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I think Rufus Hound is a thief.

Started by 2 Light Ales Please, April 01, 2011, 01:54:56 AM

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2 Light Ales Please

Somebody's been watching Stewart Lee.  As I listen to this week's So Wrong It's Right on iPlayer, it struck me that Rufus Hound is sounding a lot like Stewart Lee.  He keeps listing and repeating things with Lee's trademark slow delivery. The bit about hitting himself on the head with a sledgehammer is probably the best example.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00zslfj/So_Wrong_Its_Right_Series_2_Episode_4/

So there, I am hereby calling-out Rufus Hound as a plagiarist.

Depressed Beyond Tables

Any time I've seen him he seemed to be trading on his eccentric facial hair and cheeky grin. Not much but it's more than some have.

Christ, what a boring programme. So far it's a series of prompted, mediocre, prepared anecdotes that wouldn't really qualify as anecdotes without being on a podium.

Brian

Whoops! Just listened to the whole thing and kinda enjoyed it. He seems alright to me. Big fan of the Lee and considering his age maybe Hound has been influenced. He does seem to inhabit strange corners of the media: kid's T.V, Celeb trash and Comedy panels.

idunnosomename

Rufus Hound is one of those comedians Radio 4 decides is popular and therefore puts on every single show, like the appalling Shappi Khorsandi, and you can't turn on the radio without them being there on Just a Minute or Loose bloody Ends.

I heard this while cooking tea last night, his big suck up to Brooker was really weird and made me feel a bit ill. "Oooh I hate that hilarious Charlie Brooker because he is so funny clever insightful and handsome"

Famous Mortimer

Eh, Shappi Khorsandi is tons better than Rufus bloody Hound.

Jemble Fred

What specific material did Hound actually steal to make him a 'thief' then?

2 Light Ales Please

It's not the material, it's Stewart Lee's delivery. Clearly Hound isn't funny enough to come up with his own comic style and has resorted to copying.

momatt

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on April 01, 2011, 10:42:09 AM
Eh, Shappi Khorsandi is tons better than Rufus bloody Hound.

She should do more jokes about being Iranian and mention her Dad more.  I think I prefer Rufus overall.  Rufus can be pretty funny at times.  In others very irritating.
He's like the Lee Evans of comedy.

I really liked the last series of this radio program. 

Jack Shaftoe

Quote from: 2 Light Ales Please on April 01, 2011, 10:53:56 AM
It's not the material, it's Stewart Lee's delivery. Clearly Hound isn't funny enough to come up with his own comic style and has resorted to copying.

That's not really enough to call someone a thief tbh. There are plenty of actual material-nickers around, let's not devalue the word.

EDIT: I should make it clear I've never seen any of Rufus Hound's material, and in fact have barely heard of him at all. Thus my opinion on this matter is almost entirely worthless.

koeman

Norman Lovett called him a thief last year, accusing him of nicking his 'no man is an island' gag. Hound responded by saying the line was something his gran used to say many years before.

http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2010/06/16/11196/confessions_of_a_master_criminal

Jemble Fred

Quote from: koeman on April 01, 2011, 01:10:27 PM
http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2010/06/16/11196/confessions_of_a_master_criminal

Sorry, but I quite like that – especially the sign-off. There is an unpleasant element of 'comics shouldn't openly slag off other comics' there admittedly, but if what he says is true and it was his Nan's saying, then you can't blame him for being pissed off. Maybe he'd feel the same for being called a 'thief' for briefly talking in a manner similar to how another comedian talks on a Radio 4 panel show.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

He slagged off the north, he dies.

biggytitbo

I don't get the Stewart Lee comparison myself. I think Hound is usualy decent enough value in these comedy panel games, although him sucking up to Charlie Brooker clearly mde both audience and host uncomfrtable alike.

Shuggie

Rufus Hound is a bloke, he's a blokey bloke, hes a blokey beardy bloke, behold his beardy blockeyness, Rufus Hound is a cunt.

Retinend

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on April 01, 2011, 10:42:09 AM
Eh, Shappi Khorsandi is tons better than Rufus bloody Hound.

...and still shite

Jemble Fred

Quote from: Shuggie on April 01, 2011, 01:53:55 PM
Rufus Hound is a bloke, he's a blokey bloke, hes a blokey beardy bloke, behold his beardy blockeyness, Rufus Hound is a cunt.

Strange, although I'm not a big fan and he does seem to appear in any old shit, Hound doesn't come across that way at all to me (and doesn't have a beard).

I'll tell you what though, if blokey-bloke-I'm-a-bloke-bloke-blokiness pisses you off, don't check this thread: http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=27759.0;topicseen

Shoulders?-Stomach!

In manner he strongly reminds me of 4 people I know. They all look about 5 years older than they are and try and compensate for it with clothes/haircuts. They hang around with people younger than them because that's the only way they can be the alpha male. They're still trying to be rock gods/comedians yet are secretly happy to be the big fish in a small pond, and they all think Eddie Izzard is the greatest man to walk the earth. This bloke must just be the most successful of his kind. The sort that thinks of himself as being great at pub banter however when you try and talk to them all they're interested in is impressing the people around them rather than having a conversation involving listening to people and letting someone else talk for 20 seconds.

This is most likely just transference but he really gives off that sort of a vibe. Outwardly jocular, inside a tangle of narcisissm and insecurity.

Ignatius_S

The Chortle article that Hound complained about was: http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/06/15/11192/the_worlds_biggest_joke_thief%3F?rss

Given that it was an Italian comedian was a confirmed serial plagarist, I'm not surprised that Hound wasn't pleased about being mentioned in this way.

Shuggie

Quote from: Jemble Fred on April 01, 2011, 02:08:39 PM
(and doesn't have a beard).

Maybe it's just in my minds eye, although I think he did sport a goatee for a while, but yeah I really can't stand him I don't think he has ever really suprised me or said something that stood out as a great piece of wit, its always down the line, man in pub fare, I don't think he's a plagiarist, just interminably dull.

Retinend

I was skeptical about this before I pressed play, but that really is uncanny (and plus-cunty). I can just picture him hanging off the micstand, swaying back and forth.

He definitely wasn't giving that delivery when he was hosting that program about the year 2000. Very calculated image change.

Depressed Beyond Tables

He is just one of a whole host of modern-day comedians who should be sent out to sea on a cruise liner, with the sole purpose of sinking.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

They'd only make a wryly amusing BBC series out of it.


Baby Woodrose

Funny that Shappi Khorsandi's been mentioned in this context because I noticed on last weeks episode she purloined a line from Doug Stanhope, of all people.

Stanhope's line: "If marriage didn't exist, would you invent it? Would you go "Baby, this shit we got together, it's so good we gotta get the government in on this shit..."

Khorsandi (about 5 mins 30 secs in): So Wrong, It's Right S2 E3

Incandenza

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on April 01, 2011, 01:18:04 PM
He slagged off the north, he dies.

This.
I presume this is in relation to his comments on Buzzcocks. What a fucking cunt. The 'crybaby' face he did when Fielding said he could never gig up north again was the last straw. I hope he gets battered by a massive Yorkshireman one day.

The Cloud of Unknowing

Quote from: Baby Woodrose on April 01, 2011, 05:00:48 PM
Funny that Shappi Khorsandi's been mentioned in this context because I noticed on last weeks episode she purloined a line from Doug Stanhope, of all people.

Stanhope's line: "If marriage didn't exist, would you invent it? Would you go "Baby, this shit we got together, it's so good we gotta get the government in on this shit..."

Khorsandi (about 5 mins 30 secs in): So Wrong, It's Right S2 E3

And she blows the line!   "Local Authority" is such a tin-eared substitute for "government" that it does seem fishy.

McDead

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on April 01, 2011, 02:27:56 PM
In manner he strongly reminds me of 4 people I know. They all look about 5 years older than they are and try and compensate for it with clothes/haircuts. They hang around with people younger than them because that's the only way they can be the alpha male. They're still trying to be rock gods/comedians yet are secretly happy to be the big fish in a small pond, and they all think Eddie Izzard is the greatest man to walk the earth. This bloke must just be the most successful of his kind. The sort that thinks of himself as being great at pub banter however when you try and talk to them all they're interested in is impressing the people around them rather than having a conversation involving listening to people and letting someone else talk for 20 seconds.

This completely nails my feelings about this worthless cock - remember when he came on Would I Lie To You with his aging student, bozo pal, and they talked about how they were doing a tour of all the pubs in some wretched Home County or other? The picture was complete - smug, chummy, boorish twat. Actually, not quite complete...

Quotecalculated

There. What worries me is that he's what *I'd* be like as a stand-up: obsequiously in awe of my heroes, trotting out bland "pub bloke" observations and grinning from ear to ear cos I was getting paid to do what I loved... But *just* intelligent enough to know, deep down, that I wasn't really ready for primetime.

I don't think Hound is a thief, I think it's a case of influence shining through. It's not necessarily deliberate or calculated. Then again, I might well be saying this because on the handful of occasions I've dragged myself up onstage people have pointed out a similarity between my delivery and that of Lee and while I've never tried to tell a joke, "in a Stewart Lee way" he is my hero and I can't deny he is an influence.

I think that the more gigs I do the more I develop my own voice and hopefully that will continue but I am reassured by this early clip of Stewart Lee:

Stewart Lee - 'Robert The Bruce' (1991)

In which he isn't especially good and his influences are very much worn on his sleeve. I intend to get better at stand up but in the mean time I'm inclined to sympathise with comedians who probably grew up, like me, watching Slee and betray something of the influence.

Jake Thingray

Quote from: McDead on April 01, 2011, 06:28:54 PM

What worries me is that he's what *I'd* be like as a stand-up:

I've sometimes thought about starting a thread about the very same topic. What worries me, in turn, is that the stand-up I'd be similar to is the awful posh bald 'raconteur' Tom Allen.