AWESOME ENGINE » Comedy

Death Comes To Town – Episodes 1-4

Brack — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:34:20 +0000

We’re now halfway through the Kids In The Hall’s big television comeback, a murder mystery narrative, and it’s one of the best new comedies I’ve seen in a long time. While they’ve freely admitted to the influence of The League of Gentlemen on the format, it actually has more in common with Psychoville. This is at its most obvious in the opening episode where it similarly suffers on the laugh front from having to introduce so many characters and plot elements. Though unlike Psychoville however, KITH aren’t so in love with horror movies that it gets in the way of the funny. I always got the feeling from Psychoville that Pemberton and Sheersmith were actually those “How Many Kills?” teenagers from The League of Gentlemen when they were younger. And possibly hadn’t grown up all that much.

In fact Death Comes To Town is very light and whimsical in its handling of material that could have easily been made spooky and creepy. As grotesque as some of the characters are, there’s a degree of sympathy in their portrayals. While it’s shed the sketch show element of their earlier work, the actual performances of the older Kids are far beyond their old work. This is reflected in the characters who, by and large, are new creations.

Of the main characters, only Bruce McCulloch & Mark McKinney cop characters have been imported from original KITH show intact, though others appear as cameos (The Chicken Lady showed up briefly in episode 4) and other characters are extensions of types they’ve portrayed before. McKinney’s Death character feels like a deadbeat version of his Satan and Kevin McDonald’s public defence lawyer is a variation of the multitude of twitchy neurotics he’s portrayed over the years.

Another big difference is that there are plenty of non-KITH performers showing up too, from original (pre-TV) KITH member Luciano Casimiri as The Prabbi (Half Priest-Half Rabbi) to Colin Mochrie as an exploitative vet who has kept McDonald’s lawyer characters cat alive for 30+ years.

The greatest thing about it though is that as well as having great gags and great performances, it also legitimately works as a mystery. Not only is it slowly revealing more about the murder the show hinges around, there’s also a secondary set of mysteries surrounding Death. Like a lot of the characters he started off one-note, but as we get more and more glimpses of his past, he becomes a lot more complex and more questions are raised.

You’ll have to be Canadian to watch it at the moment, or do a decent impression of one on the internet, and as much as I’d hope we’d get this over in the UK, the fact we only got 13 episodes of KITH in the first place doesn’t exactly bode well. It’ll be a shame as it’s one of two recent comedies (both from creators making comebacks of sorts) that really gave me some confidence about TV comedy again.

I neglected to tell you how great Better Off Ted is.

Brack — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:01:23 +0000

I apologise, because you if you like to laugh, you should be watching it. You’ll need to be an American or able to convince the internet you are one to watch it, but it’s a great show that seems to find a happy medium between the three camera and single camera sitcoms.

Technically, it’s a single camera sitcom, but unlike most single camera shows of the last decade, it lacks decadence and is written with the economy of a three camera sitcom.

As great as Arrested Development was, the reason it failed was because it was too expensive per episode. The massive cast, the various locations and numerous outside shoots all added up. Same with My Name Is Earl. Better Off Ted feels like it’s learnt from those mistakes (and not just because Portia Rossi’s in the show too).

It’s a comedy about production development centred around a company called Veridian Dynamic who make anything and everything. Its level of absurdity calls to mind The I.T. Crowd and Dilbert somewhat, though the RPG nerds among you will probably see it as the rightful heir of the R&D gags from Paranoia.

The economy of the writing lies in that they tend to use only a few regular sets per episode (two offices, a meeting room and a lab), few-to-none outside scenes, and there are only 5-6 characters (the daughter doesn’t appear every episode).

Something else I’ve noted is that while they’ll use the 21st century’s favourite gag of “You remember the time…” they’ll tend to let the dialogue do the lifting on the gag, rather than cut away to flashback. And having seen cutaway gags far too often in the last 10-20 years, it’s refreshing to let the dialogue do the work.

Which is not to say it’s all dialogue heavy, there’s plenty of physical and prop gags, but they are in service of episode or character, rather than throwaway stuff put in to pad an unfunny story.

Well do they?

Brack — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:50:30 +0000

Do They Know It’s Christmas? from Scott Aukerman on Vimeo.

Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show

Brack — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:35:19 +0000

I’ve just got into this great podcast/web show that Kevin Pollak’s been doing this year, after hearing Scott Aukerman mention it on Comedy Death Ray Radio (which is also great and something you should check out). Here’s the recent episode with Weird Al:

Shooting Stars Series 1

Brack — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:07:45 +0000

Following the return of the show on the BBC last week, I went back and watched the first series again. The first thing that strikes you is how much more straight it’s played compared to what follows. Of course at the time it still seemed pretty out of the ordinary, but the questions are much more sensible than they ended up, and the sketch show element isn’t present yet.

The big changing point feels like the Christmas episode, with the incredibly over the top musical opening that felt like Big Night Out, but with a Two Ronnies budget, Vic and Bob’s bizarre variety dreams made flesh. Then we get the clip round, where we see a clip from the “Roswell Incident”, a skit acted by Vic and Bob, rather than the archive footage they’d been using for the round up to this point.

The change is reflected in the credits, up until the Xmas episode, the show had a question researcher. With the Xmas episode’s new direction of just utter nonsense, that’s no longer needed. Also missing in the credits is Simon Ross (Jonathan’s brother) as “Format Consultant”. It’s now the show everyone remembers, pure Vic and Bob, guided by the hand of the Fast Show’s Charlie Higson as script supervisor.

The Completely Mental Misadventures Of Ed Grimley

Brack — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:53:24 +0000

Saw this cartoon based on Martin Short’s SCTV/SNL character for the first time this week. Albeit in washed out, nth generation tape-o-vision via the evil powers of the internet. It’s surprisingly “totally decent” for a 1980s Hanna Barbera cartoon. This is for a number of reasons.

Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty and Jonathan Winters doing the voices, with Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Christopher Guest and Ringo Starr (?!) showing up as needed.
The show has a formula, which is amusing in itself in how it gets shoehorned into the story.
- Ed Grimley segment
- Gustav Brothers segment (in which the brothers try and explain the science behind the pickle Ed is in)
- Ed Grimley segment
- Count Floyd’s Scary Stories segment (which Ed is actually watching in the cartoon)
- Ed Grimley segment.
Ed himself is interestingly animated, even if a lot of the other characters look like they’ve walked in from an animation based on some stale newspaper strip. Ed though, really captures the physical aspects of Martin Short’s performances.
Joe Flaherty’s live action Count Floyd segments (another SCTV character). I think it was an episode of Doug Benson’s I Love Movies, where they pointed out that Joe Flaherty could pretty much do his Sammy Maudlin character straight and it would work. Well he comes kind of close to playing Count Floyd straight here, with an actual audience of (acting) kids. However just as his scary movies on SCTV were somewhat lame, his scary stories are similarly lame here.
The writing is really good. Most episodes involve Ed setting off to do something that should be really easy, but ends up incredibly complicated. Then on top of that you’ve got plots that play with the pop culture of the target audiences parents (or even grandparents). So you get an episode with a lot of Bob Hope in it, another with a murderous Bing Crosby, and one which shows what happened to the farm in Wizard of Oz while Dorothy was in her coma. And because Ed is written interacting with other characters, he comes across less annoying than he does in Short’s hyperactive monologues with the character. With Martin Short and Michael Short both involved with the creative side of things, as well as all the SCTV alumni, it perhaps feels the most like a proper SCTV spinoff of any of their post-SCTV projects.

The 4 Georges – Born 2 Rule

Brack — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:34:20 +0000

Having a day off post-Ayacon so naturally I’m watching kids comedy shows on BBC2. Particularly struck by the sketch comedy version the popular Horrible Histories books. The episode that just aired closed with this skit, in which George I, George II, George III and George IV are portrayed as a boy band.

Between this and “Sorry, I’ve Got No Head” that I caught some of over Xmas, kids sketch comedy is probably much better right now than what passes for adult sketch comedy (Mitchell & Webb excluded, and that shares writers/performers with both these kids shows anyway).

MMHI – Extra Farts

Brack — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:47:23 +0000

Michael & Michael Have Issues

Wed 10:30pm / 9:30c

Exclusive – Extra Farts

www.comedycentral.com

Joke of the Day

Stand-Up Comedy

Free Online Games

Sex With Ducks: the Music Video by Garfunkel and Oates

Brack — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:26:57 +0000

Kind of too busy to Urusei Yatsura it up this week, so light posting until the weekend I think. Starting with this song from Garfunkel and Oates.

Dragon Boy Suede – You Won’t Sass Me Like That When I Can Summon Wolves

Brack — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:10:47 +0000

Between Two Ferns – Bradley Cooper

Brack — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:49:33 +0000

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis from Between Two Ferns

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis

Brack — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:44:02 +0000

Watch more funny videos on Funny or Die

So glad to see this back…

Brack — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:30:00 +0000

Rock Profile: Episode One – Peter Andre and Jordan Pt. 1 from Matt And David

BEST SHOW GEMS

Brack — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:30:00 +0000

The Best Show On WFMU Greatest Hits podcast has arrived.

Everyone should go listen, because Scharpling and Wurster are among the top things you can listen to.

Summer 2009.

Brack — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:28:15 +0000

Important Things With Demetri Martin – Episode 1 – Timing

Brack — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:02:30 +0000

I liked this a lot.

For a start it’s a format I’ve not seen in ages, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a US version.

For all intents and purposes this is like the shows Jasper Carrot and Victoria Wood had on the BBC when I was growing up. It’s a mix of stand-up and sketch (with some song and drawing/animation for added fun).

OK, in writing that I now realise I have seen a US version. Dave Chappelle of course had some notable success with that very format. But that felt more like a sketch show bookended by stand-up. Martin’s success here is the ever shifting delivery of his gags. You sense he’s not doing a sketch to explore that situation, but rather there is a gag that works better in a sketch than stand-up. And vice versa.

Martin’s appeal lies not so much as innovation, most of his gimmicks have clear precedents from Steven Wright deadpan one liners to Dave Gorman’s powerpoint stand-up. It’s his mastery of so many aspects that is his appeal. I was chuckling all the way through, only the cop sketch seemed a little weak, and even that had a strong finish that subverted the whole point of the sketch.

And it’s all tied together with the whimsical visuals his spots on the Daily Show had. Some might find it border on cutey preciousness, but whimsy is A-OK in my book.

Very promising start.

The CollegeHumor Show Episode 1

Brack — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:38:37 +0000

This was no good. It made BBC3 comedy shows look good.

There’s some funny ideas in there, but the execution is shockingly bad and more insultingly, smug. It’s annoying because they have created good stuff on their website, but’s normally the straight sketches or the more natural things like Bleep Bloop, rather than the forced website office sitcom this thing delivers. It should have been a magazine/sketch show rather than this.

Really Confusing TV Intro

Brack — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:26:22 +0000

Really Confusing TV Intro – watch more funny videos

via Paul Scheer.com

Dear Deer – Kate Micucci

Brack — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:19:03 +0000

via Small Mammal House

HATE FUN 2003! Dear Boys

Yay!

Brack — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:34:41 +0000

No related posts.

Would you like to buy a monkey?

Brack — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:47:22 +0000

John Hamm is Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis

Rick Katschke conducts backstage interviews on his Host and Guest podcast

PCL LinkDump asks if you Are Ready To Fight?

The horrifying origin of Jstache – if this had been a Channel 101 show it’d be understandable, but this…

More Scrappy Doo reminiscences from Mark Evanier.

Who’s behind Norman Osborn’s door? The Estate of Tim O’Neil knows.

John K breaks down appeal in cartoons. And then does it some more. And some more!

Scientists invent machine for drawing pictures of Giant Marshmallows.

James Mishler maps the genealogy of Dungeons & Dragons.

Square Root of Minus Garfield – further exploration in the field of newspaper funnies deconstruction.

Awesome Lucha Libre photography from Victor Ayala

Lonely Island’s debut single

Brack — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 09:42:33 +0000

Well, I’m sure I’d feel much worse if I weren’t under such heavy sedation.

Brack — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:57:21 +0000

Bob Newhart opens a dvd (via MaximumFun).

A timely description of nijigen complex.

Michael Bay meets with Wonderglen.

Twitch has a teaser for Studio 4°C’s WW2 film First Squad.

Makoto Raiku settles with Shogakukan.

Newsarama has Watchmen character posters.

DRGBLZ (via Warren Ellis)

CHIMPY WEEK – DAY FOUR

Brack — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:01:00 +0000

YouTube – Mr. Show- Monster Parties; Fact or Fiction?

Brack — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:24:33 +0000

YouTube – Mr. Show- Monster Parties; Fact or Fiction?.

YouTube – Childrens’ Hospital

Brack — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:22:33 +0000

YouTube – Childrens’ Hospital – Coming soon to TheWB.com!.

Peter Serafinowicz: 50 Impressions, 2 Mins

Brack — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:36:44 +0000

See more funny videos at Funny or Die UK

YouTube – Lil’ Bill O’Reilly

Brack — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:46:18 +0000

Lil' Bill O'Reilly

YouTube – Lil’ Bill O’Reilly.

Which one now seems more like a parody of Guy Ritchie?

Brack — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:36:30 +0000

—

When they showed the Rock N’ Rolla trailer in front of Dark Knight, you could hear laughs of derision flitter through the audience, like a sarcastic butterfly. And this was quite a small, first showing of the day audience.

MADstravaganza 2 playlist

Brack — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:46:47 +0000

In no particular order.

BARRY EATS A SANDWICH
FILMATION BATMAN JAPANESE OP/ED
CAPTAIN FUNK – “LOSIN MY WAY” MUSIC VIDEO
CRANK DAT SUPER SAIYAN
DOOZY BOTS PROMO VID
FF6 X FMA OP/ED/ETC MAD
FIST OF THE NORTHSTAR X MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZIMIYA OP MAD
GOLGO 13 MUGEN
GOLGO 13 X MGS2 MAD
SOMETHING INVOLVING MEN IN HORSE MASKS
KERORO GUNSO IN HUSTLE
KAWAII JENNY MAD
JOKAMEL
JON THE DOG
KOBAYASHI
GODZILLA VS. MITO KOMON
KONEKO TO KEITO
SHIN CHAN K.O.N.O. MAD
SPEED RACER GOES CRAZY
THE BEACHES – “POLICE & GIRLS & BOYS” MUSIC VIDEO
TINY HATS
LUPIN III CARAMEL DANSEN MAD
LUCKY STAR X AIR KIRBY MAD

If you want the videos yourselves… then get searching! No free handouts here!

IT WOULD HAVE ALL BEEN IMPROBABLE WITHOUT: WFMU’s Beware Of The Blog, Nicovideo, PCL Link Dump, Myspleen Forums, DownloadHelper, Cartoon Brew, batfatty, THE BOARD~! @ f4wonline.

A little light music for a Saturday

Brack — Sat, 24 May 2008 06:48:05 +0000

Hey. Italian Spiderman Episode 1 is out.

Brack — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:53:05 +0000

myspace.com/theitalianspiderman

Blogs I’m reading that I should really add to the blogroll were it not already unwieldy

Brack — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:11:10 +0000

I need some fancy pants blogroll widget that allows you to just show the 10 most recently updated blogs on it. Or a new theme. In the meantime I’ve been reading.

似顔絵ロック〜 Portrait in Rock – You don’t need to be able to read Japanese to appreicate yu-shio the Rock’n'Roll Illustrator’s portraits of classic rock stars

The Wolverine Daily – Gideon Boomer draws a new Wolverine everyday.

The Rossitano Report – A record of every hat worn by Judah Frielander’s 30 Rock character.

The Fury of Linus – Newbridge’s top blogger.

Rick Veitch’s sketch blog

Photo Basement – Photo’s scoured from the web, the best bits are things like this.

Paul Scheer.com – Human Giant’s Paul Scheer

Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine – Is there any scanblog better than this?

Paleo-Future – Yesterday’s Future, Today

Nerd Armada – Chowder creator CH Greenblatt’s blog

Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s clobberin’ time!!! – Artists draw literary figures.

David Wain’s Blog – Stella/The State/The Ten/Wet Hot American Summer/Wainy Days chap David Wain’s blog

Cartoons, Model Sheets, & Stuff – No prizes for guessing what this is about.

Bateszi Anime Blog – One of the few anime blogs I read.

Never Ending, It’s The Persistant March of Popular Culture.

Brack — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:37:28 +0000

Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil Episodes 1 to 3

This show finally surfaced this month after being announced ages ago. Not sure how long Comedy Central have been sitting on these, as the comedy doesn’t feel super topical. But topicality isn’t everything, and this format where two comedians each present a topic to Lewis Black and he must decide which of the two is Evil-er of the two.

And it works pretty well as both a vehicle for Black’s ranting delivery and as a showcase for stand-up comics. And neither have to burn through stage material on TV.

So far the comedians featured have been Paul F. Tompkins (twice), Greg Giraldo (twice), Andy Daly and Andy Kindler. PFT and Daly were particularly good I thought, and Kindler’s use of the taped segment was great.

South Park Season 12 Episodes 1-3

Still good.

Mnemosyne Episode 1

This XEBEC OAV is trying to do be a gorey erotic thriller, but it fails. It has some nice animation, but the plain looking character designs, cheap feeling digital sheen of a lot of the scenes and appalling pacing gives the project the feel of porn creators trying to be taken seriously. You know, like See No Evil.

Utter rubbish, and not even fun rubbish as it takes itself too seriously.

Strait Jacket Episode 1

Talking of plain looking OAVs, this has been licensed for future release by Manga, and it’s a pretty good fit. Guys in magic suits of armour blow up demons. Blow ‘em up real good.

I enjoyed this more than Mnemosyne as it lacks pretension, and when things started blowing up it was fun. However it took a while for that to happen, and the character designs look like they’ve come out of a rubbish Japanese strategy game.

Spectacular Spider-Man Episodes 1-4

This new Spider-Man show has one thing wrong with it – the character designs. Particularly the huge dead pupils in the eyes of most characters. They also suffer a bit from being overly angular, but it’s not as pronounced other recent shows.

If you can overlook the eyes, then there’s a lot to enjoy, both in the writing, that captures the feel of Spider-Man much more than the 90′s series did, and in the animation, which really excels in the action scenes. Fancy Dan spinning his cane during the fight with the Enforcers was the sort of choreography detail that made me sit up and take notice. Yes, the show has the Enforcers. In fact all the villains in these first four episodes are from the first 50 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. The show’s world feels like it’s cherry picked the best aspects of all the different interpretations of Spider-Man. At it’s core is the Ditko/Lee stories, but there’s bits which feel like they’ve come from the 70s comics, as well as setting up things so they can introduce a certain popular villain from the late 80s.

Those eyes though…

Youtube thoughts

Brack — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:09:34 +0000

GONZO’s plan to immediately stream their next two terrible series around the world for free is a GOOD THING. And it’s really something that a bigger fuss should be being made over. As much as I hate on GONZO’s content, in terms of how the international home entertainment business works nowadays, they are quantum leaps ahead of the pack of the Japanese anime industry.

Strangely it coincides with my realisation that Human Giant are doing the exact same thing with their second season. The last two episodes had all the sketches online after the episode had aired on MTV. And in fact they now have every aired sketch online. When you consider it’s a MTV (part of the Youtube suing Paramount) show, a pretty big hurdle has been crossed. The MTV site doesn’t even seem to have country blocking on it. Yay!

Vaguely related: Marcus Estes at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has a sensible piece (with a great title) on the issues Billy Bragg raised about social network sites and musicians.

Doug Benson’s I Love Movies on Super Deluxe

Brack — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:48:03 +0000

As much as I’d love the podcast back, this was a fine translation of the bobanddavid.com columns. I just miss the expanded form the podcast gave it.

HIP HOP IS THE BEST

Brack — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:49:15 +0000

Human Giant. Season 2. Soon.

Brack — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:26:39 +0000

TV sketch comedy really had a resurgence last year, at least in the US, and Human Giant’s first MTV series was at the forefront. It even got aired in the UK, not sure where, but I definitely saw it on my television set. Probably that MTV sub-channel that airs on freeview and only seems to show Punkd.

Anyway, against the way MTV usually does these things, they’ve got a second season. And it starts March 11 in the US. I imagine it will be make it’s way to the UK at some unadvertised time, but I’m sure the evil powers of the internet will make it available to us foreigners before then.

Links folks. Links!

Brack — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:54:36 +0000

Fat Lace Magazine bring you Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield’s rap cuts. And the worst rapper name ever.

I LOVE MOVIES returns to Bob And David. And to Superdeluxe later (video only? or will we get a podcast too? I miss the podcast).

Beware of Blog assembles many feline turntablists.

The Best Show Vault has 2007′s visit from The Gorch.

Masaaki Yuasa’s columns on madhouse.co.jp.

Former Lolita No.18 guitarist ENAPOu’s band PONI-CAMP‘s Myspace page. Spot the anime director on their friends list!

My new favourite joshi wrestler, Kyoko Kimura and Amazing Kong heel it up in NEO. Watching her on youtube, Kimura is a far better heel than face. She’s got this female Bruiser Brody thing going on in her heel persona that is a whole different charisma to the unstoppable monster, evil beauty or cold killer wrestling machine archetypes that a lot of joshi heels fall into (not that there’s anything wrong with those types – they are all proven winners).

Eugene Mirman’s Tom Cruise Parody

Brack — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:16:56 +0000

via Dead Frog

I AM THE WATER BOATMAN! I LIVE IN YOUR DRAINS!

Brack — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:09:00 +0000

From “Families At War“, the great missed opportunity to establish Vic and Bob as mainstream TV stars. This is the Cubiscus, the final round and the highlight of the show. The rest of show was hit and miss, a surreal variant of Generation Game, where instead of learning new skills in a short amount of time, rival families competed using the specialist skills of the family members. For instance challenging running skills by running on a treadmill while carrying Leo Sayer on their back. In the end I think the thing that really killed it was the utterly charmless Alice Beer as co-presenter. I’m not sure it needed a school marm-esque figure there, it was like the BBC felt they needed a “BBC1″ face (Beer had been sour-facing it up on Watchdog) to make it not so scary to people unaccustomed to Reeves and Mortimer.

Your Sunday Onslaught of Pop Culture

Brack — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:26:44 +0000

HARRY HILL’S TV BURP

Now on it’s 7th (!) series, it’s still slightly weird to me that Harry Hill is now the face of mainstream comedy, alongside Al Murray. Anyway, the series continues in the same vein it always has, it’s “comic look at the week’s TV” modus operandi is still surreal and affectionate in an Iron Fist in Velvet Glove sort of way. The way he’ll say incredibly cruel things about people in a clip and then have them come out and do a skit or song with him is impressive.

MONK – “MR MONK AND THE THREE JULIES”

This week’s episode was a high point in the latest season of Monk. Less reliance on a guest star, an actual mystery, no wringing of pathos and/or tragedy from Monk’s condition, Randy wasn’t a total goof, and lots of stuff for all the characters to do rather than another Tony Shaloub twitch-a-thon.

PSYCH – “LIGHTS! CAMERA! HOMICIDIO!”

Conversely this was a low point for Psych. While the clues in the mystery were fair, the culprit wasn’t ever on the radar as a suspect. And so the normally strong mystery structure was gone, meaning it had to coast on it’s ample charms. Not sure if this was due to some sort of writer’s strike lack of rewrites, or a meta-textual conceit to do with the setting of Spanish language soap opera that the mystery took place in. Still perfectly watchable and rewatchable due to the comedic performances of the ensemble cast.

DETECTIVE CONAN – “CLASH OF RED AND BLACK – THE BEGINNING”

Episode 491 marks the beginning of the end game in the mystery of Eisuke Hondou, the clumsy student who appears to have connections to the Black Organisation. As Conan tries to find the link between him and Rena Mizunashi, the news reporter detained due to her involvement with BO, it leads them to a case that has nothing to with that at all…

In fact the case resembles those times in soaps where they crowbar in a socially relevant message with no subtlety whatsoever. However, the case is completely fair to the home viewer as this series tends to be.

Nonetheless I look forward to see how this overall arc progresses, as the series excels when it drags Conan and the supporting cast from Poirot-style external investigators into the chaos of the case itself.

EUGENE MIRMAN on 23/6

Brack — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 11:15:44 +0000

Yoinked from HODG-MAN. America’s ninth favourite comedian covers the New Hampshire primary.

On a side note: as I was going back through my old livejournal posts to find what was worth recycling on AWE.ENG. I noticed I had actually ended posts with “That is all” before I’d ever read anything of John Hodgman’s. I’d stopped doing it because I thought I’d subconsciously picked it up from him, but like the hobo thing, I am either transmitting thoughts into the ether, or I just happen to think a lot like everyone’s second-favourite Mac shill.

I’m not sure which situation I should be more worried about.

Stuff That Ruled 2007 – Part C

Brack — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:03:50 +0000

Neil Hamburger

I think it was Graham Linehan’s currently sleeping livejournal that introduced me to the anti-comedy of Neil Hamburger, coincidentally just before he suddenly became a lot more visible via supporting Tenacious D, appearing in The Pick Of Destiny, appearing on TAEASGJ, having a regular role on that Tom Green internet thing, having a track on that Comedy Death Ray CD and so forth. This years “Hot February Night” album is a good starting point, with Neil in his best element – performing in front of a hostile crown who isn’t in on the joke (in this case a Tenacious D crowd). Also check 2005′s “Great Moments at Di Presa’s Pizza House”. It’s a great example of creating a fictional world just through audio and is a fine example of audio storytelling.

Kanye West – Graduation

The lyrics can sometimes border on the naive and clumsy, but the quality of the production and sometimes the sheer force of his own ego can drag the songs past that. And he’s kept up his great eye for a music video. The Akira-homaging Stronger, the Zach Galifianakis /Will Oldham farm-based miming of Can’t Tell Me Nothing and the can’t-beat-em-join-em Jonas & François/So Me video for Good Life (Jonas & François/So Me created the Justice vs. Simian video that Kanye threw a hissy fit over when it beat his video at some MTV award thing. They also did the DANCE video for Justice, which uses similar So Me animation to the Good Life video. Both DANCE and Good Life owe something to Michael Jackson’s track P.Y.T.).

Psych

I’m not sure I’ve properly said how much I love this show. I think it’s my favourite current television show. The concept of a fake psychic detective had me hooked from the start and the chemistry between James Roday, Dule Hill and Corbin Bernsen made it fun from the get go (I took a little longer to come around to Timothy Omundson and Maggie Lawson’s cop characters). And unlike Monk, it’s mysteries are whodunnits rather than a Columbo style howsolveit. And the technique of zoom and freeze when Shawn Spencer spots a clue is great for playing fair with the viewer. Plus the comedic quality of the performances and script actually give it rewatching value (not to mention when you rewatch it, you invariably see how the reveal is properly foreshadowed in the story).

Mononoke

Kenji Nakamura’s spin off from his Bakeneko arc of Ayakashi was a tour-de-force in direction. And the stories it told weren’t half bad either. Easily the most visually interesting show this year (Gurren Lagann and Denno Coil both had better animation, but Nakamura did far more interesting things with shot composition and visual storytelling than those two shows).

Blitzen Trapper – Wild Mountain Nation

All I needed to know was that they were a band who sounded like Wowee Zowee-era Pavement. And I wasn’t disappointed when I heard them. Why not check the proper music video for the title track they recently had made? Ramshackle country tinged indie can still bring a smile to my face in ’07.

Stuff That Ruled 2007 – Part B

Brack — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:01:30 +0000

Burn Notice

This was fun little throwback to the action series eighties where people operating outside the law would stick up for the little guy. Jeffrey Donovan plays Michael Westen, a covert operative who finds himself with a “burn notice” against his name – i.e. he has been declared unreliable or dangerous, and cut out of the world of international espionage by persons unknown. So he finds himself in Miami, using his skills as a freelance spy/detective/bodyguard to earn money to fund his own investigation into who burned him. Gabrielle Anwar plays his ex-girlfriend Fiona, a former IRA operative (who has a terribly exaggerated Irish accent in the pilot ep, thankfully she toned it down after that), Bruce Campbell is Sam, a friend of Michael’s, ex-Navy SEAL and the character who feels most like he’s walked off the page of an Elmore Leonard novel (middle aged schlub who survives by sleeping with rich Miami women) and Sharon Gless play’s Michael’s hypochondriac mother who inevitably finds her house acting as a safehouse for whoever Michael is helping. It’s another fun show from the USA Network that fits nicely in the same niche as Monk and Psych. The only weaknesses are occasionally dodgy gimmicky direction and when the character of Fiona borders on the irritating, otherwise it’s great stuff.

The Skull Man

Takeshi Mori and Yutaka Izubuchi’s take on Shotaro Ishinomori’s dark version of Kamen Rider was BONES best anime production this year. It moved seemlessly from a detective to action adventure genres culminating in a downbeat epilogue that makes you want to see the same team produce a Cyborg 009 series.

The Shape Of Broad Minds – Craft Of The Lost Art

2007 found me liking new music a lot more than I have the past few years. There was more music that sounded genuinely new and this slab of hip hop from the future is definitely up in there. Is it Space Rap? Probably, though it doesn’t actually sound like Space Rap of yore. It sounds like some kind of psychedelic jazz future.

Captain America

Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and Mike Perkins work on this title has been my favourite new superhero comics material this year. I never really liked Epting’s art when I encountered it in the 90s but I love it now. He and Perkins have a realistic style that reminds me more of the war comics I read as a kid (Battle and Commando) than superhero comics and works wonders on Brubaker’s script. The realistic Arnim Zola was particular efffective, making him more unnerving and creepy than the more familiar four colour version.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s follow up to Tom Goes To The Mayor was another nail in the coffin of the Cartoon Network’s original animated content, but at the same time it was a great, albeit frequently sinister, sketch comedy show. The episode “Forest” which aired a few weeks ago was the pinnacle of the series so far, bringing together a number of the greatest elements of the series (Uncle Muscles, Steve Brule and a Zach Galifianakis guest starring spot).

Stuff That Ruled 2007 – Part A

Brack — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:48:18 +0000

LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver

Ever since hearing Losing My Edge I’ve been in love with LCD Soundsystem, and by extension DFA Records. This was a great album that I have no qualms about declaring being better than the debut LCD Soundsystem album proper. Only the title track was a little disappointing, being a bit too close to The Mighty Boosh’s “Crimping” in it’s delivery. Everything else was good, good, good with “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” my utter favourite.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Despite claims to the contrary, GAINAX had never really stopped being good, they’d just been being rubbish in equal measure. Hiroyuki Imaishi’s mecha series for kids brought the goodness that GAINAX had been confining to OAVs back to television audience. When animation talent is spread ever thinner in Japan these days, the dense amount of eye candy this show served up was amazing. Coupled with a story by playwright Kazuki Nakashima, it was concentrated anime pop thrills that few shows can match. ADV’s R1 DVDs cannot come soon enough.

Never Not Funny

I picked up on Jimmy Pardo’s podcast late last year after near constant mentioning from The Sound Of Young America’s blog. I think the appearance of Paul F. Tompkins as a guest sealed the deal. After a somewhat sudden end to the first “season“, it came back better than ever with the rotating third guest of season two. After a year, I still can’t wait for Fridays to come around so I can get my fix of NNF.

30 Rock

The best sitcom in the world right now. Despite some truly dreadful trailers for it on Channel 5 in the UK that sucked all the humour from the clips they showed, it seems to have caught on in the UK, at least among critics. Of course, through the evil powers of the internet, I’m watching the second season at the moment, and it’s still going strong though with more of a focus on character’s personal lives rather than the show within the show.

One Piece

Eiichiro Oda’s manga rounded off the epic Water Seven/Enies Lobby saga at the start of the year, and began the more humorous Thriller Bark story full of homage to Tim Burton and Hammer Horror. The now 10 year old series has been credited this year with an increase in Shonen Jump sales in Japan this year, and it’s a good estimate to expect it to run another 10 years. Oda’s boundless imagination (Thriller Bark looks at times like 2 years of doodles escaped onto a page) and the series structure of story arcs that have their own resolutions, seems to guarantee it’s longevity. The anime has suffered a little from talent drain to other shows (Lovely Complex and the aforementioned Gurren Lagann to name but two), but seems a little surer footed as the year ends with even an anime-only filler story proving appealing.

NNF Jimmy Cam

Brack — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:10:44 +0000

Never Not Funny

No related posts.

Obligatory Halloween Post

Brack — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:02:12 +0000

A HALLOWEEN TREAT

CLICK ON COUNT FLOYD
(AS EMBEDDING HAD BEEN DISABLED…)

SCTV – Night School Hi-Q

Brack — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:12:51 +0000

Laffs, Yucks and Guffaws.

Brack — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:56:40 +0000

Stephen Colbert – I am America (and so can you).

I listened to the Daily Show audio book, whose name I forget and lazily won’t look up, and it wasn’t that great. So I was a little apprehensive over how this would take the Colbert onscreen character, turn it into print, and then turn it back into the onscreen character, except only in audio form. Plus I’d been spoilt by the audio version of John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise, which is an awesome audio book (and also an awesome book – get both).

But this works well, it’s three and a half hours of the Colbert character ranting about the state of the world/being a self help book. The problem with the Daily Show book is Stewart works best when being incredulous rather than delivering a fake history of the United States, here you are getting exactly the same character you see on the Colbert Report. So if you like that show, you will like this.

Comedy Death-Ray

This is a 2CD set of various stand up comedians who’ve appeared at the Comedy Death-Ray show run by Scott Aukerman and BJ Porter. There’s so much material and variety here that’s it’s a must have.

CD1 – this a bunch of longer pieces by 6 different acts

Paul F. Tompkins – My love of Tompkins has been stated before, and neatly this is material that doesn’t appear on his own CD. Great stuff.
David Cross – I find Cross to be a better comic actor than stand up, and, worse, this had a whole lot of stuff I’d heard before. In fact heard before years ago. Boo. There was some stuff that was new to me, but it didn’t set my world on fire.
Doug Benson – I liked Benson’s I Love Movies podcast that he did last year (and early this year), I’ve like what I’ve heard of his “Interruption” shows on AST’s podcast, and I like that he likes writing actual jokes. But this is the first time I’ve heard his stand up. And it’s OK. There’s some good jokes.
Maria Bamford – I’ve come round to Bamford a lot since I first saw her on Comedians of Comedy. I’ve not heard her 2 albums, so there may be a chance that there is repeated material here. Bamford has a good line in observational/character comedy, and she’s a great voice artist.
Todd Glass – Was just a name I’d heard until I heard this. I liked his routine here, though unfortunately some of it is visual. Which is hard to work on a CD.
Hard ‘N Phirm – Comedy Songs~! Puerile Jokes~! Puns~! I loved this.

CD2 - Twelve short pieces

Patton Oswalt – As good as the material is here, I heard it all on Oswalt’s own CD last month.
Jimmy Pardo – Despite having been listening to Pardo’s podcast Never Not Funny for the last year, I’d never heard his stand up. This is 10+ minutes of really great audience interaction. Enjoyed it a lot.
Neil Hamburger – A good intro to Hamburger, though I think he’s funnier in a hostile environment (see Hot February Night), the CD-R audience are too into the joke.
Ian Edwards – I’d not heard Edwards before, and I really liked his material here. Nice line in observation mutating into a flight of fantasy.
Brian Posehn – I’m a fan of Posehn, and it’s all new material to me. Hooray.
Nick Thune – More comedy songs, well guitar plus gags. Actual real life jokes. Insert Demetri Martin/Zach Galifianakis comparison here.
Scott Aukerman – Another case of me being a long term fan, never actually seeing any stand up. It’s fine, but there’s funnier folks on here.
Chris Hardwick – from the aforementioned Hard N Phirm. The thing that struck me was how much his delivery resembles Oswalts. Also – does anyone else find using AIDS, rape and retards as punchlines really hacky now? Hardwick uses one of these to end his segment and while the mechanics of the joke work, it seems an overused “taboo” reference.
Mindy Kaling - The reason I bring that up is because Mindy Kaling (Kelly Kapoor on The Office) has a really great bit that inverts the standard hacky retard reference that stand=ups use. Really great, probably my second favourite bit on the CDs.
Dan Mintz - is very deadpan. And tells jokes. And yet avoids sounding like a Steven Wright clone. Possibly because his form of deadpan is also endearingly amateur and nervous.
Andy Daly - provides the most genius 3 minutes of comedy I’ve heard in ages. To attempt to describe would defuse the wonder of it. All I’ll say it’s one idea sustained through the entire track, it blew my mind and that I’ve seen reviewers of this CD for whom the joke went completely over the heads of.
Reno 911 – And, I’m guessing to help promote the Reno 911 film, Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant perform a song about crystal meth. Despite my complete unfamiliarity with the characters they are playing it was still funny.

Michael Ian Black – I Am A Wonderful Man

Stella/State/Ed chap, Michael Ian Black, is probably better known as a comic actor rather than stand-up. Indeed I’d only seen him do stand up as part of Stella before this, and that was a very atypical stand-up. This is straight forward stand-up, and it works for the most part. The only thing that seems to fail is his occasional reliance on JUST SHOUTING THINGS. There’s some comics I like that veer into shouting, but they tend to make the things they are shouting funny, Black seems to just think shouting is funny.

As I came to this as a Stella fan, the stand up does give some insight of what ideas in Stella might be Black’s. For starters the first track is called “Yay!” and there’s a lot of that adult-man-behaving-as-teenage-girl thing going on that is Stella a lot. Definite listen for Stella and State fans I think, newcomers should probably track down the stronger Stella material first I think.

Evil Powers Of The Internet, Give Me Strength

Brack — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:40:19 +0000

* Watched the leaked King Of Kong cut. It’s an excellent documentary, even in this unfinished form. While it’s obviously been cut to paint Billy Mitchell as something of the villain of the piece, he does come across as a strange, yet charismatic person just in what he says to camera. Comparing Donkey Kong to the “abortion issue” at one point illustrates his strangeness regardless of of the film is edited together. And it’s edited very well. The storytelling the film works very well due to how it’s edited. I’m hoping it gets a UK release, otherwise I’ll pick up the inevitable R1 DVD. Could well be my favourite film of the year.

* While Fox drag their heels on a Get A Life season 1 boxset, I’ve been watching it via VHS rips that were on MySpleen recently. This is another show I discovered from browsing Jump The Shark (and the samples on Handsome Boy Modelling School’s debut), but unlike Mr. Show it was a lot harder to track episodes down. Chris Elliot’s sitcom is a curious experiment that is really hurt by the laughter track. Not the greatest sitcom in the world, but certainly ahead of it’s time, with some expectational episodes, like “The Prettiest Day Of My Life” the episode that gave Handsome Boy Modelling School their name.

* Flashlight Fight by The Go! Team featuring Chuck D is all over my ears. Hear it at prefixmag and I’m sure you’re smart enough to weedle the mp3 out of that page.

* Got caught up with Gurren Lagann this morning. Episode 24 seemed influenced a lot by the shoot-em-ups I grew up with. I spotted what I thought were Parodius, Gradius and R-Type references, and I’m sure there must have been more. Episode 25 was all sorts of emotionally charged awesome. Two more eps to go!

Paul F. Tompkins – Impersonal

Brack — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:38:28 +0000

Got this off emusic.

Contains some material he used on his last “Comedy Central Presents…” but it’s good material and that’s lots here that is new. Plus it has more Tompkins’ patter and banter than the edited to within an inch of it’s life CCP had.

Tompkins is one of those guys where a lot of the appeal for me is in the way he says things as much as the gags themselves. His exaggerated faux-sophisticate raconteur voice he uses at times amuses me greatly.

Here’s a clip from Comedy Central for folks not familiar with him.

I’ve been trying the free emusic trial and it’s sorely tempting to carry on with it, at least for another month. There’s a surprisingly wide range of comedy albums on there I’d like to get (Eugene Mirman, Jimmy Pardo, Maria Bamford). I picked up Scharpling & Wurster’s “Rock Rot & Rule” too. That’s an entire album as one track, so bargain.

What’s It Gonna Be?

Brack — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 22:02:06 +0000

This is over a year old, but I only came upon after the announcement that Comedy Death Ray would be producing a sketch show pilot for Fox and that Mike O’Connell was in the cast. This music video with O’Connell and fellow stand-up Dr Ken has amused me greatly this past week or so. All in one continuous shot too!

Wainy Days Episode 1

Brack — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:53:33 +0000

Here’s David Wain’s new web comedy thing

Reviews of Old Things: Lenin Of The Rovers

Brack — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:59:07 +0000

Lenin Of The Rovers was a Radio 4 sitcom from 1988 and 1989. It starred Alexei Sayle as Ricky Lenin, a footballing descendant of the more famous Lenin, who turns Felchester Rovers into Britain’s only communist football team.

The other key characters are Stevie Stalin, Terry Trotsky, Colonel Brace-Cartwright and commentator Frank Lee Brian. The latter role was just as key to the show as Alexei Sayles, as it was played by iconic football commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme.

The series was a dual parody, of football comics like Roy of the Rovers, and of the commercialization of football, which had begun to pick up steam at the time. The first series seems a little leaden now, and Keith Allen’s Terry Trotsky is a one note Liverpudlian stereotype. The second, with Phil Cornwell in the role, is a much livelier affair, helped in part by guest appearances by John Sessions and Jim Broadbent. This was born out by the audio cassette release the show was given, with only series 2 seeing the light of day on BBC Audio. Which was a much loved Christmas present when I got it in 1992, and subsequently played to death.

With the creation of BBC7 the series has been repeated on occasion, and there have been torrents appearing here and there. There’s a user on Demonoid (down atm) who has seemingly created a vast archive of BBC comedy shows and I picked up a fresh copy of the series from there a few months back. I was surprised to see that recordings were taken from the original broadcasts, complete with the continuity announcer informing the listener that the first two episodes are the final performances of the late Ballard Barkley (the Colonel in Fawlty Towers) as Colonel Brace-Cartwright.

Derek & Simon – Baby Talk.

Brack — Wed, 16 May 2007 19:18:58 +0000

A REALLY LOVELY NIGHT OUT WITH DAVID CROSS & FRIENDS…

Brack — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:55:39 +0000

Tickets are on sale now at about £18. Which for 5 comedians and mystery guests seems a good price for a London gig. I’ll be getting my ticket this weekend. I’m tempted to get tickets for both Saturdays.

Not sure if Zach Galifianakis is one of the “friends” now as it seems to be “Eugene Mirman, Todd Barry, Kristen Schaal and others” on their various myspaces. And it’s not mentioned on Galifianakis’s website. Though some Edinburgh dates for Galifianakis are, so I might try and catch him then.

Brain Dredge

Brack — Sat, 12 May 2007 21:30:15 +0000

My brain is feeling like sludge at the moment, so here’s just a brain dump

Lovely Complex episodes 2 & 3

While the fact the two leads are obviously suited for each other and can’t see it borders on annoying, the fact that the other characters see it and point it out to them levens it. And for a Toei show it looks great. I don’t know in the extreme facial expressions are taken straight from the manga or not, but they are fun. Kind of weird hearing Spandam’s voice alongside Nami’s in episode 3.

Darker Than Black episodes 3 & 4

I’m liking the sci-fi aspects, the amoral heroes and the bloody violence, but this 2 parter’s single parent scientist experimenting on their single child story was a bit too bog standard. Plus the schoolgirl characters were annoying. Still the 2 part story format means something new next time.

Detective Conan 469 & 470

One of the better TV stories I’ve seen from this show. The whodunnit was obvious, but the story focused instead on the howdunnit. And it was fair mystery, as all the clues were there for the viewer. I got part the way there, but missed the cellphone part. And it had Kaitou Kid in it too.

Human Giant 2, 3, 4 & 5

Looking to be the best sketch show of the decade I think. Though MTV’s habit of editing out a sketch and leaving a post credit payoff scene in is annoying.

Nankai Candies murder A Whole New World

Brack — Wed, 09 May 2007 19:01:48 +0000

Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

Brack — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:00:40 +0000

This is review is about a month late. I wanted to talk about it after 4 episodes and for some reason I didn’t.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is the second show for Adult Swim from Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim (the first being Tom Goes To The Mayor). Like the debuting-at-the-same-time Saul of The Molemen, it marks a change in direction for Adult Swim in that it’s predominantly live action (though some of the little animation in TAEASGJ! is actually better than TGTTM – namely the Gibbons cartoon that is glimpsed in episode 2). Now you can argue that a channel called Cartoon Network shouldn’t be showing live action shows, and I would agree with you, but at the same time on it’s own merits I’ve enjoyed TAEASGJ!

Essentially TAEASGJ! is a sketch show. It pulls together various Heidecker and Wareheim ideas from TGTTM and their internet work like the Channel 5 Married News Team, Uncle Muscles Hour, Cinco products, prank phone calls and an obsession with hands in food. And then adds a bunch of new stuff.

It took me a while to decide whether I liked the show as a whole as there is a somewhat hit and miss quality to the show. I think the good outweighs the indifferent overall, though it is interesting to note that often the guest performers seem to get more out of the material than Tim and Eric themselves. John C. Reilly as the recurring character Dr Steve Brule is especially good. Another thing I liked about it is that less familiar guests are often allowed to bring their own schtick to the show – Maria Bamford’s appearance in episode 7 and particularly Neil Hamburger in episode 9 are good examples of this.

The show has already been commissioned for another 30 episodes, and my main concern is that there may be a little too much recurring material. While there is a distinct feel of breaking from the sketch show norm that has elicited comparison with Monty Python, Python didn’t really rely of recurring gags or characters to the extent TAEASGJ! has already done in just 90 minutes of material. You can still get a good sketch show with recuring elements, but I think the truly great shows attack with fresh ideas each episode.

Human Giant

Brack — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:54:41 +0000

For those who don’t know, Human Giant are Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer and the non-performing, all-directing Jason Woliner. I first came across them via their Shutterbugs series they had on Channel 102. Well they now have an MTV show called, unsurprisingly, Human Giant. And it is awesome.

Now as it is a Viacom show and I’m in the UK their website makes it hard to watch/embed their online videos without the use of proxies. Luckily as a number of their sketches existed before the MTV show there are some versions on Youtube…

What makes the show great is the quality of the direction, the fact the sketches are often willing to slowly draw out the punchline rather than go for fast gags, and, above all, a general avoidance of recurring characters and catchphrases.

There’s one trick they do that makes for a neat twist on the pull away reveal gag wherein a sketch will play out, and play out well as a sketch in and of itself, but then the last shot will change the entire meaning of what went before.

For my money it’s shaping up to be the best sketch show since Big Train and Mr Show. Well worth catching on MTV, iTunes or, if you aren’t American, via the evil powers of the internet.

Human Giant Blog
Aziz Ansari Is Bored
Paul Scheer.com
Human Giant Interview on TSOYA

More on that David Cross fortnight at the 100 Club.

Brack — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 09:08:15 +0000

According to the Olivia Wingate Artists site the friends are the aforementioned Eugene Mirman, plus Todd Barry, Kristen Schaal and Zach Galifiankis. And each night will have special musical guests. Related posts:A REALLY LOVELY NIGHT OUT WITH DAVID CROSS & FRIENDS… A REALLY LOVELY NIGHT OUT WITH DAVID CROSS & FRIENDS… Top 100 Anime Addendum [...] Related posts:

A REALLY LOVELY NIGHT OUT WITH DAVID CROSS & FRIENDS…

Brack — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 17:53:00 +0000

Claire Walker PR:

He’s back. US comedy star David Cross returns triumphantly to London after almost 3 years away, and this time brings with him some friends. David will be performing for just TWO weeks at the 100 Club, Oxford Street from 19th-30th June, 2007. Also performing each night will be a selection of some of the best American stand-ups as hand-picked by David himself.

According to Eugene Mirman’s myspace he is one of the friends. 100 club’s site doesn’t seem to have tickets available yet, so I’ll be keeping an eye on this.

My Favourite Big Train Sketch

Brack — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:11:25 +0000

Everyone’s favourite fashion label vanity act

Nothing is impossible. Except for dinosaurs.

Brack — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:14:09 +0000

30 Rock totally cemented itself as my favourite comedy show of the now with the Source Awards episode. Seriously, what other sitcom has had Ghostface Killah on their show TWICE. And this episode had LL Cool J acting, which is what he does best nowadays. AND Wayne Brady playing an awesomely boring character, who was not only boring, but the things he was boring about were bizarrely boring.

So American people, watch this stuff. Everyone else, well you can use the evil powers of the internet like I do. But watch it.

While The Office has laugh out loud moments, I find this hits that mark more often. The cast don’t just deliver good lines, they are physically funny in themselves. Characters who can make you smile just by their appearance on screen, is something to be cherished.

Five Awesome Links

Brack — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:19:52 +0000

Waxidermy – really fun and enthusiastic music site that reviews really obscure records.

The Hot Shots – home page of awesome Japanese rockabilly/country band The Hot Shots. You can get an MP3 of the first track of their Jubilee album on last year’s SXSW site.

Action – The Sevenpenny Nightmare – wonderful site detailing the history of the ill-fated Action comic. I was too young to have read it, but remember it being talked of reverentially in the pages of Comics International and by writers like Garth Ennis. As well as the history, the site is scanning and uploading each issue of the infamously violent comic.

While I didn’t ever read Action, I did read the comic it turned into, Battle Action, during it’s dying days. This was when the Action part had come to mean Action Force. Which brings us to:

Blood For The Baron – a website providing scans of all the UK Action Force (G.I. Joe to the Americans) comics printed in the Eighties. Both the IPC strips in Battle Action and the Marvel UK strips.

I Love Movies with Doug Benson – Comedy writer and stand-up, Doug Benson used to run this column on bobanddavid.com, called I Love Movies. It’s now a weekly podcast, where Doug and his celebrity guest chat about movies in front of live audience. It’s on handheldcomedy.com, so annoyingly you will have to register to get old episodes, but I think it’s worth it to hear all the archive material of this fun podcast.

Best thing on TV over Xmas?

Brack — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 03:49:00 +0000

Ricky Gervais meets Gary Shandling.

Charlie Higson has touched on some of the stuff Shandling brings up in various comedy talking heads/clips shows over the past couple of years, so it's nice to see Gervais taken to task over it face to face.

Merchandisable Frogs and other things.

Brack — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 03:59:00 +0000

First things first, here is the greatest Ayako Hamada photo I have ever seen (nicked, I think, from the lj of one of the writers of Progressive Boink):

See! She can smile!

—-

I heard Andrew Thompson's song “We're In Business” today. I liked it's blend of vocodered robots and silliness. And songs which mention the singer's name in them are great. In short, it's Chromeo if Chromeo wrote stupid songs full of rhyming couplets about robots.

—

I'm intending on get the rest of Kemonozume watched before I drive back tomorrow. I've 4 more episodes to watch. Episode 9 was really great I thought, my favourite since episode 6. AniPages Daily pointed out that apparantly it was animated by an all-female crew. Should that make a difference or be notable? I don't know. I mean, you wouldn't go out your way and proclaim something as having a special quality just because only men made it. It seems odd that, that should still be a notable thing. But I guess it's a male dominated industry and so it is still noteworthy.

Let's just say it was a a really good cartoon, and I shall keep an eye out for more things made by the same people, regardless of their gender.

—-

I see Keroro Gunso got licensed while I was working and not paying attention to the internet. ADV too. I wonder how much that cost them? Still good to see it licensed and good to see ADV pick up a potentially big series (and if handled well – a license to print money).

—

Been catching up too with Man To Man With Dean Learner. Can't help wondering Ayoade and Holness' parodies are possibly too specific to have a wide appeal. Even when parodying something with a fairly high public status like Uri Gellar, they get into parodying specific points like Gellar's appearance on The Tonight Show.

Which for me is aces, as that's the sort of anal retentive accuracy that I'll eat up with a spoon. There's a vague spectre hanging over the show that the original concept may have the Deano's After Dark show we see clips of occasionally. And that probably would have been even better from my point of view, though possibly not for the casual viewer. Regardless, I've been enjoying it and the Merriman Weir and Glynn Nimron episodes especially.

Hello Television

Brack — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 20:18:00 +0000

Secret Policeman's Ball – Deary me that was terrible. I caught Channel 4's broadcast (which I understand was missing a lot of material) and most of it was devoid of laughs. I did like the Boosh and the chap from the Hollow Men's miming. Russell Brand can be a bit hit or miss for me, but I liked his bit too. Even if I was distracted by trying to work out what percentage of his personality is Frank Spencer. At least he's getting material out of the pruient interest in his ubiquity. Sarah Silverman was OK, more for the reaction of an audience unfamiliar with her material. But for me that material was overly familiar. And her delivery of it has gotten weaker in stand up terms. She's gotten better as an actress, but it seems to have sapped the energy of her stand up.

Never Mind The Buzzcocks – That's better. Changing the presenter has suddenly made this seem fresh again. Mark Lamarr had looked bored of it for the last 5 years. Hasn't he pretty much given up on comedy now anyway? Also Jupitus looks sizes smaller. Surprising return to form all told.

30 Rock – This is still good. In fact getting better, as Fey seems to relax into the role. Strange that Jane Krakowski seems to have been sidelined somewhat. But if it means more Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit and Judah Friedlander that seems OK. But still odd. Also has Rachel Dratch been doing different characters in each episode like she was supposed to do after getting nudged out of the Krakowski role? I've not noticed her if she has, but then again I may be an idiot.

Podcasts, Humpers and Sitcoms

Brack — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 01:25:00 +0000

THESE TWO PODCASTS ARE INTERESTING:

Anime World Order Podcast #37 – An interview with Marc Handler, a screenwriter responsible for a variety of anime ADR scripts over the last 20 or so years.

Comic Geek Speak Episode 192 – An interview with Tad Stones, director of the Hellboy animated features.

Also I have been enjoying Fast Karate For The Gentleman.

—

FULL VERSION OF TIM AND ERIC's “HUMPERS” SKETCH:

I'd seen the actual Humpers part before, but not the framing sequence. With the framing sequence it seems even more reminiscent of a Reeves and Mortimer sketch than it did originally. Actually thinking about it T&E are very similar to Bang Bang era R&M in how they mix low brow and abstract humour and are willing to border on horror on occasion.

—

I really liked the second episode of 30 Rock. The ending was kind of predictable, but it was fun nonetheless. In fact it's probably my favourite sitcom right now. The second series of My Name Is Earl is beginnig to feel a little to comfortable to be great now. Plus the spectre of scientology hangs over it in the form of Lee and Suplee. What a couple of marks.

Talking of scientology, I see Jeffrey Tambor is another mark/cultist. That's as bad as hearing Beck is one in my book. At least Beck's got the excuse that he was brought up one, rather than buying into that hogwash as an adult. That being said, it does make the bit in the first season of Arrested Development where George Snr. starts selling religous tapes from jail all the more amusing.

I devote my young life to volleyball

Brack — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 05:52:00 +0000

—

Whoo, these new Harvey Birdman episodes aren't that great. Even with more Birdgirl. The only really good gags in the 3rd ep were the meta stuff about Stephen Colbert. And that only works if you pay attention to who is in the cast. And know what else they do.

—

Saw the first episode of 30 Rock via the evil powers of the internet. I quite enjoyed it. Go read what Warren Ellis wrote about it, as I agree with most what he wrote and he wrotes better than me. As that sentance just proved. The stuff about Arthur Atkinson particularly rings true. I'm sure one of the physical gags Tracy Morgan's character does at the end of the episode appears in one of the Fast Show sketches (the bit with him dangling the bottom of his arm). I recall reading somewhere that Tina Fey originally didn't want to star in it, only write, but it was a studio thing that she had to. She certainly is the weakest performer in it in terms of not quite fitting the character properly.

—

Go get ezLizard's fansub of the first episode of GeGeGe no Kitarou. I understand it was a one off produced for a convention (in much the same way the Chubby Ninja fansub was), but get it nonetheless. It's a standalone episode and an example of the sort of thing fansubs should be used for. Probably want to google the series first though as the anime seems to assume some basic familiarity with the character.

—

Also caught the first episode of the new Nabeshin supervised anime Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, the manga of which is released in English as “The Wallflower”. The anime doesn't seem to have a decent budget, but you can tell the show is a Nabeshin show. Lots of the visual tricks/short cuts he used in Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemi are evident here and it works.

That being said there's plenty of better fansubs you could be watching, and it does feel like the anime has been made to cash in on the Ouran Host Club anime's popularity. And that anime is several miles better than this one.

But I'll probably keep watching as it is Nabeshin after all, and he seems to have been given freer reign here as the supervising director than the work he's done on Eyeshield 21.

Oh I suppose I should say what it's about. 4 bishonens, stereotypes to the point of absurdity, stay in a ludicrous mansion. Their landlady offers them free rent for a month if they can turn her niece into a lady. The niece is morbid teen, with bad hair and skin, who shuts herself away watching horror films with her cut away anatomical mannequin for company. So, it's a Pygmalion set-up, but reviews of the manga seem to suggest it isn't the focus of the plots. Reviews of the manga also suggest the plot goes nowhere and the series settles into just focussing on gags for the most part, so hopefully that turns into a postive for the TV show considering the director.

—

Also thanks to the evil powers of the internet, I reread Zenith this week for the first time in almost 20 years. Truth be told, I'd only ever read the second arc, the one with the evil Richard Branson character. Which was handy as that is the one that ties in the least with overall story of the batlle with the Lloigor. It still reads well overall – the only clunky bit being the appearance of Chimera at the end of Phase II. It feels somewhat ill fitting with the rest of that arc.

The Story of Everest

Brack — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 04:02:00 +0000

This is either the worst or best comedy sketch. I go for best.

As linked to via the radio…

Brack — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:16:00 +0000

Danny Baker just told his listeners to go to Youtube and search Ugly Battle Of The Bands. So I did. I'm pleased I did.

Good to go good stuff

Brack — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 21:02:00 +0000

Yes. It's the stuff that rules.

The Amazing Adventures of DJ Yoda

It has TWO Biz Markie tracks (one about Breakfast Cereal, called Breakfast Cereal. And another about a Haunted House, called Haunted House). It has Sway. It has shout outs from David Dickinson and Mark Hamill. It also has MC Paul Barman, but you can't have everything. Yoda's good, but he can't pull Prince Paul's trick of making Barman palatable.

Anyway, the Breakfast Cereal track is probably worth the entry fee alone.

Demetri Martin – These Are Jokes

Demetri Martin's first comedy CD has a lot of jokes. In many ways if feels like a compilation of all his jokes up to this point in his career. Some of it is familiar from various stand up appearances I've seen from him elsewhere.

Some of it is a little too reminiscent of the obvious influence of Stephen Wright, but his unrelated jokes while playing guitar schtick is close to Zach Galifianakis' unrelateted jokes while playing piano. As was his “Gay Beatle” joke the same as Galifianakis' “Fat Jesus” joke just with the descriptor changed. And those bonus tracks were too cute and self indulgent.

The shorter Comedy Central Presents set that you get on the bonus DVD is a better collection of material, but the sheer number of jokes on the CD performance, means regardless of it's faults it is still an excellent CD.

Detective Conan Movie 10 – The Private Eye's Requiem.

The tenth anniversary Detective Conan film. It has just about every recurring character in it, with only Kudo's parents and the Black Organisation missing. It brings chaos to the main characters rather than them simply restoring order, so it has that noir tinge that tends to set the films apart from the TV series.

The plot has some overused standard detective show traits – the “certain type of” clue does appear, but it also has plenty of the wordplay clues that are arguably the series' trademark as a detective show. Even though it's clearly aimed at mainly at kids – once again the action takes place at an amusement park – the complexity of it's plots never talks down to them, which accounts for a lot of it's lengthy success.

Get Smart

Been watching the first season of this spy spoof sitcom from the minds of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. It's out via Time Life on DVD in States in November, but won't be in shops for another year. So being a UK dweller I'm stuck with watching rips of episodes taped off TV Land for the time being.

And the thing has aged incredibly well. I know Channel 4 used to repeat a while back, it's a shame they've not stuck with it like they stuck with Bewitched (another great 60s sitcom). It certainly contains some of Brooks' best writing. The B&W pilot episode was a little weak, but the colour episodes take very little time before they hit their stride.

Quell Quails Quaintly

Brack — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 04:28:00 +0000

MIND BLITZ

* My Name Is Earl Season 2 has started. Still good, though it's not feeling essential viewing any more. Possibly because I started watching The Office (us). Even though I'm prefering The Office, I'm deleting eps as I go, yet hanging onto …Earl. Something about The Office's feeling of unease makes it un-rewatchable for me.

* The South Park World of Warcraft was… OK. The balancing act it was doing of trying to please fans, people who have no idea what it involves and Blizzard made it an odd watch, with curiously little in the way of satirical messages. There was ALMOST something there about withdrawing troops from Iraq, but it didn't get developed. Still for what it was, a mainstream machina experiment, it worked.

* One Piece has now made me cry TWICE this week. The anime and the manga. And I finally worked out why it has the best crying in anime/manga – snot. The fact characters that who cry, regardless of who they are, get that dribble of snot from their nose that you get when you really gush, makes all the difference.

* Final (?) 7 episode season of Harvey Birdman started. Probably for the best as this one felt a little tired. And also because whatever they did with Shazzan could never be as funny as what Robert Smigel did with him on TV Funhouse.

* That Lupe Fiasco album is aces. However… a 3 minute intro? And more to the however, a TWELVE minute outro, with the most excessive shouting out known to man? Is there a track anywhere that exceeds this shout out-osity?

* Been enjoying the second Venture Bros season and likewise the just finished Tom Goes To The Mayor. Both seem not afraid to turn into horror shows as required. And TGTTM had Bob Odenkirk reprising some Mr Show characters in everything but name, so that was cool too. Apparantly Tim and Eric are doing a sketch show next for Adult Swim, which should be interesting.

* FOUR freshly subbed Kemonozume episodes this week. This is my favourite thing. It should be your favourite thing too. GO WATCH NOW, AND MAYBE I DON'T SET THE DOGS ON YOU, YES?

Blimus!

Brack — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 21:07:00 +0000

Feline Stop Motion Japanese Cuteness

Star Trek/Monty Python Convergence

Angle's TNA clip

Jim Cornette, Michael P.S. Hayes, King Kong, Godzilla, Grampa Munster: A WINNING COMBINATION

ISB unleashes The Bill Mantloest Story Of All Time

Drawn! talk about James Harvey's 100 Pirates In 100 Days

Terrible Twist Ending

“The power that a man loses in his legs is transferred to his arms.”

What's the point of daddy longlegs?

Stuff That Rules 3000

Brack — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:58:00 +0000

The long-delayed return of stuff that rules!

Black Lagoon

12 episodes of immaculately animated action. It felt a lot like some of the arcs in Ennis' Hitman comic in terms of the level of violence and ridiculousness it delivers with a deadpan face. Treasure hunting neo-nazis, war criminal maids, crazy boat vs. helicopter gunship fights, nuns with guns, scarred ex-Spetznatz Russian Mafia-types (actually that's more like Ellis – there was period in the nineties where he seemed obsessed with Spetznatz…). Anyway, there's a lot to love here in terms of slightly OTT action thrillers. And it's nice to have a show that is an office worker's fantasy rather than the adolescent fantasies most anime shows serve.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO – Mantra Of Love

Acid Mothers Temple have always been a band lurking on the outskirts of my radar, taunting me to listen to them. And really considering I have album of 60s and 70s Japanese psychedelia, I really should give the modern equivalent a try. So why not start with one that only has 2 tracks. One of which is a thirty minute version of a traditional tune that only contains 3 syllables. It is, needless to say, awesome.

Kemonozume

I've written enough here already about how great this show is. The first 3 episodes have been fansubbed now, so go watch it already.

That Mitchell And Webb Look

OK, I'm putting the fact that there was a totally unnecessary second Numberwang sketch down to the first episode seemingly being a pilot episode. The second episode seemed to be mainly new material, whereas the first was culled almost entirely from the radio show. That minor quibble aside, this is looking to be first great UK sketch show since Jam. Hopefully it will be a great success and we can see the death of catchphrases and rewriting the same sketch again and again as a way of producing sketch comedy.

The Office

After the pilot episode that was too reverent to the original BBC show, I dismissed the US version of The Office. But on hearing good things about the second series, I thought I'd give it a try again this season. And it is great. Now it's deviated enough from the source material and found it's own voice it is wonderful. It's played broader than the original, but it works well. And the introduction of Ed Helms' character Andy is great idea, both as the character itself, as a contrast to Dwight character and the jokes it got out of acknowledging the presence of the camera (a gag which also was played out elsewhere in the episode). I really do suggest giving it a second try if you were put off by the first series. It's certainly better than Extras.

Can we stop pretending that it was a better idea than making more Office episodes? Getting “stars” to portray exageratted versions of themselves is an one-note gag, and getting Ketih Chegwin to say bigotted things isn't deep or edgy, it's the equivalent of Dick and Dom In Da Bungalow's “Bogies” game. A snickering childish “look how shocking we are!” type move that has no deeper meaning. It's not like Borat tricking real people into joining in with racism, it's a script Gervais has written that is entirely reliant on who he could find to say it in order to make it funny. Because without the shock value of who is saying it, it is just racism and homophobia.

ALSO: THE RETURN OF THINGS THAT A WANT A PUNCH IN THE FACE

CIVIL WAR #4

Firstly a defence of Millar's poor characterisation. The people he is writing the worst are Reed Richards and Tony Stark, two characters of that a lot of writers have struggled to find the voice of. Stark is particularly hard and it's arguable no one has found a voice that works since the Micheline/Layton run. In fact it probably would have been wiser to permanently put someone else in the suit after they left as it's unlikely that they can be matched. So I'm willing to let their general jerkiness and poor characterisation slide.

And the cloned Thor, as bad an idea as that is and as contradictory to past Iron Man stories as it is (Starks hate magic, remember?), is not the problem either.

Nor is the mini series contradicting stuff going on in ongoing titles, that's a more a criticism of Marvel editorial than the comic itself.

HOWEVER what is godawful about this comic is the actual internal logic of this issue. Tony is feeling bad about Goliath biting it when Cloned Thor gets out of control. So what's his next plan of action to handle the rogue heroes? Send supervilains after them! And not just any supervillains, ones who are known murderers. Honestly, what sort of idiot sends Bullseye on a mission to capture people?

The reveal only serves to be a reveal, it doesn't actually fit in with what has been said by people on the previous pages. Millar's tricks work in The Ultimates because he's the stories less condensed and there isn't 40+ years of continuity to contradict him and hold him back. Here it just feels like he's working to story beats, with little in the way of characterisation or plot to link them together.

I wouldn't say it's an out and out bad comic, as McNiven has some great art here, but it's not working as the spine of a massive crossover company event, and it also isn't working as a stand alone mini series either, both due to poor plot and characterisation issues raised here and due to some plot elements being resolved in other comics. Where inevitably contradications start to arise. It's a shame as the core idea is good, just poorly executed.