Category: Lafftastic

A recent BoingBoing post reminded me to check out Charlie Brooker on YouTube, although the clips it linked to were some of his less brilliant. Brooker does not just sit on a couch and insult twats on TV (as the original link showed), but his deconstruction of the way television manipulates our emotions is some of the best media studies-turned-comedy I’ve seen. The closest the U.S. has is the duo of Colbert and Stewart, but their focus is mostly on politics. (One of my students reminded me that ZeFrank does some of this too). Instead Brooker assaults the entire apparatus. For more on the series, here’s a Wikipedia thingy and the official BBC Four site. Here’s a selection of the best moments I could find on YouTube:

Brooker looks at how Reality TV is edited, and how narratives can be manipulated out of raw footage.
Here’s his overview on the dreadful Celebrity Big Brother that I had the misfortune of seeing when I was in Liverpool.
“Aspirational TV” pretty much deconstructs everything that’s wrong with not only television but capitalism in general. Brilliant!
He also takes on the X Factor, known in the US by our similarly crap version, American Idol.
Brooker doesn’t always slag things off–here he praises the series The Wire, and rightly so, because it is one of the best shows ever.

Want more? Here’s some full all four seasons plus two holiday specials!:
Charlie Brooker’s ScreenWipe Season One (March 2006):
Episode One: 1 2 3
Episode Two: 1 2 3
Episode Three: 1 2 3

Charlie Brooker’s ScreenWipe Season Two (July-Aug 2006):
Episode One: 1 2 3
Episode Two: 1 2 3
Episode Three: 1 2 3 (Severely Edited b/c of YouTube, but here’s the real deal)
Episode Four: 1 2 3
Episode Five (Screenwipe USA): 1 2 3 4 5 6

Charlie Brooker’s ScreenWipe Specials (December 2006):
Christmas 2006 1 2 3 4
2006 Year in Review 1 2 3

Charlie Brooker’s ScreenWipe Season Three (February 2007):
Episode One: 1 2 3
Episode Two: 1 2 3
Episode Three: 1 2 3
Episode Four: 1 2 3

Charlie Brooker’s ScreenWipe Season Four (September 2007):
Episode One: 1 2 3
Episode Two: 1 2 3
Episode Three:
1 2 3
Episode Four: 1 2 3
Episode Five: 1 2 3

One man’s raid on his grandma’s video stash is the Internet’s treasure. Shame on him.

Due to popular demand (mostly Jon bugging me), I am posting the links to Season Two of The IT Crowd, currently the funniest bit o’ Brit-com not on the American telly. Some great moments this season, including the opening episode set on a “work outing” to the theatre and a brilliant “dinner party” episode. The American remake is in the works, and though Moss is continuing on, how can it really compare? Enjoy before the Yanks ruin it again…

Episode One: The Work Outing 1 2 3
Episode Two: Return of the Golden Child 1 2 3
Episode Three: Moss and the German 1 2 3
Episode Four: The Dinner Party 1 2 3
Episode Five: Smoke and Mirrors 1 2 3
Episode Six: Men Without Women 1 2 3

When it first came out last year, I watched two shows, laughed, then forgot to download the rest. Now, because of the mentions of Season Two on BoingBoing, I went back and caught up. And so should you if you haven’t heard of this British comedy. “The IT Crowd” is a sit-com about two IT nerds–one slobby, one uptight–in a faceless company, whose geeky male environment is flipped upside-down with the appearance of an equally incompetent female manager. Much comedy is made of this threadbare set-up, getting progressively sillier each episode. Stick with the show until about Episode 4 before giving up–I bet you won’t.

Thankfully, all the eps are on YouTube until somebody notices.

Here’s the opening sequence

Episode One: Yesterday’s Jam: 1 2 3
Episode Two: Calamity Jen: 1 2 3
Episode Three: Fifty Fifty: 1 2 3
Episode Four: The Red Door: 1 2 3
Episode Five: The Haunting of Bill Crouse: 1 2 3
Episode Six: Aunt Irma Visits: 1 2 3

Here’s some outtakes/bloopers: Part 1 2
Here’s some cut/extended scenes: 1

May I just note, appropos of nothing, that I find Katherine Parkinson very hot. Thank you.

BlueGrassRoots goes to check out the idiocy of the Creationist Museum, one more blot on an already sullied American reputation.

Early in the museum, the visitor is given advice on the proper mind frame to have for your visit: “Don’t think, just listen and believe”. As you can see in the picture below, Human Reason is the enemy and God’s Word is the hero. Descartes represents Human Reason, saying “I think, therefore I am”. But God tells us there no need to waste your beautiful mind, for God says “I am that I am”.

Insert Popeye joke here. Really the whole “museum” is just one more version of the traveling revivalist show, with dioramas from Eden to the awfulness of today, full of drugs, pedophelia, and Ted Haggard. Just this time there’s dinosaurs (for the kids!)

Man attaches mini-digi camera around the neck of his cat and is able to see what Mr. Lee gets up to during the day. I find the whole idea (and the results) quite hilarious.

East Coast sweary version of guy playing Super Mario. Audio NSFW, funniest thing I’ve seen all week.

This song was stuck in my head this morning. Wikipedia + Google + YouTube helped me track it down. It originally comes from an Al Jolson movie of the same year (1936), where he sings it, as well as Cab Calloway. But that’s not out on DVD or VHS. I dare say that most people know the song from the cartoon version!