LOL !!!

Having never written for TV or radio means I could be completely wrong here but despite evidence to the contrary, I still believe there's plenty of funny things to be said and done. There's still top-notch comedy done by professionals that leaves me in stitches on a regular basis.

Take Have I Got News for You - it's been going for nigh-on twenty years but is still frequently laugh-out-loud funny. When you're sitting down the pub with a few friends, on a good night the laughter never stops. Despite the familiarity, in these two situations no-one ever stops and says, "we've said everything funny we have."

The worst proponent of this facetiousness is David Quantick. Does anyone apart from himself think he is funny? He’s easily the worst thing to happen to The Word and quite why you turn to him for insight or a few choice words is beyond me.

Look how long that thread ran with a consistent and high level of jocularity.

I don't think Satire will ever die...maybe there's a finite number of joke "formulae" but the material keeps coming.

One liners are getting rarer and people like that clown Tim Vine seem to be trying to corner the whole market.

Sounds pre-recorded most of the time, so stiff is he on radio. Radcliffe & Maconie put him to shame on a daily basis because they belong on radio, don't employ someone to pick their records & snigger at their jokes and, above all, are nice folks who might take the mick a little but don't sneer.
Re TV, I missed the meeting that decided (a) from now on all presenters & panellists need to be arch and cruel in equal measure (though, admittedly, it's a tone that was established in the music press many years ago and persists even in our own beloved magazine on the odd page) & (b) those presenters & panellists would be from the same elite group (as discussed re radio the other week). I dunno, it's all a bit un-British and also excludes whole generations - the sixty-plussers who watch the most telly.

My granny used to say that Larry Grayson's act came to him naturally because as a child he was brought up by a couple of elderly aunties who were endlessly gossiping and bitching about the neighbours. Larry Grayson copied their mannerisms and their turn of phrase. That was his only joke and it served him well.
I think that Jonathan Ross suffers from a similar syndrome.

There is no real doubt that he does have a quick wit. However, the "rudeness" is not his own but borrowed from the kind of homespun, swivel-eyed wisdom that an elderly relative might have blurted out 40 years ago. That's one of his jokes. Unlike Larry Grayson, it's not the only way he gets a laugh but it's an important one.

Getting back to the point, I am also tired of the smartarse sideways-glance-at-the-news type comedian and yearn for more naturally funny people who can get a laugh out of anything. I think Paul Merton is one of those. He is brilliant on HIGNFY without being snobby, snotty or pompous.

He's hillarious!

.. for raising this.

I don't believe we have run out of funny things to say - but for a range of reasons there are two things missing from most of the media's humorous output - namely honesty and professionalism.

The most obvious case of honesty in action is the truism that real, genuine fury drives satire that works - and that is what makes Have I Got News For You occasionally good. See also The Thick Of It etc. Much of what passes for this on Radio 4 (blog passim) is the over-practised posturing of the past-caring (Jeremy Hardy, anyone?)

Its not just negative emotions either, sometimes genuine love for a subject can make for humour - test match special commentary was a good example (and I am no cricket fan). Another good case is Vic and Bob, who quite obviously genuinely like working together - that and their love of the absurd makes me laugh over and over again.

Of course, actually being stark raving reckless is another case of honesty in action - Chris Morris being a prime example of this - there might even be a case for putting Russelll Brand in the same category.

The other kind of humour that works is driven by pure professionalism. Bob Monkhouse's famed ability to pull out an appropriate gag for any occasion meant he could get laughs anywhere. Frankie Howerd was not naturally funny, but rehearsed and scripted every "oo-er" and "misssuss". I just don't think anyone works that hard anymore.

To see professionalism today watch almost any US sitcom of any quality. Forget Seinfeld or 30 Rock for a minute. There will always be outliers which are way ahead of the rest. To prove the point, check the middle ground; "Everybody Loves Ray" or "Big Bang Theory" or a number of others are brilliantly scripted, presumably by a process of getting together a bunch of clever people and making them work REALLY hard.

And Ross? He falls between two stools. Doesn't actually give a toss about anything, and can't be arsed to work hard enough to actually have an act. Send the sod down the road to afternoon TV where he belongs.

I find JR quite natural in his humour but there are many DJs around today who just seem to be frustrated comedians. The worst is that morning DJ currently on Radio 6. Sean somebody or other. He tries so desperately hard to be amusing about absolutely everything. He's like the 00's Steve Wright.

...but it's changed. It all started with the 'alternative' scene. Gentle mother-in-law jokes were out (along with the racist stuff, but no one misses that), hard-edged political satire was in. The likes of The Two Ronnies were persona non-grata, which is why I did a double take when I saw Ben Elton at Ronnie Barker's funeral.

Things have moved on even further from that to become mean and 'edgy'. Now, if you're not cruel then how can you possibly be funny? Didn't Clive Anderson start this off on panel shows? Plain rudeness dressed up as humour?

Who knows what's coming next?

… is still funny:
http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/news/Whitstable-mum-custard-shortagearticle-...

still seem to have some life in them.

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/mick-hucknall-reprised

… I didn't intend to imply with my original remark that the wellspring of humour in the world is running dry. There are loads of funny people around. I love Harry Hill, for example, and I think Adam and Joe's 6music prog shows that it's possible to be genuinely and consistently funny in a live radio setting while retaining a generosity of spirit.
But the programme planners at Radio 4 seem to believe that if you throw enough comedians at a format, you'll infallibly wind up with comedy gold. But unless they're able to import some of their rehearsed stand-up schtick into the subject matter at hand, many of them clearly struggle.
What gets to me most, though, is the supercilious voiceovers now endemic in documentary progs (as addressed above) - in which the tone is invariably 'we're smarter and cooler than our subject matter'. I remember an especially heinous BBC series on the history of British cinema a couple of years back…
Anyway, me and the missus took the plunge and got rid of our telly yesterday.

I only know them from their 6 music podcast and the previous 15 years of their careers have passed me by completely.But I love this podcast dearly. Sometimes hilarious, usually amusing, but always charming. I think it's the complete lack of edginess, coolness and meanness that does it.

Two middle class ex-public schoolboys, who are obviously mates and very comfortable together, taking the piss out of each other for calling their Mums 'Mummy' and out of Adam's happily married with kids lifestyle.

Is it possible to be any less 'now'?

I think the real reason that most shows are presented by comics and/or 'slebs' isn't to get a laugh but simply out of fear that a proper reporter won't attract the uncommitted or channel-hopping audience that a known name might pull in. I can put up with this to an extent – I can listen to the script and tune out the smart aleckery - but what I really loathe is the fact that it's no longer possible for anyone to tell us that in 1666 a fire started in Pudding Lane without a 'reconstruction' involving period dress, a burning bakery and so forth.

Lord Reith's old rule about, "educate, inform, entertain" might appear to be sidelined and the public increasingly believes that its money should be spent on programmes it wants to see. But I wonder if this means that instead of a few channels trying to shoehorn all three goals into one evening of broadcasting, what we’re seeing is the three goals being achieved on a lot more channels and in different mediums. A lot of Radio 3 and 4 output remains of a very high standard. BBC4 puts out some good stuff, especially archive music!

My own view – somewhat unfashionable – is that the BBC should stop chasing ratings and rein back in a bit. It should focus on news, current affairs, documentaries, music and some drama / comedy. But it should aim to do them all extremely well. Sport has passed to the satellite companies anyway and there’s enough tosh on the other channels: let the BBC excel in key areas. I’d be delighted if the BBC became – once more - a byword for quality.

There’s so much media about – TV, radio, live events, CDs, DVDs, podcasts, cinema, theatre, internet, gaming – that no broadcaster can realistically expect to grab an audience at 5pm and keep it to bedtime. The best they can hope for is that we watch a couple of shows in an evening so make some great shows and we’ll tune it.

BTW, if you look at shows like "Have I Got News..." you could probably deconstruct the gags and find they've been doing the same few gags for years and years. It's the context that changes and that's why it usually still seems fresh.

You don’t get on radio or tv anymore, simply by being funny, or by writing funny material. There is a sifting process, and that has made it harder for new writers or performers to get work. The days when you might submit something as an ‘unknown’ and have at least a sporting chance that it may get listened to, or read, are long gone.


As far as whether there is anything to be funny about, my experience has been that political comedy needs a substantial change in government to reinvigorate it. When writing for Weekending and Spitting Image, I found, as did others, that there was a limit on finding new elements to satirise, from the lengthy Tory reign.


Finally, I agree with those who propose that we have seen a shift in the style of ‘comedy’ that presents itself before us, these days (although it is still largely absent in US comedy). This is the rise in cruel, or sneering, material, that in my view, is now presented as a ragged alternative, because there simply aren’t enough talented writers employed by the desperately cost cutting media. If you don’t think about what you’re doing, poking a stick at a bear in a cage might seem to be vaguely amusing, but as soon as there is a realisation that it isn’t funny, and that it’s cruel and heartless, the thin veneer of humour collapses. That’s where we are now.

as has Harry Hill

but who's better? There is only one way to find out......

I think he was chosen because he was a big Motown fan, not a comedy "personality" - indeed he's actor not a stand-up. His obvious love of the subject made it all the more enjoyable for someone like me with a much lower level of knowledge and interest, and could do a resonable job presenting to camera. I was just thankful that it wasn't Jools Holland, or God help us Alan Yentob - now there's someone who killed a great documentary on the history of the guitar stone dead, despite fantastic access and a huge budget.

I agree with the Ross comments. As much as I detest Parkinson, at least he seemed to want to hear what his guests had to say. Ross just uses them as props for his next joke.

it's been getting shorter and shorter of late, to use a slightly tenuous analogy. When everything gets mined for comic potential or a quick reaction almost instantly, the raw material can decay pretty quickly in the rush to get in there somehow before anyone else can, and somehow nail it with something definitive. Danger - egos at work.

The potential - or the opportunity to say something interesting along the way isn't so often given an opportunity to develop.
With a half-way decent comedian, entertainer, presenter, a group of any of them, or even a bunch of friends socialising, it isn't points-scoring all the time, but often building up and knocking an idea around for a while for the sheer hell of it.

Or am I being naive?

Hardly any comedy on the telly makes me laugh any more, for all the reasons stated above - being grotesque, sneering, cross dressing and vomiting (sometimes all four together)is basically not funny. The one exception is Armstrong and Miller, which is mostly funny.

I'll check out the Adam and joe podcast though based on this thread - I had igored it assuming it isn't funny, like the Collings and Herrin one (posts passim).

Do things seem less funny now because there's more content? Or is it just because we're that much older? Jaded perhaps?

Hancock? Pete and Dud? Milligan? Monty Python? You can't hold a candle to 'em.

Shameless plug for my friend Pete's occasional magazine of elderly British Comedy. It's not funny at all:

http://www.thekettering.co.uk/

I'm quite looking forward to Chris Morris' Four Lions though..

Sneering? Never happened in the good old days! In the old days - you didn't need old people to laugh at - no - you had foreigners, darkies,jews - any number of legitimate targets.

Mind Your Language? Love thy Neighbouur? They weren't being racist you see - they were laughing at racism. Do you see?

Even loveable rogue and comic genius - good old Spike:

On the UK TV channel a while ago, my heart skipped a beat when I saw that Bless This House was on. We used to love that show when we were kids! I watched it for the first 5 minutes expecting at least one belly-laugh but slowly it dawned on me that it was utter...utter...utter...

Danny Baker's Radio London show makes me laugh more than anything else and comes highly recommended from yours truly

and I don't miss it at all. (*I was going to explain myself but it wasn't interesting.) I had watched a lot of television during the previous four decades. I can remember when it wasn't entirely self-obsessed.

There are funny shows on tv and they all ridicule other shows on tv. It's very insular. There are sketch shows that 'satirise' modern trends in society but refuse to offer their victims any humanity at all. Joke One only works if you're particularly interested in the making of television and Joke Two is a form of bullying. (Actually, there appear to be plenty of people on television who hold "ordinary members of the public" in open contempt.)

The rest is recycling: panel show comedians praying that Charles Kennedy makes the news so they can dust off their George Brown gags and sketch shows that place a stereotype in a situation with six, small variations. Granted, all the old guard performed man-in-a-shop sketches but at least they played a different man in a different shop each week.

Here's a thought. It used to be that people with Firsts from Oxford & Cambridge went into industry or politics. In the 1970s political party leaders, and trade union leaders too, had very good degrees. And then the best brains of their generation wised up. They would make far more money in tv, they would enjoy themselves far more and the public would respect them far more for it. However, in their hearts, they know they should be doing something better. Their self-loathing seeps onto your screens every night.

...but the first three - with you all the way.

they think it puts them on a higher moral and cultural plane than the rest of us.

There may be fuck all on, but watching TV is nothing to be ashamed of.

...as long as you don't want to watch it all evening.

I usually manage an hour of TV in an evening without having to try too hard. Last night it was a film all about a fossil. Tonight it will be the European Cup Final. I'm sure there will be something good tomorrow night as well. And when there isn't I find something else to do.

But neither of those things do it for me.

Now if you're talking (at the moment) Britain's Got Talent, Law & Order: SVU, EastEnders, Ashes To Ashes, The Apprentice, good docs on BBC4 or Casualty then I agree, there is something to watch on TV.

But on the whole, there's really not very much that appeals. And I depend on TV for my livelihood. I wish it would consolidate. By that I mean the best bits of BBCs 3 and 4 should be absorbed into BBCs 1 and 2, the same for ITV, C4 anf Five's channels, leaving a wide and varied selection of interesting, entertaining and informative shows on the remaining digital channels, of which there'd be about 15 at most. Who knows, in the current climate, I may get my wish.

You'll probably disagree with - I don't doubt it for a second - too much TV = too much crap.

The Apprentice
Soccer AM
Gillette Soccer Saturday
Sky Super Sunday
The Dog Whisperer
Heroes
Spooks
The Thick Of It
The American Office
Harry Hill's TV Burp
Flight Of The Conchords
Britain's Got Talent
30 Rock
Loads of other documentaries and football and cooking stuff

I should have finished after the subject heading.

It was an observation, not a boast. I had watched a lot of tv during the previous 35 years and I was curious as to how I would spend my evenings without it. Obviously, I go about feeling superior to everyone instead. Actually, I thought I'd catch up on all the other media I've bought but not played yet. In fact, I do a lot of mundane stuff and then read for a bit.

Come to think of it, it's the sort of mundane stuff - cooking, gardening, consumer affairs - that fills the tv schedules.

By the way, and I realised this when "The Listener" would fit the contents of a one-hour documentary into a one-page article, books can go a lot further than tv or radio ever dares. Compare Barry Humphrey's autobiography to any interview he's done on air. He didn't bare his soul on "Desert Island Discs" this week. He doesn't hold back much in his book. (Humphreys must the only person to have done that show both in character, as Dame Edna Everage, and as himself. Dame Edna wasn't the first fictional character to be on it. That's all I remember.)

I used to watch a lot of telly. I would spend an hour a week reading the tv guide: I could always find something good. From "Shaun the Sheep" to BBC4's Bresson season, last year. And if I couldn't I would marvel at the channels no-one even lists. I don't hate tv at all. It just became a chore.

As regards "the best brains of their generation" that's how a lot of people see it. That's why Oxford and Cambridge turn away thousands of straight A* applicants every year. A degree from there is the equivalent of Doctor Who's psychic paper: it gets you in anywhere. Which Personnel Departments know or care that certain courses at Durham or Warwick or wherever are the best in the country? Few bosses would even hear you out. If you are a frighteningly ambitious Sixth Former it's the only game in town. And such people would rather work in tv than save the car industry.

Given the title of this thread, here's a quote from Neil Postman's book of nearly the same name, published in 1985:

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy."

THAT's why I don't miss tv! Poor Neil Postman couldn't have known he'd written a mission statement. And if you truly believe that not watching tv makes someone feel superior perhaps you should try it yourself for a few weeks.

It used to be "Question Time" but since the tori-fication of anything formerly even slightly left wing it's become so bland that I hate the braying rude boorish audince nowadays more that the victims on the panel.

Adventure Weekly 1968, though? Kids' telly at its best.

"The tragedy of your times, my
young friends, is
that you may get exactly what you want" - from the movie Head, 1968

In the vast realm of media tosspots George Lamb is king. Absolutely useless and angling for a tv career. heaven help us all.