"Come on, let's tick a fucking box"

[Simon Price]

The other day I mentioned My New Best Friend in passing, and someone dismissed it, citing its "nastiness" as the reason.

Well, I watched a rerun on cable tonight, and its nastiness - the sheer, gobsmacking extremity of its nastiness - is precisely the thing which lifts it above other reality/prankster shows.

Tonight's was the episode where Marc Wootton (the Dom Joly lookalike who stars in every episode) plays public schoolboy Sacha, who coerces company director Matt into smashing the window of a parked Ford with a brick, and forces him to march around his living room coffee table singing "The Grand Old Duke Of York".

There are two crucial questions which need answering. 1) Does the victim KNOW that Marc Wootton is an actor, or do they think he is a bona fide person? 2) Does the victim have time to warn all their REAL friends that their life is about to be invaded by this weird, obnoxious impostor?

The look of disgust on the real friends' faces looked real enough. And in the only other episode I've seen, where Wootton plays needy, clingy Simon, the life of the victim (a skater dude from Brighton) appeared to be utterly ruined, even though he won the £10,000.

I've never seen such grimly fascinating car-crash viewing. I desperately want the whole thing to come out on DVD, even though I feel like a sick bastard for watching.

[Darrell]

Eurgh, no. Repulsive, heartless, irresponsible, bullying, cruel rubbish. Just thinking about it makes me incredibly angry. I have nothing but contempt for those involved with it and for those who defend it.

It's everything that's shit about modern television distilled into one show. A Marshall and Renwick sketch brought to life, with no regard for anything other than making some media dickheads wank themselves stupid over it.

Marc Wootton is a comedy black hole. Talentless, nasty, vindictive, pointless. The world of comedy/television can do a million times better than some hideous shaved bear polluting everywhere he goes with aimless, mean-spirited comedic offal. The media going apeshit over their water-coolers over him and his fifteen-dozen E4 commissions is a detestable sight.

[Papercut]

1) Does the victim KNOW that Marc Wootton is an actor, or do they think he is a bona fide person?

Yeah, they're 'in' on it.

2) Does the victim have time to warn all their REAL friends that their life is about to be invaded by this weird, obnoxious impostor?

I think thats part of winning the £10,000, they have to maintain the pretence throughout.

[Simon Price]

Eurgh, no. Repulsive, heartless, irresponsible, bullying, cruel rubbish. Just thinking about it makes me incredibly angry. I have nothing but contempt for those involved with it and for those who defend it.

It's everything that's shit about modern television distilled into one show. A Marshall and Renwick sketch brought to life, with no regard for anything other than making some media dickheads wank themselves stupid over it.

Marc Wootton is a comedy black hole. Talentless, nasty, vindictive, pointless. The world of comedy/television can do a million times better than some hideous shaved bear polluting everywhere he goes with aimless, mean-spirited comedic offal. The media going apeshit over their water-coolers over him and his fifteen-dozen E4 commissions is a detestable sight.

Man, I dunno, did it get good reviews? I didn't read anything about it. I caught it by accident.

Or, when you say "media dickheads", do you mean me? (I, who write about music, and have nothing to do with comedy/TV) Because - without wishing to jump the gun - I resent the implication that I forfeit my right to be a human being with honest responses, just because I happen to have a newspaper column...

[Simon Price]

1) Does the victim KNOW that Marc Wootton is an actor, or do they think he is a bona fide person?

Yeah, they're 'in' on it.

2) Does the victim have time to warn all their REAL friends that their life is about to be invaded by this weird, obnoxious impostor?

I think thats part of winning the £10,000, they have to maintain the pretence throughout.

Sure, but does someone from Channel 4 tail them 24/7 in the days before filming, to check? That's the one gaping hole, credibility-wise, in the whole thing for me.

[Darrell]

when you say "media dickheads", do you mean me? (I, who write about music, and have nothing to do with comedy/TV)

I refer principally to the Heat magazine-style wankers and their ilk.

[Simon Price]

Well anyway... the most important thing to remember, regarding its irresponsibility or mean-spiritedness or whatever else you wanna throw at it... is that the victims enter willingly, in the mercenary pursuit of £10,000. There's an element of "Here's 2p, dance like a bear" about it - and that's why I have SOME misgivings about watching - but ultimately they deserve everything they get.

It's the logical conclusion of the reality TV boom: "Well, how about we enter YOUR reality, and fuck around with it a little?"

[alan strang]

It's the logical conclusion of the reality TV boom: "Well, how about we enter YOUR reality, and fuck around with it a little?"

Good heavens no. No, the logical conclusion will surely be when all the sneering, manipulative people who make shows like this - people who've taken their cues from the bullying 'Big Brother' culture, people who enjoy having a jolly good safety-in-numbers laugh at the expense of people they can designate as a 'weaker party', people who in more primitive times may very well have been become society's queer-attackers or p**i-bashers - finally get the tables turned on them and are publicly ridiculed for maintaining that pitiful 'let's all laugh at the loser' ethos.

I want to see a series where a group of very smug E4 creatives (all wearing 'those glasses' and talking in sub-Partridge voices) are fooled into believing that they're setting up a reality TV show to take the piss out 'a bunch of ignorant fame-hungry chavs', but instead are filmed accidentally injecting themselves with horse manure. Bobby Davro could introduce it - just to rub salt into their wounds!

If Chris Morris had half a cock these days, this is the sort of target he'd be aiming at.

[elderford]

Good point Alan, the one about Morris's cock.

I for one would like to see media types at the receiving end rather than ordinary people in tv land always getting the treatment.

It would make a pleasant change to see a really vicious and spiteful programme getting cheap laughs out of making the people involved in commisioning, producing and bringing us reality shows to have the same done to them.

Okay, so it would never be broadcasted, but I'd buy the DVD.

If Morris is serious about calling Grade and all of Channel 4 cunts, this is a great subject for him to tackle, and the public will surely be behind him on this one as they weary of the reality show format?

[Munday's Chylde]

Well yeah... But if 'nasty tv' is to be used as a weapon rather than entertainment then I think we could probably come up with better more deserving targets than young suits who just make bad reality programmes.

[Plank]

It's hard to articulate why I hate Marc Wootton with such passion. I think it's because from an early age I've always been a goody fucking two shoes, and my outlets for nastiness have always been through fantasy settings such as comedy and violent computer games. But when it comes in to the realms of reality, like kicking Mr. Motivator while he's down because he's not on telly anymore, or some unemployed bloke who needs to readjust his cashflow situation, it disturbs me. It seems that he's taken the anger from satirists like Chris Morris and has directed it indiscriminately at anyone who's feeble enough to get in his way.

But as you say, in My New Best Friend the contestant is a willing participant (even if his friends and family aren't), and there is a grim fascination in how far they'll go for a bit of dough. However, it's infinitely funnier to see Mr. Burns pay Homer Simpson to get anally raped by a panda bear in a fantasy world, than have Marc Wooton force some hard up idiot to pour a bucket of aids over his mothers head.

I just wish the cunt would join the army already so he has a proper outlet to bully simpletons, that's all.

[TJ]

As I said in the BES article that we never got round to putting online, I was stunned that Morris didn't see fit to interview a handful of former Big Brother contestants (who, back in 2001, were regularly being asked for their ill-informed non-opinion on subjects of tremendous importance by the press), as well as the likes of Carol Vorderman and Sacha Baron-Cohen. That would have been three incapacitating blows to the vacuity of modern television, but instead we got a load of soft targets like Kate Thornton and Richard Blackwood (hardly a major figure even then). Ho hum.

[alan strang]

As I said in the BES article that we never got round to putting online, I was stunned that Morris didn't see fit to interview a handful of former Big Brother contestants (who, back in 2001, were regularly being asked for their ill-informed non-opinion on subjects of tremendous importance by the press)

But that would have made him just as bad as the idiots who get a kick out of patronising them, surely? Even if it was intended as a statement on vapid TV, everyone would have just assumed he was 'laying into those fucking morons off of Big Brother'. The Marc Wootons of this world would get off scot-free and feel even more justified in sneering at losers.

as well as the likes of Carol Vorderman

I think he did try for Vorderman (after all, it was her blinkered coverage of internet abuse which kicked off the idea of the BES in the first place). I gather she refused to participate.

To be fair though, the stuff she was coming out with in her actual report for London Tonight was funnier than anything Morris might have coaxed her into saying.

[Simon Price]

Good heavens no. No, the logical conclusion will surely be when all the sneering, manipulative people who make shows like this - people who've taken their cues from the bullying 'Big Brother' culture, people who enjoy having a jolly good safety-in-numbers laugh at the expense of people they can designate as a 'weaker party', people who in more primitive times may very well have been become society's queer-attackers or p**i-bashers - finally get the tables turned on them and are publicly ridiculed for maintaining that pitiful 'let's all laugh at the loser' ethos.

I want to see a series where a group of very smug E4 creatives (all wearing 'those glasses' and talking in sub-Partridge voices) are fooled into believing that they're setting up a reality TV show to take the piss out 'a bunch of ignorant fame-hungry chavs', but instead are filmed accidentally injecting themselves with horse manure. Bobby Davro could introduce it - just to rub salt into their wounds!

If Chris Morris had half a cock these days, this is the sort of target he'd be aiming at.

Oh, hell yeah, I'd watch that too...

[elderford]

On an aside, I came up with the idea of Big Brother for cats last night.

We were trying to think of a reality programme that would be completely vacuous. Imagine nightly live transmission for several hours of cats in a house.

This of course opens up the possibility of one about dogs, then one about cats and dogs sharing the house together.

You may well sneer now, but when this idea has been stolen and then developed for E4 you will remember me as the person who gave the idea away for nothing.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

It's the fact that the victim's friends and family (who aren't in on the joke) always look really pissed off/scared/upset by the whole thing. Not pleasant to watch. Maybe when I was 15 I would have laughed. Probably not even then.

There was some quote from Wooton where he said the only time he ever held back was during the 'camp bloke' episode, and that was only because the victim's father had a history of heart problems. 'We wanted to do this scene where I forced him to come out to his dad, but we couldn't!' Wooton chortled. You have to hate him for that, if nothing else.

And more generally,I just hate television which is essentially crap, Beadle-esque 1980s LE pretending to be better than it is (ie, high art/quality satire). I blame Dom Joly.

[gazzyk1ns]

On an aside, I came up with the idea of Big Brother for cats last night.

A Big Brother for cats would be fucking great:

http://www.memestreams.net/users/elonka/blogid2994834

[Hoogstraten'sSmilingUlcer]

TJ said:

as well as the likes of Carol Vorderman and Sacha Baron-Cohen

I knew about Vorderman, but not Baron-Cohen. It's a shame that B-C wasn't on BES, as it would have been interesting to read his response when the furore blew up. I always reckoned that he would have cited Morris as a major influence, but perhaps not.

[Neil]

Morris also cited a documentary on Sidney Cooke as the impetus for the BES.  Why would Sacha Baron-Cohen have been as valid a target as Vorderman?

[Hoogstraten'sSmilingUlcer]

Why would Sacha Baron-Cohen have been as valid a target as Vorderman?

Because he's incredibly annoying.

[Neil]

Because he's incredibly annoying.

Tsk.  Why not just say "because he was in the 11OCS!!" and be done with it?

[Neil]

As I said in the BES article that we never got round to putting online, I was stunned that Morris didn't see fit to interview a handful of former Big Brother contestants (who, back in 2001, were regularly being asked for their ill-informed non-opinion on subjects of tremendous importance by the press), as well as the likes of Carol Vorderman and Sacha Baron-Cohen. That would have been three incapacitating blows to the vacuity of modern television, but instead we got a load of soft targets like Kate Thornton and Richard Blackwood (hardly a major figure even then). Ho hum.

Surely Kate Thornton and Richard Blackwood are perfect examples of the "vacuity of modern television" TJ?  You've even mused on "the point of Kate Thornton" yourself before.  EDIT:  Big Brother contestants would seem to be faaar softer targets than someone like Blackwood.

[23 Daves]

Whilst I think that the programme in question is at best a 'slightly above average' sort of affair, I really don't understand why everyone's getting into a state about how immoral it is.  At every single step of the competition the contestants were given the option of coming clean to their friends and family and pulling out, and foregoing the £10,000.  In every case I saw, they never did.  They carried on putting their nearest and dearest through the misery.  That, to me, was far more sickening than anything Marc Wootton was doing.  It highlighted their greed.  If it had been me, I really would honestly have told him to cease filming and get stuffed.

And none of them were 'skint' or 'unemployed'.  They all lived in reasonably nice houses or flats, had comfortable families, etc.  Nobody desperately needed the money.  The programme wasn't as sophisticated as some media commentators painted it, but it was surely supposed to be an experiment in highlighting how far someone would go for a relatively small sum of cash (how would £10,000 really change your life?  You couldn't even buy a flat with it, and it wouldn't even buy you a full year off work).  

I have a bigger moral issue with the crafty editing on Big Brother than I do with this programme, to be honest with you.  That's much less honest, much more sly and underhand.

[Rev]

And none of them were 'skint' or 'unemployed'.  They all lived in reasonably nice houses or flats, had comfortable families, etc.  Nobody desperately needed the money.

The selection of the 'contestants' really did save the show.  I expected it to be nasty, exploitative tat, but the participants came across as needlessly greedy little shits, willing to destroy their relationships with those around them for a sum of money that they clearly viewed as nice but nothing earth-shattering.

[gazzyk1ns]

As Daves said, why are people calling the creator of "My new best friend" cruel, when the 'victims' clearly volunteered for the show after reading/being told exactly what it entailed, and signing a contract to that effect?

If Morris did that then I expect most of you would be saying it was a brilliant exposure of the public's greed and hunger for minor fame.

I don't buy this, what else has this guy done, or who else has he pissed off or slagged off, for you lot to hate him so much?

[elderford]

Isn't this all in a similar vein to BBC2's The Sack Race?

[heavyelectricity]

I quite like 'the sack race' but 'my new best friend' is a bit pathetic really I mean are the people who sign up for it fully aware of what is going to be said and done by the best friend? I would be throughly ashamed if any of what was done to the 'victims' was done to me. If they have no idea what is going to be said and done then it is cruelty but if they do know then they have seveer problems and it's funny!

[TJ]

As I said in the BES article that we never got round to putting online, I was stunned that Morris didn't see fit to interview a handful of former Big Brother contestants (who, back in 2001, were regularly being asked for their ill-informed non-opinion on subjects of tremendous importance by the press), as well as the likes of Carol Vorderman and Sacha Baron-Cohen. That would have been three incapacitating blows to the vacuity of modern television, but instead we got a load of soft targets like Kate Thornton and Richard Blackwood (hardly a major figure even then). Ho hum.

Surely Kate Thornton and Richard Blackwood are perfect examples of the "vacuity of modern television" TJ?  You've even mused on "the point of Kate Thornton" yourself before.  EDIT:  Big Brother contestants would seem to be faaar softer targets than someone like Blackwood.

Well, to be honest this is more to do with the situation at the time the show was made. Granted things have changed now, but back then the views of former Big Brother contestants on serious issues *were* being taken seriously (or at least treated with faux seriousness) by certain sectors of the media. I can recall that Craig character being asked for his opinion on asylum seekers by a newspaper, for instance, and there were probably countless other examples. In contrast, Blackwood and Thornton might be professional rentagobs, but for all their faults they tend to stay in their own little corner of the public eye where nobody says anything too strong on a given subject. Unlike Carol Vorderman, of course, who represents the *real* dangerous subset of celebrities who simply say what they think their 'public' want to hear but are treated as visionaries with something important to say, and I still think that if they couldn't fool her then they weren't trying hard enough to 'get' her.

As for Sacha Baron-Cohen, I just think it would have been funny to hoax someone who was then being feted for childish and tiresomely uninventive hoax interviews. Showing them who's boss, if you like.

Regarding Alan Strang's point; this is true, but wasn't it also true of the celebrities in the original Brass Eye (witness the hordes of point-missing idiots droning on and on about how "facking Noel Edmonds deserved it because of all those cruel gotcha oscars imho imho" etc)?

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

It's only the victim himself who can 'stop it at any time' - everyone else, the friends and family, can't. It always seems an invasion of privacy - I'd like to know what the contract says about their right to block transmission. (Maybe this is what happened with the hastily-withdrawn Sack Race?)

Regarding 'if Morris had done it you'd all think it was great' - the point is that Morris *did* do it, ten years ago. All these Wootton types are doing is ploughing that same furrow, trying to scrape a few dregs of success from the same barrel. Taking one thing that Morris did, missing the point completely, and continuing to just do that ONE thing ad nauseam.

As a friend of mine observed, the thing about Brass Eye is that it *needed* to be made. It would have been criminal if it hadn't been made - that's why people are still passionate about it being treated well on DVD. But there's absolutely no reason for My Best Friend to exist.

[Jemble Fred]

Whoever said that Dom Joly has a lot to answer for was quite right - there's just far too much of this 'reality comedy' at the moment - My New Best Friend, 3 Non Blondes, Trigger Happy USA, The Sack Race, the dire voxpop bits on that Russell Brand Comedy Lab, The Chancers comedy lab, etc, etc... I personally hate allof it without exception. When CM was out on the street, it was in the spirit of Viv Stanshall. When the production teams behind the above shows got to work, they did it in the spirit of the TV Cunts in The Armando Ianucci Shows.

Hardly anybody wants to write jokes anymore. They just want to laugh at the confused faces of the general public. These kind of shows should all be presented by Lisa Riley, that way they'd be easier to avoid.