Frankie Boyle has a dig at Chris Morris (amongst others)

[Thomas]

You can say Morris was punching an east target but he wasn't, he was exposing a hypocrisy and shattering myths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4f4oy2M_Og&t=3m02s

[NoSleep]

I don't think the Chris Morris criticism is valid at all. How is it better satire if it's in a regional accent?

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. I don't think he's implying satire would be better in a regional accent, rather he's just pointing out that satire has been the tool of artists from a certain background in the UK generally.

[BlodwynPig]

In 2005, he announced he would be issuing the new Babylon Zoo album, Cold Clockwork Doll, although this has yet to be released.

[greenman]

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. I don't think he's implying satire would be better in a regional accent, rather he's just pointing out that satire has been the tool of artists from a certain background in the UK generally.

He was stating that Moris was "gently poking fun" at "the system" with Brass Eye, I find that point hard to backup given the content of the program.

To me that really sums up the weakness he's offten suffered from, becoming pointlessly adversarial with the wrong targets. In reality his point could have been been made much more effectively not by knocking Brass Eye but by pointing out the strong negative reaction it faced.

[newbridge]

He also said that satire was effectively dead, as it tended to be people from the Establishment gently mocking the system they are part of. 'Satire is an RP voice saying ridiculous things,' he asserted. 'Even Chris Morris is that. People praise Brass Eye – and it was a good show – but a lot if that was taking the piss out of Paul Daniels.

'Satire's trapped a lot in journalism. It's all based on newspapers that run on a Westminster cycle. You need to come outside if that.'

Boyle said he would like to see a UK equivalent of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart , but added: 'We would never get it; it's not allowed.'

Oh, for fuck's sake. He's criticizing Chris Morris, but the Daily Show is the type of hard cutting "satire" he's looking for? Jon Stewart's entire shtick is 80% preaching-to-the-crowd moral catharsis, 10% we're-smarter-than-them mugging, and 10% making fun of the same lunatics at Fox News over and over again. Not only that but Stewart never seriously attacks his base audience (i.e. the Democratic Party) or really does anything that could remotely be considered "dangerous" satire.[nb]For what it's worth, I am far to the left of Stewart politically and am not just an angry Republican. The show has been unwatchable for like a decade.[/nb]

Evidently that's the type of dangerous satire that "the Establishment" won't allow, but a brilliant takedown of the entire media (which featured a special episode on paedophilia...) is "gently mocking."

Yes, it's funny that celebrities like Paul Daniels are so dumb and will read anything, but taking the piss out of the celebrities was not really the overarching point of the show. Aside from being independently absurd/funny, the interviews were satirizing the media's obsession with celebrity spokespersons and celebrity experts on issues they are not at all qualified to discuss, society's (and celebrities') willingness to unquestioningly believe whatever someone in a nominal position of authority tells them to be true, society's (and celebrities') suspension of all common sense if it means you will put them on camera, et cetera, et cetera.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Chris Morris actually spent a decent amount of time conceiving of topics and targets to tackle, got a film crew, dressed up, successfully hoodwinked and made controversial shows that often had to be either cut or plain banned (not always for profanity). Twenty years later they are still revered.

Frankie Boyle lay in bed and thought 'how can I humiliate that page 3 girl?'.

[Glebe]

Some of CM's duping of the general public, and some celebrities (such as Claire Rayner) where a little bit cheap and mean, but overall his phony interviews and campaigns were fucking hilarious and very imaginative. Where the fuck is Frankie Boyle now? He left Mock the Week, got in the news a few times for offending people, released a couple of rum biographies and... where is he? Hiding under a rock? Behind a tree? Frankie Boyle! Where are ye?!

[up_the_hampipe]

He's recorded some rambling discussion albums with Glenn Wool called "Freestyle", and he's just taken a break from Twitter. He's as relevant as ever, I say!

[TJ]

Lord knows I'm the last person to agree with any idea that Morris was ever standing up for the little people and taking on the world!!!3, but it astonishes me how much people fail to see Brass Eye in its original context. Back then the tabloidy schock reporting crash zoom approach, clueless irrelevant cunts being asked for their opinion on issues they have nothing to do with etc was only a trend within 'hard' news, much as 'hard' news itself was only really an emerging trend when TDT/OTH themselves were a going concern (and the fact that it had moved on in the intervening years, but Brass Eye itself hadn't, is part of the reason why the Special didn't really work). In no way were the celeb vox pops, as weak as some of them may have been (never liked the ones in Science, personally), cosying up to the mainstream. If anythng it was attacking the mainstream with a blowtorch, and the reaction of Daniels et al at the time is testament to that. Nobody upon nobody - apart from old Morris pals Vance and Brookes and lifelong top character Rayner - saw the funny side or pretended they were in on the joke. Boyle is talking bollocks, frankly. And did he do his own Blue Jam after getting in hot water a couple of years back? No, he went on more fucking panel shows. That's cosying up to the mainstream right there for you.

[TJ]

Oh go on, have a bit of trivia...

At the time Brass Eye was first going out, someone who worked closely on it told me that Brookes and Vance were actually 'in' on it - Drugs was effectively a 'second pilot' after Animals, and bearing in mind some of the mistakes they'd made on that one (Kray-related wallopings etc) they were trying to make everything look more 'convincing' to potential dupes. I'd say the reaction of both is a giveaway, frankly. However, when I mentioned this in an article once, a latterday associate of Morris who wasn't involved in Brass Eye commented 'THIS DID NOT HAPPEN' underneath.

[Petey Pate]

Boyle's always reminded me of a really scary supply teacher.

He did used to be a teacher if I remember rightly.

[Ignatius_S]

Something that Chortle article doesn't mention, Boyle also defended his decision to write for The Sun saying "easier to get jokes into than the BBC" (http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/23/frankie-boyle-sack-jeremy-clarkson-cultural-tumour-bbc).

So presumably, it was artistic freedom, not large sums of money that was the clincher.

...Fair point?

Nope.

If Boyle had potentially good stuff for being blocked – and I'm certainly no fan of the commissioning process – then I would have more than a bit of sympathy. But that's not what happened. Boyle received total artistic carte blanche for Tramadol Nights from a supportive broadcaster and delivered an absolutely shocking (but not for the reasons he wanted) programme. It's not just that it was awful, but it showed so little ambition – a mixture of stand-up and conventional sketches. Compounding that was that there were so many references (e.g. film and children's shows) that were badly dated.

Yet again – Boyle has done this in interviews before – the comedian is blaming his failures because he wasn't Oxbridge educated. Cry me a river. Tramadol Nights got mauled by critics because it was crap, not because they went to Cambridge and Oxford but Boyle didn't. Boyle was in a brilliant position when he went to C4 – he had momentum from exposure on Mock The Week and people were going to tune in regardless of the reviews; that he lost so many viewers is no one's fault but his own.

As much as he wants to rail at the 'establishment' – he's a multi-millionaire, who wrote a column for The Sun.

*edit* Corrected link.

[Noodle Lizard]

I thought he said he wrote for The Sun because it'd be introducing their readers to viewpoints they wouldn't usually read.  I understand that, not preaching to the converted etc., but the few Sun columns of his I've read have basically just been celeb-bashing jokes.

That sums up Frankie Boyle pretty well - makes bold claims about how political he is and how he wants to defy the system and enact social change, but then just delivers jokes about Kerry Katona's vagina when given the opportunity.

[Ambient Sheep]

Actually, I'm broadly wih Boyle on much of what he says here, although less so about CM.  Although there is some truth in this:

Look at the period when brass eye came out - twitter and YouTube were not around. There was not a culture of piling on a celebrity or even getting close to a celebrity via social media. You can say Morris was punching an east target but he wasn't, he was exposing a hypocrisy and shattering myths.

at least to some degree anyway.

But also have to agree with this on the subject of Boyle:

If Boyle had potentially good stuff for being blocked – and I'm certainly no fan of the commissioning process – then I would have more than a bit of sympathy. But that's not what happened. Boyle received total artistic carte blanche for Tramadol Nights from a supportive broadcaster and delivered an absolutely shocking (but not for the reasons he wanted) programme. It's not just that it was awful, but it showed so little ambition...

Boyle was in a brilliant position when he went to C4 – he had momentum from exposure on Mock The Week and people were going to tune in regardless of the reviews; that he lost so many viewers is no one's fault but his own.

but ultimately I can't help but like the guy - his heart's so clearly in the right place.

[Ambient Sheep]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4f4oy2M_Og&t=3m02s

Weird to think those five-year-olds are now 22-23 years old!!  They're older than you, Thomas!

He did used to be a teacher if I remember rightly.

Yup, English teacher I think.


Also, it amuses me greatly that nobody on this thread can remember how to spell Jas Mann's name correctly.  Fame there, for you.

[NoSleep]

Yup, EnglishScottish teacher I think.

[Petey Pate]

I remember how dumbfounded I was when Tramadol Nights premièred.  I wasn't exactly a huge fan of Boyle's, but he was by far the best thing about Mock the Week (which isn't really saying much) and I thought he had potential to do something great outside of the constricting panel show format.  Instead, it was just appallingly lazy and shockingly inoffensive.  If I remember rightly, channel 4 showed two episodes in one day in a graveyard slot, suggesting that they wanted to burn through it as quickly as possible.

The ratings were pretty abysmal too.  If memory serves, TC was ecstatic at how more people tuned into The Goodies, which was being repeated on BBC2 for the first time ever.

[Steven]

I think Garry Shandling made the point when he was interviewed by Gervais, that he perceived Gervais as being obsessed with one area of comedy, trying to make people uncomfortable which he described as self-indulgant "You're a naughty little boy, and you know it, and there's that gleam in your eye.."

I'd say it's similar with Boyle, and I'd go back to the notion Gervais and Boyle are basically trapped in the juvenile mentality of their first sojourns into being comedians by making their mates laugh in the playground, but they haven't really progressed from there and instead try to actually intellectualise the interpretation of their humour using lots of words or arguments that actually take a lot more effort to do than actually just writing better comedy. It stinks of laziness and I'd say Boyle's apparent freedom in Tramadol Nights displays exactly how trapped he is and for all the justification he may give, he couldn't just write a thoughtful well-structured sketch for all the jizz in AIDSville, also why Gervais acting alone has actually taken his sophomoric spazmo character and tried to drape a messianic Being There mantle on top with notions of kindness and magic to get away with his juvenile intentions in an adult world with a supposed carapace of intellectual obfuscation.

[Queneau]

I could spend ages reading Chortle's badly transcribed opinions by Boyle but I don't give the tiniest fuck what he has to say about comedy.

I love how he stands there after he's told a well thought out joke. He stands there smirking and doing that annoying twitch thing with his glasses. Then he looks around at the audience for the reaction to his well thought out joke. Then he says, "It'll be interesting if that makes it in, actually." By 'that' he means his well thought out joke.

[thraxx]

I don't know much about Frankie Boyle, but from what I have seen, the more he has to think and plan what he does who worse it is.

Every time that I've seen and him and he makes me laugh, it's when he's giving comebacks, dealing with hecklers or ad-libbing stuff.  That sort of instaneous stuff where you need to think quickly.

[Ambient Sheep]

I remember how dumbfounded I was when Tramadol Nights premièred... he was by far the best thing about Mock the Week... and I thought he had potential to do something great outside of the constricting panel show format.  Instead, it was just appallingly lazy...

Ditto yet again.  Actually, that could just stop at "appalling", without the "ly lazy".  I know I said it upthread and probably elsewhere too, but I still can't get over what a wasted opportunity it was.

Disclaimer: I didn't get past halfway through episode two.  I suppose that makes me appallingly lazy too!

[Ambient Sheep]

Yup, EnglishScottish teacher I think.

Heh yes, the irony struck me quite hard as I typed it.

A teacher of English who was born in Scotland, then. :-)

[Steven]

While you're all pouring scorn on Frankie Boyle, I cast my mind back to only a few thousand years ago when another highly controversial figure spoke his mind yet was castigated by the ignorant throng said something along the lines of: "By their fruits ye shall know them." In this case it's Boyle waxing lyrical about justifying targets, the nature of satire and attacking the establishment in pithy rent-an-opinion newspaper articles, what we actually get in his work is Jade Goody cancer jokes on panel shows and Tramadol Nights.

[Pit-Pat]

Jade Goody cancer jokes on panel shows

To be fair to Frankie Boyle, the beatification of Jade Goody following her cancer diagnosis and her complete transformation from filthy chav to the Queen of Hearts was so disgusting that it needed some sort of counter-balance. Not that Frankie Boyle's approach was necessarily the correct one but at least it was a dissenting voice from within the media establishment. I mind more that he did it on the BBC, giving the worst hypocrites another stick to bash it with.

[Quincey]

I presume Boyle would have been more impressed by Chris Morris if he'd done a Brass Eye programme all about Kerry Katona.

[Beagle 2]

The problem with a lot of the poorer bad taste comedians is the misunderstanding on their part that if something doesn't get a laugh then they must have blown your tiny mind, rather than you finding it banal or predictable.

[checkoutgirl]

Yet again – Boyle has done this in interviews before – the comedian is blaming his failures because he wasn't Oxbridge educated. Cry me a river. Tramadol Nights got mauled by critics because it was crap, not because they went to Cambridge and Oxford but Boyle didn't. Boyle was in a brilliant position when he went to C4 – he had momentum from exposure on Mock The Week and people were going to tune in regardless of the reviews; that he lost so many viewers is no one's fault but his own.

Was Boyle complaining about a lack of success? I don't think he was. Has he complained about being sidelined in other interviews? It is baffling that he would attack Chris Morris for a show he finished 13 years ago. And Tramadol Nights was shockingly bad, some reasonable stand up spliced with terrible sketches based on vulgar sex and drug references and bad wigs. He had a fair point about ITV being a load of shite but it was ever thus so pointing it out now seems of little value. It's peculiar how Boyle is now attacking Channel 4 after they have no further use for him. I would be more inclined to listen to him having a go at Channel 4 if he was still in their employ but this speech is being made now that his career in telly seems expired.

And whoever said that The Daily Show is unwatchable toothless drivel is largely right. Jon Stewart seems way too smug and comfortable hanging over the side of his little desk taking cliched shots at the usual suspects 5 nights a week to ever decreasing effectiveness. Take your tongue out of Ricky Gervais's arse please Jon. They've made nearly 3000 episodes of it, imagine what Brass Eye would be like now if they made 3000 episodes of it with a regiment of writers, producers and performers.

[jonbob]

Just like all his material, it was funny when Jerry Sandowitz said it

[Quincey]

Boyle's lost the support of James Delingpole over his Clarkson comments, according to his latest article in the Spectator. I'm sure Boyle is devastated.

http://www.donotlink.com/bfg8

[thenoise]

If Delingpole really was a fan of Frankie's it'll hardly have come out of the blue that he is a 'left-winger'.