Topic: Utterly trivial observations about comedy

[Twed]

The (US at least) airing of Limmy's show has enough rights-based substitutions to keep Dee Dee busy for a week.

Falconhoof no longer uses Jean-Michel Jarre.
Pet Shop Boys - In The Night in the "do you need another spoon for your dessert?" sketch is replaced by the Limmy's Show theme. It's so off, and wonderfully lazy.
Limmy's "Wrong Way Down A One Way Street" duet with Jimmy Somerville (a man in a mask) is blurred out. They couldn't show a fake Jimmy Somerville, in America, where nobody knows who Jimmy Somerville is.

[magval]

What's in place of JMJ in Falconhoof?

[Twed]

Something very cheap-sounding. The sort of music I'd buy the rights to use for Flash game soundtracks.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

A sketch sending up bank adverts, on an edition of Alias Smith and Jones, in 1987, was the first time I ever heard the word 'wank' used on telly.  What made it funny was that it was a spoof advert song, with the lyric 'wanky-wanky-wanky-wank,' sung by what sounded like a mainly female chorus.

[magval]

1. The cookery book in Alan's room in the sixth episode of I'm Alan Partridge was printed in 1977, which I know because my mum has a copy.

Not sure why that 20-year-old cookbook is in that hotel room other than to set up that gag with Kevin Eldon.

2. There's no room to the right of the front door in Father Ted inside the house, but there's one seen from the outside. Fawlty Towers has similarly impossible geography.

3. This one is only slightly less trivial than utterly trivial, and I'm chuffed for having realised it myself by following up a notion rather than having just had it passed on like all other trivia in the Internet Age, but: Homer is given ownership of the Denver Broncos as a joke in a 1996 episode of the Simpsons. The Broncos won the Superbowl in 1997 and 1998, so less than three months after broadcast that joke (that the team are bad and that Marge is an idiot for liking them) was left seeming sort of surreal and not very funny.

[Twed]

2. There's no room to the right of the front door in Father Ted inside the house, but there's one seen from the outside. Fawlty Towers has similarly impossible geography.

The kittens/flowerpot print above Father Jack's chair is from an original painted by my mother's dead friend.

[Dusty Substance]

Another music rights one - Gary Puckett's "Young Girl", very appropriately used during the Summer Of Pan part of Paedogeddon, was replaced by generic flower power music on the Brass Eye DVD.

[PlanktonSideburns]

I thought Comedy Chat was a perfectly good name tbh

Fnarf

[Sebastian Cobb]

The Ferguson CD Midi System (probably also featured in bullseye or family fortunes at some point) in Men Behaving Badly was the same one that my primary school used, for playing Vivaldi and that into assembly.

[St_Eddie]

This one is only slightly less trivial than utterly trivial, and I'm chuffed for having realised it myself by following up a notion rather than having just had it passed on like all other trivia in the Internet Age, but: Homer is given ownership of the Denver Broncos as a joke in a 1996 episode of the Simpsons. The Broncos won the Superbowl in 1997 and 1998, so less than three months after broadcast that joke (that the team are bad and that Marge is an idiot for liking them) was left seeming sort of surreal and not very funny.

One could make the argument that the joke is strengthened by virtue of that fact.  Homer Simpson sells the Denver Broncos shortly after the end of that episode for pittance and then they go onto win the following two Superbowls, exponentially increasing their worth.  "D'oh!"

[McChesney Duntz]

2. There's no room to the right of the front door in Father Ted inside the house, but there's one seen from the outside. Fawlty Towers has similarly impossible geography.

Seems to be a trait shared by only the greatest sitcoms - the door to Hank Kingsley's office on The Larry Sanders Show similarly leads to nowhere.

[Andy147]

At the start of the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch, Cleese's character claims he'd been reading "Rogue Herries" by Horace Walpole. "Rogue Herries" is in fact by Hugh Walpole.

[McChesney Duntz]

At the start of the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch, Cleese's character claims he'd been reading "Rogue Herries" by Horace Walpole. "Rogue Herries" is in fact by Hugh Walpole.

A mistake corrected almost immediately afterwards by Idle's sniffing film critic (though that was "Rogue Cheddar," wasn't it?) and, of course, fixed for the (definitive) album version.

[BJBMK2]

Big Train, the opening of the Jockey Horseman sketch from the first episode.  In the corner of the burning room is the board containing the list of jobs from the first Pauline sketch from LOG ("Babysitter....and....Bramble Picker").

[Sin Agog]

A laugh is a sound you make with your mouth (and, on rare occasions, your nose, too) when you find something amusing.

[BJBMK2]

The (US at least) airing of Limmy's show has enough rights-based substitutions to keep Dee Dee busy for a week.

Falconhoof no longer uses Jean-Michel Jarre.
Pet Shop Boys - In The Night in the "do you need another spoon for your dessert?" sketch is replaced by the Limmy's Show theme. It's so off, and wonderfully lazy.
Limmy's "Wrong Way Down A One Way Street" duet with Jimmy Somerville (a man in a mask) is blurred out. They couldn't show a fake Jimmy Somerville, in America, where nobody knows who Jimmy Somerville is.

Dee Dee sketches also don't use The Orb anymore do they? That, and all the above also apply to the Netflix versions. Why the UK Netflix edits also seem to be pulled from US edits, who knows?

I mean...I do know, it's probably related to boring PRS reasons, but you know.

[BJBMK2]

Here's something that always bugged me. Itchy And Scratchy Land, the scene where Bart and Lisa finally convince Homer and Marge to take them to aforementioned park by showing them the leaflet containing Parents Island.

Marge is cooing over "recipe related bumper cars". This is followed by a shot of Bart and Lisa looking at each other in excitement. The shot then lingers for a good second or two, it almost looks like the DVD has paused. Before abruptly cutting to them jumping on the bed shouting "YAYY" as if Homer and Marge have agreed to take them. But nothing of the sort has happened yet.

It's obvious some kind of edit has gone on, but I can't find anything online to see why this might be the case. There's no deleted scene on the DVD that fills up that gap. It might just be a bad edit, but it sticks out like a sore thumb in what is otherwise the tightly edited and constructed sixth season.

[St_Eddie]

@BJBMK2 - Odd.  I've just looked up a version on YouTube and it is indeed a very strange edit.

Big Train, the opening of the Jockey Horseman sketch from the first episode.  In the corner of the burning room is the board containing the list of jobs from the first Pauline sketch from LOG ("Babysitter....and....Bramble Picker").

Interesting.  Why do you suppose that is?

[Malcy]

Big Train, the opening of the Jockey Horseman sketch from the first episode.  In the corner of the burning room is the board containing the list of jobs from the first Pauline sketch from LOG ("Babysitter....and....Bramble Picker").

Brilliant. Hadn't noticed that before and just went to have a look.

[BJBMK2]

Interesting.  Why do you suppose that is?

I always presumed that they just found it lying around in the BBC's prop department and just stuck it in. The first series of LOG probably hadn't aired, by the time they were filming Big Train (I think Big Train aired and was shot in '98, and LOG wasn't on until '99). So it probably wasn't an intentional reference.

In universe...I'm already working on my LOG/Big Train fanfic that will clear up EVERYTHING.

[St_Eddie]

I always presumed that they just found it lying around in the BBC's prop department and just stuck it in. The first series of LOG probably hadn't aired, by the time they were filming Big Train (I think Big Train aired and was shot in '98, and LOG wasn't on until '99). So it probably wasn't an intentional reference.

Ah, thanks.  That's probably the case.

[BJBMK2]

Do Charlie and Frank from Its Always Sunny,  live in the same flat as Flight Of The Conchords?

They do look very similar, might just be the same wallpaper colour, mind.

[BJBMK2]

Is it me or does Peter Kay seem like he's on the verge of an angry outburst in most of the "Hilarious" outtakes for Max and Paddys Road to Nowhere?

[magval]

Marge is cooing over "recipe related bumper cars". This is followed by a shot of Bart and Lisa looking at each other in excitement. The shot then lingers for a good second or two, it almost looks like the DVD has paused. Before abruptly cutting to them jumping on the bed shouting "YAYY" as if Homer and Marge have agreed to take them. But nothing of the sort has happened yet.

It's obvious some kind of edit has gone on, but I can't find anything online to see why this might be the case. There's no deleted scene on the DVD that fills up that gap. It might just be a bad edit, but it sticks out like a sore thumb in what is otherwise the tightly edited and constructed sixth season.

I reckon that it's a John Swartzwelder thing. He has a similar gag in Homie the Clown where there's a sort of impossible pause after Homer crashes into the tree before he flies through the front window.

[EOLAN]

Another Simpson's one. Lisa being offer the cane from Citizen Kane. Pauses for a moment and then proclaims; "Hey, there is no cane in Citizen Kane". Well why not linked to the title of the film there are a hell of a lot of canes in Citizen Kane from my recollection.

Oh and one of the few recent jokes of Bill Maher I liked; stating that the two-state solution was the plan Trump had for his marriage since becoming president. I thought a really clever joke; but just thinking a little further; as Trump resides in Washington DC; he is in a District rather than a State.

[gilbertharding]

2. There's no room to the right of the front door in Father Ted inside the house, but there's one seen from the outside. Fawlty Towers has similarly impossible geography.

There's no room that we're ever shown to the right of the Craggy Island Parochial House. I wonder if that is Mrs Doyle's flat.

If you look on the internet people have drawn or modeled various flats from the sitcoms - mainly American (Friends, Seinfeld, Big Bang Theory). The main problem with most of these is the number of diagonal walls which are obviously only there because they're stage sets.



Someone has done the same with Fawlty Towers, but seemingly has had to have two versions - presumably to deal with an impossibility somewhere (I haven't checked them).



I might look later to see if anyone can explain why the upstairs set had the ridiculous three steps up and three steps down again at the top of the main stairs.

Wasn't there an American version of Fawlty Towers (actually there were a couple) where the set was an exact replica, but the opposite hand?

[icehaven]

There's an episode of Friends where Ross's former pet monkey Marcel is supposed to visit as he's now a monkey TV star or something and they're filming in New York, but then his handler can't bring him as they're too busy. Some of the others take Ross for a meal instead to cheer him up, and although it's not actually mentioned, you can see name of the restaurant on the menus is "Marcel's".

[greencalx]

I might look later to see if anyone can explain why the upstairs set had the ridiculous three steps up and three steps down again at the top of the main stairs.

There is part of our building that is referred to as "A Basil Fawlty staircase". I'm not sure what's underneath the platform part in our case, probably a sewer or something.

[EOLAN]

I might look later to see if anyone can explain why the upstairs set had the ridiculous three steps up and three steps down again at the top of the main stairs.

Personally; I would love if it was just because they found it funny. Never occurred to me before but it just adds a bit of something to the farcical sense of some moments when Basil in particular has to go up and down again.

[magval]

There's no room that we're ever shown to the right of the Craggy Island Parochial House. I wonder if that is Mrs Doyle's flat.

Good point. There's clearly no door to it in the main hallway though, except in the pilot. Hadn't considered that she would have exclusive access (but really I don't think there's any thought process to it, just an oversight.)