Holy Clarky-fro

Yes that really is Jeremy Clarkson with the most amazing Brit-Fro I’ve ever seen doing a painfully serious public service announcement about bad drivers.

The message is “Cars don’t kill people, people driving cars kill people” or something like that - this is from the early, pre-re-launch (2002) of the show.

I love the pay off “Top Gear will continue to campaign for safer cars but only you can make safer drivers”. That’s pretty much been the message throughout the shows history really - except now it would more likely be “speed doesn’t kill people, stupid morons driving cars they can’t handle kill people”.

Here is a transcript of the whole, slightly surreal thing:

“Within this elegant, eloquent and sometimes frighting prognosis there is irrefutable fact, there is conjecture and there is poetry.

“But the message seems to be clear. The car is a beast that may well one day consume the Earth and all who dwell on it - a terrifying thought.

“But what would the world be like with no internal combustion engine? Would we let the house burn because there is no fire engine?

“Would we let our loved ones die because there is no vehicle to get them to the hospital? Would we let the Ethiopian die because there is no truck to get the food from the port and would we add a million or more to Britain’s dole cues because there is no motor industry?

“There is no definite proof of global warming and no one can say for sure what is causing the hole in the Ozone layer but there is an inescapable fact. Cars do destroy people’s lives. They do maim and they do kill - or do they? Isn’t it more likely to be the people that drive them?

“Top Gear will continue to campaign for safer cars but only you can make safer drivers.”

When I first started watching it I was waiting for the pisstake payoff or the next line to be something like “so we’ve decided to drive two of the safest cars with two of the worlds worst drivers around the assault course and put them against two of the worlds most unsafe cars with the worlds best drivers.”

Followed of course by “I mean, how hard could it be?”

But that didn’t happen. However it is amazing watching a video of a young Clarkson displaying such a serious presenting style - it’s a far cry from the comedy/light entertainment style he applies today.

It’s also easy to see from this just how much better he’s got at the job over the decades - this must have been in his early television days.

Story from Final Gear Forums.

Related articles

• Jeremy Clarkson Meets the Germans [via Zemanta]
• The gear box: Scalextric Top Gear Powerlaps [via Zemanta]
• Clarkson Still Thinks America Sucks, We Still Love Him [Top Gear] [via Zemanta]
• Jeremy Clarkson Test-Drives World’s Smallest Car [via Zemanta]
• Reinventing the wheel [via Zemanta]
• Plan would make hybrids noisy to protect blind [via Zemanta]

Share/Save