Last week, the show announced that it wouldn’t shy from controversy by taking on 9/11 conspiracy theories. (And really, what kind of self-respecting show about conspiracy theories would shy from controversy?) But Ventura had already been on the record as a 9/11 skeptic before the show. With his unique take on global warming, Ventura takes it up a notch.

Conspiracy Theory really has to be watched to appreciate its flavor. The show is paced like a 1960s spy movie with most of the transitions taken out. That is, there’s an air of urgency about everything, accentuated by music that’s probably filed under ‘intrigue’ in the TruTV audio library, and the show rapidly jumps from one plot point to the next in a span of minutes. Also, every interview has to be a key point of evidence.

In last night’s show, good guy Al Gore leads to environmentalist Maurice Strong leads to financier Edmund de Rothschild leads to the World Conservation Bank leads to the Euro leads to Climategate, somehow — and that’s all in the last 15 minutes or so. To spice things up, the camera will occasionally cut to a righteously angry Ventura, who will glower into the camera and say something like “Well, if we can’t talk to this Maurice Strong, who the hell can we talk to?”

As such, there’s much too much to recap in last night’s episode, but here’s a summary: (emphases added throughout)

• The basic premise of the episode, via TruTV: “Whether global warming is real or not, some people may be using the issue to earn billions of dollars, start a one-world government and control people’s lives.”
• Even though he acknowledges that Al Gore could make billions from this ‘conspiracy,’ Ventura lets him off the hook over accusations that he’s “trying to control the world.” He’s too public, you see. Ventura: “I know Al Gore, I don’t think he’s out to do that. There’s got to be someone else behind this.”
• Ventura brings his experience in politics to bear: “The one thing I learned in government: if you want to find the answer to a question, follow the money.”
• Eventually, Ventura is led to Maurice Strong, formerly a top UN official and leading environmentalist advocate, now a businessman in China. Ventura’s correspondent in China says that Strong is a “double agent pretending to be an environmentalist.” Ventura: “Not so green. Or if it’s green, it’s the green of money.” We never actually see Strong, though we see his house in China, which is scarily surrounded by barbed wire.
• Edmund de Rothschild is also brought into this, somehow. Strong was his “right-hand man,” and he wanted a one-world bank, and then came the Euro. “Countries began throwing away their own currencies and adopting … the Euro. In each case, the citizens have a little less power.“ (this is read over scary footage of a sheepdog herding sheep)
• Climategate, which happened after the episode was filmed, is shoehorned in: “only a theory? Within days of Jesse’s meeting and his words about Watergate, the global warming conspiracy would explode into a scandal called ‘Climategate’ … [scientists] obscured, massaged, or destroyed inconvenient temperature data. And the evidence showed that they did it for the money. More panic equaled more funding.”
• Ventura’s conclusion: “I’m no scientist. The conspiracy theory here is a scare tactic to control people, make billions, even trillions in profit. Al Gore, you’ve been a real inspiration. But a lot of other people who preach the global warming gospel aren’t out to save the world: they’re out to run it.” Note that he doesn’t rule out the possibility that man-made global warming is real.

TruTV hasn’t yet posted video of the episode, but there are clips on YouTube, which will have to do here until a better replacement comes around.

These two clips comprise the final third of the show, when it suddenly all makes sense, man:

This is not your first venture into TV hosting since leaving the governorship. What happened to “Jesse Ventura’s America,” which ran briefly on MSNBC in 2003?

It was awful. I was basically silenced. When I came out of office, I was the hottest commodity out there. There was a bidding war between CNN, Fox and MSNBC to get my services. MSNBC ultimately won. I was being groomed for a five day-a-week TV show by them. Then, all of a sudden, weird phone calls started happening: “Is it true Jesse doesn’t support the war in Iraq?”

My contract said I couldn’t do any other cable TV or any news shows, and they honored and paid it for the duration of it. So in essence I had my silence purchased. Why do you think you didn’t hear from me for three years? I was under contract. They wouldn’t even use me as a consultant!

When you live in Mexico, your houses all have names. I almost named my house Casa MSNBC because they bought it. I was paid like a professional athlete, and I got very wealthy. For doing nothing.

Jesse Ventura’s America was on the air for less than four months, from October to December of 2003, and aired only on Saturdays. According to the Star-Tribune (article no longer online; see post #24 on the thread), the show averaged 249,000 viewers — a 39% bump up from the nature documentaries and such previously in the slot, but not exactly a home run. Whether MSNBC dropped Ventura for his political views may ultimately be known only by Ventura and the network, but he hardly had unimpeachable stats.

Still, that “Conspiracy Theory” show looks pretty cool. Maybe there’s a Casa TruTV on the way?

Here’s a clip from Jesse Ventura’s America, in case you want to know what all the fuss is about: