Show Me The Funny - no, but I'll have a structured rant
Posted Thu Jan 25 01:50:26 GMT 2001 by 'Speng'
There's an old saying amongst haggard old advertising executives that crops up in my mind every now and again, and seeing Sacha Baron-Cohen's features on the side of a bus brought it screaming back to me. "The bigger the billboard, the shitter the goods". If a product is something that people want, or that they need, it doesn't need to be sold to them. If it's something they neither want nor need, but you want to sell it to them regardless - well, you'd better start buying billboards.
In the month running up to its launch, the E4 logo, coupled mainly with pictures of the actors taking part in the US series that the channel has bought in, have been omniscient. A couple of old dependables do not E4 make, however - especially when every other channel in town is gunning to take the rights away from you as soon as possible. When the big, glossy New York shows sign off for the week, what will remain are E4's 'home-grown' shows - a phrase that encompasses both material made for E4, and material destined for Channel 4 that is receiving 'premier screening' on its digital counterpart.
One of the shows that fits into this latter bracket is The Adam and Joe Show (E4, Wednesdays, 10pm), now on its fourth series. What is astonishing about the programme - one of the most original and genuinely funny comedy shows to emerge in the last decade - is that each new series effortlessly surpasses its predecessor in originality, artistry and a joyfulness that eludes most other comedy programmes. A mix of juvenalia, pop culture, inspired creation and public interaction, it somehow sidesteps the now-de rigeur ridiculing of the man in the street to pour vitriol upon television that relies on the public's participation. Rather than smirk at those who aren't on TV, Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish invite us to smile patronisingly at the desperation and impoverishment of the television that is offered throughout the day. A magazine show in a shopping centre, complete with fashion tips delivered on a moving escalator, was beautifully handled : Buxton's cheery links amounting to no more than "These lamps make ideal lights. Over to you, Lindsey," and Cornish demanding passers-by to "Do something for the telly! Do something for the telly!" were all the more cutting for a very real aptitude they seem to have for presenting pleasantly, but insincerely, and thus perfectly in pitch with most of the people on TV. The retrospective of a rather snappish 'Handy Andy' Kane's career, with probing questions from Buxton's alter ego Ken Korda, was a untrammelled joy.
But this series is intended for transmission on Channel 4, so, to be frank, it should be good. The Adam and Joe Show is not to everyone's taste, but it does have a very distinct identity. It is essentially a two-man show when it comes to the creation and the performance, and does not suffer from executives and station controllers saying what is funny, what isn't, and what it is the kids like nowadays. Which is where the rag-tag, cover-some-bases, get-'em-in-get-'em-out Show Me The Funny (E4, Wednesdays, 10.30pm) comes in.
The loose pitch seems to be a sketch show wherein visitors to E4's website pick the sketches they would like to put into the televisual broadcast. Why this process is being sold as the important part of a comedy show, I don't know : it always seemed to be that the quality of the comedy would be more important than a multiple choice, but I may be wrong. During the second half, however, it struck me that this may just have been a clever way to ensure no TV executive would take the blame for what was on the screen : "Ah, no, well, I wasn't so keen on that bit either - in fact, the other sketch was fantastic, simply brilliant, but the vote went to the other, and there's no arguing when the people have spoken..."
The people hopefully will speak, and preferably soon and with their feet (or in this digital age, the remote control buttons). Show Me The Funny emerged as an Eleven O'Clock Show without topical material or studio laughter, a grim collection of turns linked from a sparse studio set by a man and two women. Neither of the women had appeared in any of the sketches, and I've never seen them in a comedy context before. Mind you, they aren't in one now.
Their job seems to be to occasionally look slightly offended when the similarly uncharismatic Mark Dolan says a pre-scripted line. The three also mention to us that, yes, you picked the sketches that we're seeing tonight, and here's the ones that you had to choose from, and which will it be, and do make sure you go to the site, here's the address, and if you can't read, it's... Of the sketches that managed to squeeze in between the padding, most were the televisual equivalent of the odd, fearless, slightly deranged boy that went to everyone's school - the one who would constantly be exposing himself in public, setting fire to things, and swearing at the headmaster as he walked down the high street at the weekend.
One sketch, 'I Told You I'd Do It' featured a 20-something West Country man who exposed his bottom in a cafe as
Subject: Re: Show Me The Funny - no, but I'll have a structured rant
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Posted By 'Chris Lyons' on Thu Jan 25 09:25:03 GMT 2001:
Bugger - I was really interested in that post - can you post the rest?
Subject: Re: Show Me The Funny - no, but I'll have a structured rant
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Posted By 'Speng' on Thu Jan 25 09:57:42 GMT 2001:
One sketch, 'I Told You I'd Do It' featured a 20-something West Country man who exposed his bottom in a cafe as part of a segment where he accepts 'dares' from viewers (although, as his contribution was up on the website the previous week, I can only assume a lot of preview tapes went out). Another featured a seventeen year old Home Counties schoolgirl (complete with Lolitaish camerawork, cutting away to linger over a bruise on her ankle) whose task was to incorporate a swearword into her geography homework. She chose 'shitbag' and, lo, it came back unaltered, unnoticed and unfunny. Is this successful? Is this how E4 want to be perceived? The Smut alternative to Channel 4's Viz?
Other sketches included a day in the life of a heavily Leeds accented Craig David, a drawn-out, rambling piece that borrowed heavily from Reeves and Mortimer's 'Otis and Marvin' series of sketches, and others - including a man trying to teach the viewer selling techniques (and a long series of hidden camera footage of his bothering people working behind tills), and a section wherein a viewer pays money to see something they'd really like to see (in this case, a Playstation 2 being crushed by a streamroller in front of some children) - seemed to have been either lifted, or shuttled directly along from, The Eleven O'Clock Show, in terms of their inherent spitefulness and predictable format - a process made easier by the fact both shows are made by Talkback. It's a shame that, having been stung so comprehensively by the Eleven O'Clock Show, someone at Horseferry Road is willing to commission this solely because it's cheap.
The problem seems to be that television comedy for the18-34 age range has been replaced with stunts. Why is this so? Budgets. You can't make good comedy on a digital budget, we're told. Unless, of course, you're Adam and Joe, whose work doesn't rely on a budget as much as it does on their prodigious talent. Show Me The Funny suffers from the close proximity of The Adam and Joe Show, but by any standards, it's terrible. E4 will have to better than this if they want people to own up to watching anything but Ally McBeal and Friends.
'Talent'. See? That's what we need to put on a big billboard.
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