let’s take into account that Les has NO food. For a week. Bear does one “bad ass” thing and then drinks a beer. Les films himself and carries his gear everywhere he goes. Bear has a film crew, and probably does many takes and and has many chances to do the “bad ass” things that he does. I think Les could do what Bear does, but could Bear do what Les does? Take the Amazon show. I think Bear, being more fit, would be better for the first few days. Les, having more fat, would survive longer. Lets not forget that Les does endurance racing and knows how to conserve energy. He also probably eats 6,000 calories a day before he films. They would both have to research the location or would most certainly die in 2 days or less. If Bear did some of the “bad ass” stupid shit on most of his shows in real time in real life in the Amazon he would die. Plain and simple. He doesn’t have the chance to set up the “bad ass” thing he’s about to do. He doesn’t have a someone to film him doing it. Sure, Bear could do some crazy shit where he hunts down a monkey in a tree, but would probably get bit or stung by all kinds of shit along the way and most likely die or become painfully incapacitated. But would that be a practical thing to do to survive a week in the Amazon? Now comes the energy part. Les takes him hands down. Even if Bear slept the whole week Les would still be alive and moving with more energy because of his metabolism. I’d like to see what happens when Bear goes without water for 2 days or food for 4. Les could do the same thing Bear does, but it would be much less entertaining because of his personality. And he hasn’t climbed Everest (or maybe he has) or been in the SAS, so he definitely wouldn’t be more “bad ass.” So it comes down to practicality and entertainment. If your plane goes down in the arctic forest (or wherever that one is), it probably would have an ax in it because people who fly there and live there use shit like that. You could use the things you have to get by. If your plane goes down and you decide to take a swim and slide down a rock face that would be cool as hell. But then what? Oh, lets do another fun thing after that and eat a fish out of the stream. I wonder how he found it or even how long or how many takes it took him to get it. But when Les can’t find a fish it’s because there aren’t any. I’m almost pissed off about how you people go on about how he complains and this and that and then get trench foot or has to end the show early because of a jaguar. In Bear’s world, he can do a take and sit on his ass (and probably complain off camera) and then sit on his ass while his feet dry and then edit out the part where he has to run from the jaguar. Bear DOES give you little tips and shows you cool shit that you could do. Once. And then starve to death or get your ass killed. Or maybe dig out a hole in the snow to sleep in. You really think he sleeps in that? Watch Les do it for real and see how it is. His show is fun to watch, but it’s just plain stupidity if you actually consider using what he does to survive for a week or longer. But he never says that’s the aim of his show. On another note, I just watched the Survivorman with the sled dogs and they have to take him and his safety crew out by helicopter because of the slush. But what happened to the dogs after he let them go? If they couldn’t make it out on snowmobiles then those dogs are screwed. And they probably would have killed each other anyway. So I’m hoping someone was ahead of him on the trail to pick them up. But he never said anything about them, so I’m curious to know what happened.

i think you all are looking at it wrong.
sure Les is a baby and whines,
and sure Bear stays in hotels, and what not.
but the point in actual survival is don’t follow what either of them is doing,

Les does dangerous things too all the time, like when he ate mushrooms/berries, many mushrooms/berries are highly toxic, some killing by touch(secretions produced), and most have no nutritional value, at most very hardly any value. Unless you know what you’re doing it is unwise to eat mushrooms at all. Many Les’s traps/shelters suck nuts, and are very dangerous to your health in the long run( i.e storm comes shelter breaks, you’re screwed). But then the argument comes up, “he does it himself”, how do we know that, just because there’s no camera crew? He probably does have a safety team right behind him, with just very careful editing poof they’re gone.

But Bear is no exception, sure he shows the extremes but i would never ever jump off a waterfall, climb sheer faces of rock, even for fun with emts standing by. that is probably the quickest way to kill yourself. This has nothing to do with hotels after wards or anything, its what he shows on screen. “but he is shown how to assemble breforehand”. Well yes he is, but everyone kinda has to before they can do it, its just called training to some people. But still squeezing water out of dung is also highly dangerous, all sorts of bacteria run amuck in the water.

i am not biased towards Bear, its just that everyone defends for Les so hard (even close friends) when they have no understanding of survival, and wont listen to reason, just for the fact that running your own cameras makes you “tough”.

im going to try and stay neutral for this guys and look at each guy.

Les:

where does Les get his survival training from? did he get it from books? was he taught by instructors? or did he make it up by himself?

forget about Bear for a minute. only Les and his show for right now. listen for a minute Les supporters.

how long do you think the average man could survive on the type of food and the amount of food the Les normally finds on his shows? usually meaning berries, mushrooms small plants etc. meat is rarely available in his diet which he desperately needs in his kinds of situations. vegetarians might not need that energy source but then they arent burning the energy and starving like him. a man is not going to survive for over a week on the foods he eats during that week. not enough nutrients or energy in any of that food that he normally gets is going to keep him alive longer than 2 weeks or indefinetly. i hope the people he is teaching dont get lost longer than a week because they will quickly wither and die trying to survive on that food. most of the time at the end of the week he is exhuasted and suffering from malnutrition. this is something that Les supporters cannot debate because it is widely seen by all viewers. that is more fact that opinion. now i said most shows not all he is like that but most. if he is like that after 7 days what about 14 days? think about that.

once again. how long do you all think a man could survive on the type and amount of food Les usually eats in his usually week?

Bear:

Bear is in peak physical condition. (something that Les is not. again that is more fact than opinion. just look at him shirtless. im sorry Les guys but its true and you have seen it.) Bear was trained in survival techniques by the SAS. (Britains best special forces). this means he has been taught literally by the best in the world and most of his teachings probably come from that. i think following Bears teachings would keep you alive if you are the physically fit hiker, cyclist, camper, explorer etc. his show is for the people that are trying to find a way out and not for those who are going to try to wait for help. (which might not come in time). so if you have the drive and the conditioning like Bear does you could cross the rivers, climb the cliffs and hike your way out.

now i dont know if Bear is really cheating or not. (getting help, getting food or staying in hotels) but the teaching could work either way. he does manage to catch more nutritious food also. fish, small animals etc.

in the end if your hoping to be saved by the end of a week you could go with Les. but nobody at all knows where you are and you know you wont be found until its too late and u wana get the hell out of there and your in good shape to do than i would go with Bears style.

Overall, Bear is physically fit, adventurous and capable. He knows his stuff and I do not doubt that he can handle any of the survival situations we have seen him in… But his show is 1) Not a show about survival… 2) Is actually filled with poor survival advice 3) Filled with contrived set-up shots for dramatic effect.

If you are looking for pure entertainment, and don’t mind being lied to for its sake… this show is probably for you. If you really want to learn how to survive while lost in a situation that you, a regular joe, might encounter (camping/hiking/skiing/etc) Bear’s show is not for you.

The bad advice: Bear has told you to drink our own urine (full of toxins)… he advised drinking moisture from elephant dung (saturated with disease causing bacteria)… he advised drifting down river in cold high altitude climates (the fast track to hypothermia)… he heads out at a brisk pace to “get out” and does not advise about the time that it takes to prepare food and shelter (he runs and jumps and clmbs then just settles in for a cozy night next to the fire, which could take hours to light and gather enough wood for in order to get through the night, not to mention preparing a shelter/bedding at all… plus, you can further you dilema by heading farther from rescue and/or civilization by just “going” as he does).

Bottomline, surviving for 7 days (even if you are in a weakened and malnurished state) is generally more than enough to be found by search parties (if you were indeed merely camping/hiking/skiing), or even to move at a more diliberate, safer pace through environments… This is not castaway with Tom Hanks, where you need years of survival… and survival experts will tell you, you can die from exposure and dehydration in just days (even a single night). Bear is not doing anyone favors with his advice… and is actually harming us with his poor advice (drinking urine, and floating along in a rapid… are you serious???).

Really, taking so many risks like repelling water-falls, climbing sheer rock faces, swimming under log-jams (”not knowing” if there is an openning on the other side), jumping into a white-water rapid are all highly ill-advised… don’t take my word for it, read a book or talk to an expert on survival.

Overall, Man vs. Wild is about the adventurous things that Bear can do. It is not about the best survival tips and advice for you…

Justin… are you going to drink urine (full of toxins), squeeze elephant dung for moisture (staurated with disease causing bacteria), jump into a white-water rapid, repell a water-fall, swim under a log-jam not knowing if there is an openning???

Bear’s advice is not just wrong, it could cost you your life… However, If you are looking pure adventurous entertainment, and do not mind being lied to for the sake of the enterainment, then Bear is for you…

Gerenally speaking, most campers/hikers/skiiers/mountain-bikers, etc will be in an area where a search and rescue will take place… Surving for 7 days (even in a weakened state) would be more than enough time… Not to mention, the 7 day survial approach would allow you to move at a more deliberate, safer pace (without tooling along in a river at high altitudes, just asking for hypothermia).

Not to mention, how many times have we seen Bear running, juming, climbing with little to know preparation for fire (collecting enough wood for the night), building shelter, etc. A coule of nights of exposure and you would be dead… Bear’s way would get people killed (just ask those lost skiiers who needed their dog to lay on them to survive). Don’t take my word for it… Go read a survival book or talk with real survival experts (drinking your own urine, indeed).

actually Rich the whole drinking urine thing can be debated all day because of sketchy details on if it can help you survive. people are advised not to because of toxins and salt but others debate that it may help first time around because of less concentrations of salt and toxins and more water. but doing it multiple times is bad. so like i said people are constantly debating that theory so maybe you shouldnt take such an attitude about that.

now smart guy you’re talking about Bear lying and being misleading right? how can you have a tv show called “Survivorman” when the host can barely survive it for a week. i cant figure out why this “expert” cant teach me how to survive out in the wilderness for longer than a week. a real pro would know how to survive off the land indefinetly! ill say the desert and maybe the frozen tundra are exeptions to indefinite survival but the forests? you just admitted that people will usually get picked up within 7 days. so is that the excuse for not trying to survive better. shouldnt the host be able to show me how to survive in case im stuck out there longer? what if it is longer than 7 days. if im lost for longer than a week i might as well been watching cartoons that whole time cus im gona be screwed.

you said that Les’s 7 day survival approach will help me move on to a safer place later. how can i do that when im too weak and malnurished to get very far? (like Les usually is). say what you want about Bear but Les could not survive in the wild indefinetly like a true expert would. you know what, put Les out in just the regular woods for 2 to 3 weeks instead of 7 days and let me see whats left of him afterwards. because if he looks as bad as he does after a regular 7 days in the woods than there’s a good chance he actually might not make it after 3 weeks.

Justin, there is no just thing as a “pro survivor man” that can live off the land forever. That’s only for books and people that are born into native tribes. Les and his wife spent a year in the remote Wabakimi area of Ontario for their honeymoon. Survivorman is about a normal guy who gets stranded and has to survive long enough to be rescued or find civilization. Man vs Wild is about a guy trying to conquer the wild.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j_LkdCt2P8

That video is a good comparison. Les will teach you how to stay alive while “Bear” will entertain you by drinking his own unfiltered piss and calling it safe.

I think Bear Grylls is a better at survivng than Les Stroud.les takes energy bars, axe, and survival blanket.But on the other hand Les is by himself with no film crew.that is my comments.

Survivorman is much better than man vs wild.

why?

HE SPENDS HIS NIGHTS AT A HOTEL! WITH INTERNET ACCESS! so for all of u nit wits who think MVW is better than survivor man, ur a dumb-ass,

your probably wonderin how i know this,

in google search , “man vs wild is fake” for more fakes in MVW.

peace out, P.S, les knows more about survival

i think les is better than bear, and betty, if u think bear is better at surviving, then why not in gogle search man vs wild is fake, for loads of cheats that he uses.

P.S, he spends his nights at a hotel!!!!!!!!! with internet access!!!!!

I happen to enjoy both shows tremendously. But I was always suspicious about MvW because for having a camera crew, some shots were off. The Ecuador Ep. where he caught pirahnahs comes to mind. They never showed him actually catching one. And as far as him “cheating”. It is very relevant. I feel mislead. Now I view his show like it is Worst Case Scenario where they dramatize life or death situations. To appreciate Survivorman you have to mentally understand what it is he is going through. Being alone for 7 days in a house is difficult. Imagine being in a strange place with little to no conveniences, plus having a job to do. You know what, i might be grumpy and do nothing for long periods of time as well. He is not there to show us what an expert would do and make it easy, because it isn’t. He is there to show us the experience in the truest form i have seen yet. Both entertain me, but for totally different reasons.

One more thing, I never once heard Les claim to be an expert. I may be wrong. He seems to come forth as an average person, with survival knowledge, but not expertise. And he does survive, whether it be by calling in the troops or lasting the 7 days. I just cannot imagine someone being stranded alone with hardly anything being energetic after 7 days in the wild, especially the desert or arctic.

I really enjoy both shows and each is different and unique in it’s approach to the topic of survival. I don’t think one is better than the other, and both are very entertaining.

What I like about “Survivorman” is the stark realism of the show, and the fact that he is truly struggling alone in each episode. Sometimes you can hear the fear and frustration in Les’ voice, as he tries to get thru another uncomfortable survival situation.

Bear, on the other hand, always seems cool and confident. His encyclopedic knowlege of survival skills is quite impressive. His show is really an outdoor classroom set in different locals. Each episode has a simple and consistent theme- survive and get yourself back to civilization and help.

Both men have “cojones” and deserve praise for offering very informative and realistic survival shows.

Mike

PS: Any man that is willing to squeeze “elephant crap” to get a few drops of “liquid” to survive on, is more a man than I will ever be. Go Bear!

I really enjoy both shows and each is different and unique in its approach to the topic of survival. I don’t think one is better than the other, and both are very entertaining.

What I like about “Survivorman” is the stark realism of the show, and the fact that he is truly struggling alone in each episode. Sometimes you can hear the fear and frustration in Les’ voice, as he tries to get thru another uncomfortable survival situation.

Bear, on the other hand, always seems cool and confident. His encyclopedic knowledge of survival skills is quite impressive. His show is really an outdoor classroom set in different locals. Each episode has a simple and consistent theme- survive and get yourself back to civilization and help.

Both men have “cojones” and deserve praise for offering very informative and realistic survival shows.

Mike

PS: Any man that is willing to squeeze “elephant crap” to get a few drops of “liquid” to survive on is more a man than I will ever be. Go Bear!

Mike, I see what you are saying, but at the same time the fact that he is not squeezing the “elephant crap” for survival takes away some of the emphasis. He is shooting scenes as in a movie, it is not survival. It doesnt take away from the fact that it is a very hardcore thing to do. However, if he did it bc he had to would make it so much more effective.

Are all u people that like Bear stupid? Les is alone in the wilderness and has to survive on his own with no camera crew. An most of the time he even shows taht his satelite radio doesn’t even work. and don’t even come with that bear is a SAS vet. so what hundreds of people can say. In the end Les is a lot better becaue he doesn’t do crazy shit for entertaiment purposes then he goes off to the hotel. Les is actully in the wild surviving.

I think that this thread has lost it’s point. Why do people have to start insulting each other when they are trying to get a point across? Get your point across without doing it.

I personally think both the shows are good shows. They are completely different, I love them both for seperate reasons. I like that Bear does the crazy stuff that he does, and I love that Les is actually by himself. I find Les more relatable, I’m not a SAS vet, nor am I tough at all. I couldn’t do what he does.

Les is best,but bear is cool also!!Man vs wild is entertaning but surviverman just grabs ya and won’t let go,i mean les is TRULEY my himself! That’s a bad ass!!!!!

Ok, so Survivorman is a more truthful show and MvW is a more entertaining show. I think, however, that you have all missed the point; that Justin, while amusing, is an idiot.

The latest revelation; MvW put a guy in a cheap bear suit and the show pretended it was an actual bear. Google it if you don’t believe me. Justin, end your denial.

Following Bear’s “advice” will get you killed as quickly as following Superman’s advice on how to fly. The reason for this; they are both FICTIONAL ENTERTAINMENT!

Why does Les look so crappy after his week of Survival? The answer is self-evident; he just spent the week SURVIVING! If he looked great and tanned and toned and well-fed like Bear, we would choose the term “vacationing” or something similar.

Why does Les consider calling it quits when he has trench foot or some other malady? Because he knows he’s on a television show and does not want to lose a few toes to prove he’s tough.

Why does he get angry when his cameras break? Because NO CAMERAS = NO SHOW you morons! Do you honestly expect Les to carry some backup Etch-A-Sketches in case he can’t film?

Why does he have a rescue crew within radio range? Because this is TELEVISED ENTERTAINMENT! He’s not trying to prove he can die like that idiot Bear Man in Alaska, he’s earning a living.

There is no way to tell who, in fact, is the better survivalist, based on the television shows alone. The two shows are produced by two separate companies with two different budgets and two different agendas. They are apples and oranges. This suggests that most of you who have commented thus far have far less knowledge about the entertainment industry than your demonstrated lack of knowlege of survival.

However, here’s an idea to put the question to rest once and for all;

- ONE television show (a Discovery Channel special), starring Les AND Bear.

- No third party assistance, both of them have to carry their own gear.

- Four or five “terrains” that each must complete (Ocean, Jungle, Widerness, etc). Each round consists of a start and finish - must survive and reach waypoint. Fastest time wins.

- Third party auditor to ensure that the only items they carry are the approved items and the only possible assistance they can receive is after calling in a rescue, at which point they forefit the round.

- Winner take all.

I’m not going to lie, I like the contest idea. Dave, write to the Discovery Channel.

I have watched both shows and read these comments. Both of these shows can never be truly instructional, as real training guides put people to sleep. I doubt many viewers have their notebook and pencil out; if they did they would be maybe 1% of the audience. These men are more interested in the survival of their shows and contracts than focusing on survival education, and I don’t hold that against them. But both should be viewed for entertainment only. In other words, do not act like them to survive in a real world situation.
I can assure you that Bear did not learn survival skills from a TV show, and neither did Les. I can also guarantee that both men would act completely differently in an actual survival situation. Bear would conserve his energy, and Les would have to catch more food. Cooking food is also too slow in a real-world situation, or building a camp.
It would be interesting to put them in an endurance contest, to see how both looked after 30 days in the jungles of Panama.

To finish my post, I am not saying who is the ‘better’ survivalist because neither man can showcase his skills and keep up the ratings. Otherwise, military field manuals would be on the nonfiction best seller list. Les ’spares us’ from seeing him gut/clean a frog or snake, when that would be more educational and useful than watching the meat cook over the fire. Bear would never try half his stunts in a real survival or combat situation, where a small wound can lead to infection and any serious injury would impair his ability to continue survival (catch food, move, etc.)
If enough people have a true interest in survival, I suspect we will see a third show that showcases practical survival knowledge in various environments. Otherwise I love the contest ideas others have posted already.
Also remember that it is never a contest of which man is more ‘bad-ass’, mother nature always has the upper hand and if you survive, that is ‘bad-ass’ enough in itself.

I watch both shows and it seems like every episode of Man Vs. Wild has at least one instance where I think “dang, that’s stupid.”

Like the episode where Bear catches a fish then bites into it. Dang, that’s stupid. He has a leatherman tool in his pocket. Why doesn’t he fillet it?

Or the episode where Bear is in Africa and finds a Zebra carcass. He pulls out his leatherman tool and starts hacking away at its neck like he’s got lions breathing down his neck. Then he bends down and starts gnawing on it. Dang, that’s stupid. Why doesn’t he just use the knife in his hand to carve out a big ol’ zebra neck steak?

Or the episode where he’s somewhere in Alaska or Canada and he’s crossing the river and he makes a flotation device out of his pants. He gets halfway across and needs to refill the pants with air. He says his “only option is to swing the pants over [his] head to refill them with air.” Dang, that’s stupid. I had a survival class in college where that technique was taught. To refill the pants with air in the middle of a river/lake, you hold the waistband underwater and you “splash” air into the pants. Splashing makes lots of bubbles that come up in the waistband and ‘voila’ after half a dozen splashes, the pants are full. Of take a deep breath, dunk your head and exhale. He didn’t seem to know about how to inflate his shirt and make it into a flotation device, too.

Every episode, at least one “dang, that’s stupid.” I watch now just to find them. I think I’ll make it into a drinking game. Find something Bear does that is stupid, drink a shot. Probably more lethal than playing “Hi, Bob!”

Survivorman > Man Vs. Wild. To the guy who said Bear made his own raft, he didn’t. He had his camera crew put it together and took it apart and then he probably copied them to look like he knew what he was doing. Les is obviously the winner.

Wow people are really so ignorant re the SAS! Get a grip Bear was in (21) SAS (R) TA - yep that’s the Territorial Army. Not (22) SAS - THE REAL SAS. Bear passed and was badged to the SAS for the Territorial Army. He did 3 years part-time which equals about 5/6 mths full-time, inc selection. How on earth could you compare that to the guys in (22) such as Lofty Wiseman, Any McNab etc?

Bear milked the SAS connection for all it was worth to build a media career. He’s a total fake. No TA guy would say he was ex SAS that’s just misleading, they always make it clear they were TA. All except Bear that is!!!!!

Before you guys start slagging me off re the TA SAS is equal to the real SAS. Let me just say this:
FACT; Any guy wanting to join (22) SAS from (21) or (23)(R) TA has to do full 6 mths selection, no fast track allowance (they rarely make it) Chris Ryan was a notable exception. Even if they pass, they