The Trevor Bastard Extended Universe

[canadagoose]

Can't believe I used to like Mitch Benn, over a decade ago. TBEU is far funnier than any "satire" the BBC has produced in the '20s.

[ajsmith2]

I thought Mitch Benn was amazing when I first heard him guesting on Radio Shuttleworth 25 years ago singing the fantastic song 'Scary Weirdos'. Unfortunately it's been a one way diagonally downwards graph since then for me.

Although if he ever does do a song that really impresses me in the future, I could say 'it's his best since Scary Weirdos'.

[Jumblegraws]

I think the self-referential and hermetically sealed nature of the TBEU means that it seems obviously a parody to the initiated, and impenetrable to those unfamiliar with it. The "fooled them" stuff is the least successful part of it I reckon, cos if you don't know what's going on and take time to engage with it, and you're just reacting to a single tweet as Benn is here, it would just look like the usual social media garbage.

"impenetrable to those unfamiliar with it" - think this is an overstatement, at least where the UC Borehamwood and Bazake accounts are concerned, most of their tweets are The Day Today-level absurd.

That tweet where he pulls rank as a satirical comedian of thirty years standing is sad as fuck. He's desperately trying to dissuade people - including himself - from thinking that he just doesn't get it.

[idunnosomename]

I thought Mitch Benn was amazing when I first heard him guesting on Radio Shuttleworth 25 years ago singing the fantastic song 'Scary Weirdos'. Unfortunately it's been a one way diagonally downwards graph since then for me.

Although if he ever does do a song that really impresses me in the future, I could say 'it's his best since Scary Weirdos'.

depends which way that your career goes

[Senior Baiano]

"impenetrable to those unfamiliar with it" - think this is an overstatement, at least where the UC Borehamwood and Bazake accounts are concerned, most of their tweets are The Day Today-level absurd.

Not to mention, I don't think anyone is really laughing at him because ha ha, you thought it was real, but because TB needled him enough that he embarked on an epic self-clowning twitter meltdown

[Pink Gregory]

Benn would be far less disagreeable if he wasn't so straight-facedly pompous as he is

[dissolute ocelot]

I used to quite like Mitch Benn, but he definitely needs to keep a wide berth from politics and work on satirising important things like Rick Wakeman. There's probably a clue there, that if you know a lot about Rick Wakeman, you probably don't know anything about modern life.

[lazyhour]

I quite liked his then-apt parody "Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now".

[phantom_power]

Thankfully I have never found Mitch Benn funny but all those years ago I would never have believed he would turn into such a humourless twat. He was a prime centrist prong during the Corbyn years and seems to think that he won because the country won't have a genuinely progressive government that might actually help people in need just because his team is now in charge. Well done?

Magic Grandpa! What a zinger

The TBEU and affiliates are really going two-footed studs-up on Starmer and it is hilarious. It would be too much to expect anything so vicious and heartfelt to appear on mainstream TV but it is depressing that there isn't anything that comes anywhere close to it

[selectivememory]

Eyup Lovely/Women4Wes is getting big. Apparently a guest on the latest episode of popular American podcast Chapo Trap House.

I'd seen him interacting with them in the past, always got the sense that he was taking the piss out of them a bit (in a friendly way though).

[iamcoop]

Eyup Lovely/Women4Wes is getting big. Apparently a guest on the latest episode of popular American podcast Chapo Trap House.

I'd seen him interacting with them in the past, always got the sense that he was taking the piss out of them a bit (in a friendly way though).

Fucking hell, I assumed he'd be through some mental pitch-shifter or something but no, it's actually him seemingly.

[Sarnie Rudeboy]

Got a link to the episode? Can't see anything on their site.

[king_tubby]

He described Supertanski as 'a Starmerite boxxy' the other week, just incredible.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Got a link to the episode? Can't see anything on their site.

Looks like it's one of their premium ones unfortunately.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/109759704

[Red82]

Not related to Mitch Benn but I see Marina Hyde in yesterday's Guardian now realises we need a government that will do something about Inequality. Bit late now isn't it?  We could have had one in 2017 and 2019.

[Rizla]

[/quote]

Looks like it's one of their premium ones unfortunately.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/109759704

Yes! Sold. Should have joined ages ago really. I love Chapo, never understood the flack they get from some on the left.

This phone in chat they had with a lib on Office Hours a while back is quality.

As for Benn, I remember laughing at a reggae song he did about the queen mum's record collection on the Now show, but he's of far greater comedy value falling on his arse on twitter.

[iamcoop]

Got a link to the episode? Can't see anything on their site.

Edit: Sorry that sounded arsey - I meant as in, it's a premium episode but I found a link to it in about a second...

Very very easily Googleable

[Sarnie Rudeboy]

Yeah cheers

[Better Midlands]

[idunnosomename]

The portraits on the Costa wall look like the sort of the wonderfully demented shit you got out of DALL•E in 2022

[Captain Z]

The whole thing is an AI generated image isn't it?

[Mister Six]

Looks like it's one of their premium ones unfortunately.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/109759704

If you use the Podbean app, all the Patreon Chapo pods are there for free under Black Wolf Feed.

The Eyuplovely one was great, but I was getting too angry about Britain to listen to it all the way through. Haven't gone back yet, but I will.

[king_tubby]

'kin hell, W4W/etc is up to 19k followers.

[Jumblegraws]

'kin hell, W4W/etc is up to 19k followers.

He's broken (a Twitter-dwelling, leftwing community of) America since that Chapo Trap House appearance.

The whole thing is an AI generated image isn't it?

I really like the TBEU but their reliance on AI slop gets more and more off-putting to me, mainly because of hearing about how horribly wasteful the technology needed is, although the inherent creative deficit doesn't help either.

[Better Midlands]

He's broken a (Twitter-dwelling, leftwing community of) America since that Chapo Trap House appearance.

Had this one go viral a couple of days ago too



23.9k followers now.

[holyzombiejesus]

Do Bazake not have their satirical artist any more? I used to like him.

[McDead]

He's broken (a Twitter-dwelling, leftwing community of) America since that Chapo Trap House appearance.
I really like the TBEU but their reliance on AI slop gets more and more off-putting to me, mainly because of hearing about how horribly wasteful the technology needed is, although the inherent creative deficit doesn't help either.

Yeah agreed - it sucks, it's ugly and (ahem) it's scab work.

[king_tubby]

Do Bazake not have their satirical artist any more? I used to like him.

Bring back Wankdog.

[idunnosomename]

Do Bazake not have their satirical artist any more? I used to like him.

Bazake doesnt seem as active these days and Tompkins stopped last year.

They were all AI of course but that was part of the fun because they were often complete crap and the labels tried to explain away the singularly weird bits.



Less likely to get that with the tech in 2024 though. Although image generators do have capacity to maintain likenesses, I think Churnwell puts his characters face over the outputs though. In the one above the side of his face looks very jagged over the wall behind as if its been manually cut out and pasted in.

[phantom_power]

Yeah agreed - it sucks, it's ugly and (ahem) it's scab work.

Isn't it partly showing up how shit AI is though? Deliberately I think