DVD Extra

Another couple of great comedy clips until I can find another tv programme worth reviewing. The criteria for reviewing is quite precise: they have to be shite enough that I can attempt to be amusing, but not so shite that I rip my bollocks off with my teeth in the hope that I bleed to death before the adverts. Not so easy now, is it?

The top clip is Steve Coogan from his short-lived, il-feted, not-as-funny-as-your-other-stuff-you bastard, Tony Ferrino period.  It was always going to be hard to parody something already so absurd and I think this character had a very lmited shelf-life. But the best bits are still funny.

This is Tony with the beautiful Bjork singing ‘Short-term Affair’ for Comic Relief back in the late 90’s. One of my favourite clips. ( Like you give a fuck what my favourite clips are. What is this – This is Your Life? Twat)

The bottom clip needs no introduction …

Okay, the bottom clip needs little introduction. It’s My Lovely Horse from Father Ted. Written by Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy, it’s actually a really great catchy song and an excellent production. Way too good for Eurovision. 

A folking-bastard friend of mine’s informs me that this song is actually a parody of Ride On by Christy Moore, which sounds plausible. That song is also about a lovely horse – but he was serious apparantly.

We have to lose that Sax solo …

Slapstick – Take 2

After me going on yesterday about how much I hated slapstick, I’m going to contradict myself and post two more great comedy clips that are quite slapstick in style.

The top one is a Tommy Cooper martial arts sketch from the 70’s. If you watched yesterday’s clips, you’ll notice that this sketch has almost exactly the same plot as the Jim Carrey one. Tommy Cooper was one of those old-school comics who came up through the theatres and he wasn’t always comfortable on tv, although his best performances are considered classics.

From this performance, I’m guessing that Cooper was somebody who didn’t always stick exactly to the script. Both the director in deciding which camera to cut to, and the actor playing the interviewer (sorry, can’t remember his name) are having to adapt to his little improvisations.  Some of the humour does date,  but there are some really funny gags, including the immortal:

Interviewer: Now, I believe you have a black-belt.

Cooper: Yes. And before that I had a brown-belt. And before that I had a white-belt.

Interviewer: And before that?

Cooper: My trousers used to fall down.

You can’t argue with gags like that.

Keeping with the martial arts theme, the bottom clip is one of my favourite Monty Python sketches. Monty Python are a bit like The Beatles – everyone says how great they are, but nobody actually listens to their stuff anymore. Many of the sketches look dated now, but the best of their stuff is still inspired.

This sketch, with John Cleese as a lunatic self-defence teacher obsessed with soft-fruit, is still one of my favourites. And it includes one of Cleese’s trademark ‘oooh, gettin’ all high and mighty, eh?’ lines.  

We’re all supposed to eat more fresh frr-oot. Consider this sketch your 5-a-day.

Slapstick – WTF?

I should hate Jim Carrey. He is everything I normally dislike in a comedian. I hate all the gurning, the prat falls, the mugging into camera, the strangulated voices. I loathe Johnny Vegas on chat shows, who just seems like an autistic chimp let loose. I don’t like Jerry Lewis, I hate Charlie Chaplin. And whenever hyper-manic basketcase Robin Williams comes on screen I want to kick a hole through the tv set. 

But Jim Carrey makes me piss myself with just about everything he does. He’s everything I hate about comedy, but he does it so well I don’t care. I guess he’s the exception that proves the rule.  I know some of his comedy movies are patchy, but he’s great in Ace Ventura and Dumb & Dumber. He has of course very successfully reinvented himself as a serious actor since The Truman Show, and he was brilliant in Eternal Sunshine amongst others. But at his comic best, usually in sketches, short comic scenes or impromptu chat show appearances, he is hilarious.

The top clip is a classic sketch from his early days on Living Colour, the Fox network’s lesser-known version of the hugely-successful NBC show Saturday Night Live. It’s almost 20 years ago now but it still stands the test of time effortlessly.

The bottom clip is from 1998 and the last episode of the peerless US comedy satire The Larry Sanders Show. It’s Larry’s last show and he’s invited his ‘good friend’ Jim Carrey (played here by Jim Carrey) to come along and say goodbye. There’s a moment about 1 min 7 secs in where Carrey stands up to run into the audience. You can literally see the moment where he flicks a switch in his brain and turns the charisma all the way up to eleven. It’s as if someone has poured rocket fuel onto the crowd.

These days, he seems much happier with serious roles and thankfully he does those very well. But it’s great to remember him as he started – a grinning, gangly tornado of pure comic energy. You wouldn’t want him in the house, but on screen he’s unstoppable.