It's definitely gonna go 3. Hammond 2. May 1. Clarkson Naturally Clarkson has the most to talk about so best to keep that as a finale Bonus: a full breakdown on Stig Lore
Him walking circles around "Oliver", while Clarkson an May are tearing parts away to shed weight, then the realization that he needed not remove an thing from Dear lil' Olliiievah
I was one of those teenage girls who fancied the crap out of him in the 2000s. 12 year old me cried the day he had the dragster accident, and went into a depressive state at the end of 2006, ended up being hospitalised for unrelated illness November that year as well. The day he returned on TV for TG my depressive episode left. It did later return bc bullied and abused Autistic kid in school being mocked for being in love with Hammo. I still would do him mind you 😅 I grew past the hormonal lust and loved the person he is more than his boyish charms. I have massive respect for him. Whenever I faced troubling times I always tried to be brave like him. Simply amazing documentary man! You went all out
Hammond is a real trooper for just doing everything he's done. The radio work, his early TV years, his Top Gear zenith and his oncoming twilight of The Grand Tour and The Smallest Cog, he has undoubtedly earned his legend status
We all meme on Hammond and so do Clarkson and May, but I think my favourite piece of Hammond media was the video of him recounting his dream whilst in a coma. It shows a sensitive and deeply introspective side of Hammond we don't see often. I only hope that i'll find a place i am so deeply connected to on an emotional level that it shows up in my deepest darkest dreams like he was to the lake district. What a legend.
Richard bought a 1953 Lanchester Fourteen for Top Gear’s Classic Car Rally Challenge and had assumed it was built by his maternal grandfather. After the challenge, Jeremy told him the Lanchester was actually built in a different factory. So Richard blew thousands of pounds on a car that wasn’t linked to his family.
I didn't know anything about his charity work or his altruistic adventures. Truly is the sign of a good man when he does all that without seeking any praise
seeing the thumbnail with red 'live' mark pops up in my feed reminds me of that feeling of having missed the starting of a live programme right when you turned on the TV, when the re-air is hours, if not days away.
“Braniac science abuse was a tv show set on making science interesting….. aswell as appealing to a generally dumber audience overall” I loved that show as a kid, I will not accept such slander.
I deeply enjoyed this whole video, but it is understated how much each of the presenters of Top Gear came into their own because they met the others is. Before Top Gear as most of us would consider it, I used to watch men and motors and most of the car shows they had but none came close to the chemistry of the Top Gear three, a HUGE amount of the appeal of Top Gear and by extension each of the presenter's careers were people wanting to watch three friends talking, reviewing, bantering about and enjoying cars which prior to them had essentially not been a thing on TV - it's something most people into cars had with their friends, because all of us would do the same in our friend groups at the pub or chatting in our driveways about a "good little project" we've seen for sale - they were the TV embodiment of any car-head was back then, young or old. Each of the Top Gear presenters are hugely talented, intelligent and charismatic in their own right, but only when playing off eachother they became stars.
37:12 the MythBusters also tackled this fable, and made the same realisation. Top job to Richard Hammond and Adam Savage for risking their lives for science
I met them all at Dunsfold. We were doing a balloon trip over Surrey but due to a sudden change in weather we had to land at Dunsfold stopping Top Gear filming. Great guys.
I was 10 when the Vampire crash happened, was probably the first time I really thought about death. That’s how much it affected me at the time. I always liked Hammond, but that crash gave me so much respect for him.
I've finally gotten around to watching the show, and honestly, Hammond may be my favorite member. While the bicking between May and Clarkson is hilarious, Hammond's enthusiasm and charisma make him so much fun to watch in whatever he's doing.
Gearknob, you never disappoint!!! The comprehensive research, the warp records and other mighty electronic choons in the back, the smooth editing…. Absolutely INCREDIBLE!!
Thank you for producing this documentary. When watching, you genuinely can feel the amount of heart and effort that went into it. Really looking forward for what's to come in the future from you.
I really really hope we get videos like this on Clarkson and May! I love these long ass video essays and having one on each of the trio would be gold 😁
I sometimes wonder if Hammond is the least popular of the trio, or at least the one people don’t remember as much. Clarkson is the outspoken, and May is the ‘boring’ one who drops the final bombshell of a punchline, and Hammond is just ‘the small one’. I think Hammond is cool: he’s survived a lot of deadly accidents, he loves his cars (especially Oliver), and during Top Gear he said many of the best lines and made many hilarious jokes.
What an excellent biography of Richard Hammond. You did a great job putting this together. Richard Hammond has a likeable personality, and his ability to mesh his personality well with Jeremy Clarkson and James May, who are 5+ years older him, was crucial to Top Gear's success.
I have read Hammonds book, and it is really great how the scene of no time is described, I think it describes the situation at hand. On top of this, i have a book by Phillipa Sage about Top Gear Live, and it shows the show really well.
Great documentary, very thorough and entertaining. One critique point if i may, i love your background music, but please try to avoid music with spoken parts, that can confuse people or also muffle your own voice especially.
This is amazing. I'd love to see you do this type of video but for Jezza and Captain Slow. Although this long a video with how detailed it is most likely took months to do but I'd gladly wait
that last epilogue part is real oldfriend flexing. More of these Online communities need the OGs to actually document their stuff in documentaries like theese.
I started watching Top Gear after series 9 premiered. I was familiar with the show on BBC world, but knew nothing about the individual personalities. Friends told me about hammond’s crash, and I wanted to check it out. I never would’ve thought Hammond’s crash was such an inflection point in the show’s history. Great video- love the deep dives!
Great stuff once again, Gearknob. Hammond was the reason this 15-year-old girl in 2004 started watching Top Gear! I'm hoping you'll do a feature on James!
Man, what an awesome load of work done here, brilliant episode on capturing Hammond's epic tale of being a host of one of most beloved shows on Earth: Top Gear. Great documentary, well done.
These videos are really fucking good man. I love that perspective of someone who's been in the forums and been such a hardcore fan for such a long time telling the story of someone so important and integral to Top Gear. I'm currently working on a Robot Wars retrospective so I appreciate it the robot wars mention too hahahaha! These videos are extremely important and your POV within the fandom is probably the best place to be telling such a story. Can't wait to see more dude.
I never quite understood why Hammond was so apologetic when crashing the car in the 24 race, but that guilt for perhaps feeling like he had put the show in jeopardy when crashing the Vampire was probably still fresh in his mind.
Great documentary! FinalGear was a lifesaver back in the days when you either couldn't watch Top Gear on US TV, or they were broadcasting an edited version with ads, which I refused to watch.
The fact that S09E01, with the footage of the accident, is on BBC iPlayer with little regard to Richard's request of burying the episode, upsets me quite a bit. :(
Listened to an interview with Richard and it changed my opinion of him entirely. He was really articulate, insightful and obviously really intelligent. Makes you realise also how hard they worked at making top gear what it was.
Regarding the vampire episode. Top gear is still being broadcast on German station DMAX and I am almost certain that the vampire crash is still being broadcast on there even now as I remember seeing it in 2013
My first introduction to Hammond was through Total Wipeout and then Engineering Connections then stumbled upon him on Top Gear which was being watched by my older brother and me asking him "oh isn't he that wipeout guy?" which started a whole chain reaction resulted in me starting to watching Top Gear along with my brother and my brother teaching me how to drive In his Evo which he never let anyone drive and me developing interest on cars, I have got lot of memories with my older sibling which I would never have got due to our age gap and since I was more closer to my older sister, I have genuinely gained a lot due to the strange coincidence's.
This is fantastic. As someone who has watched Top Gear countless amount of times, I learned so much about our dear presenter Hammond. The amount of details and information given is very impressive. You had me hooked for the entire time. I hope to see more videos like this from you. Great job!
All three of them are now 20 years past what we remember them as. The only one who even kinda looks young is Hammond. He’s doing some fun stuff with enthusiastic RUclipsrs and I think it’s for the best. May got his liquor business and Jeremy’s farming. They all found their niche.
He's originally from my home town (Shirley, Solihull) but left the area when I was a kid. He returned to the area to shoot an episode of top gear because I noticed the petrol station he was filming at.
Awesome video! I absolutely love the Hamster, Slow, and the Arangatan best show ever. Also appreciated the Strokes song All The Time in the video one of my absolute favorites. Old Top Gear and GT are my favorite shows of all time just an amazing run everything they did was gold. I'm sad that their time together is coming to an end and I hope they'll be back together in one form or another after GT ends. If not their legacy will forever remain close to my heart and I will always be rewatching old Top Gear and GT episodes
I always loved Hammond. As a very small child one of my first memories is watching the episode he crashes the vampire jet car and the episode he returns on iplayer with my dad and being utterly distraughtand scared for him. I remember the reason I liked him was because of his bravery after going through that and rhe way he continued afterwards. My reasons over the years for liking hammond have changed but I've never stopped liking him. Great doc 👌
What a fantastic piece of documentary. I am so ready for even more, super happy that channel keeps on living. Great call with TG being "our show" as well as theirs who made it. I myself used Finalgear forum to get detailed information about specific episodes. And living in Poland meant new episodes would drop with a huge delay during early 2000's. So I would find myself stairing at the screen of my computer's monitor and waiting for new episode to drop. And of course I had to watch it right away, even if that meant going to sleep really late. Thanks to Finalgear I could watch all seasons of new TG one episode after another. And with that, I could improove my english skills as it was so enjoyable. Helped a lot as later on I mooved to UK.
That was truly excellent, thank you. On a side note, you said several times that Hammond was/is unpopular. One would certainly get that impression from looking online, but as the story about the marketing and level of actual success of the movie “Snakes on a Plane” shows, there is often a big difference between the online world and the real one. Companies like YouGov and whatever company does the W ratings take quarterly surveys with a large enough sample size from the general population to be statistically and scientifically accurate (and it’s very important that the samples are taken from the general population, not just a subset of “people who visit car related websites” or “people who comment on internet videos and articles), where they ask people if they have a positive, negative or neutral view of a particular celebrity (which is apparently used in the industry to decide who to hire to present a show or endorse a product) and for the last 4 or 5 years that I’ve known about it, Hammond consistently comes out as more popular than the other two, with a couple exceptions, such as in the aftermath of Clarkson’s unfortunate comments about Meghan Markle, which saw him shoot up past the other two. Personally, I like Hammond better than Clarkson, but I also think that Clarkson is much funnier and more interesting to listen to, and his solo shows on average are better than Hammond’s, but since I’m not funny or hugely talented either, that doesn’t detract from my liking of Hammond. I think the fact that there are more of us Hammond fans than the other two, viewed in light of the abundance of nasty comments about Hammond from self described fans of the other two, and a near total lack of comments in the reverse, speaks very well of us and Hammond himself.
I should add, the Mexican joke was obviously a horrific mistake and not the right thing to do, as was participating in the Burma bridge skit, but I give him a complete pass because of the Stewart Lee thing. Lee lied about Hammond laughing at the one eyed Scottish idiot joke, as the video shows, as well as everything else, and most people wouldn’t be able to stand up to years of lies and over the top vilification by millions (not to mention that Hammond wasn’t fully recovered yet from an injury that causes mental confusion and lack of emotional control) without it having some negative effect
I like him so much because I think he's so enthusiastic about life. As someone who can be deeply cynical, I love his view to keep living even in his worst moment. And yes, I don't get some of those self described fans comments, while the other two really adore him so much.
I really like the James Bond style intro you gave Hammond at 3:10. I knew I was in for a treat because Richard Hammond is one of the greatest people alive.
Richard is overwhelming but the last two Grand Tour specials there has been a much different Richard Hammond, a way more relaxed and insanely hilarious person. I was laughing so hard during Eurocrash from the stuff he was doing
Finally. The untold story of Richard J. Cheeseburger Hammond III
*McCheesburger
I never knew his middle name was cheeseburger I will remember this for a pub quiz
@@DRIFT_CORE You did not pay attention. To the gallows with you.
@@DRIFT_CORE his middle name is actually mark
His middle name is junior cheeseburger 😂
-paints general lee esque car
-father sells propane
hammond is texan confirmed
Lmao
I'll tell you what.
and his father is hank hill
He has the soul of American.
The only reason Hammond isn't my favourite is because none of them are, as all of them are. It's an unbreakable trinity.
On thier own they are rather entertaining but when the 3 of them got together it was really magic
I do class Hammond as my fav though really it's a preference as like you say they're all fantastic lads that I cannot imagen being without
This had better be a part of a series…. I need a James May video this long
amen brother
If James May would write the Script himself the Video would be at least 40 hours Long wich I would binge in one sitting
It's definitely gonna go
3. Hammond
2. May
1. Clarkson
Naturally Clarkson has the most to talk about so best to keep that as a finale
Bonus: a full breakdown on Stig Lore
@@yeshwantdasari2075Technically "The Story of Top Gear" could almost work as a Story of Clarkson.
@@Geheimnis-c2ethere's so much more to the Clarkson saga than just the TG part though
"Hammond you sodding tic tac that was my Lamborghini Aventador"
Hammon you tiny man where is the Lambo chevy
SHUT MOUTH HAMOCK
Help jermy I'm bening on fire
"Hammond you idiot!"
That line never gets old.
“HAMMOND”-Jeremy
Jeremy! What are you doing mate!?
Hammond
CLARKSON - Hammond
"hammannn (softly)" - Ugandan man next to Clarkson
😅😅@@mog7501
Hamond you sodding tic tac this was my laborghini
Him walking circles around "Oliver", while Clarkson an May are tearing parts away to shed weight, then the realization that he needed not remove an thing from Dear lil' Olliiievah
I was one of those teenage girls who fancied the crap out of him in the 2000s. 12 year old me cried the day he had the dragster accident, and went into a depressive state at the end of 2006, ended up being hospitalised for unrelated illness November that year as well. The day he returned on TV for TG my depressive episode left. It did later return bc bullied and abused Autistic kid in school being mocked for being in love with Hammo.
I still would do him mind you 😅 I grew past the hormonal lust and loved the person he is more than his boyish charms. I have massive respect for him. Whenever I faced troubling times I always tried to be brave like him.
Simply amazing documentary man! You went all out
Hammond is a real trooper for just doing everything he's done. The radio work, his early TV years, his Top Gear zenith and his oncoming twilight of The Grand Tour and The Smallest Cog, he has undoubtedly earned his legend status
We all meme on Hammond and so do Clarkson and May, but I think my favourite piece of Hammond media was the video of him recounting his dream whilst in a coma. It shows a sensitive and deeply introspective side of Hammond we don't see often. I only hope that i'll find a place i am so deeply connected to on an emotional level that it shows up in my deepest darkest dreams like he was to the lake district. What a legend.
Richard bought a 1953 Lanchester Fourteen for Top Gear’s Classic Car Rally Challenge and had assumed it was built by his maternal grandfather.
After the challenge, Jeremy told him the Lanchester was actually built in a different factory.
So Richard blew thousands of pounds on a car that wasn’t linked to his family.
He didn't buy it.
I didn't know anything about his charity work or his altruistic adventures. Truly is the sign of a good man when he does all that without seeking any praise
seeing the thumbnail with red 'live' mark pops up in my feed reminds me of that feeling of having missed the starting of a live programme right when you turned on the TV, when the re-air is hours, if not days away.
“Braniac science abuse was a tv show set on making science interesting….. aswell as appealing to a generally dumber audience overall”
I loved that show as a kid, I will not accept such slander.
aren't kids... a generally dumber audience?
Agreed!
Not only was your work on this video great, but I can't help but respect your efforts in preserving all this history as much as possible
Richard Hammond is the only guy i know who look cool and on point on both non car related daytime shows as well as well as top gear
I swear I saw a comment from you sometime ago. It was about racism lmao
Hamster: a man who has his teeth whitened
I deeply enjoyed this whole video, but it is understated how much each of the presenters of Top Gear came into their own because they met the others is.
Before Top Gear as most of us would consider it, I used to watch men and motors and most of the car shows they had but none came close to the chemistry of the Top Gear three, a HUGE amount of the appeal of Top Gear and by extension each of the presenter's careers were people wanting to watch three friends talking, reviewing, bantering about and enjoying cars which prior to them had essentially not been a thing on TV - it's something most people into cars had with their friends, because all of us would do the same in our friend groups at the pub or chatting in our driveways about a "good little project" we've seen for sale - they were the TV embodiment of any car-head was back then, young or old.
Each of the Top Gear presenters are hugely talented, intelligent and charismatic in their own right, but only when playing off eachother they became stars.
Richard Hammond in his Mini in the India special is probably some of the best scenes with him in 😂
I can’t go back to it, not for the ‘it’s the worst special’ reasons, but that was the day my dad died.
@@katashworth41I'm sorry for your loss ❤️
hammonds mexican mini that had its face ripped off
Oh no Richard Hammond's up... Where can we land the medivac helicopter?
Lets just hope Hammond isn't still in coma and all of us are just part of his dream.
On a completely unrelated note, your choice of background soundtrack is quite a stellar i may add.
Ditched a Porsche for your daughter, that is a dedicated man
37:12 the MythBusters also tackled this fable, and made the same realisation.
Top job to Richard Hammond and Adam Savage for risking their lives for science
I met them all at Dunsfold. We were doing a balloon trip over Surrey but due to a sudden change in weather we had to land at Dunsfold stopping Top Gear filming. Great guys.
I was 10 when the Vampire crash happened, was probably the first time I really thought about death. That’s how much it affected me at the time. I always liked Hammond, but that crash gave me so much respect for him.
"Hammond, you blithering idiot!"
I know these videos are a labor of love and time consuming but I love them.
I've finally gotten around to watching the show, and honestly, Hammond may be my favorite member. While the bicking between May and Clarkson is hilarious, Hammond's enthusiasm and charisma make him so much fun to watch in whatever he's doing.
Gearknob, you never disappoint!!! The comprehensive research, the warp records and other mighty electronic choons in the back, the smooth editing…. Absolutely INCREDIBLE!!
Next episode... Orangutan: The Jeremy Clarkson Story...
and
next next episode...
Captain Slow: The James May Story...
edited to more accurate titles
Snail*
Oh That's actually much better @@HyakuSh1ki
Shouldn't it be Cpt Slow?
*Orangutan
Shouldn't it be Orangutan?
I really do hope the man sees this marvelous documentary of himself.
“The little hamster that could”
2 hours of non stop blessing. Love the blokes.
TG S6-22 and TGT S1-4 is constantly rewatched atleast once a year
Couldnt have summarised the Hamster's Role in the Holy Trinity better than "The old son that stopped the 2 old couple from nonsensically arguing"
Thank you for producing this documentary. When watching, you genuinely can feel the amount of heart and effort that went into it.
Really looking forward for what's to come in the future from you.
1:56 a clear sign how much you care using this clip for a throw away line. ❤
I really really hope we get videos like this on Clarkson and May! I love these long ass video essays and having one on each of the trio would be gold 😁
I sometimes wonder if Hammond is the least popular of the trio, or at least the one people don’t remember as much. Clarkson is the outspoken, and May is the ‘boring’ one who drops the final bombshell of a punchline, and Hammond is just ‘the small one’. I think Hammond is cool: he’s survived a lot of deadly accidents, he loves his cars (especially Oliver), and during Top Gear he said many of the best lines and made many hilarious jokes.
Looking forward to this!
What an excellent biography of Richard Hammond. You did a great job putting this together.
Richard Hammond has a likeable personality, and his ability to mesh his personality well with Jeremy Clarkson and James May, who are 5+ years older him, was crucial to Top Gear's success.
I have read Hammonds book, and it is really great how the scene of no time is described, I think it describes the situation at hand. On top of this, i have a book by Phillipa Sage about Top Gear Live, and it shows the show really well.
Richard, you enriched our lives and gave us so much to look forward to. Thank you.
Great documentary, very thorough and entertaining. One critique point if i may, i love your background music, but please try to avoid music with spoken parts, that can confuse people or also muffle your own voice especially.
This is amazing.
I'd love to see you do this type of video but for Jezza and Captain Slow.
Although this long a video with how detailed it is most likely took months to do but I'd gladly wait
that last epilogue part is real oldfriend flexing. More of these Online communities need the OGs to actually document their stuff in documentaries like theese.
was literally watching another of your videos when this was premiered i was so shocked
Thanks for putting in the work for these videos, always top notch.
Cheers from Canada.
I started watching Top Gear after series 9 premiered. I was familiar with the show on BBC world, but knew nothing about the individual personalities. Friends told me about hammond’s crash, and I wanted to check it out.
I never would’ve thought Hammond’s crash was such an inflection point in the show’s history.
Great video- love the deep dives!
Great stuff once again, Gearknob. Hammond was the reason this 15-year-old girl in 2004 started watching Top Gear! I'm hoping you'll do a feature on James!
Man, what an awesome load of work done here, brilliant episode on capturing Hammond's epic tale of being a host of one of most beloved shows on Earth: Top Gear.
Great documentary, well done.
These videos are really fucking good man. I love that perspective of someone who's been in the forums and been such a hardcore fan for such a long time telling the story of someone so important and integral to Top Gear. I'm currently working on a Robot Wars retrospective so I appreciate it the robot wars mention too hahahaha!
These videos are extremely important and your POV within the fandom is probably the best place to be telling such a story. Can't wait to see more dude.
Your narration's more descriptive of a morning in England, than the review segments of new TG are with cars ngl
I never quite understood why Hammond was so apologetic when crashing the car in the 24 race, but that guilt for perhaps feeling like he had put the show in jeopardy when crashing the Vampire was probably still fresh in his mind.
Great documentary! FinalGear was a lifesaver back in the days when you either couldn't watch Top Gear on US TV, or they were broadcasting an edited version with ads, which I refused to watch.
The fact that S09E01, with the footage of the accident, is on BBC iPlayer with little regard to Richard's request of burying the episode, upsets me quite a bit. :(
Listened to an interview with Richard and it changed my opinion of him entirely. He was really articulate, insightful and obviously really intelligent. Makes you realise also how hard they worked at making top gear what it was.
Regarding the vampire episode. Top gear is still being broadcast on German station DMAX and I am almost certain that the vampire crash is still being broadcast on there even now as I remember seeing it in 2013
My first introduction to Hammond was through Total Wipeout and then Engineering Connections then stumbled upon him on Top Gear which was being watched by my older brother and me asking him "oh isn't he that wipeout guy?" which started a whole chain reaction resulted in me starting to watching Top Gear along with my brother and my brother teaching me how to drive In his Evo which he never let anyone drive and me developing interest on cars, I have got lot of memories with my older sibling which I would never have got due to our age gap and since I was more closer to my older sister, I have genuinely gained a lot due to the strange coincidence's.
This is fantastic. As someone who has watched Top Gear countless amount of times, I learned so much about our dear presenter Hammond. The amount of details and information given is very impressive. You had me hooked for the entire time. I hope to see more videos like this from you.
Great job!
All three of them are now 20 years past what we remember them as. The only one who even kinda looks young is Hammond. He’s doing some fun stuff with enthusiastic RUclipsrs and I think it’s for the best. May got his liquor business and Jeremy’s farming. They all found their niche.
BBC was absolutely insane to think they could just replace these men on Top Gear. This was once in a lifetime chemistry that will never be replicated.
He's originally from my home town (Shirley, Solihull) but left the area when I was a kid. He returned to the area to shoot an episode of top gear because I noticed the petrol station he was filming at.
It's hard to put into words how important your work is. Thank you for caring this much ❤️
Awesome video! I absolutely love the Hamster, Slow, and the Arangatan best show ever. Also appreciated the Strokes song All The Time in the video one of my absolute favorites. Old Top Gear and GT are my favorite shows of all time just an amazing run everything they did was gold. I'm sad that their time together is coming to an end and I hope they'll be back together in one form or another after GT ends. If not their legacy will forever remain close to my heart and I will always be rewatching old Top Gear and GT episodes
Gearknob is the only source needed for Top Gear content!. I cannot wait for James’s and Jeremy’s bio’s 😁 thanks GK
Beautifully made documentary. Eagerly waiting for the next two on Clarkson and May.
Great video, only notice i had is that i was saying “yes the dragster crash” for about 5 minutes it felt like
I always loved Hammond. As a very small child one of my first memories is watching the episode he crashes the vampire jet car and the episode he returns on iplayer with my dad and being utterly distraughtand scared for him. I remember the reason I liked him was because of his bravery after going through that and rhe way he continued afterwards. My reasons over the years for liking hammond have changed but I've never stopped liking him. Great doc 👌
Well done, thank you for this nice portrait of Richard Hammond, not only in Top Gear but as well out of the hamster cage👍
hammock you sodding tic tac
1:26:24 my man knows not to walk through Orchard park after 10pm
I watched a little over 4 hours of top gear retrospectives since waking up today, this show will not loosen its grip on me
This is amazing! The amount of research you put into this is worth all the praise!
Thankyou so much for all the content you provide!
What a fantastic piece of documentary. I am so ready for even more, super happy that channel keeps on living.
Great call with TG being "our show" as well as theirs who made it. I myself used Finalgear forum to get detailed information about specific episodes. And living in Poland meant new episodes would drop with a huge delay during early 2000's. So I would find myself stairing at the screen of my computer's monitor and waiting for new episode to drop. And of course I had to watch it right away, even if that meant going to sleep really late.
Thanks to Finalgear I could watch all seasons of new TG one episode after another. And with that, I could improove my english skills as it was so enjoyable. Helped a lot as later on I mooved to UK.
This should be Required viewing for anyone with even the slightest interest in Top Gear.
Ayo, 2 hour Gearknob video, lesgo
That was truly excellent, thank you. On a side note, you said several times that Hammond was/is unpopular. One would certainly get that impression from looking online, but as the story about the marketing and level of actual success of the movie “Snakes on a Plane” shows, there is often a big difference between the online world and the real one. Companies like YouGov and whatever company does the W ratings take quarterly surveys with a large enough sample size from the general population to be statistically and scientifically accurate (and it’s very important that the samples are taken from the general population, not just a subset of “people who visit car related websites” or “people who comment on internet videos and articles), where they ask people if they have a positive, negative or neutral view of a particular celebrity (which is apparently used in the industry to decide who to hire to present a show or endorse a product) and for the last 4 or 5 years that I’ve known about it, Hammond consistently comes out as more popular than the other two, with a couple exceptions, such as in the aftermath of Clarkson’s unfortunate comments about Meghan Markle, which saw him shoot up past the other two. Personally, I like Hammond better than Clarkson, but I also think that Clarkson is much funnier and more interesting to listen to, and his solo shows on average are better than Hammond’s, but since I’m not funny or hugely talented either, that doesn’t detract from my liking of Hammond. I think the fact that there are more of us Hammond fans than the other two, viewed in light of the abundance of nasty comments about Hammond from self described fans of the other two, and a near total lack of comments in the reverse, speaks very well of us and Hammond himself.
I should add, the Mexican joke was obviously a horrific mistake and not the right thing to do, as was participating in the Burma bridge skit, but I give him a complete pass because of the Stewart Lee thing. Lee lied about Hammond laughing at the one eyed Scottish idiot joke, as the video shows, as well as everything else, and most people wouldn’t be able to stand up to years of lies and over the top vilification by millions (not to mention that Hammond wasn’t fully recovered yet from an injury that causes mental confusion and lack of emotional control) without it having some negative effect
I like him so much because I think he's so enthusiastic about life. As someone who can be deeply cynical, I love his view to keep living even in his worst moment. And yes, I don't get some of those self described fans comments, while the other two really adore him so much.
This video is so engaging, watched the whole thing without realising just how long it was until near the end
I really like the James Bond style intro you gave Hammond at 3:10. I knew I was in for a treat because Richard Hammond is one of the greatest people alive.
He is top gear from him to come back from all the crashes and set backs shows his love of the show and determination to the show
Been years in the making, holy this is gonna be good
Hell yeah been waiting for some new content! You do an outstanding job with the research
This is a wonderful video! Thanks for making this. It was a delight to get to know Hammond better.
i’m a simple man. i see a thumbnail with the hamster and oliver, i click.
Richard is overwhelming but the last two Grand Tour specials there has been a much different Richard Hammond, a way more relaxed and insanely hilarious person. I was laughing so hard during Eurocrash from the stuff he was doing
33:50 The use of Rae and Christian as a soundtrack deserves an ovation. Ive not heard that song in years.
Epic piece of work for which very many thanks Alex"
these videos are great fun, keep up the good work
This is so good oh my god I forgot this was a 2-hour-video
Very nice documentary about my favourite TV show
Drivetribe has a fantastic video where Hammond is reunited with the Vampire.
And it is one of the most touching things I have ever seen.
I was just about to comment about how I love the Jungle Drum & Bass - then DJ Shadow comes on. Great music choice on this video and all of your work.
Fantastic work, to think you did this for us to watch for free. Thanks
Thank you so much for this! I really hope you'll make one about James one day.
Excellent video, very well presented. And fantastic soundtrack, too.
Very well done, you obviously put in the proper effort into this.
This is brilliant. I had no idea the Hamster was this wholesome, but I should have known.