let me get this right: you, an 11 o'clock show writer, are asking the corpses to submit material for consideration in your new projects? and when they say no I suppose you'll start wandering round making clucking noises and calling them chicken or something.

interesting that you seem to think this website is a good place to plug things though.

It's like being back on the playground again. The TVGH lot stand on one side, the Corpses on the other, and we're all caught in the flying spittle.

Eurgh.

>Well, hang on -- they're including me in that statement. And oddly enough, I find this (together with their subsequent demand for a "public apology" from all 11OCS staff) personally offensive.

good - now you'll know how we all felt when watching your show.

>It's like being back on the playground again. The TVGH lot stand on one side, the Corpses on the other, and we're all caught in the flying spittle.
>
>Eurgh.

Shame really, as we seem to be pretty much agreed that TV Go Home isn't at all bad. (Personally I'm a huge fan, and if Jon hadn't already bagged it I would have plumped for "Buzz Buzz Meadowmouth Vonnegut Assignment" as my favourite item yet.) But the bo11ocs remains indefensible. What was meant to be a flagship topical show turned out as a contemptible pile of shit (I really can't identify the bits Charlie Brooker thought were quite funny; I can't have watched that edition) but limped on regardless of the fact that it was clearly held in utter contempt by its writers, producers and (I'll use the word, it *is* a comedy forum) performers. Every aspect of this show was FUCKING LAZY. (Oh, except for the joke about a woman who had killed two hundred slugs being prosecuted for "a salt". But something tells me that's an old Two Ronnies line anyway...) It's the first time in living memory that kids watching a comedy series and thinking "God, *I* could do that" have been right.

Charlie hints that behind-the-scenes struggles at the show were partly responsible for its end-of-term revue quality - like what, Charlie? Whose idea *was* it to recruit that line-up of hapless goats to fuck up what little material there was three times a week? At what point did all the writers decide the show was a bottom drawer job? Who, ultimately, is the humourless arse who honestly thinks Iain Lee is funny? These aren't meant to be leading questions or an attempt to bait you - I genuinely want to know because I find the continued existence of this show (and, frankly, of Iain Lee) genuinely upsetting.

<Part of my new job (as a co-founder of zeppotron.com) is to produce *precisely* the kind of comedy that makes me laugh.

Personally I'd aim for a much bigger audience.

> It's like being back on the playground again. The TVGH lot stand on one side, the Corpses on the other, and we're all caught in the flying spittle.

Naaah, it's more like one big "angry w*nking" contest. Reading this site for the past few weeks has been like being repeatedly prodded in the chest with a small stick, so I had to have a swipe.

Actually, I quite enjoy being provoked by the Corpses. Perhaps I'm falling in love with them, in a 'Moonlighting' kind of way.

Oooh I like a good scrap.

I have been visiting this site for several months and frequently found it interesting and funny.However,why do I(and everybody I have recommended this Site to,and thats quite a few) get that(>deep breath< here we go.) overwhelming impression of elitism,odious snobbery and a sourness from its writers and SOME of the SOTCAA forum contributers.
Im sorry I am inclined to agree with your previous detractors that this site occassionally whiffs of a Sixth form common room at lunchtime or the NME letters page carping on about Morrissey in 1986.
You get all indignant and smug when anyone dares to criticise you too.I always enjoy Rob S defending you ,like that little goblin who sits in front of Jabba the Hutt.
"Leave my Masters alone Infidels!"
More constructive criticism,ENCOURAGEMENT to people wanting to enter the business (and less self indulgent babble from SOTCAA contributers purlease!)then you have the fantastic site this so nearly is, rather than an arrogant derisory, poisonous corpse fuck fest.
I am being nice,most people write you off as either bitter,scary,childish,no sex life (Yeah yawn)obssessive pedants,failures,cowardly,brattish,wannabees,counter productive,mysogynistic,stuck in the past wankers who sit over their keyboards with a dictionary and Thesaurus all day waiting for the next Pythons to come along.
Not me ,just the comments I get.Bloody plebs eh? No doubt Bent Hakenbrush or someone will leap in saying something bleedin obvious about the freedom of speech and you want "good"?comedy to flourish thru the bad,miss the point etc. etc.
P.S. Sorry about the Jabba jibe Rob S, your design for SOTCAA is excellent.

...Eep..!

Yes, let's just pick our way through the bile and negativity from regular contributors, shall we?
"TV Go Home isn't at all bad. (Personally I'm a huge fan" (about 5 threads ago)
"Bought the Adam and Joe book the other day and it's class"
"Best Comedy Songs" etc. etc.
and even someone defending Alan Davies.
Of course there's lots of negativity, too. But it's not the unremitting nay-saying you seem to think it is.
I, Dr. B. Hakenbrush, have personally championed TVGoHome and The Onion. Also look at the feedback in the READER'S SURVEY. I don't think judging current comedy by the standards of the classics (ie anything before about 1995) is "living in the past". Or do you honestly think The 11 O'Clock show was good?
I can't defend the Corpses' attacks on TGP, though.

>I am being nice,most people write you off as either bitter,scary,childish,no sex life (Yeah yawn)obssessive pedants, failures,cowardly,brattish,wannabees,counter productive, mysogynistic,stuck in the past wankers who sit over their keyboards with a dictionary and Thesaurus all day waiting for the next Pythons to come along.

*awaits cogent, non-patronising, non-abusive, non-"plebs"-mentioning response from Corpses with bated breath*

*slowly going blue*

Don't suffer another respiaratory failure, Mogwai. Get some air in you.

*feeble cough*

(name removed) and (name removed) (name removed) and (name removed) (name removed) and (name removed) (name removed) and (name removed) (name removed) and (name removed) (name removed) and (name removed) (name removed) and (name removed) (name removed) and (name removed) (name removed) and (name removed)

S. Kilner -

A bit of encouragement for people entering the business? No. Sorry, but no. There's already too much encouragement. Our argument is to wheedle out the chancers and cunts long before inception stage. They want to 'learn their craft'? Let them do so in private. Encouragement is one thing, promoting somebody above their level of competence is quite another.

Chris Morris once did a great rant on his 1994 Radio One show about attending a media convention. Some 'stooooodent' stood up and started whining about how people like Morris (working in the media) should be on hand to 'open doors' for people like them (students who genuinely think they've got everything worked out and that the media owes them a living), adding that this is the way to go if the BBC want 'good programmes'. Morris went ballistic ('What? What? People like you should *never* be allowed anywhere near the media. There should be no training schemes. If you've got any clout you'll kick the door down yourself and get in that way'). Morris himself idly wondered when he'd become so reactionary (or should that be 'self-important' a la Herring-claims) but ended with 'Of course I was right!'.

And he is fucking right. Prove your worth in the media. If you're a comedy writer, producer, whatever. Prove it. That's what we advocate. There are already too many chancers. Too many favours. We need more talent. There's no worthy filter at the moment though. Don't we argue this in the 'S Lee Is Wrong' thing - we need better producers who will recognise when a script is class and tell the chancers not to bother. Instead we have producers hiring not very good writers for a flawed project like The 11 O'Clock Show, making totally unreasonable demands on them, seemingly encouraging the worst material out of them (which gets screwed up anyway by the delivery of somebody who obviously can't perform) and then they have the audacity to broadcast this shit. On the telly. And they pay the people involved some money. Which they spend on sweets.

Or we get people setting themselves up as potential producers despite not having proved themselves particularly fantastic themselves.

I say bring back the 11 oclock show but as a non-payment deal. Make the programme as a
showreel for producers/writers/presenters. Don't broadcast it. Put it in the bin.

Jon and Mogwai - tell us how 'arrogant' you think Chris Morris is with that tirade against 'stooodents'? We'll pass your comments on, we promise.

Some mad bastard's been calling you a pair of 'fucking hypocrites' on the Readers Survey thread by the way.

"Jon and Mogwai - tell us how 'arrogant' you think Chris Morris is with that tirade against 'stooodents'?"

Speaking for myself, I hadn't given it a thought. But it's nice to get lumped in with a load of other people.

I'm not sure there is 'plenty of encouragement' at all. I think the reason people like Iain Lee, Amy Jenkins et al get work is because all they are good at is breaking down doors, being arrogant and pushy. This seems to be the only way anyone in the media gets work these days. Morris, if I recall, started out as a news jouranlist for Radio Bristol. If anyone wanted to emulate him by simply being iconoclastic at Weekending script meetings I'm sure they'd be roundly ignored. A talent filter yes, but why not a more constructive programme of locating and grooming that talent rather than lazy, thinly veiled theft like the current BBC Talent schemes

Morris, apparently, started as a news trainee at Radio Cambridgeshire, but was taken on at Radio Bristol by (apparently) Johnnie Walker. That's what I read.

Amy Jenkins - I still say she's talentless, incidentally. It's her fault things like Tinsel Town are on.

Although I agree with most of what The Other Corpses Editor has written, I do think the doors fall open much easier if you're middle class or well-connected (like Morris) I worked as a labourer on a building site for 8 years and no fucker even looks at my CV. Your argument doesn't take into account a person's background. I left school at 16 (neither I nor my parents considered the possibility of staying on) and I did what was expected of me, I brought a wage into the home (packing biscuits.) It wasn't until I was 20 that I thought, you've fucked up here Gee. Perhaps I should have tried a bit harder at school � well yes I should have. But it's hard to study when your mum is in and out of a mental institution and instead of making your breakfast she's crying on the sofa or you're waiting for the ambulance because her stomach needs pumping again. Kinda puts a kiddie off their homework and studies.

Sorry about all the detail but it annoys me when I hear naive wankers spouting bollocks.

Gee

>Jon and Mogwai - tell us how 'arrogant' you think Chris Morris is with that tirade against 'stooodents'? We'll pass your comments on, we promise.

Well of course Chris is arrogant - that's part of his charm. (That's partly his 'comedy' persona - but only partly.) But his rant is disingenuous, to say the least - it's a damn sight easier to "kick the door down" if someone well-disposed in the industry has already left it on the latch for you.


>Some apoplectic raging sleep-deprived maniac's been calling you a pair of 'fucking hypocrites' on the Readers Survey thread by the way.

I know, he seems to be a bit upset. Actually, having read through it all again, he seems to have taken my posting a bit personally . Nowhere did I suggest that the Corpses alone were responsible for Simon Pegg getting upset - what I tried to convey (and apparently failed, given his hurt tone - "Mogwai, how dare you?" etc) was that the forum IN GENERAL had given him a hard time, and consequently off he fucked. I wasn't suggesting for a minute that it was the Corpses' minutely-dissected comedy critiques that caused him to flee - rather, it was the fact that the thread (as far as I remember) descended almost to the level of personal abuse.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that we abandon our fine tradition of amusingly abusing mini-celebrities whom we consider to be talentless. Just that we don't actually do it to their faces.

Not wishing to start an argument, Mogwai, but I'm actually with CM on this one. Having worked in local radio, I have seen first hands the apalling results when untalented people get a handy 'leg-up'. CM is an example of someone who genuinely did kick the door down, and he brought with him the determination and carefully-honed skill that he had cultivated through neccessity. Unlike all of the idiots who get in on 'talent finding' schemes, and chatter inanely between records they have clearly never heard in their lives.

It's like - if I may use an early 1990s indie analogy - the difference between The Stone Roses and The Lemontrees. The Stone Roses had to fight every step of the way to get where they got, and that made them determined to produce brilliant records (which, up to a point, they did). The Lemontrees were put together by a record company as a vehicle for a promising songwriter, and churned out insipid blandness.

Morris still had an advantage over others (nice middle class, educated parents.) As a joke what Morris says is funny. But it's pretty fucking stupid if he really believes that.

Yeah, but he can hardly be accused of exploiting that advantage. His entire career has been characterised by a determination to do things the way he wants to, and to hell with what anyone else thinks.

TJ the middle class don't really get the class thing. They don't understand about how disadvantageous it is to have parents who can barely read. In many working class homes there is no culture. The children aren't expected to do any thing other than contribute a wage. If Moriss doesn't believe that some students need financial help then he's first class arse.

If you listen to the item in question, CM ain't talking about financial help for students, he's talking about pointless training courses that will accept everyone regardless of talent.

And I actually come from a working class background myself.

<... he's talking about pointless training courses that will accept everyone regardless of talent.

Oh, you mean Channel 4.

>Nowhere did I suggest that the Corpses alone were responsible for Simon Pegg getting upset - what I tried to convey (and apparently failed, given his hurt tone - "Mogwai, how dare you?" etc) was that the forum IN GENERAL had given him a hard time, and consequently off he fucked. I wasn't suggesting for a minute that it was the Corpses' minutely-dissected comedy critiques that caused him to flee - rather, it was the fact that the thread (as far as I remember) descended almost to the level of personal abuse.


Come on, readers! What do we think? WAS it all the Corpses' fault? Or can the whole sorry episode be blamed on the bad behaviour of the collective? Send us your views - we'd like to hear them!


>I'm not suggesting for a moment that we abandon our fine tradition of amusingly abusing mini-celebrities whom we consider to be talentless. Just that we don't actually do it to their faces.

Uh, Mogwai... that may be just a little <too> honest.

Mogwai -
I wasn't upset about the Pegg thing - just bewildered that it's still being used against us despite being a silly joke that people took far too seriously. But you did direct the comment against 'The Corpses' ('Not their finest hour'). Whatever. A moment of incoherent rage a la Rory Perrierperson. Don't deny me the pleasure. My heart's in the right place. And I love you.

Gee-
I'm working class. I'm unemployed. My family's scattered all over the place. I never went to university. I have no qualifications whatsoever. I've had some horrible experiences throughout my life. But at this particular moment my feet are warm, my heart is pure and my CD player has 'Sheik Yerbouti' on a continuous loop. Be happy, yeah? Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

Now that's what I call an assertive yet conciliatory way to argue.

Joe4SOTCAA, you are a top bloke.