comedy

Yes. (Clickable)

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Remakes are fucked.  Thing is, the only successful remakes are where they change it nearly beyond recognition (the Battlestar Galactica method), or, keep it reasonably close, capturing the essential qualities of the original despite modernisation (The Star Trek Next TNG method). If it’s anywhere in between the two you end up with Carry on Columbus, Star Trek Voyager, and virtually every other remake or spin-off, including some I probably haven’t watched.

Watch for yourself on iPlayer (click No above). If you’re abroad, you’re not missing much. Things to note: colour saturation, audio gain on the laughter track, exaggerated facial expressions, minimal distance between gags and punchlines, Reggie’s pseudo existential angst, the difficulty in suspending belief, on top of a grinding feeling that you’re watching the original as interpreted by idiots.

They’ve used some kind of phaser in the new version of the old theme tune.  That’s almost a metaphor for the show.

Excluded names because of search engines.  For a couple of banal and incredibly stupid reasons my ribs are fucked.  It’s only temporary, but it hurts like fuck to do the following:

• Breath
• Move quickly
• Be cuddled
• Lie down
• Move my arms
• Stand up
• Laugh

I laughed quite a bit at this.  Thank-you Richard Herring.

Seeing is believing.  I think there’s going to be a bit of a Horne & Corden backlash – as reported by Andrew Johnson in today’s Independent.  I think that people should make up their own mind.   Maybe I’m being snobby and elitist (although such accusations are tacit admissions that the show is simple). Maybe I’m some kind of prude.  Maybe I’m jealous.

I really think people should make up their own mind.

So, with no further ado, here’s the show on iPlayer, and for all of you without UK proxies, here’s ‘ Two new fragrances by Fag Le Jay Jean-Peterson‘ (I am not making this up – not my words, not internet irony, not the words of the Westboro Baptist Church,  but the words of BBC 3* ).

On the internet you can slag a television show off merely by telling people to watch it.

* ‘… Tim Goodall, a gay TV journalist, who’s more interested in sipping Pina Colada and discussing how fit the soldiers are in Basra than delivering breaking news …’ – translation: lol, gay – not my words, but the words of BBC 3’s press department.

Years ago, at school – a macho boys school – homo and poof were frequent terms of abuse for anything that seemed effeminate or weak. It was primarily driven by a lack of life experience (ignorance), a kind of lazy, ill-thought out, homophobia. Upon leaving school most people, possessing half a brain or more, and a bit of life experience, rapidly realise that people are generally people regardless of their gender. There are copious amounts of stupid people of every gender. It’s the one thing that unites all nationalities. The basic problem with humour derived from gay stereotypes is pretty much the same as humour derived from any other stereotype. Unless it’s ironic, or has some deeper meaning, it’s obvious, and because it’s obvious, it’s retarded.

I could be missing something about Al Murray’s ‘gay’ Nazi, and Horne & Corden’s ‘gay’ war correspondent, because I don’t think any of the comedians in question are homophobic. In Al Murray’s case he’s got a track record of taking the piss out of homophobia in the form of the pub landlord (‘never confused’). But in the case of the ‘gay’ Nazi and the ‘gay’ war correspondent the humour is derived from some pretty negative homosexual stereotypes. This can be contrasted with Sascha Baron Cohen’s Brüno – here for instance – which is essentially about peoples reactions to absurd situations, and absurd stereotypes, rather than a strict play on stereotypes. If people are just laughing at the stereotype then the comedy is retarded.

I’m not homosexual, and I’ve never experienced the kinds of bullying or discrimination that people have, but I have seen how ignorance about other genders can lead to a kind of lazy, semi-malevolent, homophobia. I’m principally opposed to the ‘gay’ Nazi sketch and Horne & Corden’s ‘gay’ war correspondent sketches because I think they’re retarded sketches, aimed at idiots, and lazy, in some very fundamental ways. People forget that in order to be edgy you have to be smart.

Given how thick people are it should do rather well.

FFS.

Lol at Florida. Lol at the comments.

The current episode of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe is quite special (series 4 episode 3, or series 5 episode 3 if you count from somewhere else, see comments below). During the programme he chats with several prominent UK screen writers about their work. It’s available on iPlayer here, and foreigners will soon find it on YouTube.

I don’t normally like watching things like that episode, because it sometimes reveals a dispassionate professionalism in heroes that tinges the way I see them forever, like they’ve been dipped in the bog of eternal stench. I don’t necessarily want to know the artist to appreciate their art. I’m that childish.

But all of the people in the programme (Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, Graham Linehan, Russell T Davies, Paul Abbott, Tony Jordan) came across well, and none of the questions asked by Brooker were stupid in a way that I, as a layman, could detect.

Recently I had a casual conversation with someone about Simon Amstell’s Never Mind The Buzzcocks, which led to a broader discussion about contemporary comedy. I’m of the opinion that Simon Amstell is very funny, and they were of the opinion that Simon Amstell is nasty and picks on people. It’s indicative of a wide gap between the internet generation (it’s not an age thing – it’s an information thing) and everybody else. I have some opinions on ‘modern’ humour. Just like I possess an anus.

Sex and morality – still a big issue for many, there are a whole generation of people that openly discuss issues that were taboo. In part through things like sex education in schools, in part changing attitudes, and in part because of the internet. There are plenty of subjects that people do not consider shock-worthy. Superficially it seems callous, but in my opinion, honesty does not equal not caring.  Humour based on things that were taboo does not cheapen debate, but signifies willingness to talk openly about issues that were considered in bad taste. It’s the inverse of Victorian double standards. People don’t look the other way. In the previous paragraph I placed modern in quote marks because I believe people like Daniel Defoe, William Hogarth, later Samuel Butler, countless others, did the same thing (some would say they did it better, and the comparison is disproportionate – I agree  – but the point is about precedents). It’s not new.

Take the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross ruckus – moral decline? In some ways I am glad to live in a country that is still shocked by bad behaviour – the exact opposite of moral decline – on the other-hand I think some of the more vitriolic responses to the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross ruckus were driven by people who are unwilling to talk about sex because they think it’s immoral outside of marriage, which is a shame, because it happens. It happened in the past too . When people point to things like teenage pregnancy rates in the UK as a sign of moral decline, it’s worth noting that among the industrialised nations Japan, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and France, have far lower rates of teenage pregnancy, with attitudes towards sex that are far more open than ours. A willingness to talk about sex does not equal immorality, any more than Victorians not talking about sex equalled morality. Nor does it equal ‘the answer’ – I won’t pretend that I think an unwillingness to talk about sex is the reason for the UK and America’s high teenage pregnancy rates. I have no doubt at all that it’s more complicated than that, and requires impartial inquiry, free of the shackles of mere opinion such as this.

If people were campaigning against Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross because they invaded the privacy of Georgina Baillie (whom seems reasonable and intelligent) I think they’ve got a fair point – but they weren’t – they were complaining about it been ‘grossly offensive’. Not a gross invasion of privacy, or good old fashioned bad manners, but an issue of taste, decency, and morality. Combined with a general sense of anger towards the BBC.

I don’t know many people on my side of the debate who thinks what Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross did was edgy, or anything other than mildly amusing (at best – many people thought it was rubbish – they can both be far funnier), but the reactions to it exposed a divide and a mutual misunderstanding from both sides. As BBC license fee payers those who found the broadcast offensive were absolutely within their rights to complain. But in the rush for judgement many people feel as if their views were ignored because they were not suitably incensed or represented. I felt quite angry about that at the time, and was as rabid, or worse, than the people I criticised. I was wrong and I regret that. Retrospect is a fine thing. Emotions running high do not lead to a quality debate or bode well for free speech.

Honesty being mistaken for nastiness – Simon Amstell’s humour is based on honesty. His stand up and his presenting. When he is picking on some celebrity he doesn’t do so with anything other than the truth. This is no more apparent when a celebrity on Never Mind The Buzzcocks (available on iPlayer here) says something along the lines of ‘yeah – so what’ and the audience applauds. I think this is a natural Twenty First Century reaction to Twentieth Century celebrity. PR, image making, to an extent the machinery of media production, is no longer transparent to the audience, and people like Simon Amstell are a reaction to that. The divide in the opinions of Never Mind The Buzzcocks viewers after the exit of Mark Lamarr exactly mirrors the cultural divide. One could almost get Hegelian about this sort of thing,

Disability and the use of politically incorrect language in satire – there was a bit of a fuss as a result of Simple Jack in the film Tropic Thunder, over the use of the word retarded. Again, I think many people missed the point; in Tropic Thunder Simple Jack was presented as a film that starred Tugg Speedman as a cognitively impaired lad who could talk to animals. It it was presented as a film that bombed (failed miserably at the box-office). The point was that it bombed because Tugg Speedman played ‘the full retard’ – as Kirk Lazarus, method actor extraordinaire, pointed out. People do not want to see people who are greatly cognitively impaired in films, they prefer people like Rain Man or Forest Gump, idealised, sanitised versions of disability. The film was as much a satire of cinema audiences as movies and actors. Everyone picked up on the use of the word retard and a blacked-up Robert Downey Jr (Kirk Lazarus was a satire of stereotypes in method acting), but not what was spelt out by Kirk Lazarus about movie depictions of the cognitively impaired. People were too busy being offended to notice. Tropic Thunder was a great satire. & Tom Cruise was brilliant in it (click here for a tasty morsel, or even better, buy the DVD).

There is less and less difference between what appears in newspapers and blogs. Due, I think, to the prevalence of mere opinion. It’s distinct from ‘not opinion’ columns and blogs  by the likes of the excellent Ben Goldacre, and others, because opinion is like casual, and occasionally fuckwitted, chat overheard in a high-street pub. Or an internet discussion group. It doesn’t necessarily have any weight behind it, and is for entertainment, rather than reaching a wide audience. So, I’m going to pick on former pot smoker David Mitchell’s “My drugs hell? No one offered me any” column published in today’s Observer*.

Because he got paid for it, and I’m a little jealous, plus, I’m putting-off sorting out some kind of Sunday food (bad back/hang-over), plus, I think he’s trying to make some kind of point. I’ll get my cast-iron, bona-fide, complaint out of the way:

Public Service Announcement: I’m talking about normal cannabis here rather than skunk which, I’m reliably informed, both is, and can get you into, serious shit.

Bollocks. Transform and others have gone out of their way to dispel the myth of hyper strong weed and links to mental illness for a long time. I believe what they’re saying because they have produced carefully referenced arguments with a basis in actual evidence. The government’s scientists backed this up – they were ignored, presumably various super-duper-skunk platitudes are widespread, because of media coverage of drugs issues. I think with something as important as drugs policy evidence is paramount. Otherwise it’s a waste of time.

There is no Pepé Le Pew in a cape.

Furthermore, and I’m going to emulate a newspaper opinion column journalist’s standard of evidence – I’ve been reliably informed by several somewhat hip ageing middle-class hippies that cannabis oil, Thai-sticks, and ‘red leb’ resin, were mind-blowingly strong compared to most skunk – and highly sought out in the early 1970s.

It may seem a trivial point; but public misconceptions about drugs can lead to policies being enacted that lead to people being locked up.  Which will likely more negatively impact their life than their skunk smoking habits.  Anecdote can be dangerous.  I once saw someone go mad after eating a sausage roll.

Now I’m going to go into full newspaper opinion column (or ‘blog’) mode, but not before carefully, and conscientiously, alienating  people, by telling my imaginary reader, to their face, figuratively speaking – obviously – to fuck off. Fuck off. If you’re reading this you should have better things to do, like preparing some food, or cleaning up a bit. Or something useful.

I’m going to wank a little about David Mitchell’s bit about cool:  Not a cast-iron complaint, not bona fide, but nonetheless worth typing. It annoys me when people who could reasonably be called cool talk about the general principles of cool. It’s like saying “I’m not racist, but” with cool instead of racist. It’s like telling everyone who thinks you’re cool to fuck off, with examples of the Marlborough Man or some cock of a stereotype of cool.  While simultaneously being cool.  “Ooh look at me – people say I’m cool – but I’m not – I can reflect on it – I’m a square peg in a cool round hole”.  Etc.

Now I’m off  to do something useful.

* Which is worth reading weekly because it’s funny. I think David Mitchell is alright – although for all I know he may kick small animals – for fun. The fact that this blog piece is itself opinion makes me lol at my own hypocrisy – I’ve spelt that out for the thickies in this footnote.

S.H.H on iPlayer.  Woo-hoo.

I’d really like to be able to hate this for being reliant on catchphrases,  a kind of modern-day CU Jimmy/Russ Abbot nightmare (which also attracted millions of viewers), but I can’t because it’s funny.  Here’s a clip of Phyliss and Mr Doggy from Little Britain USA.  Soon to be on US television.  David Walliams is an excellent actor.

Beavis and Butthead get political.

Promise rings are worn as a symbol of commitment to remain chaste until marriage. A pop band wearing them, and therefore promoting them, is no different from a comedian using them as material. Why? Because in both cases they’re examples of people expressing an opinion about sex. My opinion about promise rings is that they’re often worn and promoted by people who disprove of people who do not live as Christians. Given a chance some would enforce their brand of Christianity on others. Preventing teaching of things like evolution, acting against gay rights, and and anything that contradicts scripture. I am not against people making a choice to live as Christians and follow scripture but I’m against anyone dictating what other people can and can’t say. The unfortunate political baggage that comes with promise rings has made such things hot-button topics of the so-called “culture wars”. The culture wars have caused much self-censorship in the US media.

At the 2008 MTV VMAs Russell Brand mocked the Jonas Brothers, and their vow of chastity. In free societies people can choose to wear promise rings, but in a free society people should be able to mock public figures that wear them, in the same way that Jordin Sparks what free to make the telling comment that “It’s not bad to wear a promise ring because not everybody, guy or girl, wants to be a slut.”

Similarly Russell Brand’s political comments were hot-button topics of the culture wars. I think they were funny. Using the word retarded is quite different than making fun of people who are disabled. It walks a fine line because all kinds of words with cultural baggage could be justified along similar lines. Intention is not an excuse in itself. So I’ll elaborate a bit because I think it’s an issue of specificity, context, and current usage. Retardation is one of those horrible medical terms of old that was applied to a whole host of things that would be given clear diagnosis today. It’s not a specific medical condition. The context of joke was about world leaders and potential world leaders – aimed at people in a position of power. The current usage of retarded is not primarily used as a phrase to mock disabled people. That’s a good test of politically incorrect phrases: What’s the specificity? What’s the context? What’s the current usage?

What I find particularly funny is that Russell Brand was trolling – pure and simple. The act ticked every box of the so-called culture wars. People are discussing it days later, the ratings were up in key demographics, all the parties involved get more attention (Jordin Sparks’ media profile has increased significantly, the Jonas Brothers got some headlines, so did Russell Brand), and this is the power of trolling. It’s a demonstration that the self-censorship in the US media of the last 7 years may not sell as well, or give as bigger buzz, as having diverse opinions represented in popular media outlets.  In publicity alone the MTV VMAs 2008 are a win.

The up-in-arms comments against Russell Brand on Internet forums have been retarded: So why pander to these people?  They want to tell you what to do – including what you can and can’t say.

On a lesser note some Twilight fans are completely mental.

No comment.

The Dentist Song from Little Shop of Horrors.

Watch for yourself here.

You know that when a television programme contains Britain in the title it’s attempting to cash-in on a collective sense of identity.  In most cases it’s a bit lazy.  In the case of Britain’s Really Disgusting Foods its symptomatic of the laziness, vacuity, and attempt to cash in on essentialist presumptions about food.   If I were to go down the essentialist route also I could sum-up the show up in a single sentence: The programme has cherry-picked the cheapest foods available to caterers in order to create a straw-man argument, cherry picked experts with vested interests against things like mechanically recovered meat, and created a cloud of brainless confusion aimed at a teenage audience on BBC 3.

The presenter, who’s mildly funny, like dandruff, starts the programmes by saying “I reckon there’s certain things that need answering once and for all, so I’ve composed an email to the meat hygiene service looking for some answers”.  He asks them if ears, eyes, eyelids, noses, brains, lips, nipples, bumholes (rather than anus – the programme is aimed at the youth, man, and they all say bumhole), tail,  testicles, penis, bones, and ballbag, are allowed in sausages.  Testicles appear twice.  Presumably for comedic purposes.  Ha ha.  Twenty minutes later we find out that none of those things are allowed in sausages.  There is, however, a loop hole that means that if you don’t call your meat products sausages they’re allowed 5% meat.  Which I’ll return to.

The programme goes on to discuss the cheapest chicken breasts available to caterers.  Which, surprisingly, or not, as the case may be, are injected with water, salt, and stabilisers.  Partly because they’re frozen.  According to the programme this is disgusting.  A great opportunity to inform the audience is missed  at every opportunity.  Salt, and the associated problems of over consumption are well known, but the chief point the programme makes about the chicken breasts is that they’re disgusting.   Without any qualification of the health ramifications of added salt – or that if consumed sensibly there’s really no problem.  But according to the programme they are disgusting simply because they’ve undergone processing.  Animal welfare can go fuck itself.  It’s not touched upon at all.

Then, at a food trade fair, to demonstrate how disgusting the cheapest, nastiest, cherry-picked faux-sausages are, they give a demonstration of how to make the cheapest, nastiest, faux-sausages. Raising the spectre of mechanically recovered meat.  In order to do this they get Richard Guy – the Real Meat Company founder, who has no conflict of interest at all, an entirely neutral contributor (like fuck)  to give a demonstration of mechanically recovered meat.  Holding up a chicken carcass that had the breast, leg, and other good bits of meat, removed.  Which is exactly what I use to make an excellent chicken soup, using the leftovers from a Sunday roast. He then goes on to explain how the meat – the straggly bits sinew etc. -  is removed in a factory to produce a paste.  They mention the use of ingredients like sodium metabisulfite, and they state, unequivocally, that it “isn’t there to make you live longer, be happier or anything else, it’s there to make a heap of disgusting meat stick together”.

Sodium metabisulfite is familiar to all home brewers.  It is used to sterilise equipment.  It is also a preservative.  It has been used to a very long time, and it has zero side-effects.  You piss it out.  It has absolutely nothing to do with sticking meat together.  It extends the shelf-life of products, and helps prevent food poisoning.  BBC 3 viewers should take what BBC 3 tells them with a pinch of salt.

Shortly after the that programme cuts to a chalk board with “The search for the Worlds Worst Sausage”  the apostrophe is missing from World presumably on purpose, for comedic purposes.  The problem with the board is that technically it’s false advertising.  The cheapest, nastiest, faux sausages they are making are not legally allowed to be called sausages.  No mention is made of the fat-content or salt content.  The two chief problems with the cheapest nastiest food you can cherry pick.  It’s referenced – they mention that fat goes in. But not how much or how much salt goes in.

The programme then consults a nutritionist, who tells us, with minimal elaboration, what we already know about the cheapest nastiest food you can cherry pick.  Nutritionally they’re not very good. Surprise surprise.

They later mention hydrogenated fats.  Hydrogenated fats are bad.  They state that hydrogenated fat “Increases risk of coronary heart disease/contains no nutritional value”.  They do increase the risk of coronary heart disease.  Similar to butter or other natural products that contain saturated fats.  However – they’re wrong about hydrogenated fats containing no nutritional value.  It’s the trans-fats which are a by-product of hydrogenated fats that have no nutritional value.  No mention is made of the problems with saturated fats.  Presumably because telling people their expensive supermarket best sausages can also be bad for their health doesn’t fit their straw-man argument.

They pick on the use of waxy starch in apple pie filling.   Which is no different from using cornflour to thicken things.  But that wouldn’t support the argument.

The programme’s attitude towards E-Numbers is similarly stupid.  At one point the host compares E-Numbers to excrement.  They mention that an E-Number colouring is derived from coal tar.  Like paracetamol used to be, and a whole host of other things utilising organic chemistry.  The idea that anything good can be derived from coal tar is ignored.  To support the argument that the E-number colouring in question is bad they mention that it’s banned in two countries.  I don’t know how many countries it is not banned in, but that doesn’t support the argument, so it’s omitted.

They talk about how marketing people give a false impression of food.  The next time I get a shag out of wearing Lynx deodorant I’ll celebrate by eating a trans-fat laden cake in a park where it’s always sunny and there’s no dog shit.  Marketing gives a misleading idea of what product is/does.  Well I never.  If the argument about misleading advertising were backed up by a coherent argument about unhealthy or disgusting food the programme may have had a point.  Instead it’s an opinion piece of the worst kind.

BBC 3 and Britain’s Most Disgusting Foods are shit.  It’s a broadly misleading programme, aimed at teenagers, that adds nothing to the argument about healthy food, and potentially increases the ignorance of its viewers.  The programme contains nothing about how much salt, saturated fat, and sugar it is healthy to consume.

The Tape of Love.

The New Zealand Chiropractors Association is threatening to sue the New Zealand Medical Journal over an article that was critical of chiropractors written by David Colquhoun.  I’ve picked up on this via Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science blog.  It’s a stupid situation that highlights a few important things.  Firstly the problem with lawyers being used to silence free speech.  In this case the New Zealand Medical Journal is likely equipped to protect itself. But there have been many examples of less well equipped entities caving in to legal threats because of the costs involved with fighting spurious litigation.  I think it’s typical of many groups and individuals with commercial interests attempting to shut down dissent on the Internet.  You don’t need secret police to shut people up – just a good lawyer.

Secondly, in my opinion, this kind of attitude towards critics is endemic among proponents of alternative medicine.  Academics, real academics, in my experience, are an argumentative bunch.  I’ve sat in a room where debates have nearly come to blows.  But that’s acceptable.  Criticism – moreover the ability to rebut criticism – is considered a good thing.  Ph.Ds are tough.  I suspect the reason why many alternative medicine proponents are disproportionately sensitive to criticism is the lack of a solid evidence base.  Without evidence all there is is rhetoric, and opinion. Leading to frustration when confronted with evidence.  If a child could sue their parents for smashing their belief in Santa Claus they probably would.

Thirdly, and this, genuinely, has fuck-all to do with chiropractors in New Zealand, Flight of The Conchords is very good.  Particularly Murray.  Other than lamb, rugby, and penguins Flight of The Conhords is forever linked with New Zealand in my mind.  G’day mates*.  I forgive you for Zane Lowe.

Watch this video to see Murray being cheered up.

* That’s a joke, in case you’re a bit dim.

On the basis of Dancefloor Chart I sought out his gigs.  By then the rave scene was a bit crap, and boring.  Russell Brand’s show (with, it must be said,  the essential addition of Matt Morgan) was worth watching.  Not for the music, but because it’s funny.  Watch:

Dancefloor Chart.

I can’t work out whether the guy is rushing or having a panic attack at 1m20s.  It’s funny either way. Stimulants. Lol.

Watch: Johnny Vegas interviewing Stuart Lee about Russell Brand.

At first I thought Stuart Lee came across as a bit of a twat.  But the more I think about it, anyone that takes something as gospel truth, with anything produced for entertainment purposes, is very credulous.  There can be such a thing as fact based jokes* but it’d be a dull world if it was all fact based.  I think that Stuart Lee, maybe belatedly, ‘fessed-up during a DVD extra,  letting an audience**  know that comedy isn’t about facts, makes the whole thing OK.  Johnny Vegas looks genuinely aggrieved at misquoting.  Johnny Vegas sold his wedding photos to Viz for £1.

* First heard the phrase spoken by Simon Amstell – a funny clip here.
** Albeit however many watch DVD extras/YouTube.

PS – I’m not sure if the Stuart Lee video is a pisstake.

Time Gentlemen Please is a sitcom that is coarse, has a laugh track, was broadcast on a satellite channel, and was critically underrated because of snobbishness.  It’s actually very good.   It’s primarily written by Al Murray, and Richard Herring. The cast are good – Phil Daniels stands out, playing the flatulent pervert Terry Brook.   Many Terry Brook lines are cheesy but he says them so grubbily they’re funny (something Richard Herring also does well in other programmes/stand-up).  The programmes recurring characters are all memorable and developed throughout the series, and there’s a lot of back-references.  Watch episode two here.  If Guv’nor were on the Internet he would appear on spEak You’re Branes as a result of comments on BBC Have Your Say.  DVDs are available.

Trailer Park Boys is very clever sitcom for the following reasons:

• Character development:  It is impossible to get a grip on a Trailer Park Boys character through any one episode.  The characters and their lives are complex.   Ricky, for instance, becomes explicable throughout the series/seasons by exploring his relationship with his father,  which in turn explains his attitudes towards his family.
• Dialogue:  Trailer Park Boys has the cleverest dialogue of any current sitcom.  Each character has their own unique grammar and real thought has gone into everything from their malapropisms to their reserve.
• Acting: Jim Lahey is the best sitcom comedy drunk.  He is a believable drunk. The acting skills of all involved are good, but particularly Robb Wells and John Dunsworth.  They’re as good as the majority of celebrated character actors.
• Plot arc:  Each series has a underlying plot arc beautifully intertwined with each episode.   Each series is like a great album, where each song works well alone, but in sequence makes a thing of beauty.
• Attention to detail:  The set design and costume design is awesome. There is as much background detail as real life.
• Direction:  I suspect a polarising filter, but may be wrong, and it’s such a minor niggle (on a technical point about glare reduction causing increased colour saturation) that I’m a bit of a twat to mention it.  The direction is brilliant.  It’s a faux reality television format, but at no point interferes with the plot or distracts the viewer.

Watch this.  Pay attention to each character’s grammar, background detail, and references to the series plot arc. It’s one of my favourite episodes, called “The Delusions of Officer Jim Lahey”, but bear in mind that one episode of Trailer Park Boys will make less sense in isolation, because of the richness of the plot and characters.    So, if you want some quality entertainment, buy the DVDs, or borrow it on the Internet.  At first glance it looks like a collection of stereotypes, thus proving first glances are bullshit.

Porridge is another great sitcom.  There was a spin-off: “Going Home” (watch here). Going Straight is not as good as the main series, but Ronnie Barker’s elite acting skills elevate it from the mundane.

When this was shown in the UK originally the BBC put it on really late at night.  Another top ten sitcom.  This episode is a chunk of George Costanza gold.  Alternative medicine can be cheaper than evidence based medicine.  But at what cost?

Another in the pantheon of sitcom genius.  Watch episode one here.

Remember kids – buy the DVDs of stuff you watch online.  If you like what you see. The quality is better, a proportion of the price goes to the people involved, and there’s extras.

Remember  media companies – freebies can sell DVDs – look at it a bit like handing out first hits of crack.  Make DVDs worth buying by providing decent, rather than half-arsed, extras.

I’m trying to think of a classic sitcom that doesn’t have a least one character “like someone we (collectively) know”.  Someone we say things like “I know someone who is just like …” about.  Of course, it’s an illusion, because real life people don’t have attributes that are recognised in an audience to the extent of a good sitcom character.  Good sitcom writers create funny, multifaceted stereotypes from stereotypes that already exist. Compound stereotypes.  Aggregates. Multifaceted because the interpretation of a characters will vary between viewers, and the quality of the writing.

I should think any new sitcom character that is recognised as “someone who is just like …”  by a broad audience, is half-way to becoming the next Alan Partridge or George Costanza or Hyacinth Bucket.  That half-way mark is probably very difficult to transcend because character recognition is nothing without good writing, acting, and directing.

A couple of years ago I had a chat with someone about Hollywood.  Specifically the way it works financially.  Money is tangible.  From what I heard, creatively speaking, it sounds like a nightmare.  Because first week takings for a film are everything.   The money that goes into promoting a film is spectacular.  Let alone the cost of filming it and talent.  Star power is a huge deal.  A star can turn a mediocre (but not awful) film into something that is profitable.  So the onus on big Hollywood film studios is to be risk averse.  Apparently they are more risk averse than ever.

Careers are on a knife-edge with every film.

I reckon it’s possible that Hollywood will permanently split. Into riskier low budget studios (many as subsidiaries of larger studios), and big budget studios that produce genre films with everyman/everywoman lead characters, played by big name stars, and directed by good (but mostly not brilliant) directors.  A high risk margin/low risk margin dichotomy.  I think it’s already happened a bit. The big studios will still produce films that are Oscar winning brilliance, but mostly they won’t, because taking the chance is too risky. The future is capitalised Hollywood, and it’s cooler uncapitalised younger sibling hollywood. hollywood surfs the net grandad (to paraphrase Richard Herring).

Independent film making will corporatise and be assimilated. Not necessarily a bad thing because it may mean substantially more independent films with significantly better distribution, and competition between smaller studios.   There are a lot of really great independent films no-one gets to see because they’re limited to wanky art-house cinemas, and those of us that walk the line on the internet.  Internet distribution and corporate distribution will positively change that.

I think The Brittas Empire is in the top ten sitcoms of all time.  If that makes me a bad person so be it.   Watch the first episode here (if you watch it full screen the ads are less obvious).  Keep watching; it takes a while to tune into the monster that is Gordon Brittas. Although you’ve probably met at least one.  They hold minor positions of power everywhere.  It’s a semi-plausible conspiracy theory.

And episode two, watch here.

@ the Roxy.  Not surprised Americans dig it based on taking some colonial chums to his act a couple of years ago.

Via his Rock Profile.

WKUK.

This.

WKUK.

This. – Etc.

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.