It does tug at your heartstrings (I mean, it’s formulated to), but then they talk about how the boss spends a week at various jobs, and often you’ll see fewer than five days’ worth of jobs. Makes you wonder what’s on the cutting room floor.

In the latest episode (White Castle), I noticed there was a pretty significant problem at one of the jobs which was conveniently ignored when it came to resolution time. One of the more minor issues from that job was dealt with instead.

You’ve also got to wonder how they choose which jobs and locations to put the guy, and how the ‘hiring’ process goes. Exactly how controlled/scripted is this stuff?

The Hooters one was really funny, because one of the problems was members of the public chastised Hooters girls giving out free wings on the sidewalk because they were in demeaning positions. The CEO’s solution was to have a ‘public education campaign’ on how girls like to work there. He claimed absolute ignorance that people thought it was chauvenistic, when there’s a fake traffic sign in the corporate boardroom referring to ‘bumps in the road’ obviously referring to breasts.

I’ll stop now because this comment is longer than your post. At least the show makes for interesting fiction.

- RG>

But the interesting thing with Shark Tank is that it actually has 2 of the Canadian Dragons (panelists) on the show, who are really different versions of themselves on each show. On Shark Tank, the Canucks are so much more calm and calculating in what they say, whereas on the Canadian version, there’s very little filtering going on.

If produced in Canada, would the Canadian version of Undercover Boss be as edited and “feel good” as the U.S. version? Is there a subtle cultural divide in business/TV between Canada and the U.S.?