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The Office Christmas finale

Started by Ballad of Ballard Berkley, July 30, 2020, 11:19:41 AM

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Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Jumblegraws on July 30, 2020, 01:28:06 PM
This is true, although Gareth does call them out on it (albeit not in an especially pro-LGBT tone), which incidentally I think is the most underrated moment in the finale.That's in the final episode of the series proper rather than the Xmas specials.

Maybe it was that episode then? This wasn't on Christmas Day. Did they repeat the series over the festive period? Bear with me, we are talking nearly twenty years ago here.

Hand Solo

Quote from: Hooverbag Sherlocks on July 30, 2020, 01:41:58 PM
Neil mock-chastises Finch for 'stealing all his best jokes' which Finch grudgingly acknowledges with 'I borrow them....'. As Stewart Lee might say, Finch doesn't strike you as someone troubled by duality of meaning. If an incorrigible bigot can appropriate your jokes at face value, it's probably time to hold the mirror up to thyself.

I find this amusing because don't all of them just do public domain pub-jokes or stuff they've seen off the telly yet claim some sort of authorship on them in lieu of having any element of wit or interesting personality trait?

I've been forced to sit in pubs with people who do this due to having mutual acquaintances and it's fucking infuriating. They never shut up and just like the sound of their own voice and generally are thick bullies if you cross them by failing to find them endlessly entertaining and the life the of the party. You can't have a proper conversation because they just try to dominate the entire evening with just glib fucking shit.

One guy offered to beat me up a while back because I kept rolling my eyes when I knew another old fucking joke passed off as a witticism was coming shoehorned into proceedings because they can't be naturally funny about a topic in an organic conversation, I'd had hours of it and couldn't put up with any more but a friend made me sit with them. Of course he didn't threaten to beat me up because I didn't find him funny, that would show how desperate and needy and unfunny he really was - he had to make up a really shit off-the-cuff excuse to have a problem that didn't make any sense but it was better that then the truth. His mate he was sitting next to was exactly the same so I had it in stereo the whole fucking evening but he was worse in that he would insert old fucking jokes into his life as if they were real anecdotes and the other mate was so stupid he actually believed them to be real and would question him about these obviously fabricated events - "I went in this pub once and there were two fat birds talking with an accent, I said where you from girls, Scotland?" "Wales!" "Sorry, where are you two whales from?" - "LOL, you said that???!"

FUCK ME

QDRPHNC

The only bit that really bothered me about the special was Dawn opening her gift at the end and it said "Don't give up" or something. The drawing alone and the pencils would have better.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: QDRPHNC on July 30, 2020, 02:39:38 PM
The only bit that really bothered me about the special was Dawn opening her gift at the end and it said "Don't give up" or something. The drawing alone and the pencils would have better.

A bit cheeky of the documentary crew cameraman to jump in the back of the cab,  with a cheery " Don't mind if I join you, do you missus?", I assume, though.

The makers of the Yank versh of " The Office" would follow this behaviour to its logical conclusion, and proceed to trail that bunch of social misfits and just plain mentally ill folk at Dunder Mifflin just about everywhere the daft cunts went, so fair play.

Dusty Substance

Quote from: Hand Solo on July 30, 2020, 02:20:51 PM
I find this amusing because don't all of them just do public domain pub-jokes or stuff they've seen off the telly yet claim some sort of authorship on them in lieu of having any element of wit or interesting personality trait?

I've been forced to sit in pubs with people who do this due to having mutual acquaintances and it's fucking infuriating. They never shut up and just like the sound of their own voice and generally are thick bullies if you cross them by failing to find them endlessly entertaining and the life the of the party. You can't have a proper conversation because they just try to dominate the entire evening with just glib fucking shit.

I can totally relate to this. I've spent time with alpha male cunts who do crappy one-liners they've stolen, then they bellow with laughter and I've also had to sit through hearing friends in the pub reciting full Bill Hicks routines to people who aren't familiar with said routines, without ever giving credit.

There's no winning though. If you call them out on it, you just come across as a pedantic party pooper.

The worst type, though, is when I make a self-deprecating joke (acknowledging my own weight-gain, for example) only for some thick cunt to go "Yeah, you are a bit fat mate".




Fambo Number Mive

Quote from: Jumblegraws on July 30, 2020, 12:23:32 PM
I've made this point before on threads where the character's discussed, but when Neil makes his introductory speech to the Slough lot following the Merger, he makes a crass, homophobic joke about Brent that I consider as bad as anything the latter ever said, but it gets a laugh and no call-out. Point being that that I've always felt Neil embodied the casual lookism that privileges conventionally attractive people with a halo effect, and that Neil laughing at Finchy's nasty, misogynist joke in the finale was consistent with this. Although if Merchant copped to changing Neil's character profile for the specials then that fucks up my interpretation a bit.

Doesn't he make some comment about the "dole orifice" as well?

Not quite as bad, but I'd rather people.werent playing cricket in the middle.of an office, especially as I cant catch and it would have been awkward. Doesn't Neil make them play cricket or something similar?

SavageHedgehog

The beloved film David Brent: Life on the Road undoes and then rehashes this ending.

mr. logic

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on July 30, 2020, 01:50:01 PM
There's also a nice little scene in the series proper where Jasper Carrot Features the Receptionist calls out  Tim for being a fully grown adult getting off  on making Gareth say things that make him sound like a gayer, showing that she's not just a nasty cunt ( As she and Tim both are most of the time), but realises that there has to be a time when enough is enough.
Otherwise, by and large, " The Office" remains a load of badly written old bollocks full of absolute cunts.

She's doing that to extend the joke

Utter Shit

Quote from: Hand Solo on July 30, 2020, 02:20:51 PM

I've been forced to sit in pubs with people who do this due to having mutual acquaintances and it's fucking infuriating. They never shut up and just like the sound of their own voice and generally are thick bullies if you cross them by failing to find them endlessly entertaining and the life the of the party. You can't have a proper conversation because they just try to dominate the entire evening with just glib fucking shit.

One guy offered to beat me up a while back because I kept rolling my eyes when I knew another old fucking joke passed off as a witticism was coming shoehorned into proceedings because they can't be naturally funny about a topic in an organic conversation, I'd had hours of it and couldn't put up with any more but a friend made me sit with them. Of course he didn't threaten to beat me up because I didn't find him funny, that would show how desperate and needy and unfunny he really was - he had to make up a really shit off-the-cuff excuse to have a problem that didn't make any sense but it was better that then the truth. His mate he was sitting next to was exactly the same so I had it in stereo the whole fucking evening but he was worse in that he would insert old fucking jokes into his life as if they were real anecdotes and the other mate was so stupid he actually believed them to be real and would question him about these obviously fabricated events - "I went in this pub once and there were two fat birds talking with an accent, I said where you from girls, Scotland?" "Wales!" "Sorry, where are you two whales from?" - "LOL, you said that???!"

FUCK ME

You sound as much of a pain in the arse as he does in this story.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: mr. logic on July 30, 2020, 04:32:00 PM
She's doing that to extend the joke

Oh well, so she's just a nasty cunt, then. Sour and defeated at the limitations of her disappointed, thwarted life, contenting herself with that arsehole who works in the warehouse as a partner, because, cunt though he is, he's quite good at the sexual intercourse and that, so she strings along  fellow failure and fellow defeat- accepting admirer Tim, this appealing to her vanity, and helping her to think to herself she's marginally more than a Jasper Carrot faced dowdy, boring bint. Still can't resist getting a jibe in at the overgrown adolescent as he aims his playground taunts at his undernourished baby sparrow looking nemesis, though. So, this brace of self- inflicted abject failure wallowers take out their self- hatred on someone who at least is trying to make something of himself, and subscribes as best as he can to the notion of self esteem, as misguided and puny as he is in these endeavours.

What a great laugh a minute comedy " The Office" was.

Dr Rock

If you love Gareth so much why don't you marry him?

Jumblegraws

Strong Norman Bates vibes coming from your post, LJ. I had no idea that Lucy Davis is Jasper Carrott's daughter, though. Fuck my hat.

rude soil

This is the scene where Dawn calls out Tim. I don't think she's extending the joke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlFkHTNiycU

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: rude soil on July 30, 2020, 07:10:50 PM
This is the scene where Dawn calls out Tim. I don't think she's extending the joke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlFkHTNiycU

There's a brief split- second scene where some form of self awareness and recognition of what a pathetic bully Tim is crosses those Carrotty features, I like to think.

Dr Rock

He's not bullying Gareth there, as Gareth, who you want to hug and kiss, has no idea what's going on, even after Dawn makes it clear.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

#45
He's taking the piss, and taking advantage of Gareth's obliviousness, in order to impress the Receptionist played by the actress with a strong strain of Angelina Jolie/ Sam Brown Syndrome. He wouldn't try that if Gareth knew what he was playing at, and was capable of twatting him. Note how he cowers at Carrotdaughter's brutish, warehouse- working boyfriend. He's an arsehole, just like everyone else in that thoroughly miserable show.


* Gina Mckee on Brass Eye GiF*....and maybe that's the point.



Lisa Jesusandmarychain

So, wait a minute, am I saying what a grand old piece of subversive  bleak underbelly of everyday life exposing Mike Leigh/ Ken Loach piece of social realism masquerading as wilfully vulgar pseudo documentary comedy " The Office" is? I don't want to do that! How do I get out of this?

Hand Solo

Quote from: Utter Shit on July 30, 2020, 05:14:05 PM
You sound as much of a pain in the arse as he does in this story.

For what? Getting threatened for rolling my eyes a few times after hours of having any chance of a proper conversation ruined by two twats glibly talking over everyone else reciting cliched things they've heard before as if they've just thought of it or old jokes passed off as real-life anecdotes to make you seem witty or interesting? I didn't pull them up on that but at least I can have a thoughtful conversation and can ad-lib any humour based on topic, not just shoehorn in old lines in deference of having any form of meaningful conversation. I didn't say much the whole night, nor did I want to, but by the end of it they obviously got atmosphere I wasn't finding them amusing.

Several of my other friends avoid this pair and their associates (they are always at a certain venue day and night like a stink so I and several friends stopped going there) like the plague and find them incredibly unpleasant, the friend I was with only seems to hang around with them because they buy her drinks and normalise her alcoholic tendencies by keeping her out drinking all the time, and in return she doesn't say much and pretends to laugh at their horseshit (I think more out of nervousness than anything, if they knew her at all well which they should but are so blinkered to discern she doesn't really 'get' joke jokes) and I only stuck around because I was trying to get her to go home because it was 3am, her boyfriend would be livid as she wasn't answering his calls, and she had work at 6am but these two cunts kept her out late on a weekday what great friends.

Tony Yeboah

I like the one where he does the funny dance,

Jockice

Quote from: PowerButchi on July 30, 2020, 11:44:45 AM
Finchy would have destroyed Brent. I've seen it happen in pubs the length and breadth of the country.

It's not even the most unrealistic bit in The Office. That will forever be his motivational talk where everyone in the audience just sits there, even though they are aware it is being filmed and some of them (presumably) have been sent by their bosses to take part. IT. WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.

Ferris

Quote from: mr. logic on July 30, 2020, 12:10:08 PM
No, but Neil was always slimy but ultimately decent. Even in his bollocking of David he says something like, 'Listen, you're a good guy..' Classic managerial bollocks but underpinned by a human understanding. Laughing along like a right fucking lad at Finchy's crass sexism seems out of character, whatever his inner thinking.

The only time I've had to do an immediate halt and pull some cunt (who reported to me) into my office to give them a bollocking, I realized I was channeling Neil. I actually said "I don't let anyone speak to me the way you spoke to me in there".

Pathetic.

non capisco

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on July 30, 2020, 09:04:06 PM
The only time I've had to do an immediate halt and pull some cunt (who reported to me) into my office to give them a bollocking, I realized I was channeling Neil. I actually said "I don't let anyone speak to me the way you spoke to me in there".

YOUR BLOCKED!

Utter Shit

Quote from: Hand Solo on July 30, 2020, 07:57:17 PM
For what? Getting threatened for rolling my eyes a few times after hours of having any chance of a proper conversation ruined by two twats glibly talking over everyone else reciting cliched things they've heard before as if they've just thought of it or old jokes passed off as real-life anecdotes to make you seem witty or interesting? I didn't pull them up on that but at least I can have a thoughtful conversation and can ad-lib any humour based on topic, not just shoehorn in old lines in deference of having any form of meaningful conversation. I didn't say much the whole night, nor did I want to, but by the end of it they obviously got atmosphere I wasn't finding them amusing.

Several of my other friends avoid this pair and their associates (they are always at a certain venue day and night like a stink so I and several friends stopped going there) like the plague and find them incredibly unpleasant, the friend I was with only seems to hang around with them because they buy her drinks and normalise her alcoholic tendencies by keeping her out drinking all the time, and in return she doesn't say much and pretends to laugh at their horseshit (I think more out of nervousness than anything, if they knew her at all well which they should but are so blinkered to discern she doesn't really 'get' joke jokes) and I only stuck around because I was trying to get her to go home because it was 3am, her boyfriend would be livid as she wasn't answering his calls, and she had work at 6am but these two cunts kept her out late on a weekday what great friends.


Yes, fair enough, not as bad as the other bloke. But also a pain in the arse.

Ferris


mr. logic

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on July 30, 2020, 06:38:48 PM
Oh well, so she's just a nasty cunt, then. Sour and defeated at the limitations of her disappointed, thwarted life, contenting herself with that arsehole who works in the warehouse as a partner, because, cunt though he is, he's quite good at the sexual intercourse and that, so she strings along  fellow failure and fellow defeat- accepting admirer Tim, this appealing to her vanity, and helping her to think to herself she's marginally more than a Jasper Carrot faced dowdy, boring bint. Still can't resist getting a jibe in at the overgrown adolescent as he aims his playground taunts at his undernourished baby sparrow looking nemesis, though. So, this brace of self- inflicted abject failure wallowers take out their self- hatred on someone who at least is trying to make something of himself, and subscribes as best as he can to the notion of self esteem, as misguided and puny as he is in these endeavours.

What a great laugh a minute comedy " The Office" was.

Don't disagree. I almost started a thread asking what people would advise Tim if he was their mate. She strings him along.

Bronzy

i like the deleted secne where dawn gives gareth a handjob

BlodwynPig

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on July 30, 2020, 09:04:06 PM
The only time I've had to do an immediate halt and pull some cunt (who reported to me) into my office to give them a bollocking, I realized I was channeling Neil. I actually said "I don't let anyone speak to me the way you spoke to me in there".

Pathetic.

Vid or GTFO. Would have paid good money to see this.

Phil_A

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on July 30, 2020, 11:19:41 AM
I've just watched the final episode again, and David is still an utter tit during his date with the nice, attractive woman. She appears to be entirely normal, why would she be attracted to him? The moment of quiet redemption is supposedly when she says to him (I'm paraphrasing), "Stop caring about what people think of you, just take the money and run."  Brent drops his guard for a moment and looks reflective. He's a changed man.

Which is a nice idea in theory - a sympathetic person finally tells David to stop trying so hard - but they don't actually build towards that moment at all. David is boastful, self-centred and deluded during their conversation, just as he always is, but she apparently comes to the conclusion that he's a nice man underneath it all. Well you wouldn't, would you? Ten minutes in that man's company and you'd be thinking of your excuses.

Doesn't Gervais just undermine this sliver of character development about five minutes into LOTR, the message seeming to be "You didn't think he'd stay with that old cow didya, haha gotcha!"

frajer

Quote from: Phil_A on July 31, 2020, 08:17:50 AM
Doesn't Gervais just undermine this sliver of character development about five minutes into LOTR, the message seeming to be "You didn't think he'd stay with that old cow didya, haha gotcha!"

The moment Gervais embraced his new audience. Surface-level shit delivered by a two-dimensional character. And then when you need some depth just have another character say "he's alright really. Actually he's the kindest, wisest, most well-hung and rational man I've ever had Richard Dawkin's good grace to encounter."

I.D. Smith

Quote from: Phil_A on July 31, 2020, 08:17:50 AM
Doesn't Gervais just undermine this sliver of character development about five minutes into LOTR, the message seeming to be "You didn't think he'd stay with that old cow didya, haha gotcha!"

Wow, never realised David Brent was added to the Middle Earth universe. Quite an ambitious crossover.