Category: Funny

Because any humour we can get out of this world is necessary.

Swift deliveries

~ Inquisitor

Just got my pre-ordered Venture Bros. season two DVD from Amazon US – which considering that it only came out last Monday and that I used ultra-cheapo delivery is pretty good going. Brilliant packaging, and once I’ve watched them all I may have more of an opinion, but season one was one of the best bits of TV comedy I’ve seen for a long time and it’s such a shame that it’s stuck on Bravo (otherwise The Breasts, Poker and Chuck Norris Channel) at 1AM.

Happily, however, I’ve got broadband and a multi-region DVD player and so don’t need to care at what time Britain airs it at – I can just download it and/or wait for the DVD (I got into the show too late for season two, but I’ll still be buying a Robot Chicken S2 DVD when it comes out mainly because of the fact I downloaded the lot.) There’s lots of great stuff out there that didn’t air in Britain that you’d otherwise be unable to obtain; being able to play Region 1 helps a lot, and I highly recommend it for any comedy fan disillusioned at the fact that Roman’s Empire and Catherine Tate may well actually be the best that BBC2 can come up with.

And some advice to all and sundry: avoid the Python TV releases (I particularly loathe the smug “no extras” captions that are on all the advertising – Sony obviously think that’s Pythonesque, but it bloody well isn’t) – there are apparently better ones coming down the pipeline, and if we’ve waited this long for Flying Circus we might as well wait for a version that’s worth £20 a series, because one without any extras or cut material at all is most definitely not. Especially since we know full well that the Pythons have lots of outtakes and other spare material – Terry Jones hoarded VHS copies of Flying Circus for years in the fear that it would be wiped like so much else, and this almost certainly applies to much other Python material as well. Just say no to cash-ins.

This had better be an April fool

~ Inquisitor

Because otherwise, it’s both deeply worrying and deeply ignorant:

Official: BBC is too upmarket (The Observer, 1st April 2007)

…Lower-income families, particularly those in the north of England and Scotland, are less likely to watch digital channels such as BBC3, which is aimed at a sophisticated twentysomething audience, or tune in to BBC4’s high-brow output. By contrast, many higher-income groups make good use of a wide range of services, including Radio 4 and News24, and are better placed to take advantage of new ones – listening to podcasts or downloading programmes over the internet…

How patronising is that? Apparently, “lower-income families” (and how godawful a term is that?) only want to watch shit, and only “higher-income groups” want to listen to Radio 4. The BBC is apparently only serving the upper classes by providing programmes which aren’t shit. Therefore, the Observer concludes, the BBC should be making more awful Test the Nation, hiring more shock-jock Moyles wannabes and putting yet more controversy in EastEnders.

What absolute bollocks. Never mind that someone who doesn’t earn much might, honest to God, actually like listening to Humphreys et al – it’s every stupid class assumption crammed into a single statement. Quality television should, of course, be for everyone, but generally it is for everyone – subscription channels in the UK have pretty much always been lowest common denominator. The BBC already makes a lot of downmarket rip-off TV; Greg Dyke recently admitted that he was wrong to commission Fame Academy, for example. It does not need more.

[A possible April Fool-sign, however, is the mention of the BBC making shows like Dancing on Ice – which was of course ITV’s rink-based Strictly Come Dancing ripoff – but that just might be a missed subbing.]

The mention of BBC3 as being a quality channel is worthy of a laugh, however; its attempts at comedy are miserable and it’s filled with repeats of Two Pints of Lager (a downmarket programme if there actually is such a thing.) It’s either too arch or too downmarket and that’s where it goes wrong. And EastEnders is doing badly because right now it’s unrelentingly grim when compared to Coronation Street, which is able to mix dark and funny storylines correctly and smartly; adding another controversial character is just going to continue the decline. And Today gets almost as many listeners as Chris Moyles, and Wogan gets more than either (just under 8m listeners on the latest Rajar, compared to 6.2m for Today and 6.8m for Moyles.)

Of course, what the BBC does very well is TV that appeals to a wide range of the population. Would Doctor Who be as good or successful right now if it wasn’t aimed at the public as a whole? Would Top Gear be liked by people like me if it wasn’t funny? No and no. Yet this article suggests changing what doesn’t really need to be changed; what needs to be changed is the perception of things like BBC Four, not actually dumbing anything down. (If anything, some of the corporation needs to be smartened up – especially the people who recommission Test the Nation.)

There’s a place for elitism just as there is a place for EastEnders – both types of programming obviously appeal to different people – and the lowest common denominator is always a bad place to be. And yet if this article is true, the BBC could be making serious decisions based on the findings of a review which seems to be taking the idea that the BBC needs to go even further downmarket than it already is – and, let me remind you, there’s a police-based Casualty spinoff in the offing. Oh dear.

UK Eurovision 2007 – “Making Your Mind Up” time

~ Inquisitor ~ 6 Comments

[If you’re coming here looking for blogging for the actual Eurovision 2007 contest, go here to my Twitter page.] 

Eurovision is always a seriously guilty pleasure. There’s so many things wrong with it: the format, the style, the idea, the songs. And yet because of its capability to surprise and, often, the very fact it is so terrible, it’s compulsively watchable.

The UK, however, has been entering terrible songs into Eurovision for as long as I can remember, and not terrible in a fun way either. Partially it’s because we don’t take it seriously – many countries in Europe enter major names and popular songwriters, whereas we enter people no-one’s ever heard of. If Robbie Williams was to enter, he’d probably win; he’s certainly very popular in much of Europe, but instead we enter Daz Sampson and Jemini.

At least we get a choice, but generally it isn’t a very good one. I haven’t heard any of the entrants this year, although at the very least I have heard of some of them. This is therefore going to be a very interesting evening, liveblogged after the break.

Update: It’s 9:28. It’s time for the results! Will it be anything good?

Second update: No.

Continue reading “UK Eurovision 2007 – “Making Your Mind Up” time” →

Apparently screening at SXSW

~ Inquisitor

Amongst interesting stuff, a film I’m not sure anyone wants to see…

JAMES BLUNT: RETURN TO KOSOVO
Directed by Steven Cantor.
Platinum-selling musician (and former soldier) James Blunt, returns to the battlefield at which he served, for an emotional journey of reflection. (World Premiere)

Not the most appealing way to spend a few hours, really.

Good news for comedy fans everywhere!

~ Inquisitor

Out of the Trees (a sketch show written by Douglas Adams and Graham Chapman, shown once in a dead BBC2 slot in 1975) has been found by the BFI’s Missing Believed Wiped, having been taped at the time by Graham Chapman’s partner on an antiquated pre-Beta video system. People have now seen it, but unfortunately I’m not in London – I’d have given a lot to have been able to. And the BFI don’t tour with this, as far as I’m aware. Damn.

Hopefully the BBC will be smart enough to put it as an extra on a Hitchhikers or Python release, because this really does need to be seen – there’s apparently a lot of decent material on it beyond the small exerpts that have survived before, and besides it’s Adams and Chapman.

What’s more, Out of the Trees‘ reappearance after thirty years since its deletion gives hope that all those Hartnell and Troughton Doctor Who, the second Nigel Kneale 1984, Hardwicke House beyond episode two, Not Only But Also, the second series of Dad’s Army and all those lost Beatles/Stones/etc TV appearances that the BBC felt that it had to junk for “cost saving” might just turn up in a barn somewhere. We’ve already come far with this and the currently recovered Doctor Whos, so TV fans everywhere can only hope that this trend towards rediscovery continues.

[And if you have the bootleg tape of the full Hardwicke House – that is, beyond episode one and two – that is currently rumoured to exist, we’re all anxious to hear from you. Just thought it was worth a try.]

Advice for The Sun (they love it, no really)

~ Inquisitor

If you headline a story this way (not the David Gest one):

PERVHUNT.COM

Don’t be surprised if someone checks to see if you own it, finds that you don’t, registers it and then uses it against you (linked to the Sun Page 3 website on an 18-year old model’s leering profile.) Nice one, anonymous Popbitch reader.

And what’s it with the use of that Sarah Payne photo right now? It was even on the front of the Guardian this morning. It’s just a form of crude emotional blackmail really, and this kind of story is too important for that. But with our media climate the way it is, at least we can have a laugh sometimes.

[via Media Guardian diary, 17 November 2006, free registration required.]

Edit: Oh well, qwghlm got there before me. Much more interesting detail (including the link to the relevant Popbitch thread) there.

Al-Jazeera’s famed attention to detail

~ Inquisitor ~ 2 Comments

Maybe if you’re launching an English version of your popular foreign language news channel, you should make sure that your promotional campaign can spell “satellite” correctly:

Al Jazeera makes a few spelling errors

[Click on the image for the full advert.]

It’s too amusing to excuse such errors, really; if you’re buying a half page in a major newspaper (admittedly in this case the Guardian) you really should know better than to let it go out without a full proof-read. Let’s hope their news quality is much, much better.

History repeating

~ Inquisitor

One of the most famous denigrating myths about a rock star is Phil Collins divorcing his (second) wife “by fax”; it wasn’t exactly the divorce, but it was ugly and it did end up in the Sun.

Interestingly, something similar has now happened, entirely for real: Britney Spears told her husband she was divorcing him by Blackberry. And, this being the modern era, the video’s on YouTube. Don’t you just love watching history in the making?

It’s a wonder how Britney manages to stage-manage this stuff perfectly: just when her husband is promoting his bandwagon-jumping worthless hip-hop album, and just after she’s had a second kid, she dumps him. And, of course, she’s got interest all over the Internet because Federline has always been seen as a hanging coat-tail; now she’s Fed-less, she’s got promotion for her upcoming album, he’s got promotion for his, she gets the kids, he gets paid off, they’re happy. You’ve got to admire the gall.

One wonders what exactly those fundamentalists are on about when they talk about sanctity of heterosexual marriage, though.