Your CaB Story

[the]

CaB came as a hyperlink on a free AOL floppy disk which was posted through my door along with a slice of luncheon meat.

2019, what a year

[Dewt]

Once upon a time in a land far away, lived a lovely but very impoverished and unrecognised princess.  All day long she skipped and danced with the rabbits and squirrels as she scrubbed floors for the rich.  She was all alone in the world, until one day, she happened upon a magic box.  She took it home to her little cave and, after all her work was done, opened it.

All the beauty and the horror of the world came pouring out, she was frighted and delighted, clapping her hands and dancing around the bare room with her little animal friends.  And slowly, slowly, as she watched, she found herself in another land, a secret land, the Land of Neil.  A land full of weird bald phimotic unemployed and mentally ill men and a few nice women and they all lived happily ever after.  The End.

So you followed her here?

[Johnboy]

I came here when someone posted the Chart Music podcast thread on Simon Price's facebook about a year ago

it's the best forum I've ever been on - people are very honest about their mental health (and everything else) on here

it's loose and not nasty and I like all the different senses of humour and different cultural niches

[sevendaughters]

lurked here for 15 years for news and gossip on telly and stand-up but would deride you as humourless comedy dissectors when i realised i was one too so signed up. 

[pancreas]

[tag] No, *you're* CaB's Tory [/tag]

[Buelligan]

So you followed her here?

Heheh.  No.  U.

[Dewt]

I'm not supposed to follow women, I've been told.

[Famous Mortimer]

I think I joined because of the Tumbleweed Awards? I don't remember where I was when I found a link to it, but I came over, read it and decided this was a good place. Flounced a couple of times, met some lovely people, etc. Rather ordinary story.

[Buelligan]

I'm not supposed to follow women, I've been told.

Yeah?  Well stop it then.

[Ray Travez]

I was searching for information on Russell Brand's wacky phone call to now-deceased Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs. Lurked for a while, then joined because I wanted to leave karma for people. Now karma is gone, and I'm stuck doing actual posts. Met my wife here.


_{edited to remove some silly stuff :)}

[Captain Z]

Didn't discover the existence of Blue Jam until I happened upon the CD on Amazon sometime around 2011. A bit of Googling led me to the downloadable radio shows with the 'Cookdandbombd presents Blue Jam...' jingle at the start, which was probably somewhere on the old version of this site. It was only on my second or third listen through them that I decided to check out what this place actually was. I knew immediately that it was exactly my sense of humour, but swore that I'd only ever lurk as I'd previously accumulated thousands of posts on a recently-demised music site and was well aware of what a time-drain forums could be.

Luckily I kept to that promise otherwise I dread to think...

[Sherringford Hovis]

The guy that introduced me to this place actually had "cunt" portmanteau-ing his IRL name and screen-name. 19 years ago. Jibbers.

He reckons he doesn't come here any more, but I know you're lurking, ya big galoot. Get back to work.

[chveik]

A bit of Googling led me to the downloadable radio shows with the 'Cookdandbombd presents Blue Jam...' jingle at the start, which was probably somewhere on the old version of this site.

stupidly I thought for a long time that it was the production company or something.

[Pingers]

I found this place when googling the unaired Dennis Pennis Russell Grant piece. I was pleased to find a forum of people with a much higher intelligence than the usual discussion board, many of whom are also funny. I also use it to expel all sorts of shit and declutter my idiot mind, despite the very strong suspicion that it's of no interest to anyone else.

[AliasTheCat]

First discovered the forum around the time of the Brass Eye special but didn't start lurking regularly until around the time Nathan Barley came out. I've essentially been lurking ever since and I check in virtually every day as I just really enjoy reading through the threads.
My weird online shyness and the registration on the site being closed for what seemed like an age meant that I only actually registered an account a few years ago, but since then I've...not really posted very much at all.
I guess it must seem strange that I value this place so highly when I rarely actively participate, but I do. So there.

[tookish]

Lurked here for a bit, made one post under a different account, felt attacked by the responses, fucked off again in a flounce. Then hpmons mentioned it to me so I joined up again. Spent a couple of years posting regularly and basically just documenting my mental breakdowns. Got some very kind hand-holding, and some tough love that I desperately needed. Sorted myself out a bit. Grew up a lot. This site has been the best kind of support and has made me laugh at some of the worst moments of my life.

Mostly a lurker these days, but I love you all dearly.

[touchingcloth]

I first discovered the place when it was blue and I was searching for Blue Jam not that one. I stopped using another forum and started lurking here around about 2012. Hate it, to be honest; pile of shit. Can't be doing with the likes of this poster.

[Autopsy Turvey]

Hate it, to be honest; pile of shit. Can't be doing with the likes of this poster.

I'm sorry to hear this, will try to ease off a bit or at least confine myself to comfy comedy chat like in the old days. I can get a bit carried away thinking a discussion is more interesting when there's a wild card point of view to attack, or a different sort of nob pissing against the wind. I don't want it ruining the forum for people, far more unites us than divides us, I say it a lot and it's not meant sarcastically.

I first discovered this forum when SOTCAA came up in a search for Monty Python analysis in the year 2000, barely slept that night, just amazed, mystified and delighted at the levels of sardonic invective and righteous fury about the decline of standards in British comedy. Great days.

[popcorn]

Hate it, to be honest; pile of shit. Can't be doing with the likes of this poster.

I'm sorry to hear this, will try to ease off a bit or at least confine myself to comfy comedy chat like in the old days. I can get a bit carried away thinking a discussion is more interesting when there's a wild card point of view to attack, or a different sort of nob pissing against the wind. I don't want it ruining the forum for people, far more unites us than divides us, I say it a lot and it's not meant sarcastically.

[Autopsy Turvey]

What's happening?!

[Autopsy Turvey]

Is it a prank? Have I fallen for a prank?! I hope so, I'd hate to think I'm ruining the forum for folk, but it's not implausible! Still though, not bad advice to self probably either way.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

It's not a prank. When I click on the link, your shitcunt user profile comes up.

[Ferris]

Oh yes that was my story (here). It's very nice to discover, by chance, someone saying they enjoyed it so thank you very much.

I have recently actually written a short sequel about what's happened to that shop in the last few years. It's a bit of a sad story. I still need to do a bit more research before I can finish it but hopefully it will be done in the next week or two.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I also really enjoyed that. Helps to have worked in a similarly weird and shit shop as a youth. Look forward to the sequel.

I found this place via a reference in the comments of a Grauniad article. Lurked for a year or so, then dived in. Complete waste of time, don't know what people see in it.

[Cerys]

It's not a prank. When I click on the link, your shitcunt user profile comes up.

Weird.  When I click on it, it's your gurning fizzog that appears.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Hold on, you mean I'm the shitcunt? I'm confused now.

[chveik]

I can't remember exactly how I found this place, I'll have to make something up in my autobiography. probably by googling Chris Morris, I'm quite the boring cunt. anyway I'm glad I did, it helped me getting through some bad times.

I'm not going to repeat what other posters have said more eloquently, only that it's the best place on the internet and while things seem to get bleaker by the day, cab always brings the laughs and more often than not interesting discussions.

I'm also very grateful to all the posters that made me discovered great stuff or as the OP said, things that I possibly wouldn't have considered looking into, things like Megahex, The Legendary Pink Dots, Cardiacs, Caroliner, Joe Frank, Gelmania, Hollywood Handbook, The Venture Bros., The Best Show. and also to the kind souls (and particularly SMBH) that have provided me links for obscure films & comedy.

[BritishHobo]

I'd been a poster on the DigitalSpy forums for a couple of years when somebody posted over there in 2010 asking for feedback on a comedy script, saying they'd posted it here as well. Somebody replied saying not to bother asking for feedback on Cook'd and Bomb'd, as they're a shower of negative, miserable cunts who'll just slag it off because they hate everything (they didn't say cunts - I think swearing might be banned on that forum). Boy howdy, I thought. Love a mad forum. I popped over, and found... the most interesting, thoughtful, even-handed discussion board I'd ever seen in my wasted teenage years. After so long in the miserable conflict-ridden subforums of DigitalSpy, and IMDb, where everyone just shouted their angry opinions at each other, this was a breath of fresh air.

It got me thinking about comedy, broadening my horizons massively. Almost everything I now love I got into through here - the On The Hour/Day Today world and Alan Partridge; Peacock and Gamble and everything Ian Boldsworth has done before and since; the Machynlleth Comedy Festival; Comedy Bang Bang, and all the shows borne out by people in that world, like Review and Nathan For You; the On Cinema universe, all alongside an enormous number of other sitcoms and radio shows. It's seen me through a horrific break-up, four years of university in which I regularly got pissed beyond humiliation and used General Bullshit as a void in which to scream my loneliness and pathetic desperation to get my end away.

It's a great place, this, where so many people feel comfortable to open up about themselves and their struggles safe in an atmosphere of understanding and good-natured pisstaking. I've gotten to know some wonderful people through here. It lacks the stubborn bullheaded desperation for arguments and conflict that make most other websites a tedious ballache of chaos. People here want to understand, and share and encourage others in their interests. It's also stupidly funny, by far the most creative outlet for humour I've seen in a forum.

[tookish]

Is it a prank? Have I fallen for a prank?! I hope so, I'd hate to think I'm ruining the forum for folk, but it's not implausible! Still though, not bad advice to self probably either way.

Oh, mate.

Mate.

[Ray Travez]

Somebody replied saying not to bother asking for feedback on Cook'd and Bomb'd, as they're a shower of negative, miserable cunts

Oh why's that then?

[DrGreggles]

Maybe they've met us.