Have you ever seen the television show Ghost Adventures, which currently airs on Travel Channel Fridays at 9PM E/P?  My wife and I lovingly refer to the show as “Ghost Douchbags,” due to the three ghost hunting hosts of the show and their relative douchery.  Ghost Adventures is similar to Ghost Hunters (from SyFy Channel) in that it shows a group of “experts” going to haunted locations throughout America and the world trying to debunk or prove the existence of a supernatural presence.  However, unlike Ghost Hunters, where it’s very likely that an episode can go by without the appearance of any spooks, Ghost Adventures pretty much always finds something, real or not.

Ghost Adventures is like the Uwe Boll of television ghost hunting.  Never boring, but always laughably interesting.  There’s so much awfulness to enjoy in this program, it’s almost startling.  It’s the television equivalent of drinking a 2 liter grape soda – so awful for you, but so good at the same time.  Why do I love this show so damn much?  Check out my thoughts after the jump!

First and foremost, the most obvious difference between Ghost Adventures and other ghost hunting TV shows is the team.  Whereas Ghost Hunters has a relatively large crew, and Paranormal State is a bunch of college kids, Ghost Adventures has three dudes.  And I call them dudes because, really, that’s what they are.  These guys, despite admitting to have some kind of expertise on the supernatural, really just seem like three drunk guys who like to go to haunted places and jump as every little noise they hear.  There’s the muscle-bound leader, Zak Bagans, who, according to the official site, is “able to leap and investigate huge structures in a single night, Zak is an action-hero. The ghosts don’t stand a chance against the guy with the muscles, the hair and the taunting voice.”  Yeah…seriously.  This dude is the definition of muscle bound pretty boy – his hair is always perfect, and he’s always wearing some tight black TV shirt from Affliction or some other trendy t-shirt company.

Nick Groff is like the resident nice guy – if Zak is like the “Bradley Cooper from The Hangover” of the group, then Nick is like the Ed Helms.  Too nice for his own good, and always looking confused.  He’s like the shy guy who gets lost in the insanity of his two co-horts, and he’s jumpy as hell.  Well, actually, they all are, especially Aaron Goodwin, the Zach Galifianakis of the group.  He’s big, bald, and has a goatee, and he’s the cowardly lion of the group.  You’d imagine him bouncing at a strip club during the day, hunting ghosts at night.  Except that he’s not very good at it.  Whereas Zak and Nick seem to actually know what they’re doing, Aaron just seems like the camera guy along for the ride.  He hardly ever speaks to the ghosts (his recent attempts to speak Italian to a ghost were laughably bad), but is always the first to freak out when something creeks in the distance.

What sets this team apart from their other ghost-hunting brethren, other than their penchant for wearing trendy clothing instead of regular crew outfits, is that they don’t debunk ghost sightings so much as jump at every little thing that happens for the entirety of the program.  They get locked or left in haunted locations overnight, so they can’t leave and, rather than set up a million cameras and watch from afar, go around the locations with night vision cameras (sometimes their only way of seeing) trying to get some ghost to mess with them.

I mean, these guys jump at any little noise and objects that most other shows would dismiss at dust particles are called “malicious spirits” by this team.  In a recent episode, they locked one of the guys in a morgue, and couldn’t find their way back to let him out.  Zak, who’s also a “medium,” frequently claims to be possessed, and starts going batsh*t crazy in every couple of episodes, shoving people, cussing them out, or talking at things that aren’t there.  It may be real, but it’s still funny as hell when it happens. The Ghost Adventures team is convinced that every little occurrence is caused by ghosts and, whether we believe them or not, it still makes for pretty enjoyable television.  The number of times “dude” is uttered in each episode would make Bill and Ted blush, and the seriousness in which they take themselves is just a joy to watch.

So for those who find Ghost Hunters a little on the boring side – I mean, who watches ghost shows to NOT see ghosts – check out Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel.  You’re almost always in for a good time!  Check out more information on the official site.