h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I quite enjoy some blooper shows - there's a sort of schadenfreude in watching other people foul up. Especially actors or presenters who earn heaps more than I do. However, I find programs of sporting 'bloopers' singularly unfunny. Are we really supposed to laugh when something goes wrong to a skier / show-jumper / racing driver, possibly injuring the person involved? What is funny about a missed goal? And if a skater falls over, that's their medal hopes down the pan, not a cause for mirth!

Cock-ups in sporting commentaries can be funny. E.g., during a cricket match 'The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey'. However, collections of these are available in book form (Colemanballs, for example, although David Coleman actually committed few of these, if any).

I agree with you to an extent, though there are a couple of reasons why some folk might find sporting bloopers (cack word) funny:

1) The old "there but for the grace of God" excuse. We laugh because it could have been us, upon realising we are just viewing the mirth gland is stimulated. I reckon this is why "You've been framed" is still popular (and unfunny), I would suggest that this programme should be re-named to "You've fallen over (again)".

2) sport is fast becoming the most highly paid industry on the planet. If we can't have a laugh at a soccer player missing from a yard out when he is earning 50 grand a week who can we laugh at? it also brings them down a peg or two