Paul Merton - The Series

[Autopsy Turvey]

Or there's that brutally fucking hilarious monologue where an old boy returns to speak at his old public school, where he had been punished for having a working class accent. I just disturbed the cat, howling with laughter at a memory of the line "I was caned across the eyes." Just did it again! Also "My internal organs were removed, caned, and replaced."

[Brundle-Fly]

Loved this series.

Heads up for John Irwin, Merton's co-writer at this point.

My favourite sketch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReOUROH4EZo

[Rolf Lundgren]

There's two sketches that stick out for me. The one where he's on the submarine and the camera slants at a funny angle so Paul starts bouncing a ball and says something like "This will confuse people who've just switched on". First time I'd ever seen anything like that and loved it. The other was him playing an old bald duke/king of some kind but utterly convinced he still had a full head of hair.

It was a great show and Merton was a decent comic actor. I don't know if the Galton and Simpson experience put him off but he could have done more.

[PowerButchi]

It used to be on Paramount at 10pm before Barry Welsh Is Coming in about 1999. I liked it then, watched it on youtube since and it does fuck all for me. Barry Welsh gets even better with age though

[phantom_power]

I went to see him on Paul Merton - The Tour in 1993 with a gang of mates, front row, we had a bedsheet on which we'd written 'I keep thinking it's Tuesday'. At the start of the second half he eyed it and promised to fit it in later. When he did the gag we all cheered and he explained to the audience about the kids with a bedsheet. He's the only artiste I've ever intercepted at the stage door, he was an absolute joy. Mortified to hear he's a cunt now, but I shan't ask why as cuntiness is often in the cunt of the beholder.

I'm not sure he's a cunt so much as complacently wasting his talent, which is his prerogative really. Maybe his heart isn't in it any more

[Autopsy Turvey]

Isn't he still at work with the Comedy Store Players and touring improv troupes? It'd be a stretch to imagine him on season 26 of Paul Merton - The Series, and it's more a question of what opportunities there are for improvisational comedians/offbeat standups/deadpan South London surrealists on television nowadays. None of us have much liked HIGNFY since, what, the turn of the millennium, but he's still responsible for the few laughs to be had on it, ditto JAM. Obviously his comic talent isn't the fireball of creation that it was 30 years ago, but what comedian has ever been as good at 60 as he was at 30?

[Dewt]

"Old Pete"

[Captain Crunch]

but what comedian has ever been as good at 60 as he was at 30?

Dodd. Better even. 

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

None of us have much liked HIGNFY since, what, the turn of the millennium, but he's still responsible for the few laughs to be had on it, ditto JAM.

" Is it a dead baby in a bathtub?"

[Brundle-Fly]

but what comedian has ever been as good at 60 as he was at 30?

Dave Allen?

[Better Midlands]

Monkhouse

[Cold Meat Platter]

Reeves and Mortimer

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Eddie Large

[Autopsy Turvey]

I had Doddy and Bobby Monkhousey, and maybe Davey Alleny, as valid potential rejoinders, but Vic and Bob aren't as good as they used to be. They're good, but not *that* good. I suppose you could add Spike Milligan, WC Fields, feasibly Arthur Askey, certainly Kenneth Horne, if he counts. Alright there's a few.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Wouldn't count Spike Milligan either, he just got less funny as he got older, each series of " Q" getting more and more dire, as the returns diminished, every series showing incremental increase of thick paddies gags and birds with big knockers.

[Better Midlands]

Joan Rivers

[Captain Crunch]

Barry Cryer, Alexei Sayle, Arnold Brown...

[idunnosomename]

Peter Kay

[Blumf]

Simple idea for a sketch:
https://youtu.be/6qUSEMmI-1w?t=148

But then they run with it and embellish with a load of side details and ideas. Marvellous!

[Famous Mortimer]

Joan Rivers

Another person who got more racist as they got older; I don't think she had all that far to fall, though.

[Alberon]

Simple idea for a sketch:
https://youtu.be/6qUSEMmI-1w?t=148

But then they run with it and embellish with a load of side details and ideas. Innit Marvellous!

FTFY

[Autopsy Turvey]

To be fair, when Spike Milligan was 30 he was playing jazz trumpet and writing jokes for Derek Roy's Hip Hip Hoo Roy, so he hadn't yet hit his stride.

Another Mertonism that entered common parlance round my way: sometimes if I'm listing people's names I'll end with "Mr Beamish", and wait for someone to say "Who's Mr Beamish?"

[easytarget]

Alexei Sayle

Might even be better now, Sandwich Bar is fantastic.

[idunnosomename]

That setup for Alexi's radio programme is quite similar to Paul's sketch show. Am I missing something?

[gib]

Simple idea for a sketch:
https://youtu.be/6qUSEMmI-1w?t=148

But then they run with it and embellish with a load of side details and ideas. Marvellous!

Loved that.

[DoesNotFollow]

Enjoyed going through this on catch up, series 2 was definitely stronger I think. I especially liked the longer sketches where everyone else is in-character and Merton is just an exceptionally cocky version of himself, like the Frankenstein/Wild West Preacher/New Headmaster sketches. Good fun.

[j_u_d_a_s]

Thanks to this thread I've rewatched pretty much all of this over the past week and it's been such a joy. It's pretty common to say something is "pure Python" but for me, this whole sequence is up there with the very best of Python - https://youtu.be/rDDVuJl1FkE?t=229 (worth watching the preceding sketch too, really enhances it)

Currently watching this appearance at oxford union Merton did a couple of years ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fijsyWOLbw Early on he talks about how he got started and his one of his earliest routines about a police man recounting an acid trip in the style of giving a  formal report (something which I think is done as a sketch in the series) and you can see his entire comic persona growing from that. Watching his series now I can't help but wonder what could have been had he not become a regular fixture on HIGNFY. Anyway fantastic series and glad to have rediscovered it.

[phantom_power]

Thanks to this thread I've rewatched pretty much all of this over the past week and it's been such a joy. It's pretty common to say something is "pure Python" but for me, this whole sequence is up there with the very best of Python - https://youtu.be/rDDVuJl1FkE?t=229 (worth watching the preceding sketch too, really enhances it)

Currently watching this appearance at oxford union Merton did a couple of years ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fijsyWOLbw Early on he talks about how he got started and his one of his earliest routines about a police man recounting an acid trip in the style of giving a  formal report (something which I think is done as a sketch in the series) and you can see his entire comic persona growing from that. Watching his series now I can't help but wonder what could have been had he not become a regular fixture on HIGNFY. Anyway fantastic series and glad to have rediscovered it.

It was in episode 2 of series 1. I also remember him doing it as his what the Americans would call "tight five" on various comedy shows like Saturday Live

[neveragain]

I'm just nearing the end of the first series and the dream sequence judas linked is my favourite bit so far.

[idunnosomename]

Innit marvellous?