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Was watching the Look Around You DVD and saw the pilot Calcium was made in 2000!

Started by ajsmith2, February 23, 2021, 09:29:44 AM

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Bazooka

Quote from: neveragain on February 23, 2021, 03:33:55 PM
How would you trick people with The Room?

Just telling them it's one of the best films you've seen in a long time and the director is very unique, it helps having a rock solid poker face. It doesn't neccesarily take long for them to say;"this is so poor" etc.

Dusty Substance


Billy

I still haven't seen the first season but remember the cult hype around it - being about 13-14 years old I was really tired of everyone making jokes about the 1970s (this was peak I Love 197x/lol-everyone-on-the-magic-roundabout-was-on-drugs era) and wished we'd have more programmes about my 1990s childhood instead, not quite understanding that a couple of years ago isn't really nostalgic or retro for anyone over about 20. Sadly I don't think there's anything creepy about the early 2000s that can be parodied today, unless odd-looking Nokia phones and basic websites with RealPlayer video cause anyone of a certain age to get the shivers.

I did watch the second series and tried to fool my mum into thinking the last episode was real, hoping the insanely-good CGI Prince Charles would convince her despite the other wackiness. Sadly she was a Peep Show fan, got a bit suspicious from the presenter who looked a lot like Olivia Colman, and immediately realised what was going on when Mitchell & Webb* showed up a few minutes in.

(*it's not Webb, it's Ryan Cartwright, but I think she assumed it was given he shares the scene with Mitchell and Colman)


the

Quote from: Billy on February 23, 2021, 07:33:06 PMI still haven't seen the first season but remember the cult hype around it - being about 13-14 years old I was really tired of everyone making jokes about the 1970s (this was peak I Love 197x/lol-everyone-on-the-magic-roundabout-was-on-drugs era) and wished we'd have more programmes about my 1990s childhood instead, not quite understanding that a couple of years ago isn't really nostalgic or retro for anyone over about 20.

That didn't stop them making I Love 1990 - 1999, which ran in the latter half of 2001.

tourism


petril

I remember discovering it because it was ten minutes long and on BBC2, so thought "yeah that'll be comedy, bound to be weird and good". right after I'd first moved out and had been settled in. got a bit lonely and weird at nights, despite having my dialup and various folk I talked to. helped me settle in right. first comedy I remember properly watching as it went out in the company of internet friends. my introduction to the thrilling world of just repeating the bit of the punchine in caps with a load of :D:D:D:D:D:D after it. that and someone turning up who isn't aware and doesn't figure it out quickly

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: ajsmith2 on February 23, 2021, 11:13:06 AM
Later things like Scarfolk (and indeed LAY series 2) for me too often succumbed to the temptation  to overegg the mood by chucking too much edgy/broader 'woops this guys a paedo, this guy shat himself that's pretty JARRING eh?' stuff into the mix. The fact that LAY series 1 is so restrained and pretty much family friendly is one of it's strengths.

If LAY 2 had been called something like Next Week's World (or something better) maybe the comparisons to LAY wouldn't have been so critical? They're different beasts. I would disagree that LAY is more family-friendly, less jarring compared to its successor. It has its few dark moments.


ajsmith2

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on February 24, 2021, 10:00:45 AM
If LAY 2 had been called something like Next Week's World (or something better) maybe the comparisons to LAY wouldn't have been so critical? They're different beasts. I would disagree that LAY is more family-friendly, less jarring compared to its successor. It has its few dark moments.

I guess I more meant that it's subtler: sure the darkness is there but it's not so in your face and 'look, do you see?' as the second series, and it works a lot better because of this. That's how I remember it anyway. Tbh though I've not seen series 2 since it was broadcast in 2005ish so I shouldn't really be comparing 15 year old memories to something I've watched loads of times including as recently as last night. In fact now I'm considering ordering the series 2 DVD to attempt a  reappraisal.

petril

yeah I'm thinking about getting the DVDs for a third time, just so I an have the commentary and extras. they put the work in on those. even the one that's just basically an audio track of them going "NORRRRRRRIIIIIII" in a daft voice the whole time

Series 2 is great, but it is a completely different show. I agree it should have been called something completely different whilst sharing the same universe. There's a really awkward bit at the start of Music 2000 where they try to link series 2 to series 1 via Jack Morgan and it's really unnecessary. Just let the hardcore fans work it out.

Brundle-Fly

For any newcomers to LAY, The Peter Serafinowicz Show has some' Look Around Youy' moments that are worth investigating: The Guide To Modern Living, Sinister products ads, Acid Sockets PIF. Etc

Old Nehamkin

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on February 24, 2021, 11:17:25 AM
For any newcomers to LAY, The Peter Serafinowicz Show has some' Look Around Youy' moments that are worth investigating: The Guide To Modern Living, Sinister products ads, Acid Sockets PIF. Etc

Serafinowicz and Popper have also put out a few little shorts down the years that are very much in the Look Around You vein, linked below for those who haven't seen them:

Markets of Britain

Building a Human

Intermission

phantom_power

They also had that Spirit World Radio thing that is very hauntological and LAYesque

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Old Nehamkin on February 24, 2021, 11:24:58 AM
Serafinowicz and Popper have also put out a few little shorts down the years that are very much in the Look Around You vein, linked below for those who haven't seen them:

Markets of Britain

Building a Human

Intermission

Huxley Babkins linked those yesterday. 'Go Easy On Your Linkees'.

Old Nehamkin

I'd definitely agree that the first series is a better and purer piece of work overall for the reasons outlined upthread, but "Food" from series 2 has a special place in my heart as it was the first one I ever saw - I remember randomly coming across it while watching telly with my dad and brothers aged about 12 and all of us pretty much struggling to breathe from laughing through the whole episode. Just that feeling of being completely winded by the rate/density of jokes and ideas, like watching Brass Eye for the first time. A huge high.

Old Nehamkin


Blumf


Brundle-Fly

A friend asked Peter S why they don't make more of these shorts. Apparently, he and Popper spent so much time and energy over each one that it was becoming a ballache to get them done because they were also busy with other projects that actually puts food on the table.

amateur

Quote from: Blumf on February 24, 2021, 11:58:11 AM
"Erasers, for rubbing out mistakes. We've all made mistakes... I know I have"

Another regular quote round amateur towers. It's the pause that really sells it.

notjosh

Quote from: Old Nehamkin on February 24, 2021, 11:24:58 AM
Serafinowicz and Popper have also put out a few little shorts down the years that are very much in the Look Around You vein, linked below for those who haven't seen them:

Markets of Britain

Building a Human

Intermission

It's a bit different, but worth mentioning Frost/Savile too.

MojoJojo

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on February 24, 2021, 11:58:26 AM
A friend asked Peter S why they don't make more of these shorts. Apparently, he and Popper spent so much time and energy over each one that it was becoming a ballache to get them done because they were also busy with other projects that actually puts food on the table.

How are they actually made? I was assuming they were reusing library stock from somewhere, but then bits (like smashing the heads with hammers in "Making a Human" ) seem like they must have been filmed for it.

Rizla

Quote from: MojoJojo on February 24, 2021, 02:39:43 PM
How are they actually made? I was assuming they were reusing library stock from somewhere, but then bits (like smashing the heads with hammers in "Making a Human" ) seem like they must have been filmed for it.
Largely Pathe newsreel footage, maybe some GPO films too?

Pink Gregory

Not sure if you could really call Look Around You 'hauntology'.  As I understand it, hauntology can be loosely defined as nostalgia for an imagined future; whereas Look Around You is more of a parody piece.  There's no pretense to it being 'now, but old'.

Retinend

Quote from: Pink Gregory on February 24, 2021, 02:48:30 PM
Not sure if you could really call Look Around You 'hauntology'.  As I understand it, hauntology can be loosely defined as nostalgia for an imagined future; whereas Look Around You is more of a parody piece.  There's no pretense to it being 'now, but old'.

The term was appropriated from Derrida to describe the mood evocated by the Scarfolk images, as it related to people's feelings about the era looking back on it.

Perhaps it was misunderstood at the time, vis-à-vis its strict definition, but it was taken to mean something like "lingering memories that seem increasingly unreal as time goes on".

Quote from: Rizla on February 24, 2021, 02:43:54 PM
Largely Pathe newsreel footage, maybe some GPO films too?

Markets of Britain is from Southern TV's Out of Town.

The film it comes from, "Market Day", was never actually broadcast. Southern lost the ITV south coast franchise to TVS and the series it was supposed to feature in was never completed. Presenter Jack Hargreaves (aka Lee Titt) and his former How producer Steve Wade bought "Market Day" and ~30 other unseen films from Southern and made a straight-to-VHS series of Out of Town by having the films telecined at Bournemouth Uni, doing the voiceovers in Hargreaves' front room and filming new links from his garden shed.

thr0b

Quote from: Huxleys Babkins on February 24, 2021, 03:30:05 PM
Markets of Britain is from Southern TV's Out of Town.

The film it comes from, "Market Day", was never actually broadcast. Southern lost the ITV south coast franchise to TVS and the series it was supposed to feature in was never completed. Presenter Jack Hargreaves (aka Lee Titt) and his former How producer Steve Wade bought "Market Day" and ~30 other unseen films from Southern and made a straight-to-VHS series of Out of Town by having the films telecined at Bournemouth Uni, doing the voiceovers in Hargreaves' front room and filming new links from his garden shed.

Crikey, didn't realise it was circa 1981 - it looks at least ten years older. Unless it had been on the shelf for that long, which is of course entirely possible.

Phil_A

Quote from: Pink Gregory on February 24, 2021, 02:48:30 PM
Not sure if you could really call Look Around You 'hauntology'.  As I understand it, hauntology can be loosely defined as nostalgia for an imagined future; whereas Look Around You is more of a parody piece.  There's no pretense to it being 'now, but old'.

I think what you're describing is retrofuturism, which is something completely apart from hauntology.

Quote from: Retinend on February 24, 2021, 03:13:01 PM
The term was appropriated from Derrida to describe the mood evocated by the Scarfolk images, as it related to people's feelings about the era looking back on it.

Perhaps it was misunderstood at the time, vis-à-vis its strict definition, but it was taken to mean something like "lingering memories that seem increasingly unreal as time goes on".

When Derrida coined the term "hauntology" he was on about the spectre of Marxism returning to haunt modern political discourse(or something like that), but yeah it's basically been co-opted to mean something much broader than that. Perhaps a more accurate definition of hauntology as most of us understand it is to be haunted by the half-forgotten memories of our collective cultural pasts, often in the form of the specific (usually unsettling) feelings invoked by particular kinds of media from decades gone by.


Ptolemy Ptarmigan

Quote from: damien on February 24, 2021, 04:38:54 PM
Don't mess with Jack Hargreaves, especially if you're a tittle tattler

https://youtu.be/UZZ-ByPS71M
Remember when he poked Bunty James in the eye with his pipe and claimed it was an accident, despite whispering 'You're next' to Fred Dinenage as he walked away?