Getting the story behind the statistics

A CURIOUS MIND: Viewers are taken on an insightful journey with The Big Picture with Kal Penn on National Geographic Channel.

A CURIOUS MIND: Viewers are taken on an insightful journey with The Big Picture with Kal Penn on National Geographic Channel.

Published Jun 18, 2015

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KAL Penn wears many hats in Hollywood. Yes, he is best known for his acting; especially in the Harold & Kumar stoner movie franchise. In fact, he has proved quite proficient in the comedy genre, given his countless movies to date – not forgetting How I Met Your Mother, on which he has been popping up since 2011.

And he is in Battle Creek, a crime drama, where he continues to tickle the funny bone.

But there is so much more to the 38-year-old actor who, interestingly enough, also joined the Obama administration as an associate director in the White House of public engagement. Of course, this came at a cost – his character had to be written out of House, at the time.

Penn has made a departure from acting for The Big Picture with Kal Penn on National Geographic Channel.

The 12-part series which sees Penn credited as host and producer, it looks at how money, sex, food, sports and crime impact our daily lives. And he does so by using infographics generated by information banks and data analyses. Along the way, he interacts with fascinating characters and becomes privy to their personal journeys.

Penn explains: “I joined after the initial conception. It was called Mapology when we first started. I loved the idea behind it so when the opportunity came about to develop it from that point and then, actually shoot it and turn it into 12 episodes, it was fantastic. Basically, it’s a show about the human experience, even more than it is about data points. The concept is if you take infographics on things that are human interest pieces, so things you might read about in the New York Times, or USA Today, or CNN – those folks do a great a job with some of the larger pieces.

“Instead of doing something on crime, you know, what are the statistics on crime that are rarely covered? So you’ll get something and Nat Geo obviously has hundreds of years’ worth of research teams that know what they are doing. So, for instance, we found out about cyber crime. One of the hubs of cyber crime is in a tiny village in Romania, which is supported strictly by cyber crime. So we thought well, why has nobody done a piece on this? So we went to the village and interviewed folk and got a sense of how that started and how that industry supports itself. Why nobody has cracked down on it, especially now it’s an EU country. You don’t necessarily know what you’re getting until you get into all of these segments, unlike a lot of the scripted stuff that I’m used to working on.”

As the host, Penn found the experience fun and exciting, especially since he became schooled in the subject matter along the way.

Expanding on his involvement on the show, he reveals: “I do some producing which included a lot of the development pieces and then figuring out the tone and the structure. A lot of the folks at Nat Geo are tremendous with the research and the material and the actual fact checking. My forte tends to be on the more humorous side with the scripted stuff, so really figuring out how to marry those two together was one of the joys of putting a project like this together, where you can learn about all of these random things in the human experience. But learning about them in a way that’s fun or funny and not isolating and what I mean by that is none of the political stuff. We don’t take any stances on anything.”

Another discovery made was, while some might be dismissive of the idea, grasshoppers are eaten in Mexico and other places of the world.

He adds: “We are used to thinking of beef, chicken or pork, but we are socialised to think that those are the things we are supposed to eat. So why not look at what other people are eating? I thought that would be a nice human interest element.”

Other fascinating titbits that crop up in the show include the most sexually active place in America – and it involves pensioners. And if you thought New York City dwellers consumed the most pizza, think again.

The topics might vary from bizarre to fascinating to quirky. But one thing is certain, Penn has a pretty dope job exploring the unexplored. And the results are nothing short of astounding.

l The Big Picture with Kal Penn airs on National Geographic Channel (DStv channel 181) on Wednesdays at 9pm.

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