SOTCAA's 'I'm Alan Partridge Was Rubbish' article and IAP as a mockumentary

[McChesney Duntz]

I have a few comments to make, but I'm at work and stealing computer time on the sly, so they'll have to wait until later (do try and contain yourselves).  All I want to say at the moment is thanks much, gents, for re-posting that (and all the other stuff).  Y'see, it was (at least) partly my obsequious begging that prompted them to do so in the first place (William Ham here, lads); therefore, all of the snarking, sniping and griping that has ensued is largely my fault.  Try not to judge me too harshly - I am, after all, a Yank (rhymes with "wank"), and we tend to do these sorts of things.  As you were...

[TJ]

Nothing in IAP is even remotely near being as funny as the "thanks for bringing a copy in - we couldn't find it anywhere" bit of radio KMKY (the entire modern day chat show ethos demolished in a single line) or the Lt. Colonel Kojak Slaphead III segment of the TV version. How they managed to get through that without corpsing at Marber throughout I'll never know.

[Robert Dyas]

I take it all back then

[TJ]

hey, just expressing my own view on the matter. No need to get shirty...

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

None of the support cast in IAP get a chance to shine like Schneider, Marber, Makichan, Front or any of the other one-off guests do in KMKY. Show  me anything in IAP that's as good as Joe Beezley.

[Slackboy]

Oh, and Sophie being inconsistent? The 'And that's why you watched it for 15 minutes?' line about the ladyboys video stuck out sore-thumb style, considering how shy/polite she is elsewhere. That and 'Tosser?'.

What I'm saying is is that Sophie was never shy, she was just being reserved for the sake of her job and the joke is that Alan is so laughable that she can't contain herself and either stiffles a laugh or goes a bit further with lines like "And that's why you watched it for 15 minutes?". The way that she gradually alternated between motorway hotel style politeness and outright rudeness was brilliantly done, and especially the way that Alan didn't pick up on her character at all and couldn't tell that she was laughing at him.

I'm going to watch it again over the weekend, but I'm sure that I'm right about this. I think you're just missing the jokes. Take whatever definition of "missing" you want there.

[Ulp]

What I'm saying is is that Sophie was never shy, she was just being reserved for the sake of her job

Ja, wohl.  I don't remember Sophie ever acting shy - she was trying to be polite to a guest whilst at the same time taking the piss out of Partridge, as he's an idiot.  It was an inner struggle of Shakespearean enormity, or something.  It was funny, anyway.

[slim]

None of the support cast in IAP get a chance to shine like Schneider, Marber, Makichan, Front or any of the other one-off guests do in KMKY. Show  me anything in IAP that's as good as Joe Beezley.

Simon Greenall was excellent, I thought. Eating a tin of beans with a sausage as cutlery was marvellous writing and acting. He's definitely my favourite support actor, closely followed by Felicity Montagu as Lynn (whose performance did wane in series two). I was amazed, dolt that I am, when I saw her in that shit hairdressing thing Julia Davis did... I thought she was actually much older thanks to her performance in IAP.

[Little Hoover]

None of the support cast in IAP get a chance to shine like Schneider, Marber, Makichan, Front or any of the other one-off guests do in KMKY. Show  me anything in IAP that's as good as Joe Beezley.

If  all the acts were consistently as funny as Joe Beezley and patridge over britian, I'd probably say it was better than IAP1. but it wasn't a lot of things were bland and jokeless. or were obvious and/or very unsubtle jokes.

[Sid8800]

Key differences between KMKY and IAP which I reckon made KMKY superior:

1) The guests were not just sounding boards for Partridge's 'inappropiateness', like Linehan and Mathews cringing in the breakfast bar - in most cases, they were far more appalling than he was. KMKY was richer because, a lot of the time, you were kinda on Alan's side.

Why does that make it better? Anyway it only true for about a third to a half of the radio guests, and almost none of the TV guests. Although I admit I do miss the fact that Alan is likeable because everyone around him is a bigger shit, however Extras is similar in this respect.

2) KMKY was an attack/comment on the media and media attitudes, but IAP was just about 'Ha ha, he's such a loser'. .

It's a comedy show, do you really think anyone after seeing KMKY went, "Oh yeah, I never realised the media was shit, this show has both informed and entertained me". The shows should be rated on the comedy, which is why IAP is alot better than KMKYWAP.

By the way, is there a lovelier moment in comedy than the 'The format...?'/'THE FORMAT...' bit  in the final radio-KMKY? Absolutely perfect, and the audience know immediately what it's getting at. Again, the joke is about bollocks attitudes and those who turn a blind eye to bollocks attitudes. I suspect, in the viral marketing age, a lot of comedians would find that exchange a bit too close to home.

Although I find that line funny, it's completely unbeliable that even Alan would ever try that in real life. It's a cheap gag.

Oh, and Sophie being inconsistent? The 'And that's why you watched it for 15 minutes?' line about the ladyboys video stuck out sore-thumb style, considering how shy/polite she is elsewhere. That and 'Tosser?'.

That completely untrue, Sophie is always like that. "Well if you book it now you can always cancell it later", and when she hints that her and ben have been shagging in Alan's bed.

[Sid8800]

Is it just me, or did anyone find themselves warming more to Alan in IAP2? As I've got a bit older I've started to get increasingly fedup with people who dislike everything and don't enjoy anything. Hence people who are passionate about things, even things a think are shit, are preferrable to me to "cool" people who think everythings shit.

[Neville Chamberlain]

Is it just me, or did anyone find themselves warming more to Alan in IAP2?

God no! I went right off him in IAP2. I just kept thinking "When the hell are you going to shut up???"

[trotsky assortment]

None of the support cast in IAP get a chance to shine like Schneider, Marber, Makichan, Front or any of the other one-off guests do in KMKY. Show  me anything in IAP that's as good as Joe Beezley.

Simon Greenall was excellent, I thought. Eating a tin of beans with a sausage as cutlery was marvellous writing and acting.

Yup - one of my favourite IAP2 moments.  While generally I'm in agreement that IAP2 was the weaker of the 2 series, that moment where Alan turns up at Michael's door amuses me every time.

Alan: Have you got a spoon?

Michael: There's one in the bathroom, but I've nae cause t' use it.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

That's just Peter Baynham using up old material.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

It's a comedy show, do you really think anyone after seeing KMKY went, "Oh yeah, I never realised the media was shit, this show has both informed and entertained me". The shows should be rated on the comedy, which is why IAP is alot better than KMKYWAP.

I can only speak for myself, but I just tend to find things funnier if (a) they've got a bit of thought behind them beyond 'here come the funnies', and (b) the whole is greater than the parts. IAP was crammed with nice lines, but it felt like mud being flung at a wall - absolutely any opportunity for a gag or a Partridgeism was seized upon.  I could believe the Partidge in KMKY existed, but I couldn't believe in the IAP universe at all.

I also think IAP is aethetically quite an ugly show , both visually and aurally. I hate the detached audience laughter and the closed sets. Radio-KMKY had a lovely atmosphere about it though.

[Bert Thung]

Going slightly off topic, why are all those articles, such the ones about Saturday Night Fry, Kenny Everett, Young ones offline?

Seems such a waste of effort that no one can read them now without the magic of google cache.

[Little Hoover]

Going completley off topic, how did you acquire that Simpsons script, was it off e bay, because I hear there are some others for sale there at the moment.
And would it really be that troublesome to link a lot of similar old material like it.

[Sir News]

I don't really see the need for analysing something egatively if you enjoy it.If you don't fine, although even that is wasted energy.

As for IAP 2, I happened to think it was good. Alan seemed a bit more erratic(for want of a better word), but Ithought it worked.

[ajsmith]

iap1 is a whole, and it is great. The detached world of distraction, ennui and yet comfort it conjures up is one of the great comedy  "tangible shangri-las"

[Hoogstraten'sSmilingUlcer]

Beloved Aunt wrote:

None of the support cast in IAP get a chance to shine like Schneider, Marber, Makichan, Front or any of the other one-off guests do in KMKY. Show me anything in IAP that's as good as Joe Beezley.

True. There's something very perfunctory, almost stilted about the guest appearences. Even Morris' farmer palls after a while. I like his delivery of 'sordid little grief hole,' but to be honest, he's not a good straight actor. His appearence really reinforces the chumminess of IAP, the BBC-injokery and backslapping which goes ahead of quality or humour. It all sort of culminated with Linehan and Matthews. It seemed very similiar to the kind of nepotism Iannucci and Morris would have attacked on OTH and TDT. I was genuinely surprised not to see an Iannucci cameo on Nathan Barley.

[McChesney Duntz]

I liked Morris' cameo in IAP, and, contrary to SOTCAA (and some posters above), I thought he worked very well in the role of exasperated straight man to Partridge's absurd opinions (perfected, I think, in the Princess Di conspiracy theory exchange in the Day Today DVD bonus material).

Anyway.  Opinions.  First off, let me reiterate how thrilled I am to see SOTCAA's archives slowly trickling back online - ever since I stumbled upon it sometime in '03, it's been one of my favorite comedy-related sites, and one of the few that truly seems to take comedy (watch this, this is brilliant) seriously.  I respect the opinions posited therein, even when I disagree with them, so I hope that anything I say here will be taken in the same vein of even-handed, respectful discourse.

WHAT THE F**K WERE YOU C***S THINKING?  YOUR F***KING BRAINS ARE OBVIOUSLY IN YOUR H**********N  AND SOMEBODY SHOULD D****B YOUR COLLECTIVE W*****S BEFORE THEY J****************G UP YOUR K*!

Oh, ho-ho-ho, you see what I did there?  I slay me...

Enough of that.  Responses to several points, large and small:

In On The Hour, The Day Today, and Knowing Me Knowing You, the joke had rested on the fact that, despite Alan Partridge being awful, nobody actually saidso.

Not in the first two, surely, but KMKY has several instances of guests slagging off Partridge.  In fact, I'll be willing to wager that every episode of the radio and TV versions of KMKY features at least one guest making it abundantly clear what an anal dirge prat they consider him.  (Which reminds me of one of my favorite moments in the TV series - how the conversation with the lesbian chat show hostesses suddenly veers into that protracted acronym/anagram discussion, and how Front and MacKichan's characters gamely play along without dropping their obvious amused condescension towards the man.)  In truth, it seemed that more people were willing to call him on his idiocy within the setting of a chat show than in the "real" social settings he found himself in in IAP.

This post is already too long as it is, so I'll continue later...

[Hoogstraten'sSmilingUlcer]

'Christopher Morris' the anchorman is a better character than an exasperated farmer. 'Morris' is an acutely drawn caricature of newsmen, but the farmer was just a weak springboard for Partridge to ramble on and do some more listing (which by that point, hadn't got quite so tiresome). Arguably - don't get me wrong, 'Morris' is a fantastic character - he's not a terribly deep character, and you couldn't expand it very far. He lives solely in the world of the news media; but then he's not meant to be anything else. Morris is great at playing silly characters - 'Morris'; Fur Q; the otter-beater; the sergeant guy in Crime...etc. But in a sitcom, I felt he looked very out of place. His cameo was like a novelty act which didn't work very well. There's something that irritates me about that scene in Watership Alan, as if they screwed up the continuity or pace of the show or something. It detracts completely from the realism of it - if it wants to be realistic, that is, which I'm not sure it was purporting to be (though the camera work says otherwise).

McChesney Duntz wrote:

Not in the first two, surely, but KMKY has several instances of guests slagging off Partridge. In fact, I'll be willing to wager that every episode of the radio and TV versions of KMKY features at least one guest making it abundantly clear what an anal dirge prat they consider him.

Yeah, but he was still employed to make these shows. I found half the joke to be that, despite being utterly crap, he still got good jobs on the BBC. OK, he was sacked at the end of KMKY, but he still got a local radio spot. I think Iannucci said that even though Partridge is a dreadful host, he can hold a 3 hour radio show together. He is talented in that Chris Moyles sort of way. Presumably, people do listen to him, they call him, and he seems vaguely popular. Why is he still working on radio when it's so abundently clear that he's awful? But that's part of the joke. There's a plethora of ghastly TV and radio personalities who continue to work for some unknown reason. That was what held KMKY together, but in IAP, he's sunk to the bottom, and not only is he now bitter and unpleasant (so not much sympathy is gained), but he's lost his standing. It's like going from laughing at a prince to laughing at a peasant - of course it's not as funny. It was always better when he did have a fairly good media standing (BBC 2 chatshow, not bad), yet things went tits up; his position emphasised how awful a host he was. IAP felt as if they were trying to make a sitcom out of someone who was, out of the TV studio, a pretty shallow, 2D character, with not much mileage.

[Paul Dee]

Do you think of the various radio & TV ventures featuring Partridge as one overall indicator of his character or very separate entities? I thought the homophobia in KMKY was just a part of the overall impression I got of Partridge - a repressed bisexual. It's quite common for homophobia and closet cases to be linked (fairly or not) in real life, I thought the differing character actions were based on this overarching premise.

In one of the commentaries Iannucci says that he doesn't think Alan is gay or bisexual but he's terrified at the possibility that he might be.

Over the weekend I watched a couple of IAP1 and 2's and I think the difference is mainly in the plots which seem to go nowhere until the very end (I'm thinking of the episode where they're in Bono's house one minute and in London the next. Why?!), the various awful excuses for catchphrases and Michael. I never quite got why Michael was in the second series even though he did come up with a few great lines. I suppose it shows Alan's desperation for any sort of friend but his appearances just felt a bit too shoehorned somehow.

Does anyone else think that a show like KMKY would amass more viewers the mort catastrophic it got?