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March 28, 2024, 05:05:42 PM

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Why do people not get 'Harry & Paul'?

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

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bgmnts

I know blackface is crap but Nelson Mandela flogging awful shit like Crackabis (make Mandela your main dealer) is funny.

Earnest Sexpot

Quote from: jobotic on January 09, 2022, 10:14:34 PMEh? 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

No need to apologise, for the sake of others I'll explain, amid the BLM protests of 2020, Harry Enfield took part in a discussion about the use of blackface in comedy on Radio 4, hosted by Nick Robinson, and featuring black writer Ava Vidal, in which he used the C-slur in a very unnecessary way, and said some other stuff that casts an even worse light on his use of blackface:

"Let me tell you, Nick, obviously Al Jolson or GH Elliot, who played the Chocolate Coloured [BAD WORD] in the 1930s – they perpetuated the myth of the happy [Bad Word] who was just very happy to sing under the crack of the whip, the American whip or the British imperial bayonet and obviously that's deeply offensive and always will be."

"I thought, who is my hero? Nelson Mandela, who I had the pleasure of meeting once, and what's the stereotype of black people? Well, at the time there was a lot of things in the papers about drugs, so I made him a drug dealer or a pedaller of alcopops for children and things like that, which I thought was so wrong that it was right."

#62
'...we can have the dog continually barking and the owner shouting 'shut it, Ghostface,' over and over.  That'd be such a funny running backdrop, don't you agree?'

'I think it would be monotonous-'

'That's a genius single-word condensing of the phrase "Monty-Python-toned and hilarious"!  So you agree! Ghostface barking throughout the sketch it is!'

pigamus

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on January 09, 2022, 10:25:57 PMWayne & Waynetta were proto anti-chav humour.

Seemed to be no malice in it at the time, everybody adored him and adored Kathy Burke so he got the benefit of the doubt, but if he did it today it would be awful

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: pigamus on January 09, 2022, 11:12:53 PMSeemed to be no malice in it at the time, everybody adored him and adored Kathy Burke so he got the benefit of the doubt, but if he did it today it would be awful

Vicky Pollard from Little Britain always gets castigated for 'punching down' but as brutal as The Slobs?  I think not.

JamesTC

Quote from: bgmnts on January 09, 2022, 10:36:21 PMI know blackface is crap but Nelson Mandela flogging awful shit like Crackabis (make Mandela your main dealer) is funny.

Honestly I do occasionally say "doooo you like smack? doooo you like crack?" to myself.

idunnosomename

Jurgen the German was funnier when he didn't go into white supremacist rants at the end. but i guess there wasn't a single sketch where he didn't have that "twist"?

Earnest Sexpot

Quote from: idunnosomename on January 10, 2022, 12:34:19 AMJurgen the German was funnier when he didn't go into white supremacist rants at the end. but i guess there wasn't a single sketch where he didn't have that "twist"?

Yeah, it's funny to imagine someone so neurotic they'd think that was the root of why the British folks around him were so standoffish. When he descends into pro-Nazi ranting it adds zero comedy value to the sketch because it undercuts the character, which is where the laughs are coming from in the first place. Instead of an exaggerated, but somewhat grounded caricature, we get an illogical alien whose actions don't ring true.

I think some Inside No. 9 eps have a similar problem where they go just one twist too far and it ends up undercutting your investment in the narrative.

Pink Gregory

Was it only 'Ruddy Hell!" that had that piss-poor Sith Ifrican Gym Instructah?

I doubt such a poor sketch would make it past editing now.  Or maybe I'm being optimistic

Pink Gregory

Quote from: JamesTC on January 10, 2022, 12:30:10 AMHonestly I do occasionally say "doooo you like smack? doooo you like crack?" to myself.

ehhhhhcstacy tahblets

non capisco

Quote from: Pink Gregory on January 10, 2022, 07:56:59 AMWas it only 'Ruddy Hell!" that had that piss-poor Sith Ifrican Gym Instructah?

I doubt such a poor sketch would make it past editing now.  Or maybe I'm being optimistic

The way that character said "He had a withered dick" really made me laugh once, to be fair.

Jack Shaftoe

While I think of it, it was sick as a pike who wrote those 'I saw you coming' sketches, nice to see they were appreciated.

MrsWarboysLover

Quote from: JamesTC on January 10, 2022, 12:30:10 AMHonestly I do occasionally say "doooo you like smack? doooo you like crack?" to myself.

Normally 'random' humour doesn't appeal to me, but something about the absurdity of Mandela flogging a blur tribute album really cracked me up.

Video Game Fan 2000

Quote from: pigamus on January 09, 2022, 11:12:53 PMSeemed to be no malice in it at the time, everybody adored him and adored Kathy Burke so he got the benefit of the doubt, but if he did it today it would be awful

I think having Kathy Burke meant they could get away with anything. "I want a black baby" and the benefits jokes seem like bellwethers now.


Pink Gregory

Quote from: MrsWarboysLover on January 10, 2022, 10:32:48 AMNormally 'random' humour doesn't appeal to me, but something about the absurdity of Mandela flogging a blur tribute album really cracked me up.

It's one of those that extends quickly into utter fucking nonsense and I do appreciate that about it.

Also, please, The Blurs

Retinend

#75
I'm a big RHIH&P fan. It's un-PC at times, but it always has its heart in the right place. I think the old Harry Enfield show was a lot more hit-and-miss - and mean-spirited. By that  mean that I was always put off by the characterisation of working class people, but I understand that people at the time felt that those sketches were accurate? Up for debate, judging by this thread.

But I think THIH&P is about as good as sketch shows get, next to the Fast Show. Perhaps it's because it tends to satirize the middle classes more than the working classes, which I think is a richer vein of humour. "I Saw You Coming" is the epitome of this. I feel as if Enfield's sense of humour has grown since the 80s. His best work is satirizing the upper middle class he now comfortably belongs to, and satirizing comedy itself (most notably, taking on Monty Python's own dead parrot sketch).

Quote from: H-O-W-L on January 09, 2022, 11:09:58 AMSketches 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!

Re: satirizing comedy itself, I think this sketch is hilarious, for example. "More psychotic than Bean himself comes across"... that is the joke, right?

Pink Gregory

Was H&P the last major BBC Sketch Show?  None come to mind since.

letsgobrian

Quote from: Pink Gregory on January 11, 2022, 07:56:53 AMWas H&P the last major BBC Sketch Show?  None come to mind since.

I believe the last BBC1 sketch show was "Tracey Ullman's Show/Tracey Breaks the News" (2016-2018).

Old Nehamkin

#78
Quote from: Pink Gregory on January 11, 2022, 07:56:53 AMWas H&P the last major BBC Sketch Show?  None come to mind since.

Does Limmy's Show count? It was less "major" than Harry and Paul in that it (absurdly) never got a UK-wide broadcast, but I think it's certainly left a bigger footprint.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Pink Gregory on January 11, 2022, 07:56:53 AMWas H&P the last major BBC Sketch Show?  None come to mind since.

Would say it depends on how you define 'major' - and personally, I wouldn't have categorised Harry & Paul that way.

Famalam was one significant sketch post-H&P.

IIRC, at least two new sketch shows are being broadcast by the Beeb this year.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Jack Shaftoe on January 10, 2022, 10:07:06 AMWhile I think of it, it was sick as a pike who wrote those 'I saw you coming' sketches, nice to see they were appreciated.

Talent will out...

When thinking about the series, those sketches are the ones that spring to my mind - mainly because, I felt, they were of a consistently higher quality than a fair bit of the material. My main recollection is that recurring ideas would have been more effective if used more sparingly but that one never wore out is welcome.

A while ago, I started dubbing certain shops near me 'Saw you coming' which amuses me no end.


danwho9

Quote from: letsgobrian on January 11, 2022, 10:52:47 AMI believe the last BBC1 sketch show was "Tracey Ullman's Show/Tracey Breaks the News" (2016-2018).

and that was shite.

Pink Gregory

Quote from: Ignatius_S on January 11, 2022, 01:13:33 PMWould say it depends on how you define 'major' - and personally, I wouldn't have categorised Harry & Paul that way.

Famalam was one significant sketch post-H&P.

IIRC, at least two new sketch shows are being broadcast by the Beeb this year.

oh yeah, quite liked what little I've seen of Famalam, was it BBC3 though?

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Ignatius_S on January 11, 2022, 01:13:33 PMWould say it depends on how you define 'major' - and personally, I wouldn't have categorised Harry & Paul that way.

Why? They're obviously two of the biggest names in sketch comedy over the last 30 years.

Replies From View

I keep getting Harry and Paul recommendations in my youtube feed.

Click on them and it's some snidey and half-arsed sketch about how Monty Python were shit, or the Two Ronnies were shit, or whatever other seminal comedy act was actually - contrary to the understanding of people who study and appreciate comedy - shit.


Well fuck off, Harry and Paul.

Pink Gregory

It does help to have the context of them all being from Story of the Twos, which is a show on the BBC taking the piss out of the BBC.

Once again, taken in isolation, they do seem a bit snide and bitter.

Don't they even have a Harry Enfield and Chums/Fast Show bit in Story of the Twos as well?


Autopsy Turvey

Because it wasn't remotely good enough? Ha ha they said queer poshly! Again again!

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on January 09, 2022, 11:59:26 PMVicky Pollard from Little Britain always gets castigated for 'punching down' but as brutal as The Slobs?  I think not.

The Slobs were written with way more affection than the flagrantly sneering Vicki Pollard. They were cartoonish caricatures of disgusting living, like Baldrick or Smudge from the Beano, but beyond that joke both Wayne and Waynetta were utterly loveable and sympathetic characters, whereas VP was just a shit tabloid cipher.

CaB's initial discussion of RHIH&P seems to have disappeared? As I remember it, I was the first/only person to suggest that Parking Patowayo and Nelson Mandela were mystifyingly dodgy targets, the writing not funny enough to get away with such clodhopping out-of-orderness, and I still agree with that.

Captain Z

Quote from: Pink Gregory on January 11, 2022, 05:01:48 PMDon't they even have a Harry Enfield and Chums/Fast Show bit in Story of the Twos as well?

Yes, there are several self-deprecating moments in Story Of The Twos, and even more in the later An Evening With Harry & Paul.

Catalogue Trousers

Adds little, but I'd just like to echo the Captain's fondness for the 'bwa bwa bwa bwa bwa bwa wer-OOPS' noises off of the Mr Bean character in the Eastern European couple watching telly sketches.

Twonty Gostelow

Quote from: Jack Shaftoe on January 10, 2022, 10:07:06 AMWhile I think of it, it was sick as a pike who wrote those 'I saw you coming' sketches, nice to see they were appreciated.

I remember seeing Rich's credit in the early series but didn't know that! Was it his idea?

There were some pap photos last summer of Enfield going out to lunch in Primrose Hill with Catherine Shepherd (Thicko, Emmamima, Listeria etc) after he'd split up with his wife, and I couldn't stop myself thinking 'Mwah how are you I'm amazing mwah how are you I'm good mwah how are you incredible mwah how are you?