The Amazing Race: Family Edition Kickoff

When I first heard that The Amazing Race was going to do a Family Edition with four-person teams, I thought "Great. Twice the bickering."

What I failed to realize is that it would be actually six times the bickering (do the math - it's _nC_k for n=4 and k=2). And although not every team is bickering, Garbageman's family is picking up the slack for ALL OF THEM! If they're not gone soon, I'll either stop watching or Brick my TV. And I don't want to buy a new TV. Actually, I do, just not right now. Anyway, on to the observations.

• I can't hardly tell any of them apart yet.
• The little kids (not the Black little kids (and, boy, am I going to be uncomfortable referring to them, even though Black is the family name), the other ones) creep me out because they sound exactly like small adults (and that creeps me out because I think I was just the same way at that age).
• The twentysomething siblings looked great on paper but almost got the first Philimination. We saw a lot of them early; I bet that means we don't see them for long.
• 4UnfortunatelyNotNonBlondes are all permanently in 'transmit-only' mode. They remind me of the recent MadTV sketch skewering The View as a room full of hens constantly talking without listening.

Wow! Moment: marathonfamily absolutely pwned the buggy push. Of course, they were working with a 200-pound weight advantage. But still.

Key Play: Garbageman's family leaving the campground in the last group but finishing the leg sixth. Dammit. I still want them gone, but props to one of the sons for being the only one to notice the 'hot dog' vendors were really The Frats from Season One!

It Was Over When: The Black family made an unspecified navigational error between the Detour and the pit stop, allowing the Linz family to make up the fifteenish-second gap and avoid Philmination. Don't let the editing that showed two trucks neck-and-neck approaching the pit stop fool you; both those trucks were black and the Blacks and Linzs drove gray trucks.