"Bad Ideas with Adam Devine": When you need to f*k the Sadness in a hurry. With bonus buddy bulges and butts

Sometimes you need to f*k the Sadness in a hurry, and your best bet is Adam Devine.  Not (just) because of his hotness, because his stuff is always upbeat, with no hatred, no tragedy, no angst, not a lot of heteronormative mishegas, just whimsical problems, humorous braggadoccio, and homoerotic bonds. 

But you don't have time for a whole movie, or an episode of  Workaholicsor   The Righteous Gemstones. What do you do?

The reality series Bad Ideas with Adam Devine, streaming on Roku, is a perfect solution. In each episode, Adam. "the world's greatest movie star, the world's greatest lover, the guy who clearly writes his own intros," teams up with one of his comedian buddies to do something dangerous:

1. Compete in the World's Hottest Pepper Eating Contest, in the Bahamas. With Thomas Middleditch from Solar Opposites

Tom's backside

2. Compete in a demolition derby, the Night of Destruction, at Perris Auto Speedway, near Riverside, California. With Blake Anderson from Workaholics

Blake bulging as a cop-stripper

3. Become stunt performers in a Western movie (after seven minutes of training). With Rebel Wilson from Pitch Perfect

4. Drive an ice cream truck up highway P3 in Peru, called "the Death Road" for its hairpin turns and 1000 foot drops. With Anders Holm from Workaholics

Anders' bottom, ready to be topped.

5. Clear hundreds of poisonous snakes from a plane in an airplane graveyard. With Brent Morin from Undateable

Brent's underwear bulge

6. Investigate a haunted house and try to conjure a demon.  With WWF wrestler Lana.

7. Become piranha wranglers on the Momon River, near Iquitos in Brazil.  With Anders Holm. Left: Adam accidentally dangles his privates in piranha-invested water.

Anders greeting the day

Adam takes his shirt off or shows a bulge once in a while, but you're too busy watching him riffing  to care (much) about his penis or physique.  Plus there's some beautiful natural scenery.

Each episode runs about 7 minutes, so you could watch the whole series in an hour  But don't.  Save the individual episodes for when you need an Adam Devine  fix.

See also: Workaholics Episode 5.1: Blake becomes a porn star, Ders is into kinky stuff, and Adam is gay

The Outlaws: Adam has a crush on Pierce Brosnan

Adam Devine's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 1: forehead presses, anal poopers, bulging drawers, and Kermit the Frog

"The Strongest Man in History": Robert Oberst and his pals recreate Viking challenges. With bonus Danish dick

  

In The Strongest Man in History, on the History Channel, four contemporary strongmen try to recreate the stunts of legendary strongmen:

William Bankier, who lifed a piano in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Thomas Topham, who lifted three barrels of water weighing over 5,000 pounds in 1749.

Monte Saldo, who lifted a motorcar and five passengers in 1903 

The guys: 

1. Brian Shaw, "Shaw Strength"

2. Eddie Hall, "The Beast"

3. Robert Oberst, "Strong and Pretty"

4. Nick Best

I watched the first episode, where Nick takes the guys on a tour of Moorhead, Minnesota, across border from Fargo, North Dakota, the "center of Viking culture in the United States."

 Nick is a devotee of all things Viking, even going to Renaissance fairs wearing a horned helmet.  His signature stunt is the Viking Press.

They visit the stave church at the Hjelmkomst Center, go ice fishing, and hear about how the days of the week are named after Norse gods.  But for some reason they skip the biggest tourist attraction in Moorhead, the Hjelmkomst Viking Ship.  It's a replica built by Robert Asp in the 70s that sailed across the ocean to Norway before being housed in the Clay County Cultural Center

Most of the episode is devoted to the guys introducing themselves, explaining what they're going to do, discussing how difficult it will be, and then doing it:

1. Carry a 345-pound boulder. All Viking boys had to carry one to achieve fullsterkur, full strength, and be considered a man.  In Iceland, they still use the 409-pound Húsafell Stone as a test of strength.

Left: 18 year old Billy Crawford, the youngest person ever to lift the stone.

2. Thow a 13-pound hammer, with an ice bath penalty for the guy with the shortest distance. Nick loses, at 70 feet. 

3. Pull a 12,000 pound Viking ship.

4. Hoist a 1,433 pound mast. 

Some of the challenges in other episodes are interesting.  In Stoke-on-Trent, Eddie Hall's home town, they named an oat cake, sort of a savory stuffed pancake, after him.  It has six sausages and three pounds of cheese.  The challenge: whoever finishes first without throwing up wins.

In the last scene, the guys gift Nick with an authentic Viking-era axe, leading to a group hug and: "So, we all going to get on the bed and start making out?"  They jump on the bed, but we cut before the make-out session.

Beefcake: The guys are fully clothed most of the time.

History: Snippets.

Gay Subtexts: Deliberate.  An extraordinary amount of buddy-bonding, with the guys often discussing how attractive they find each other.

Reality TV: The breathless "It's 12,000 pounds!!!!" and the constant repetition become annoying.  I might watch this on the treadmill at the gym, but for regular viewing, it's too darn fluffy.

Bonus Danish dick and other Scandinavian guys after the break.  Warning: Explicit.