Children's Comedy

[no_offenc]

I remember The Tick.
And Earthworm Jim.

Anyone remember Super Dave? They used to show it at like 7am on a sunday on Channel 4 back in 1994/5 I think.  Along with Stunt Dawgs.

Very oddball, Earthworm Jim style comedy cartoons.  great stuff.

[Dark Sky]

Not really a worthwhile bump, but I just want to boast that I met Tony Robinson this evening after seeing him give a talk about the Labour Government at my Uni.

(I didn't go for the politics, mind, I only went 'cause of Maid Marian!  I also had to arrive 45 minutes late due to having to stay for the end of orchestra...I skived off the first part of the rehearsal to listen to Hitchhiker's, and they wouldn't let me leave before the end.  But despite being late, a friend and I sneaked in the back of Tony Robinson's talk as a dozen burly security men also went in to remove a drunk, one eyed heckler wearing a pirate style eye patch.  As the heckler was escorted out he shouted "Robinson, you remain a tosser!  You're an actor not a politician!", which was interesting.)

So after all the political boring stuff Tony Robinson signed autographs and I said a feeble thank you to him for creating Maid Marian, and he got really excited and started talking about how Maid Marian is the thing he is most proud of  because it wasn't Richard Curtis' thing, it was HIS creation.  It was really nice.

Also...randomly searching Google...I found an interview some amateur geezer did with him presumably in the year 2000 where he talks about Blackadder...this is interesting...

AWW:    You probably get asked this question a lot, but are you planning to do any more Blackadders?

TR:        I think Rowan [Atkinson, the actor who plays Blackadder and Mr. Bean] and I would. The problem really is the enormous success of Ben Elton and Richard Curtis. [The writers of Blackadder. Curtis has written films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, and Elton is a best-selling novelist as well as a movie and TV writer.] It was never a very happy show for them to write because we kept changing it so much. And eventually they got so pissed off by that they decided that they didn't want to write any more. I think they enjoyed writing the Millennium episode. It's certainly been enormously popular, and I think it will become even more popular once it finally gets onto terrestrial [ie: regular] television. And hopefully we'll be able to persuade them at some time to write another series. Richard Curtis said he would write another series in the year 2010 whether or not that's true or not, I don't know.

Behind the scenes troubles between the writers and actors, eh?  Anyone else ever hear about that?

[MrSideways]

And The Tick cartoon. Buh-rilliant.

Here I am, quoting myself from a page before everyone was going "ooh! Why has no-one mentioned The Tick?"

What IS the POINT of posting if no fucker is gonna bother to read it, eh?

Having said that, you're all wonderful human beings.

[Lt Plonker]

Anyone remember Super Dave? They used to show it at like 7am on a sunday on Channel 4 back in 1994/5 I think.  Along with Stunt Dawgs.

Yes! It was on just before the Sonic Cartoon, if memory serves. I have very fond memories of it.

I have three episodes of Earthworm Jim on video but I forgot to bring it back to Bournemouth with me. Bugger.

Cartoons like this are wasted on kids.

I've been catching up with Spongebob Squarepants recently. Fucking hilarious. The Mother of Pearl gag made my mum swear with desperation.

[Solid Snail]

Earthworm Jim, Ren & Stimpy and Pinky & The Brain all stand out for me.

In particular an episode of Pinky & The Brain when The Brain got in a suit and went on a quiz show, where the presenter kept calling him Brian.

[Clinton Morgan]

I liked Maid Marian, Your Mother Wouldn't Like It but I also remember (in my early twenties) catching Microsoap one morning which contained this breakfast scene:

MOTHER (An actor in a blue mouse costume has just walked into the room and out again) Talking to your imaginary friend again?

SON: He's not imaginary. He's real.

MOTHER: Of course he is.


I wasn't keen on Round The Twist. I liked surreal comedy but there was something off-putting about the title-song as if it was saying, "Look this programme is really strange. I mean really strange. You might think twenty four hours of a burning log is strange but this is just peanuts compared to strangeness I mean listen......" I also hated the playing-tapes-backwards-voice saying "Rrrrrrrounnnnnd The Terrrwiiiiiiissssst" at the beginning. So because of that I never really watched it. I saw the one where a sow fell in love with a boy.

Also don't forget Rik Mayall reading 'George's Marvellous Medicine'. Prior to that I found Jackanory one of those programmes that made me switch over to ITV, as with Newsround for a bit.

[Darrell]

Also don't forget Rik Mayall reading 'George's Marvellous Medicine'.

Is there a human being alive who doesn't have a vivid memory of this?!

How many airings did it get?

I recall him shaking up and opening a can of Coke on the line "start fizzing like a can of coke", which impressed me at the time.

[Dark Sky]

MOTHER (An actor in a blue mouse costume has just walked into the room and out again) Talking to your imaginary friend again?

SON: He's not imaginary. He's real.

MOTHER: Of course he is.

Are you sure it wasn't "He's not imaginary, he's invisible..."?  And that it wasn't one of the sons, but the daughter?

Sorry to be pedantic, but I quite liked Microsoap despite being too old for it, really.

I recall him shaking up and opening a can of Coke on the line "start fizzing like a can of coke", which impressed me at the time.

Oh, for an unpredictable comment in response to that.

[Village Branson]

I liked Eek the Cat, though can barely remember a thing about it.

Someone please give my brain a nudge!

[kidsick5000]

(Big Deep Breath)

Roger and the Rottentrolls was a consistant work of genius.
It even got a proper spoof documentary late at night, with rude words and everything, lamenting its disappearance from the schedules.

Maid Marian was okay, never as good as Tony Robinsons monologue versions of the Odyssey.

Similarly, seeing Rik Mayall on Jackonory and hearing him say "she had a mouth like a dogs bottom" hit me like lightning at that age. If only for the barrier breaking ie Someone id heard of AND from the extremist show on tv at the time. Mind blowing for a 12year old.

Anyone who remembers Spatz or palace hill as being anything other than piles of crap, needs a better memory. Especially Spatz. LAugh tracks, same plot each week anglo-canadian shite.

Round the twist was good though.

[Mister Six]

Spatz really was shite, even kiddie me knew that. Its only saving grace was that it had that ginger woman from Taking Over the Asylum, and I quite liked her at the time.

Palace Hill I have fond memories of - especially the scenes where they'd be using Ajax to wash their hands - but I do honestly think I'd recognise it as cack if I watched it today.

I liked Eek the Cat, though can barely remember a thing about it.

Someone please give my brain a nudge!

Nudge.

[Dark Sky]

Spatz really was shite, even kiddie me knew that.

I don't really remember the actual programme...  Set in a restaurant, wasn't it?  I just remember that I adored the honky tonk theme music.

[Mister Six]

Set in a restaurant where everyone wore pink cloths and shoes with - yes! - spatz. I don't remember anyone who liked it. Or at least, anyone who admitted to liking it. You can't use a word so close to "spaz" as the title for a children's show and expect them not to take the piss out of anyone who talks about it in the playground.

A brief BBC article
Ye gods, there's a fansite

[Darrell]

Maid Marian And Her Merry Men series 1 comes out in Region 4 DVD in March.

And get Pat And Margaret while you're there.

[Morgan]

Maid Marian And Her Merry Men series 1 comes out in Region 4 DVD in March

You really are the bringer of good news at the moment Darrell, there's not a single DVD I'm looking forward to more next year.

[purlieu]

Maid Marian, as has oft been said, is fantastic.

Chucklevision haters can fuck off. I love it. I laughed more at the Postman Pat exchange than most stuff I have on DVD.

Bugs and Daffy are my favourite comedy duo of all time.

Trapdoor and The Magic Roundabout feature more interesting surreal humour than Jam or Blue Jam. And I love Jam and Blue Jam.

I bid £35 for Trev and Simon's Stupid Video on eBay. Lost at the last minute, though.

SpongeBob and Fairly Odd Parents leave me amazed at their bizarreness.

Never really thought of Wallace & Gromit as children-based, but yeah, the first two are flawless.

I couldn't stand Round The Twist.

Only one person mentioned Bananaman?!

I'm SO glad someone mentioned Dizzy Heights. I forgot all about it, all I remember is it always seemed REALLY dark as a kid.

[evil_lafayette]

Maid Marian, as has oft been said, is fantastic.

Chucklevision haters can fuck off. I love it. I laughed more at the Postman Pat exchange than most stuff I have on DVD.

Bugs and Daffy are my favourite comedy duo of all time.

Trapdoor and The Magic Roundabout feature more interesting surreal humour than Jam or Blue Jam. And I love Jam and Blue Jam.

I bid £35 for Trev and Simon's Stupid Video on eBay. Lost at the last minute, though.

SpongeBob and Fairly Odd Parents leave me amazed at their bizarreness.

Never really thought of Wallace & Gromit as children-based, but yeah, the first two are flawless.

I couldn't stand Round The Twist.

Only one person mentioned Bananaman?!

I'm SO glad someone mentioned Dizzy Heights. I forgot all about it, all I remember is it always seemed REALLY dark as a kid.

fairly odd parents is superb. timmy's dad is one of the best cartoon characters around. a great programme

and i laugh myself stupid at dick and dom on a regular basis. i really should be in bed at 10am on a staurday.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Timmy's Dad on the Fairly Odd Parents is just amazing isn't he? He's had me laughing so hard, such an insane creation.

[Dark Sky]

I'm SO glad someone mentioned Dizzy Heights. I forgot all about it, all I remember is it always seemed REALLY dark as a kid.

'Dark'?  Dunno about that?  At least, not the two series I have taped off the telly.

DVD of Maid Marian Series One?  Good start, but that was released on VHS years ago; I want to know if they even can release any of the later series commercially, or if it's impossible because of the music clearances!

[purlieu]

As it went on, I thought it got weirder and weirder. I remember one episode that was a bit like a nightmare or something, and... I dunno. Those heads on the wall always struck me as being sinister. It always made me feel VERY uncomfortable watching it, but in a good way. I should probably see it again.

DVD of Maid Marian needs to be released in Region 1. Right now. I want to buy it tomorrow if not today.

Edit: Region 2, even. Note to self: I do not live in America.

[Jemble Fred]

When I saw this thread bumped, I thought "Please let it be because there's a MM&HMM DVD coming out." But region 4? Now I fear I'll buy it, and a month later it'll come out on region 2 with full cast commentaries, out-takes, PDFs of the comic books, isolated music, out-takes, award ceremony clips, rehearsal footage and a free cuddly Rabies.

[Big Jack McBastard]

I have to say I was impressed by the Spongebob Square Pants movie, it was hilarious in a few places, most notable were the Hasslehoff cameo and the creature amid the mountains of bones who's lure was a 'Free ice-cream' stand, the look of sheer joy on Spongebob's face as he ran through a wasteland of bones cracked me up a treat.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Maid Marian DVD? Huzzah. It had to happen now that the kids who grew up watching it are in the 20-35 marketing overdrive demographic. Region 4 is Australia isn't it? I can get my sister to send it for my birthday.
I hope to fuck it isn't a massive rose tinted disappointment, like Batman the Animated Series turned out to be.

[Phil_A]

God, I hate Fairly Oddparents! To me it's just a charmless Dexter's Lab/Ren & Stimpy knock-off, and the more I see it the more annoying it gets.

You gotta love Spongebob, though, even if the little fella's got a bit over-exposed now.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!
Absorbent and yellow and pourous is he!
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!

Invader Zim was brilliant, but CITV only showed it for a week. Why?

[Feralkid]

Maid Marian DVD? Huzzah. It had to happen now that the kids who grew up watching it are in the 20-35 marketing overdrive demographic. Region 4 is Australia isn't it? I can get my sister to send it for my birthday.
I hope to fuck it isn't a massive rose tinted disappointment, like Batman the Animated Series turned out to be.

You were disappointed by the Batman Animated Series DVDs?  Were you watching the lame Region 2 episode compilations or did you spring for the Region 1 season by season box-sets.  The latter are well worth shelling out for and the vast majority of eps still stand up to adult scrutiny.

Back when Zig & Zag still hosted Irish children's TV strand in the late 80's/early 90s they provided me with indecent amounts of hilarity.  Alas, they never seemed quite as funny on Channel 4.  

Earthworm Jim was indeed very funny.  I remember one episode opens with Jim bursting into the Oval Office to rescue the president only for a man who resembles no President past or current to turn around.  Jim demands to know where the real president is whilst the Prez explains that he's one of those generic fake presidents used in TV shows and movies to stop them getting dated....

Alas, Earthworm Jim creator Doug Tennapel is a raving Christian Fundie nutball.  His comic Creaturetech is nasty Creationist/Intelligent Design propaganda.

[Consignia]

Ah, there was a good Earthworm Jim moment were just a universe reset Psycrow was about to have a quadruple espresso and do a "Here we go again" ending, but then Jim walks in insists on the standard cow ending, to which Psycrow sighs and accepts his fate as a cow falls on him. That was fantastic.

[Dark Sky]

Maid Marian DVD? Huzzah. It had to happen now that the kids who grew up watching it are in the 20-35 marketing overdrive demographic. Region 4 is Australia isn't it? I can get my sister to send it for my birthday.
I hope to fuck it isn't a massive rose tinted disappointment, like Batman the Animated Series turned out to be.

I remember when Tony Robinson came to our Uni last year and got rather excited when we all cheered for Maid Marian.  "Oh of course, you're all the right ages!" he cried, delightedly.  Bless him, he was lovely.

Region 4 is usually co-coded with Region 2, isn't it?  *fuzzy knowledge*

And series one of Maid Marian is shite compared to series three and four.  Especially the very first episode.

Seriously.  You will be disappointed if you're remembering the brilliance of the last two series.

[Ged]

bump

New childrens comedy starting Monday on CITV, starring David Schneider as Uncle Max. First I heard about it was the following article in today's Times:

Shut up and make us laugh

Silent comedy demands a big talent. Jasper Rees meets David Schneider, aiming to become ITV's "human cartoon"

When Ronnie Barker took his famously premature retirement, it was not the first time he had retreated into silence. In 1982 he co-wrote and starred in By The Sea, a jolly seaside romp in which he dispensed with the very thing that until then had served him so well: words. Before and since, silent comedy has been a creative side alley into which British performers have occasionally detoured. Eric Sykes wrote and acted in The Plank in 1967 (and remade it in 1979). Rowan Atkinson turned Mr Bean into a $237 million-grossing hit film.

Now it's the turn of David Schneider, who has written and stars in Uncle Max, a 13-part series of dialogue-free shorts for children's television about a man who gets into a traditional array of amusing scrapes on the golf course, in a pizza parlour, a shoe shop and more.

Like Atkinson, Schneider's rubbery features are a gift for visual comedy. His stand-up routine was predominantly physical, and he was always the most antic of the exceptionally clever performers assembled by Armando Iannucci in The Day Today. "I've always been very good at physical humour," he says. "I was out to prove that I could do more than just that. But then I thought before I'm too old I've got to do my human cartoon."

Children's television seems an odd place to end up for a man who has a degree in modern languages from Oxford, and who stayed on to write a doctoral thesis on Yiddish drama. Ten years ago the intellectual side of Schneider's split personality yielded The Eleventh Commandment, a play for Hampstead Theatre about a Jew marrying a Gentile. His second, in the pipeline, is "about the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre, whose members were killed in the pogrom by Stalin". During the seven-week shoot last summer for Uncle Max he felt suitably conflicted. "There were moments when I thought this is fantastic and moments where I'd think, bloody hell, I did eight years at Oxford and now I'm diving into a mud pool or wearing a cow costume."

And yet Schneider turned to silent comedy like a man coming out of the closet. In I'm Alan Partridge he played the BBC controller who told Partridge he would not be getting another series. Schneider's own series never seemed to materialise. He was at Iannucci's elbow in the various incarnations of Armistice. He did gurning cameos in The Saint, Mission: Impossible, and A Knight's Tale.

"I've always been the wingman," he says. "I've always been part of a team or helping the main guy. My new year?s resolution this time last year was to do what I want to do."

On set Schneider knew exactly what he wanted. "You have got to be absolutely uncompromising. You can still be nice but you've got to say, "I know what's funny here and I think it should be done like this."" There are occasional references to silent classics such as Laurel and Hardy, but Schneider is "not an obsessive. I'm not 'Do you prefer Keaton or Chaplin?' I was never into Jacques Tati." In his own head he is paying tribute to the animations he grew up watching: Tom and Jerry, Scooby Doo and The Wacky Races. "In the marathon episode I get very slow and knackered and I'm passed by a granny and a toddler and then by a tortoise. I feel that's very cartoony. Or saving a child from a bull by dressing as a matador. I feel I'm being Bugs Bunny at that moment."

Schneider hopes Uncle Max will follow all of the above into the international bloodstream. "Not just for my pension. In comedy you get quite geeky and you want to know whether there is such a thing as humour that will work anywhere. Is it just Benny Hill? Isn't the line that we're meant to take that he was actually a genius? I never liked him. It's too coarse for me. It wasn't clever enough. I like to think that some of my gags are clever."

Uncle Max may be slapstick, but, uniquely, it is slapstick with a PhD.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22877-2029215,00.html

Uncle Max, Mon-Fri, ITV1, 3.40pm

also production blurb:
http://www.littlebird.ie/Ease/servlet/DynamicPageBuild?siteID=1346&categoryID=100&sessionID=g7l0hb9qu1

[chewinggumfortheeyes]

Maid Marian DVD goodness:
http://www.bbcshop.com/invt/eka40208

DVD Extras: Audio Commentary Episode 1 by Tony Robinson, Quiz, written by Tony Robinson, Maid Marian Karaoke Trailer and Exclusive Booklet, written by Tony Robinson, Drawn by Paul Cemmick.

Excellent! I am looking very much forward to this, though agree that the first series is the weakest of them all. It was much funnier when they introduced Guy of Isborne(sp).

It will make me feel incredibly old watching though it as its full of cultural references to New Kids on the Block and the like. "Oh oh ey oh oh!"

[The Duck Man]

Has anyone seen the CBBC attempt at comedy, Kerching?

It's fucking awful. It literally makes me angry to think about it. I know that kids probably like it, but jesus, we had Maid Marian...