Well, I said this at the time and I'm still saying it now:

NO-ONE can have just watched "jam" by accident. Even if they had stumbled across it by chance, I doubt they would have kept watching (I can back this up with plenty of examples of people that I know, who switched over immediately). Whoever these complainants were, they were watching deliberately to find something to complain about, and the apathy and pointless censorship and interference of the complaining society is more dangerous than any "jam" sketch could ever be.

I wrote:

>Though funnily enough, the almighty 'watchdogs' are not named in the article. Can we assume from that that it's someone less consequential than the ITC?

Forgive my cynicism - it's actually from the latest BSC bulletin (the complaints were only upheld in part, by the way). See http://www.bsc.org.uk for further details.

I hate to think what they make of the Tory Party Conference coverage then. I wonder if Anna Widdecombe is kept alive by hydraulics or could even be brought to life by a bong.

>I hate to think what they make of the Tory Party Conference coverage then. I wonder if Anna Widdecombe is kept alive by hydraulics or could even be brought to life by a bong.

Sorry kinder, but reading that I immediately though of Ren & Stimpy, where Ren splits into evil Ren and hideously evil Ren - rather like Anne and Anna Widdecombe.
;)

:) I don't know how I managed to call her Anna. Must be one of the incriminating affects of drug use.

>Sorry kinder, but reading that I immediately though of Ren & Stimpy, where Ren splits into evil Ren and hideously evil Ren - rather like Anne and Anna Widdecombe.
>;)

Don't want to be pedantic, but Ren got split into Apathetic Ren and Evil Ren.

>>Sorry kinder, but reading that I immediately though of Ren & Stimpy, where Ren splits into evil Ren and hideously evil Ren - rather like Anne and Anna Widdecombe.
>>;)
>
>Don't want to be pedantic, but Ren got split into Apathetic Ren and Evil Ren.

Yes, I know - he then split again into Evil Ren and hideously evil Ren, who got married to each other (a case of love at first sight). I was only using that comparison, because kinder accidentally typed Anna Widdecombe, and the thought crossed my mind that there was an Evil Anne and hideously evil Anna Widdecombe......

Does this mean that 'jam' can never be repeated with those sketches intact? I know if the ITC uphold a complaint then the offending material can't be repeated, but do the BSC hold the same power, or are they just a bunch of interfering busybodies? Or what?

I don't recall seeing any complaints about the show on the ITC website (http://www.itc.org.uk I think).

So no complaints about 'The Gush'.

Interesting.

"jam" will be repeated even if I have to take over Channel 4 to get it repeated.

I hope jam does get repeated, even though I taped them all (and jaaaam too). I've learned my lesson from Brass Eye...

Incidentally, if anyone wants to read the report containing the complaints made about jam, it can be found at http://www.bsc.org.uk/bulletin/bulletin35.pdf

Well worth a look... there are some odd complaints. Some of the complaints that weren't upheld include:

Catchphrase (racist content)
A documentary about Kenneth Williams ("homosexual language", whatever that means)
HIGNFY ("offence against Royal Family"

Don't these people have anything better to do with their lives?

Here is the missing close bracket from the last post:

)

What infuriates me more than anything is that these people seem to have the ultimate say-so over anything that we - and not they - enjoy. Personally I would like to have "Stars In Their Eyes" banned on the grounds that it is a waste of time and money and I find it offensively moronic, but unfortunately I have much better things to do with my time.

The way that the press are reporting it is really pissing me off too... basically just "Satirist Chris Morris has been rapped by watchdogs over a sketch about abortion". No contextualisation, nothing. Why can't these people just go and live their own lives and leave us alone?

Hey, maybe we should all complain about 11 O Clock Show

>http://www.netscapeonline.co.uk/entertainment/0.html
>
>Though funnily enough, the almighty 'watchdogs' are not named in the article. Can we assume from that that it's someone less consequential than the ITC?
>
I had a look for it, but the relevant page has been replaced with some crap about Craig David.

I did find a picture of Michael Douglas which looks amusingly like a decaying corpse.

There's also a link to TV Go Home, which, apparently, is like "The Radio Times - On Acid!"

(sigh)

If you look at the latest "Bulletin" (annoying PDF format) on www.bsc.org.uk, you'll see that there are some partially upheld complaints about 11O'cS.
It seems like any standards complaint you make will be "partially" upheld.

>It seems like any standards complaint you make will be "partially" upheld.

I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion; they seem to have upheld 6 standards complaints out of about 60.

The strangest thing about the report on Jam seems to me to be the bizarre statements from Channel 4 excusing the material. e.g. the Adultery/Rape sketch was

"included as an extreme comment on attitudes to infidelity"

Really? I thought it was funny because the wife makes a distinction between her husband having an affair and raping a stranger. Are C4 saying people act like this in real life?

also e.g. the Dead Baby/Plumbing sketch was

"exposing the failing of the modern world where it was believed that everything could somehow be 'made better' or 'fixed'"

Really? I thought it was funny because of the psychotic behaviour of the mother and the disorientated reaction of the plumber. Maybe you could analyse it in terms of consumer culture, but that wasn't the first thing that popped into my head when I watched it.

(In fact, the Dead Baby sketch was basically the same format as Morris' prank phone calls, but with the recipient of the prank replaced by another actor. Or am I being too simplistic?)

Oh, and did somebody really complain that the Acupuncture sketch resembled crucifixion? To quote a well-known comedian (whose name temporarily escapes me), it is amazing the desire some people have to be offended.

>The strangest thing about the report on Jam seems to me to be the bizarre statements from Channel 4 excusing the material. e.g. the Adultery/Rape sketch was
>
>"included as an extreme comment on attitudes to infidelity"
>
>also e.g. the Dead Baby/Plumbing sketch was
>
>"exposing the failing of the modern world where it was believed that everything could somehow be 'made better' or 'fixed'"
>

I made the item on Jam for Right to Reply and Channel 4's director of programmes gave us the same explanation at the time.

People do act like that in real life. I don't want to say any more.

>I made the item on Jam for Right to Reply and Channel 4's director of programmes gave us the same explanation at the time.

I remember that, and I thought it was funnier than the actual series. The best bit was the Irishman-without-a-sense-of-humour monologue, which basically consisted of him saying "Maybe some people thought it was funny, but I didn't get it" at anything he didn't get.

I didn't look at it long enough to see that most of the complaints weren't upheld. Doh!

>I remember that, and I thought it was funnier than the actual series.

<BEAMS WITH PRIDE>

Oh hang on, that's not a compliment is it?

The best bit was the Irishman-without-a-sense-of-humour monologue, which basically consisted of him saying "Maybe some people thought it was funny, but I didn't get it" at anything he didn't get.

Hmmm well since he cited instances which have been upheld by the BSC I don't think he was being 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells'- the point of the item was that maybe Morris is pushing things too far in Jam- funny, yes- but is this suitable material for comedy? We were trying to open up discussion- he wasn't saying 'I'm offended' but rather 'I can't see what Morris is doing'- any comedy which needed an explanation as lengthy as Channel Four felt they had to give is bound to raise questions.

He did have a sense of humour by the way...

Well, as pretentious as it might sound, I do tend to believe the 'it's a statement, not a sick joke' line. This had always been a prominent characteristic of Morris' previous work, so why shouldn't it be now? Just because he doesn't spend thirty minutes in front of a camera explaining what he has done like Mark Thomas and Michael Moore, it doesn't mean that there is no deeper agenda behind it. Morris is doing what he has always done, which is to make his point and then leave other people to make their own minds up about it. Which, frankly, is an attitude that we could do with a lot more of in this day and age.

>the point of the item was that maybe Morris is pushing things too far in Jam- funny, yes- but is this suitable material for comedy?

Fair enough...I just have a blind spot towards censorship in any form, and get very frustrated when anyone tries to tell me that something is unsuitable for me to watch. Jam was broadcast late at night, on an 'alternative' channel, with content warnings beforehand, which should be enough for anyone to avoid the program if they think it might cross their personal boundaries of taste.

My point is, though, about the motives behind Chris Morris's comedy. In the abortion/coffin sketch(es), was he making some point about modern relationships? I the dead baby/plumbing sketch, was this a comment on the consumer society? Maybe it was, but I didn't get it (irony mode cancel).

Similarly, I think people like the guy on R2R sometimes look for hidden motives in comedy, when all they mean to say is "I didn't find this funny" Full stop.

I'm rambling, so I'll stop now...

I hope you didn't think R2R was trying to censor it- I could have had a much easier week by trotting out a string of offended viewers, but we tried to avoid that.

>Similarly, I think people like the guy on R2R sometimes look for hidden motives in comedy, when all they mean to say is "I didn't find this funny" Full stop.

True- but in this case there *were* hidden motives of a sort-

>>the Adultery/Rape sketch was
"included as an extreme comment on attitudes to infidelity"
>>also e.g. the Dead Baby/Plumbing sketch was
"exposing the failing of the modern world where it was believed that everything could somehow be 'made better' or 'fixed'"

Now those motives were well and truly hidden- or did everyone think exactly those things as soon as they saw the sketches?

>I hope you didn't think R2R was trying to censor it- I could have had a much easier week by trotting out a string of offended viewers, but we tried to avoid that.

No, no, no, no, no.........I thought the report was very good (smarm smarm), but I had a feeling that the viewer didn't really know why he didn't like Jam, other than it made him feel uncomfortable. I have great difficulty putting into words why I like Jam: I just know that I do. I certainly wouldn't have had the guts to go on TV and talk about it, so fair play to him.

>"included as an extreme comment on attitudes to infidelity"
>"exposing the failing of the modern world where it was believed that everything could somehow be 'made better' or 'fixed'"

My worry here was that the executive who wrote these (Peter Fincham???) was stating them as facts about the program's intentions, without any indication that this was actually what Morris/Baynham/et al had in mind.

I thought those things immediately.

>I thought those things immediately.

Oh well, there you go.

At R2R we received those carefully worded 'explanations' courtesy of Tim Gardam, who is head of programmes. I would imagine Morris had *some* say if not approval over the statement.

It sounds to me like another wind-up - justifying 'jam' by suggesting it was a lot of Daily Telegraph editorials made flesh. So he probably approved it.

'Jam' matters not a jot in the grand scheme of things. It got apalling ratings.

>'Jam' matters not a jot in the grand scheme of things. It got apalling ratings.

That's like saying The Velvet Underground never sold a lot of records, so they can't have had much influence on music. Sort it out.

It matters to me

"Channel 4 said that the sketch in which two parents were convinced that the body of a 45 year old man was trapped in the body of their six year old daughter was their potential offence. However, it concluded,
on balance, that the sketches dealing with a dead child, the offer of someone with special needs to perform sexual favours, and abortion had gone beyond acceptable boundaries in their treatment of issues of particular sensitivity which required greater respect for the vulnerability of those depicted."

Oh, leave it out!

>>'Jam' matters not a jot in the grand scheme of things. It got apalling ratings.
>
>That's like saying The Velvet Underground never sold a lot of records, so they can't have had much influence on music. Sort it out.

I don't think Busybody's remark is that unreasonable. People have been speculating about repeats of 'Jam' and I would suspect that C4 would see it as a waste of time, given how much was spent on it and ratings of 1m or less. Compare that to "the grand scheme". Maybe in ten years time, when people have adjusted to the style Morris used (which I think will enter common usage in some way), it'll get better exposure. The fact is that Michael Jackson put it in a stupid slot but, if it were to sail on the back of a 'Brass Eye' repeat it would get a load more viewers. It's all a question of who presses the buttons.

Failing that, get David Bowie to do his own interpretations of a 'Jam' sketch and it'll become popular.

VU haven't really been influential in the sense that people usually think, Stuart. John Cale dismissed the idea in his autobiography, What's Welsh For Zen?, with solid reasoning. I personally hold great suspicion on any band who lists their influences or claims to borrow directly from them. They complain of pigeonholing unless it's alongside someone they like.

VU were also pretty well known in their field at the time (audience copies exist of most shows), but Bowie's lipservice and Lou's revival of old songs helped an awful lot more. The group's use of feedback had already been heard on Small Faces records, La Monte Young had pioneered much of what Cale adapted and Lou Reed's subject matter was following a literary tradition. An amalgam of influences, yes, but not the originator.

A girl drummer? Now that was revolutionary. Or had The Shags done that already? I can't remember.

>Failing that, get David Bowie to do his own interpretations of a 'Jam' sketch and it'll become popular.

And the dead babies sing...

do, dedo, dedo, do-dedo, do, dedo...

I'm going to sound like a real ident-boy-style geek here, but as far as I know, The Honeycombs were the first notable band with a female drummer, in about 1963. Honey West was her name, and she drove the tour van and everything...

>I'm going to sound like a real ident-boy-style geek here, but as far as I know, The Honeycombs were the first notable band with a female drummer, in about 1963. Honey West was her name, and she drove the tour van and everything...

Wasn't her real name Ann Lantree, TJ? I think she was the sister of someone else in the band...

Yes, that indeed was her real name!

A big Joe Meek fan I...

And that reminds me - 'Beyond The Valley of The Dolls' had a fictitious but great girl band. They spoke entirely in clumsy iambic pentameter.

The Carrie Nations!


Superb band... anyone got the soundtrack album?

>VU haven't really been influential in the sense that people usually think

<snip snippetty snip>

Fair enough, I was just looking for a quick example and got stung by an attack of received wisdom. My point is tho' that the ratings for a programme are not particularly relevant to its influence on future TV in general. Yes, maybe Jam won't have a direct influence, except on the kind of student ripoffs that will be filling 4Later in a year's time, but that doesn't mean that it can't have beneficient effects, e.g.:

1. Pushing boundaries of "acceptable" limits of humour: making jokes about abortion, rape, child abduction, Richard Madeley fucking a coffee machine etc.

2. Use of special effects in TV to create a different atmosphere; being a part-time fan of ambient music I would say that it is to me a completely different experience to guitar bands (which I also like)

3. Use of character actors and no laugh track, to prove that comedy doesn't have to be "I say I say I say" all the time

These are all good things. May they prosper. And hoorah for Chris Morris for encouraging them. *That* is what I mean by influence.

And the same goes for the Velvet Underground.

Phew, it's hard work coming up with reasoned, factual arguments. can't I just slag off the 11OCS instead?

There's no laugh track on "White Light/White Heat" either. They influenced Chris Morris.

There's no *laughs* on White Light/White Heat.

They influenced the 11OCS.

There is the bit where the audience/band go "Awww!!" during "The Gift" (listen again).

Maybe that was also an influence.

girls and drums? how about goldie and the gingerbreads? how could you forget them? (how can i remember them?)

i think (i hope) that the bsc has no real political testicles. anyway, would channel four edit a repeat of a programme on the basis of six complaints? presumably they thought fairly hard about 'jam' before transmitting it.

j xxx