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"Bring Back Barley" says NME guy...

Started by Spiteface, April 20, 2005, 01:20:35 PM

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Rats

Ah, that's a shame he caught jutl on a bad day when he was spitting thin venom, which I've never seen before. I've posted my "witty" asides elsewhere, because we know who the world revolves around.

jutl

Quote from: "23 Daves"jutl, that blog fella has responded to your criticisms.  Maybe you should go and have a read.

Just have, and have written a quick reply. Shannon - if you're reading - you're lovely.

DJenno

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"The 'Poochie' episode features Lisa saying something like 'But Itchy and Scratchy have given you hours of entertainment for free - why do you have to criticise now?'

Because those previous episodes weren't written by...[consults TV Tome]...David X Cohen, presumably.

That'd be David X Cohen of the universally loathed Futurama, then?

You can't necessarily attribute the line to him just because he's credited as the writer, that's not how the show is written.

Little Hoover

That was even the line anyway, it went like this:

CBG: Last night's "Itchy & Scratchy" was, without a doubt, the worst
    episode ever.  Rest assured that I was on the Internet within
    minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.

Bart: Hey, I know it was great, but what right do you have to complain?
CBG: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What?  They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for
     free.  What could they possibly owe you?  If anything, you owe
     them.
CBG: [pauses]  Worst episode ever.

The point isn't even that people shouldn't be allowed to criticise its mocking the self-rightgeous attitude of some Internet Critics, I've also found comments from writers saying that they wouldn't like it if the reviews were all just mindless praise.

And Ian Maxtone Graham isn't the real Simpsons villian as I already said its Mike Scully since he was headwriter and he makes all the decisons over what lines can go in and for rewriting plots, Maxtone-Graham can pitch lines but they can be rejected.
Intrestingly  episode written by Ian Maxtone Graham recently won a writers guild award. (Although I guess considering the competion its not such an achievment)

Mildly Diverting


Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Quote from: "Comic Book Guy"
I feel they owe me.

This view is often held up to ridicule ('Chris Morris doesn't owe you anything'), but why is that? Surely if you're fortunate enough to write/perform stuff on TV for huge sums of money, then you *do* have a responsibility to make your stuff good? In that sense, you do 'owe' your audience.

hands cold, liver warm

Quote from: "Mildly Diverting"http://aliasfrequencies.org/son/2005/03/28/nathan-barley

Well, that's the end of that 'debate' then.

"It becomes clear that Dan is a sort of fractal (self-similar) version of Nathan"

It becomes clear that the reviewer doesn't know what fractals are but wants to use the word because it makes him/her sound clever

lazyhour

Too much meanness towards this Shannon, non?  It's just been written in a wordy style, on an inconsequential little weblog.

How do you think Shannon will feel when he/she reads your comment, hands cold?

Cue comment of "Well, if they put it on the Internet in a public site, it's fair game, isn't it?"  And indeed it is, but sometimes I feel we should give all the meanness a rest.

Derek Trucks

Better not read what Shannon says about Green Wing, unless you have a stress ball handy....oh and apparently Peep Show is like MBB, only much better.  So that's us told.

EDIT:  Just seen Lazyhour's post - It's a fair cop your honour.

hands cold, liver warm

I wasn't been mean, I wish no ill upon the reviewer.

My point still stands though

jutl

Quote from: "hands cold, liver warm"I wasn't been mean, I wish no ill upon the reviewer.

My point still stands though

I had a look around the rest of his site and he is clearly not the fool that you and I took him for. I have now said so on his blog. I really don't want to antagonise the poor guy further.

Little Hoover

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"
Quote from: "Comic Book Guy"
I feel they owe me.

This view is often held up to ridicule ('Chris Morris doesn't owe you anything'), but why is that? Surely if you're fortunate enough to write/perform stuff on TV for huge sums of money, then you *do* have a responsibility to make your stuff good? In that sense, you do 'owe' your audience.

Because they were making their stuff good, good the writers of Simpson belived it to be good, they work hard on it and do what they think is good and right for the show, (most of them did I'm sure ) they have the support of Groening and Jim Brooks.  They can take on board valid critcisms but when you look at some of the rants thrown at Simpsons (and these are classic episodes) Some of are just ridculous, there's personal attacks on writers, There's a difference between discussing the episodes flaws and writing knee-jerk rants when people have often missed the writers intentions.

It would get quite frustrating. Imagine If the internet was widley available earlier and everyone here was brutally slating The Day Today in a scornful way saying its just shit compared to On The Hour, and then when Brass Eye came about the criticism just got even more brutal saying Morris should be tortured and never allowed to work on t.v and radio again I mean that's the kind of level  we're talking about with Simpsons in this era.

TJ

Quote from: "Little Hoover"It would get quite frustrating. Imagine If the internet was widley available earlier and everyone here was brutally slating The Day Today in a scornful way saying its just shit compared to On The Hour, and then when Brass Eye came about the criticism just got even more brutal saying Morris should be tortured and never allowed to work on t.v and radio again I mean that's the kind of level  we're talking about with Simpsons in this era.


Ummm... well... the net was indeed around back then, and a few of the posters here and on the Brass List (and on NotBBC, for that matter) were around and commenting on Morris in various places. Blue Jam, Brass Eye and (stretching back to when I very first encountered the net) the Radio 1 shows provoked no such reaction in any quarters.

Little Hoover

I said it wasn't widley (sorry my spelling and grammar is terrible, its amazing I got a 'C' on my GCSE'S) available. (It wasn't in 94) Seriously if Look at old Simpsons newsgroups you can see decline comments as far back as season 2, and I'm saying it would be like if the level of criticism Barley gets were applied to The Day Today.

TJ

Quote from: "Little Hoover"I said it wasn't widley available. Seriously if Look at old Simpsons newsgroups you can see decline comments as far back as season 2, and I'm saying it would be like if the level of criticism Barley gets were applied to The Day Today.

But, by the same token, the Brass List archive is there for all to see (stretching back to towards the end of Brass Eye's run, I think), and there isn't even a hint of criticism on the scale you're suggesting until at least post-jam...

Quote from: "Appropriately named "Well Futile""Some Chris Morris fans dislike this series. <insert link here> That's their prerogative, and their loss. Sad comedy geeks would still have John Cleese performing the parrot sketch, and Chris Morris doing news parodies. They're actually the sort of small-minded people that Nathan Barley satirizes.
Oh.

Morris' next project: Ted Maul introduces repeats of old and over-exposed Python sketches. Gonna be big!

Little Hoover

Quote from: "TJ"
Quote from: "Little Hoover"I said it wasn't widley available. Seriously if Look at old Simpsons newsgroups you can see decline comments as far back as season 2, and I'm saying it would be like if the level of criticism Barley gets were applied to The Day Today.

But, by the same token, the Brass List archive is there for all to see (stretching back to towards the end of Brass Eye's run, I think), and there isn't even a hint of criticism on the scale you're suggesting until at least post-jam...

I'M NOT SUGGESTING THEIR WAS. I'm saying it WOULD be somewhat like that if people were as critical as the early Simpson net reviewers.

23 Daves

Quote from: "lazyhour"Cue comment of "Well, if they put it on the Internet in a public site, it's fair game, isn't it?"  And indeed it is, but sometimes I feel we should give all the meanness a rest.

I would concur.

You see, this is what I don't understand about this forum.  If I were to post a defence of some of Tpau's past output into Stereo Excursions, I'm sure nothing bad would happen.  A few people might chuckle behind their hands, there might be a couple of wry comments, but ultimately nobody would annihilate me for daring to slow dance to "China In Your Hand".

Dare to go against general consensus and mention the fact you like "Nathan Barley", though, and it's a different story.  Attacks ensue, people start frothing at the mouth, and if you link to someone else offering their own quick opinion on it that you happen to think is well argued in places, God help them.  In fact, God fucking help your friends if they dare to post to this forum saying they like "Nathan Barley" as well.

Can we not have some sort of sense of perspective here?

Chris Morris made a new show.  It disappointed most people.  This was reflected in the viewing figures and general discussions on the Internet.  In short, YOU WON THE WAR.

However, a few perfectly intelligent, rational people liked it, in much the same way that a few perfectly intelligent, rational people chose to enjoy The Stone Roses "The Second Coming" (for some unearthly reason).  None of these viewers were necessarily blinded by love for the man (I for one think "Jam" and "My Wrongs" were way below par) and none were necessarily in some way mentally challenged, so they'd probably appreciate it if you stopped talking to them as if they were.

Get over it, the lot of you, unless it's your general mission to dish out smug one-liners to anyone and everyone until the entire Internet thinks this forum is full of cunts (and we must surely be getting close to that golden 100% cunt rating already).

ziggy starbucks

Quote from: "23 Daves"Get over it, the lot of you, unless it's your general mission to dish out smug one-liners to anyone and everyone until the entire Internet thinks this forum is full of cunts (and we must surely be getting close to that golden 100% cunt rating already).

The word fractal was used incorrectly though

Peking O

Quote from: "23 Daves"Dare to go against general consensus and mention the fact you like "Nathan Barley", though, and it's a different story.  Attacks ensue, people start frothing at the mouth, and if you link to someone else offering their own quick opinion on it that you happen to think is well argued in places, God help them.  In fact, God fucking help your friends if they dare to post to this forum saying they like "Nathan Barley" as well.

I'm interested to know whether ELLW10, strang, Mumbler, Darrell, etc. ever disagree on anything. I'm sure they do, but if so, why not on here? Because when all of you leap into a thread and start arguing against one person's opinion it does tend to be a bit overbearing. I don't ever recall, for example, ELLW10 posting something, then alan strang coming along and saying "actually, I disagree," although I could be wrong there. Sigh! Another thread about other thread's eh?

The Duck Man

I always imagined alan strang and ELLW10 to be joined at the brain, as sort of mutated comedy colussus.

23 Daves

I wasn't wishing to start a "state of the forum" rant, really, more of a "state of Nathan Barley discussions" one.  It's a tad disappointing that there's been so much bile and ill-feeling on them, to be honest.

Jemble Fred

Quote from: "Peking O"I'm interested to know whether ELLW10, strang, Mumbler, Darrell, etc. ever disagree on anything.

I don't recall Darrell ever toeing the party line. But then he hardly ever seems to post in here anymore anyway.

The Mumbler

Quote from: "Peking O"
I'm interested to know whether ELLW10, strang, Mumbler, Darrell, etc. ever disagree on anything. I'm sure they do, but if so, why not on here? Because when all of you leap into a thread and start arguing against one person's opinion it does tend to be a bit overbearing. I don't ever recall, for example, ELLW10 posting something, then alan strang coming along and saying "actually, I disagree," although I could be wrong there. Sigh! Another thread about other thread's eh?

Oh it happens.  For instance, I know for a fact I like the first series of I'm Alan Partridge rather more than either Lalla or Alan Strang.  But I don't think it's anything like as good as Knowing Me Knowing You.  And I thought that in late 1997, over two years before SOTCAA arrived.

Much as I absolutely adored the SOTCAA site from the day it was launched, I didn't need other people to tell me that the 11 O'Clock Show was unspeakable snickering rubbish - I'd seen it and wept with misery.  Or that something had gone badly wrong in the world of comedy in the second half of the nineties.  Or that Absolutely was a neglected national treasure.  I had eyes and ears of my own.  Fortunately, the way SOTCAA wrote about these subjects was so vividly funny and knowledgeable, I was hooked.   It wasn't The Observer talking shit.  Thank God.

I suspect it does sometimes read that we operate from a single manifesto simply because we all have roughly the same attitudes about how comedy should be.  How it's become so much of an industry, how it's become less playful and more self-serving, and so on.  But I know we disagree over things.

Jemble Fred

Thing is, I agree with all the opinions in your post, Mumbler (just like your good self, I didn't need to read SOTCAA to know what I think on the subjects), but I still find myself arguing like fuck with... well, everyone.

Peking O

Quote from: "The Mumbler"Oh it happens.... But I know we disagree over things.

I'm sure it does, but the question remains, why not on here?

The Mumbler

Quote from: "Peking O"
Quote from: "The Mumbler"Oh it happens.... But I know we disagree over things.

I'm sure it does, but the question remains, why not on here?

Well, in many cases (ie comedy older than about three years), we had a fair number of those discussions on the SOTCAA site forum.   I remember disagreements about Blue Jam, People Like Us, Seinfeld, Black Books, Big Train, Iannucci, Harry Hill and Christ knows what else.  If it happens less and less these days, well, I don't quite know why that is.  Speaking for myself, I don't catch as much radio comedy as I should, and don't watch every TV comedy show anymore - so in that sense, I've not always got an opinion on something.  But I can't speak for the others, obviously.

Godzilla Bankrolls

The thing with that blog entry (and so many other reviews of Barley, like Momus' for example) is that it's been written by someone who may know a lot about 'art', but doesn't know the first thing about how comedy works, or comedic history in any way. As such, they come across as rambling pseuds desperate to find something worth seeing in a sub-par offering. It reminds me of Richard Socks on his quest to find out what exactly *is* paper?

"BUT IT'S TREN-DOYYY!!"

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: "hands cold, liver warm""It becomes clear that Dan is a sort of fractal (self-similar) version of Nathan"

It becomes clear that the reviewer doesn't know what fractals are but wants to use the word because it makes him/her sound clever
OK, I'm letting myself in for it here, but it works for me, and I'm pretty sure that I know what a fractal is.  A common feature of most (all?) fractals is that they are self-similar, i.e. that as you zoom in or out they have the same basic structure.

Thus I think that the blogger's contention that just as Dan looks at Nathan...zooming out...We look at Dan the same way...and zooming out again...that Others look at Us the same way, is fractal-like, is a valid one.

Whether or not it's a correct analysis of NB is beside the point, I'm just saying that from my point of view comparing that process to a fractal is a completely valid thing to do.

Now I expect HCLW and ziggy starbucks to tell me why I'm wrong and how I'm an idiot (small "i").

helpful

Don't know if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but at Peter Fincham's leaving partyt from Talkback, after the short tribute film, Chris Morris played in two wind-up phonecalls, apparently. He'd pretended to be Peter Fincham and called Andy Duncan (who beat Fincahm to become C4 ceo) and outgoing BBC1 controller/incoming Talkback boss Lorraine Heggasy. The Andy Duncan one was along the lines of "hello, Andy, it's Peter Fincham", hi Peter - "just wanted to say - 'loser'." Sorry? "Who's the winner now, eh? Loser" ... "I'm having a party tomorrow, come along if you want. Loser." While the Heggassy one apparently started with "just calling to say - don't fuck it up. It's my company - don't fuck it up" and included a comment about "not minding a dip in your honeypot" or something.