Review of Ripe TV

Ripe TV is the online home of Ripe Digital, a much larger synthesis of on-demand cable television, web, and downloads for mobile devices, meant to provide the first cross-platform, schedule-free network. For such an ambitious undertaking, only the most elaborate, feature-laden websites will do, and the creators do not disappoint in this regard. Along with its sister site, the automobile-centric Octane TV, Ripe delivers content tailored to the sensibilities of the young male viewer – lots of physical comedy, scantily clad women, technology, and action. The CEO, Ryan Magnussen, was the founder of the early online advertising agency, Zentropy, and was successful as an original web designer for major companies like Fox, Warner Brothers, and Coca-Cola. With that sort of experience behind the venture, Ripe is in prime position to deliver their content, through home computers, cable providers, VOD, and iPods, to a whole world of young viewers, and investors are taking notice.

The Ripe TV site is divided into a series of channels, one for each show. While no show lasts for very long since the network’s content is constantly changing, there are usually around 10 different channels with a fairly predictable assortment of programming. With a demographic of males from adolescence to fraternity, it’s a safe bet that there are always three to seven shows here involving women getting naked and bouncy. Past examples have

included Bikini TV, Supermodel TV, Trashy Lingerie, Wild Girls, and Picking Miss Ripe, where viewers get to choose the host of the site’s main feature. It changes names (it’s been called Ripe TV, Ripe Live, and Now On Ripe), but the network’s main show collects new episodes from each channel and presents them with a scantily-clad female host who changes from week to week. The other channels often feature animation, stunts inspired by “Jackass,” the music scene (there was even a channel devoted entirely to Ghostface Killah’s live performances), puppets (there’s an obvious Triumph the Insult Comic Dog rip-off right now called Ed & Red’s Night Party, where belligerent puppets harass people on the street), some profane comedy, and wrestling.

Currently, there’s a show called Stuff 4 Dudes that embodies all the trampoline-jumping braless amazement that Ripe TV believes will cause adolescent males to go contently slack-jawed. It’s worth checking out if only to see the lowest common denominator of breast-emphasis entertainment made even lower and even bustier. Seeing girls eat a series of olives as they propel themselves on skateboards, in a race to an all vodka martini is not only something you’ve probably never seen, but can almost be seen as liberating after years of male domination of the “crazy stunt” genre.