comedy
Attention Comedy Central Extra! / 11.07.09
The fact that you are unable to show an episode of Not Going Out made this year in anamorphic widescreen - instead having to show it letterboxed - is embarrassing. The fact that you also have a horrendously ugly DOG in the top-left is just the icing on the shit sandwich. There is not a chance in hell I am watching something like that.
God knows I love broadcast television. I’ve always loved it - and I love it so much that I’ve ended up working in it. But it’s things like this - terrible widescreen issues, horrific DOGs, condensed-to-nothing title sequences, credit-squeezing, a total disrespect for the programmes themselves - that make me long for a future of downloads, where there’s at least a chance that some of them might get better…
Oh, for fu- / 20.04.09
Slightly behind the curve on this one, perhaps, but I’ve only just found out - Lab Rats has been cancelled. And for anyone thinking “no shit”, it’s worth pointing out that the ratings beat the (also excellent) Peter Serafinowicz Show, and that got a Christmas special last year.
Two blessed sisters commence to bathe... / 13.11.08
Turns out the parrot sketch is even more historically important than we thought.
“Some of the jokes are strikingly similar to modern ones, with subjects including farts, sex, ugly wives and a dimwit referred to as ‘a student dunce’.”
Heh – farts.
“A student dunce is voyaging on a very stormy sea. When his slaves start to wail, he tells them, ‘Don’t cry: in my will, I’ve set you all free!’”
Still, it’s all in the delivery, right? Check ‘em out as told by Jim Bowen.
Hooray for Graham Linehan / 09.10.08
Will people ever learn? I mean, ever?
Christmas Man! / 19.09.08
Look what’s shown up on the SRO Audiences site:
Carry On Britain / 25.07.08
My Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins article revealed my love for the comic output of the British film industry, and the Carry On films are perhaps the most famous examples of this. The Archive Hour programme on Radio 4 tomorrow (26 July) looks at the films from a social history perspective, one which hasn’t really been explored, and of which I heartily approve. It’s broadcast at 8pm BST, but Brits can listen again on the BBC iPlayer or via the Radio 4 website.
