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Utterly trivial observations about comedy

Started by Twed, April 07, 2019, 08:59:06 PM

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neveragain

Quote from: magval on April 11, 2019, 11:53:06 PM
Michael reads "with special celebrity star guest Sue Cook" from a sign that says "with special celebrity guest star Sue Cook".

Also amusing in the first series of IAP, there's the lady who trips over the reception step while exiting in the first episode and, in the last, Kevin Eldon's chuckling racist who can't open the hallway door after leaving Alan's party. Watch out for that one. It's quite hilarious. Just cuts away after he bumps into the doorframe.

magval

I have that series imprinted on my soul and know both moments well :-)

They have a good chuckle at that poor woman on the commentary track, bless her

neveragain

They talk about having to remove a "massive clunk on the soundtrack" or something, yes. :)

Icehaven

In the Family Guy episode where they do The Shawshank Redemption, as Peter escapes through the sewer Cleveland's voiceover says "Why he chose Enchilada night, I will never know." However Peter broke into the sewer pipe by banging on it as the prison guard was watching Friends, timing the banging with the handclaps on the theme tune to cover it. So he'd have had to have escaped the same night Friends was broadcast, which obviously must have coincided with enchilada night.

Quote from: icehaven on April 21, 2019, 09:01:34 AM
In the Family Guy episode where they do The Shawshank Redemption, as Peter escapes through the sewer Cleveland's voiceover says "Why he chose Enchilada night, I will never know." However Peter broke into the sewer pipe by banging on it as the prison guard was watching Friends, timing the banging with the handclaps on the theme tune to cover it. So he'd have had to have escaped the same night Friends was broadcast, which obviously must have coincided with enchilada night.

Friends is broadcast every night though. He could've chose spag bol night or wrapped vine leaves, marinated artichocke and vegetable jolof (with pork) night amd Friends would still be on its  nightly syndicated broadcat spot lol

Icehaven

Quote from: Misspent Boners on April 23, 2019, 11:04:12 AM
Friends is broadcast every night though. He could've chose spag bol night or wrapped vine leaves, marinated artichocke and vegetable jolof (with pork) night amd Friends would still be on its  nightly syndicated broadcat spot lol

That's true now, but Shawshank Redemption was set in the 60's when it was only on once a week.

Glebe

I was watching a repeat of a documentary about Carry On recently, there was a clip of Carry On Constable with what I thought was a young Leslie Dwyer (Mr. Partridge in Hi-De-Hi! but I did a bit of a Google and it's not him. Also, GOLD repeated their Comic Strip doc recently and I thought the guy who played Dr. Robbie in OFAH episode 'Sickness and Wealth'  might have been the documentary maker in Bad News Tour, but it's actually real-life director Sandy Johnson.

There was an episode of On the Buses on ITV4 recently with Yootha Joyce and Michael Sheard (Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back and Mr. Bronson in Grange Hill, of course!).

Also caught an episode Minder (ITV4 again, natch) with Simon Cadell and Paul Eddington. Of course, Minder had lots of familiar guest stars, including Lennard 'Grandad Trotter' Pearce!

Nowhere Man just started a The Avengers (classic UK series, not Thanos-bashers) thread, I've been spotting a lot of comedy faces in glimpses of repeats of that on - wait for it! - ITV4! An episode the other morning, 'Murdersville', featured Sheila Fearn (The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, George and Mildred) and John Sharp, who I remember from Top Secret! (the maitre d' guy the hotel, although I believe he's been in loads of things)... caught another episode with Alan Cuthbertson (who I'd just seen in a repeat of Fawlty Towers' 'Gourmet Night'... the likes of John Cleese and Bernard Cribbins also popped in the series.

Yussef Dent

It's mentioned several (well, three to my knowledge) times during various Steve Coogan vehicles about Burt Reynolds and having a moustache. It's definitely in Coogan's Run (Dearth of a Salesman) and I'm Alan Partridge, and I also think on a Paul Calf section in one of Coogan's stand-up shows. No idea why but I'd imagine it's some kind of in joke.

hummingofevil

Quote from: Yussef Dent on April 27, 2019, 02:46:31 AM
It's mentioned several (well, three to my knowledge) times during various Steve Coogan vehicles about Burt Reynolds and having a moustache. It's definitely in Coogan's Run (Dearth of a Salesman) and I'm Alan Partridge, and I also think on a Paul Calf section in one of Coogan's stand-up shows. No idea why but I'd imagine it's some kind of in joke.

The name Denise also pops up multiple times across Coogan's work.

Cuellar

In It's Always Sunny, Frank gets really stoned and tells Dee to "download me a hoagie off the internet".

They all laugh at his absurd suggestion, but with deliveroo etc you literally could do that now.

Malcy

Quote from: Clownbaby on April 14, 2019, 10:35:32 AM
I didn't want to bother starting a new thread just on this and it's not really technically a comedy observation but one of the horses in the betting shop in GTA San Andreas is called Shatner's Bassoon.

Also in GTA V there's a pharmacy called Good Aids Pharmacy

Another is 'No Wasps' from Absolutely's Mr Don & Mr George. Won several million on it a few times! There's quite a few references lurking on the betting machines.

kalowski

Quote from: hummingofevil on April 27, 2019, 03:09:07 AM
The name Denise also pops up multiple times across Coogan's work.
Every time I hear that name I think "You've got nice tits, Denise". "Will you suck my cock, Denise?"

Glebe

The Return of The Pink Panther was on Film4 yesterday, featuring quite a few British comedy stalwarts... Graham Stark was a series regular and has a fairly extensive list of film and TV credits, but I'd like to give shouts-out to his appearances in the video for Adam Ants' 'Goody Two-Shoes' alongside scream queen Caroline Munro and Dandy 'Else Garnett' Nichols and his cameo as Tony, the owner of Tony's Trattoria, in Hi-De-Hi! episode 'Spagetti Galore'.

Then there's Spike Milligan cohorts John Bluthal and David Lodge, Victor Spinetti and Mike Grady, who would go on to appear in John Sullivan's Citizen Smith but who is most famous for his role as Barry in Last of the Summer Wine, which would later enlist Burt 'Kato' Kwouk as a regular. Not to mention the rather robust Claire Davenport, who had numerous TV and film credits... I just watched her in an episode of Don't Drink the Water on YouTube, and she'll be familiar to Star Wars minutia obsessives as the heavy-set dancer at Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi. Also, Carol Cleveland makes a brief appearance, as, I think, the girl that dives into the pool into which Clouseau takes a tumble.

Of course there's been some debate before on here as to whether or not the lovely Catherine Schell's amusement at Clouseau's behaviour is 'in-character' or not... apparently she has insisted it was, although it certainly looks she corpses a couple of times - Sellers also appears to choke back a laugh during the scene in the nightclub.

Quote from: Glebe on April 27, 2019, 12:59:03 AMNowhere Man just started a The Avengers (classic UK series, not Thanos-bashers) thread, I've been spotting a lot of comedy faces in glimpses of repeats of that on - wait for it! - ITV4! An episode the other morning, 'Murdersville', featured Sheila Fearn (The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, George and Mildred) and John Sharp, who I remember from Top Secret! (the maitre d' guy the hotel, although I believe he's been in loads of things)...

...And whadda yah know, TRotPP was followed-up with a screening of Top Secret!

Bennett Brauer

Quote from: Glebe on May 26, 2019, 12:17:02 AM
The Return of The Pink Panther was on Film4 yesterday, featuring quite a few British comedy stalwarts... Graham Stark was a series regular and has a fairly extensive list of film and TV credits, but I'd like to give shouts-out to his appearances in the video for Adam Ants' 'Goody Two-Shoes' alongside scream queen Caroline Munro and Dandy 'Else Garnett' Nichols and his cameo as Tony, the owner of Tony's Trattoria, in Hi-De-Hi! episode 'Spagetti Galore'.

Stark is yet another dodgy case, unfortunately. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10806464/The-stark-truth-of-Peter-Sellers-sidekick.html


Bennett Brauer

Quote from: Glebe on May 26, 2019, 02:20:27 AM
Fuck's sake, was completely unaware of this.

I haven't seen anything similar about him apart from that Roger Lewis article, though. Maybe he's not famous enough. (And it's odd that the standfirst in that Telegraph piece mentions "abuse of children" when the text refers only to one minor.)

The article was once linked on Stark's wikipedia, but someone removed it.

beanheadmcginty

Despite being a big fan of both Maid Marian and Her Merry Men and Red Dwarf, it was only until well into my thirties that I realised Barrington and The Cat were played by the same person.

St_Eddie

Quote from: beanheadmcginty on May 26, 2019, 04:44:41 PM
Despite being a big fan of both Maid Marian and Her Merry Men and Red Dwarf, it was only until well into my thirties that I realised Barrington and The Cat were played by the same person.

FUN FACT: Danny John-Jules also voiced one of the Fireys and operated another, in the movie Labyrinth (1986).


a duncandisorderly

Quote from: Bennett Brauer on May 26, 2019, 12:24:41 AM
Stark is yet another dodgy case, unfortunately. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10806464/The-stark-truth-of-Peter-Sellers-sidekick.html

doesn't say how old the girl was, but it made me think of jimmy page, david bowie, ed 'stewpot' stewart & a bunch of others who somehow avoided scrutiny of their exotic tastes.

Pseudopath

Quote from: St_Eddie on May 26, 2019, 05:53:24 PM
FUN FACT: Danny John-Jules also voiced one of the Fireys and operated another, in the movie Labyrinth (1986).


Probably a more well-known fact, but he also rocks up around 3:05 in this classic Wham! video: https://youtu.be/cCqEyJc-wdk

petril

Quote from: alan nagsworth on April 09, 2019, 12:10:05 PM
In The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror III", in the "King Homer" story, Marge asks to join the expedition to Ape Island. Burns asks Smithers, "What do you think" to which Smithers replies "I think women and seamen don't mix". Burns then snaps back "We know what you think!"

WHY'D YOU ASK THEN MONTY YOU BELLEND


Glebe

Further to Catherine Schell laughing-for-real-or-not in Return of the Pink Panther, here she is laughing in the outtakes, for what it's worth. Note Michael 'Arthur in On the Buses' Robbins as the butler in the outtakes from The Pink Panther Strikes Again.

Oh yeah, Danny John-Jules also appeared in Blade II oh sod it you already knew that.

neveragain

If Andy Milman is so opposed to the way his sitcom is going, why does he give such a deliciously naff performance? It's a brilliant parody of old-school sitcom acting but makes no sense that he would deliver it.

St_Eddie

Quote from: neveragain on May 29, 2019, 11:24:17 AM
If Andy Milman is so opposed to the way his sitcom is going, why does he give such a deliciously naff performance? It's a brilliant parody of old-school sitcom acting but makes no sense that he would deliver it.

It's not a parody of a performance in-universe.  It's only a parody to us, the viewers.  In-universe, it's just a naff broad sitcom.  Andy's original idea for the sitcom was something along the lines of The Office ("the character's based on an old boss of mine") but the concept got diluted and bastardised during the development process, with the producers at the BBC telling him that either he wears the the silly wig and glasses and plays it broad, or they'd cancel the whole show.

Andy sold out because he'd rather be famous, then a nobody and so he toed the line and played it broad.  You can see Andy struggling with the the dictated mandate to play it broad in the first recorded episode of When the Whistle Blows but when the audience laughs at his line "is he 'aving a laugh?", he immediately starts milking it and playing up to the crowd because he craves affirmation and fame.  The whole arc of the series is him climbing to the top by way of foregoing his artistic integrity, before ultimately deciding that he'd rather be a nobody.

neveragain

I get all that but still feel he goes for it right from the start in a way that doesn't make sense. Also, yes the show is diluted but by God... that's some dilution. I suppose we can view it as Andy being a hypocrite.

magval

Quote from: St_Eddie on May 29, 2019, 10:26:06 PM
It's not a parody of a performance in-universe.  It's only a parody to us, the viewers.  In-universe, it's just a naff broad sitcom.  Andy's original idea for the sitcom was something along the lines of The Office ("the character's based on an old boss of mine") but the concept got diluted and bastardised during the development process, with the producers at the BBC telling him that either he wears the the silly wig and glasses and plays it broad, or they'd cancel the whole show.

I'm just now wondering why Gervais felt compelled to make a show that dealt with this when it didn't happen to him. Is his statement "I didn't have any of this and you got The Office out of it - but you hacks and your three-camera sitcoms deserve nothing better"?

neveragain

Yes there is an unnecessary arrogance underpinning it all.

St_Eddie

Quote from: neveragain on May 29, 2019, 11:08:49 PM
I suppose we can view it as Andy being a hypocrite.

Andy Millman absolutely is a hypocrite; all too willing to become the very thing that he detests and mocks, providing that it results in fame and adulation from the very people he considers to be beneath him.

Quote from: magval on May 29, 2019, 11:12:03 PM
I'm just now wondering why Gervais felt compelled to make a show that dealt with this when it didn't happen to him.

Of course the irony is that Gervais has essentially morphed into Andy Millman in the intervening years.  So, in a strange 'life imitating art' kind of a way, he does now possess experience of the very thing he wrote about.

the

Quote from: magval on May 29, 2019, 11:12:03 PMI'm just now wondering why Gervais felt compelled to make a show that dealt with this when it didn't happen to him. Is his statement "I didn't have any of this and you got The Office out of it - but you hacks and your three-camera sitcoms deserve nothing better"?

The whole thing is an arrogant self-concious meta-commentary on what RG thinks is passé (ie. trad sitcoms that aren't Fawlty Towers), a commentary which could unfortunately only be made by turning the way that the actual comedy landscape was at the time (ie. in the aftermath of The Office, literally the only mockumentary ever produced) on its head (by insisting that comedy producers wanted more Dinnerladies and Curry & Chips).

This gives him a Larry Sanders-esque opportunity to lampoon non-naturalist (ie. 'outdated') comedy and manufacture 'awkward' situations, which are of course RG's stock-in-trade, as christ knows he can't write any proper jokes or or fluent characters and situations[1].

citation [1]: Fucking Derek

In summary: self-affirming bullshit

beanheadmcginty

It's only just occurred to me that Barry Cryer is the opposite of Barry Chuckle.