Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 11:36:15 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Why do people not get 'Harry & Paul'?

Started by danwho9, January 08, 2022, 04:26:39 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

idunnosomename

Quote from: non capisco on January 08, 2022, 09:35:00 PMI doubt that Daniel Kaluuya still puts 'Parking Pataweyo' on his CV.
i really liked him as Tealeaf in Psychoville (where I don't think he was cast because of race). not sure what to think about how all his big roles since are about being black (Get Out lead, then Black Panther and more). I mean partly he's drawing attention to racial issues, I guess. and he has a decent career bringing in the money. so good on him

Brundle-Fly

#31
Quote from: non capisco on January 08, 2022, 09:35:00 PMI doubt that Daniel Kaluuya still puts 'Parking Pataweyo' on his CV.

That series of sketches was based on a truth though. Funny? Yes. Most officious traffic wardens in Islington at that time were often Nigerians. Was it helpful though? In hindsight, probably not.

Pink Gregory

#32
Parking Pataweyo isn't all that funny because the joke is 'Parking Wardens are unreasonable' and the children's programme narration conceit doesn't really work; like it's not developed enough.

But you do get "Parking Pataweyo and his black and white cat, a wey-o", so impossible to say.

H-O-W-L

I do like individual sketches from H&P but by and large I felt like a lot of the boundary-crossing and racial stuff was mostly just the two of them (Enfield especially) seeing how much they could get away with, and I don't mean in a transgressive way, more like a kid seeing how many times he can yell "FUCKING CUNTY TITTIES!" before his dad shouts at him.

It feels sort of nasty at times, and I hate to use this term, but "angry, well-off old men pissed off at everything else on telly and minor shit in the world around us, to an unreasonable extent" is what flows through my mind with a lot of it. Sometimes it can be funny, but it isn't always.

shoulders

Quare and 40? fourtofortyfortofive years, also good sketches.

Joyfully silly.

Pink Gregory

yeah, it's much better as individual good sketches rather than the programme as a whole.

Same could probably be said for anything though.  There's not really a connecting theme or anything like that.

Glyn

Am I misremembering or was there a large jump in quality after the first series ? Only thing that sticks with me though were the very nice '4by2be' builder sketches so perhaps not.

oy vey

A lot of this is just Harry and Paul down the pub on the spot fucking around and in-jokes. I'd rather be down the pub with them. The story of the twos was great.

Pink Gregory

Quote from: Glyn on January 09, 2022, 09:54:10 AMAm I misremembering or was there a large jump in quality after the first series ? Only thing that sticks with me though were the very nice '4by2be' builder sketches so perhaps not.

it all sort of blends into one for me.  Do Morwenna Banks and Laura Solon get less of a showing outside 'Ruddy Hell, It's Harry and Paul'?

Pink Gregory

Quote from: oy vey on January 09, 2022, 09:54:48 AMA lot of this is just Harry and Paul down the pub on the spot fucking around and in-jokes. I'd rather be down the pub with them. The story of the twos was great.

Absolutely *vicious* as well.  Didn't quite go for with Alan Yentob the house elf but all the Blackadder/Monty Python stuff was a hoot.

Nice to see Kevin Eldon working with them so extensively as well.

oy vey

Yes to Harry as Cleese in particular. I hope Cleese saw that.

On Harry Enfield, I love the guy but he's not subtle, frequently simplistic, almost tending to end of the peer sometimes. I don't think he's ever won an award but I'm happy to be corrected on that. Not that awards are be-all, etc.

He's like a crazy uncle that wins you over by fully throwing himself into his shtick and not giving a fuck about embarrassing himself. If I had to request a funny uncle however it would have to be Kevin Eldon.


Thursday

Quote from: Glyn on January 09, 2022, 09:54:10 AMAm I misremembering or was there a large jump in quality after the first series ? Only thing that sticks with me though were the very nice '4by2be' builder sketches so perhaps not.

That's my memory, it was "Ruddy Hell it's Harry and Paul" and then dropped the "Ruddy Hell" bit and became much better. Even though a lot of sketches carried over.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

I'll withdraw my criticism of the " I Saw You Coming" sketches, because, on reflection, they're actually the better group of sketches from a crap bunch.

I'll replace it with the " We watch lots of box sets" couple. A very dull premise for a series of sketches, and basically a reheating of the " considerably richer than yow" couple, without the benefit of appreciative laughter from a studio audience.

And yes, some of the ideas for sketches are just weird. Like the Mr. Psycho Bean sketches.

H-O-W-L

A lot of Enfield's stuff feels very "Eurgh, poors!" at times to me, coming from a working class background. Maybe that's me just being oversensitive and reading into it too much-- maybe I'm not getting the joke, but I dunno. Loadsamoney felt like he was going "Hark, Imagine! The Poors Acquiring Fiscal Airs!" in a lot of ways, and while there's a lot of equivalent Tory-bashing in Chums, it seems to peter out in his later works and mostly seems to be "The Old Boys What Say Quare And The Like" and not the modern-day radgebastard city boys that are doing the proper damage.

Maybe that's just a general negative reaction I got off H&P -- I've not revisited a whole episode since its original airing, but at the same time that malaise has prevented me from revisiting it -- which is kind of a problem, IMO. I dunno where Enfield (or Whitehouse, who always seemed the less venomous of the two) stands politically though so I might be talking out of my arse.

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on January 09, 2022, 11:07:30 AMAnd yes, some of the ideas for sketches are just weird. Like the Mr. Psycho Bean sketches.

See you've just reminded me that sort of shit is why I disliked H&P at the end of it all, not just the stuff I found politically objectionable. Stuff like that felt like extreme vanity wankiness that Enfield & Whitehouse should've had someone go "is this not shit?". Psycho Bean is honestly really graphic, and nasty, and I don't mean that in a "OH NO NOT MR BEAN!" way -- I think pop at Bean being a murderous psycho all you want, but the visually graphic nature of Psycho Bean is... fucked up? Weird? Very strange for something so otherwise silly albeit sharp-toothed. I was kinda taken aback by it -- and as my avatar being from Dredd (2012) should say (or my previous Vault Boy avatar that got some people upset b/c it was ruddy violent), I'm not averse to extreme violence... in context. I didn't find it funny because it was so violent, I found it ghastly.

Sketches like this (and you have been bloody warned because this is Robocop levels of gore) were just fucking odd to me, looking at it from a production "someone wrote and created this" perspective. More psychotic than Bean himself comes across - and I think Bean comes across on a Bates level of psychosis in his original series!

Pink Gregory

It's another one of those jokes that's all there in the suggestion (what if Mr Bean killed people!!! lol) that just doesn't warrant execution.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Pink Gregory on January 09, 2022, 11:35:56 AMIt's another one of those jokes that's all there in the suggestion (what if Mr Bean killed people!!! lol) that just doesn't warrant execution.

Indeed. Plus a lot of the humor of Bean himself comes from the dissonance between the cartoonishness of his acts and the severity they'd have in a realistic scenario, surely? It's like making a clown's face flesh-toned.

Pranet

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on January 09, 2022, 11:07:30 AMI'll replace it with the " We watch lots of box sets" couple. A very dull premise for a series of sketches, and basically a reheating of the " considerably richer than yow" couple, without the benefit of appreciative laughter from a studio audience.


No you are wrong again I'm afraid that was really good, and the same people today replace box sets with wanging on about whatever slop Netflix is serving up for them.

Sebastian Cobb

Harry Enfield stuff is usually quite lacking in subtlety, I wonder what else these people don't get.

idunnosomename

Yeah it doesn't work because Mr Bean is quite a malevolent and scheming individual at times, fixated on revenge over minor things, having him kill people isn't a subversion, it's just a minor extension into the taboo and certainly not funnier than what it's spoofing. Just him happening to have a grenade is just lazy too.

The Americans like it though lol what a surprise

Quote from: pigamus on January 08, 2022, 04:52:15 PMThe Polish girl was Laura Solon I seem to remember - whatever happened to her?

She co-wrote both series of 'Back To Life' with Daisy Haggard, the second of which went out fairly recently.

Captain Z

I dunno. I really like the other Mr Bean sketch they do where the bloke narrates the action onscreen to his disinterested spouse. Mainly for the repeated "blub blub blub... whoops" you hear coming from the TV.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: idunnosomename on January 09, 2022, 12:47:12 PMYeah it doesn't work because Mr Bean is quite a malevolent and scheming individual at times, fixated on revenge over minor things, having him kill people isn't a subversion, it's just a minor extension into the taboo and certainly not funnier than what it's spoofing. Just him happening to have a grenade is just lazy too.

The Americans like it though lol what a surprise

Mr. Bean's Diary is far darker and funnier

Pink Gregory

Quote from: Captain Z on January 09, 2022, 01:00:37 PMI dunno. I really like the other Mr Bean sketch they do where the bloke narrates the action onscreen to his disinterested spouse. Mainly for the repeated "blub blub blub... whoops" you hear coming from the TV.

The little dig at Gervais in the last of those sketches is fun.

somersetchris

Quote from: idunnosomename on January 08, 2022, 11:59:05 PMi really liked him as Tealeaf in Psychoville (where I don't think he was cast because of race). not sure what to think about how all his big roles since are about being black (Get Out lead, then Black Panther and more). I mean partly he's drawing attention to racial issues, I guess. and he has a decent career bringing in the money. so good on him

You say that like it's his choice, how many roles do you think are available to young black actors in which race isn't a significant part of their character / story? Also, if you were offered the lead in a Jordan Peele film, you'd be insane not to take it.

somersetchris

Quote from: Captain Z on January 08, 2022, 05:45:23 PMA post I made last year:

This video still keeps appearing in my recommendations to this day.
s

Yeah I got this recommended recently. I thought 'I'll watch a bit of Harry and Paul', saw the opening text about 'you can't say anything any more', gave it a thumbs down and stopped it.

The state of the comments below are an absolute bin fire. The sort of comments you'd expect under Alf Garnett clips not realising Garnett is not a hero.

idunnosomename

Quote from: somersetchris on January 09, 2022, 03:22:07 PMYou say that like it's his choice, how many roles do you think are available to young black actors in which race isn't a significant part of their character / story? Also, if you were offered the lead in a Jordan Peele film, you'd be insane not to take it.
im absolutely not, he's absolutely doing the best thing. They're also critically acclaimed so pleased for him

somersetchris

Quote from: H-O-W-L on January 09, 2022, 11:09:58 AMA lot of Enfield's stuff feels very "Eurgh, poors!" at times to me, coming from a working class background. Maybe that's me just being oversensitive and reading into it too much-- maybe I'm not getting the joke, but I dunno. Loadsamoney felt like he was going "Hark, Imagine! The Poors Acquiring Fiscal Airs!" in a lot of ways, and while there's a lot of equivalent Tory-bashing in Chums, it seems to peter out in his later works and mostly seems to be "The Old Boys What Say Quare And The Like" and not the modern-day radgebastard city boys that are doing the proper damage.


It always seemed the other way around to me, that he was satirising the attitudes of the rich towards the poor. And don't forget Loadsamoney was in the 80's when there were people like that, who had recently acquired wealth and were literally waving it in people's faces. I think he said this was inspired by an actual event, where fans at a London football club (probably Chelsea) were waving wads of cash in the air at opposing northern fans (probably Liverpool).

I'm not defending everything he does, he is wildly inconsistent and although well meaning he probably has a lot of blind spots, I think he also comes from a place of 'racism and sexism are over now so we can do anything and everyone gets the joke'. The German character he did in the 90's was always bizarre to me, who kept apologising to everyone for the war and then turned out to be an actual Nazi. I didn't understand what it was based on or what the joke was supposed to be. Was apologetic Germans a thing? I never saw it. And then suggesting they're still Nazis anyway is kind of racist. It surprised me because although anti-German stereotypes were still very common then, it was old school comics like Stan Boardman who did them.

Or, maybe he thought that a German who apologised for the war and then turned out to be a Nazi was just a funny idea, and there was no more to it than that. In which case I think it was misguided, as for a lot of people the idea of 'keep an eye on the Germans, you know what they're like' was common then and is still around now.

Earnest Sexpot

I agree about the German stuff Somersetchris, the idea of this well-meaning but neurotic tourist who eventually gets anxious to the point of yelling 'I MUST APOLOGISE FOR MY NATION'S CONDUCT IN THE WAR' does work for me out of the sheer absurdity of it, but once it turns out that he's an actual Nazi it doesn't work from any angle, lazy obvious gag that contradicts the logic of the sketch, all of them could be improved by cutting out that final twist

It's been mentioned earlier but the Beatles sketches are some of my personal favourites of all time, an exasperated John Henshaw saying 'Pay attention now, you long-haired layabouts, I want you back in that studio pronto to finish off your new album: "A Daft Night's Day"' to a group of geriatric Beatles is comedy gold in my view

There was a lot of unpleasant stuff though, the Benefits always came across as transparently classist, I think the 'quare' sketches are fairly harmless though. For better and worse, Enfield seems to take an extremely bitter view of the entire world, all the
satire in his work with Whitehouse is completely free from affection for the subject. Sometimes that can be really refreshing; the Citroen sketches seem to come from a place of genuine revulsion with the extreme objectification of women on European television, and the panel show segment from the Story of the Twos is positively hateful, but it does give the programme a properly nasty character that can get wearisome after a while

A lot of inexcusable blackface too, Enfield's use of the C-slur for black people on the radio in 2020 makes that look even worse. Being on a panel with a black person and seeming to relish using the slur in a way that he could 'get away with' came across awfully and has made me pretty suspicious of his personal views as of late

jobotic

Eh? Why did he do that and how did he get away with it? Quoting something presumably?

edit: sorry, I used the internet and found out

Video Game Fan 2000

Wayne & Waynetta were proto anti-chav humour.