comedy

I like this sketch by Russell Brand and Matt Morgan. It’s been on YouTube for ages, but I haven’t linked to it because part of it annoys the fuck out of me. I like the randomness of the sketch and the spontaneity of it. Plus Gillian McKeith is seriously into shit. I am going to niggle. Watch it yourself here.

Three bits get on my tits: One - the lady looks in his direction, as he eats the shit, presumably her shit, but doesn’t react. (This is a little out of order given the probable budget) Two - the 29 O’Clock bit at the end. It’s just cheesy. If it was there to make sure people knew it was a joke, rather than a real MTV show, it’s a bit extraneous. Three - the direction was mental and the location sucked. On a bigger budget it would have been better, because the context of the sketch worked heavily against it, the room was out of place with the target of parody. Most life-style programmes have suburban chic. A suburban home setting would have done the trick.

I find Mr Natterjack’s Back much funnier because it’s much tighter (direction, editing), the setting is appropriate, and the sound track works well. It’s shock humour and has the feel of a short-art house film. I also liked the Daniel and Len sketches - they were totally inappropriate and out of context in the programmes they appeared in (which adds to why I find it funny, some of the people who tuned in may of been shocked) - but they were dark, man. They also could have done with been longer so the characters could have been expanded upon.

The best UK (sort-of) sketch show in the last few years is Snuff Box (watch a whole episode here). The locations are perfect, the soundtrack is perfect, and there are no more series. Presumably to make way for Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. The Snuff Box DVD, soon to be released, will no doubt be worth buying.

The Whitest Kids U Know need to be shown on BBC-3, Channel 4 or E4.  Pronto:

Tar Toast part 1 and part 2.

See also some very black humour here.

would mean that I would wake up earlier on Sundays.*

Following link.

* Realistically speaking, being honest with myself, I misspoke when I typed that.  I’d almost certainly record it on Sky Plus or download it.   Or watch the repeat.

Never before has the mechanical action of the human heart been made to sound so wanky. Lol. Watch Hard ‘N Phirm here.

Eating hoops is the “most disgusting thing I’ve ever done for my boyfriend”.

See also: Farm of Fussy Eaters.

More here.

I’ve been watching Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, the UK and US formats, and they’re funny. The funniness increases proportionally with the foibles and madness of the people running the restaurants. The formula is that Gordon Ramsay goes to a restaurant that is in financial trouble, and after much drama recommends that they:

• Find a niche
• Use local products
• Keep it simple
• Think about portion size
• Keep management efficient
• Fire or remedy incompetent staff

Which is every episode in a nutshell. With swearing and idents with whooshing knives. Mental people are well funny.

My favourite episode is apparently available here.  Because it all works out well.  Aaahh.

Jimmy first became aware of Them while thinking alone, on a porcelain throne, while reading Viz.  As he flushed away the waste, pulled up his trousers,  feeling content that lumber,  having being chopped by sphincter, was floating to the sea, glorious revelations, of a kind once reserved for Pillar Hermits, rocked his world harder than the Shredded Wheat that had brought him to the temple.  But an anxiety, an urgency, slapped him in the face.   He simply had to write it down.  Running up the stairs to his office he realised he’d left his pen in the toilet.  His mind was on fire. Running down his thoughts were stuck in a loop; “that’s it:  It’s Them or They, or maybe Both”.  The Matrix of his reality broke down.

Things became clear to him.  It’s the Bloodline of The Trilobites.  What we think of as real is not real.  Them or They, or maybe Both, have hard backs, but soft fronts.  For instance, if you squint really hard at the television, Prince Philip is an Arthropod.  He’s the king of the Arthropods.  Jimmy scribbled out his rough draft. His opus.  And waited for everyone to go to bed.  That night, sitting with his cat, he wrote. He wrote harder than he’d ever written before, because people had to know.  The cat watched closely.  That is how I can narrate.  I am Ginger Tom.  I am an unreliable narrator, but this is not the rhetoric of fiction, everything I say is true.  Cats, after all, cannot lie.

I sat listening, and he typed, and typed, taps randomly spaced by the distinctive tap of his space bar, until it was light outside.  Being a cat, I got somewhat bored, and left the room, followed by the house. I thought my owner had gone mad.  It was about 6 in the morning.  I was scratching around in the back garden, looking for mice, because they’re crunchy, and this old guy, dressed in tweed, a navy man, scuttled towards me, much as a trilobite scuttled the sea floor, conifers kelp-like as he brushed them aside.   “Hello, puss-puss-puss, you’re a pretty cat aren’t you?”. I sat, staring for a while, before replying.  “I sir, may be a pretty cat, but you sir, are a prince, as such the positions are difficult to rectify.”

“Do you like sea food, little cat?”,  he barked, chitinous jaws clacking, all regal, a proposition that immediately got my attention, having found no mice, “here, take this”.  He dropped white meat, resembling the fat flesh of a coconut crab.  I sniffed at  it.  It smelt of heaven.  I licked it.  It was better than licking fish juice.  So I ate it.  It was the best tasting seafood I had ever eaten.  Really.  Better than prawns.  I sat purring.  The sun warmed the garden.   Philip scuttled a little closer.  “If you want more, you have to do me a little favour”, by now, even a cat could notice, things were becoming sinister, but all I could think of was the delicious meat, he persevered, “if you keep an eye on Jimmy, I will give you as much trilobite meat as you want”. 

“Why do you want to keep an eye on Jimmy?” I purred, still ecstatic from the meat, “we, Them, or They, or Both, want to keep an eye on Jimmy because he’s cracked the truth.  He’s the only person in the world ever, to realise we, The Trilobites, did not die out, we simply moved to another dimension”.  “Oh”.  By then I realised I wasn’t a cat, and began to wake up, violently pushing the other in-patients aside, “psychology is bullshit!  Where’s my fucking solicitor?  Section ME will you you cunts”, and brought to the floor by orderlies thrusting diazepam filled needles. 

The Whitest Kids U Know.