Modern entertainment is consistently invested in reliving the past, with revivals, remakes and cross-media extensions increasingly becoming more common. One of the latest former series trying to find a potential future is To Catch a Predator, with former host Chris Hansen aiming to get a new independently produced spiritual successor of that show to fans through a Kickstarter campaign. Ah, the days when watching perverts figuratively shit their pants was free for all.
Hansen, who continued working with NBC on and off over the past years, has apparently been receiving tons of messages from fans since To Catch a Predator went off the air in 2008. A lot of people really want to see him back in action baiting and capturing sexual deviants, so his idea was to crowdfund a new series, Hansen vs. Predator, that would be released on the Internet, the very place that the majority of predatorily unlawful circumstances happen. There are definitely far more web-based avenues for illegal connections to happen these days, with a growing number of social media sites and forums popping up.
For the campaign, Hansen is looking to raise $75,000 – of which over $10,000 was pledged at the time of this writing – and that seems like a fairly menial amount. And it is, because that’s what’s needed just to get the first investigation rolling, and it basically covers the creation of the set, as well as paying for the electronic equipment needed. The stretch goals on the Kickstarter site show how hiring the staff and production crews would need more money, and that the first investigation wouldn’t be completed until $500,000 is raised.
It would have been a genius move to have “Meet up with an underage person” as one of the rewards. Then they’d have their first “guests” already locked down before the show even started. Check out Hansen talking about the project, which won't directly have ties to either NBC or Dateline, in the video below.
And just in case you forgot just how uncomfortable To Catch a Predator was, the clip below, featuring a guy who went by the IM name “hardblackdick,” will take you right back to it.
So while a show called Hansen vs. Predator would be arguably more intriguing if it was the musical trio Hanson fighting the Predator creature from the movies, that wouldn’t help remove criminals from the streets. Are you guys ready to watch Chris Hansen catch more sickos?
