Blah Blah Flowers

The non-dead bits of Monty Python have decided to put everything up, for free, on YouTube, in the hopes that it will encourage people to buy their DVDs. I already have my DVDs, bought from Amazon Germany because they were massively cheaper and in bigger bulk and still in English from Europe than bought in the UK. But this is the sensible way to go about it and it will be worth watching, if this encourages fresh sales of Monty Python merch. If nothing else, John Cleese has got all that alimony to pay...


The Monty Python YouTube Channel. Seems to have some rare-ish stuff, like the Cleese/Palin Amnesty 'Dead Parrot Sketch'.

Labels: comedians, comedy, Monty Python's Flying Circus, piracy, YouTube

Westboro Church protest met with laughter, sarcasm, mickey-taking and charity.

Over 100 students gathered on South University Avenue and in Hutchinson Courtyard Monday to demonstrate against six protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) advocating against the University of Chicago, the Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS), and the University of Chicago Law School’s employment of Barack Obama...

They were accompanied down the street by a group of students mocking the WBC’s message. The students held a sign reading "Figs Doom Nations" and planted themselves across the street from the WBC, drawing from a Biblical passage in which Jesus disparages a fig tree. "If you need scanty biblical evidence for anything, we’ve got it," said fourth-year Carmel Levy...

On the eastern side of the quad, students who had been waiting for the group waved signs mocking the WBC’s trademark "God Hates Fags" poster. The signs bore slogans such as "God <3’s internet porn," "God hates the new Facebook," and "God hates dial-up."...

Deputy Dean of Students for Student Affairs Martina Munsters came away with a positive impression of the counter-protest. "From what I’m hearing, it sounds like things went really well. There was no confrontation...[and] students seemed to be pretty upbeat," she said. "They even raised about $500 for charity, which I think is tremendous."

Labels: comedy, demonstrations, Fundamentalists- Christian, hate speech, United States

[via pretty much everyone I know on the intarwebs who doesn't think that choosing some deranged church looney on the sole grounds that they don't have a Y chromosome (and whats more, have you heard all the Fundie Christians start praying that McCain has a heart attack and dies once in office as President, how fucked up is that?) is a sensible basis for selecting a running mate.]

Labels: American Presidency, comedy, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Republicans, YouTube

Yes, I had fun last night thanks for asking.

Labels: comedians, comedy, London, Mark Steel

George Carlin dies at 71.

Labels: comedians, comedy, language, obscenity, YouTube

[via Lying in the Gutters]

Labels: comedy, movies, YouTube

Adaptations are funny old things except, sometimes, when they are supposed to be. There's a TV company who's name I can't be bothered to look for, who have adapted Terry Pratchett's Hogfather and The Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic . The Hogfather adaptation was actually pretty good and it was presumably the success of that that got them the second gig. TCoM ? Not so much. It read as though it was adapted by accountants, who priced every scene and joke so excised stuff based on cost and not whether the pun was amusing any more. There were some incredibly belaboured scenes, and not in the 'David Jason visual humour' department alone. A short scene in the book which introduces ancient barbarian Cohen the Barbarian takes only a minute or so on screen but is done in such a way that it feels much longer. I wonder whether part of the technique for these is to write the screenplay based on the constraints of time, money, cast and then go back through and drop in the jokes from the books where possible, rather than the other way around. A good few years back Cosgrove-Hall did animated versions of Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music , the former was very faithful and dull as ditchwater, the latter fun and IIRC, took a few more liberties but still had the story to heart.

BBC7 have a few audio Pratchett treats to celebrate the fella's 60th birthday. From what I remember the adaptation of Mort falls into the 'leaden, dull' category but Small Gods is great fun, not least because of Patrick Barlow as the tetchy and currently-incarnated-as-a-pompous-tortoise god Om. It's brilliant acting from the man who gave us Desmond Olivier Dingle and is one of the many criminally under-appreciated comedians in this country. I haven't heard The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents yet and will be interested, especially as David Tennant is involved.

Labels: authors, books, comedy, David Tennant, Patrick Barlow, Terry Pratchett

The infamous bit of video where Happy Days went shit.

Henry Winkler talks about, amongst other things, the bit of video where Happy Days went shit.

Labels: comedy, Television, YouTube

Fancy trying something impossible? Simon Munnery is suggesting you might like to try getting the BBC to rebroadcast/release on DVD his seminal Attention Scum! It's been described by director Stewart Lee as 'impossible', so it's surely worth a try, right?

Labels: comedy, Simon Munnery

Every sketch show has someone playing teenagers, Kevin and Perry, 'Brilliant!', Vicky Pollard, Lauren. The Armstrong and Miller show, poached from Channel 4 to BBC1 after a long time in the wilderness appearing in not-very-good TV shows and not-very-good adverts (Pimms O'Clock? Monkey!), approaches it differently.

Labels: BBC, comedy, YouTube

Doctor Who: The City of Death- Shada Damnit, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has started being broadcast on Radio 4, an adaptation of one of Douglas Adams' better books. Sadly most of the meanderings in the novel have been excised, perhaps so that the story begins in episode one rather than episode five, and if you don't know the book then you might find it all verging on the incoherent.

Labels: comedy, Douglas Adams, Radio 4