Come Dine With Me is on Channel 4 at 5:30pm and at other various intervals during the day...everyday...in fact, episodes of Come Dine With Me are about as regular as the number 59 bus; and let me tell you, that's a regular service. It's another of those simple channel 4 shows with low production values that gently eases us all into the Simpsons at 6 o'clock. It is fast becoming a hit amongst the Hollyoaks-watching student masses and seems to have inexplicably scraped together a cult following from nowhere, which is incredible, because like Deal or No Deal's lack of substance, this too has all the content of Victoria Beckham's stomach. And personality. And brain. Anyway, it has somehow managed to vomit up enough popularity to justify its being broadcast for two hours upon hours, everyday of the week. Thank God, because I just wasn't getting the closure I needed when they didn't show the entire contest in one day! After all, whoooo will win the tantalising £1000 prize? Probably one of the idiotic contestants. They're the kind of morons who use the phrase "absolutely gutted" excessively to explain how they feel.
The prize in itself is less of a prize and more of a reimbursement, since the contestants have already spent in excess of £1000 on chicken innards and quail eggs so as to win the bloody thing.
For those that have been watching television relevant to our time, let me tell you what Come Dine With Me is quickly (or, skip this paragraph, and I'll merely quote that it is a "roller coaster of dinner party emotions"). First, four average people are introduced, but we mean TV average people of course, so here, average people means people that have been specifically selected by a team of pickled brains in jars at Channel 4 to be juuust eccentric enough to be entertaining, without being too outlandish for five thirty in the afternoon. It goes without saying as well that this team of four have been specially selected not to get on - wait a minute Channel 4, they're supposed to be having a pleasant dinner party, why would you put this drag queen around the same table as this traditionalist blokey bloke!? It beggers belief! That's asking for trouble! Anyway, they take it in turns to host a dinner party with these complete strangers and at the end of every evening in the cab-drive home they rate the hosts evening out of ten. It's simple, it's easy, and even better it's not elephant.co.uk. Yes alright, that's an old reference, let's just get on with it shall we?
Come Dine With Me could have been fun and pleasant. Regrettably the makers of Come Dine With Me were simply not satisfied with their nice, neat little program. They had to put some claws on that kitten, baby.
Step forward, irritating narrator, affectionately known as 'That Wanker' to his friends, and by me.
Little do the contestants know that every single one of their inept moves are met with a.. teehee.. witty QUIP from That Wanker, an apparently omniscient voice with a bottomless biscuit barrel of clever remarks to make in regards to the contestants quirks and errors. Ha-ha! Tee Hee!
For Example...
*Alan is cleaning a glass*
That Wanker: "OOp, looks like you missed a spot Alan!" - Ah-Ha-Ha! Ah-Tee-Hee!
*Mary is cooking something, but it's staaarting to burn...wer oh oh!
That Wanker: "Er - I think they might be done Mary!" - Ah-Ha-Ha! Er-Ho-Ho! Ah-Tee-Hee!
*Andy puts together what he feels is a 'work of art'
That Wanker, all in one word under his breath: "yeah,aJacksonPollockmaybe"
or comments like, "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that" and "Yeah, don't worry, I don't know what she's talking about either!"
I think at this point it has become clear that I am not a fan of him and his commentary. Football Matches have commentary, but not meal times. If you were eating dinner with some friends and someone started going "oh and that's a lovely pass of the ketchup, really switching the play well there, OH, the custodians spilled the peas everywhere, he won't be happy with that", then you'd get pretty cheesed off. The contestants can't hear That Wanker and so they must get a real shock once it's aired. A shock that manifests itself as urge to punch.
The guys a sarcastic menace! Robert Webb can get away with this shit on Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum because he is a comedian of some wit. Sarcasm without wit or irony equals sarcasm, cold, cold sarcasm; it's the same difference between Jimmy Carr and Adolf Hitler. That Wanker (the narrator, not Jimmy Carr, not in this instance) thinks he is funny, but he comes off as one of those people's parents that you really secretly hate. You know, when you go round your friends house and you meet their Dad, and he works down the garage where all his mates think he's hilarious because of all his practical jokes. He thinks he's Eddie Izzard because he comes out with gems like "say it, don't spray it" at dinner time - yeah, feel free to use that one, he'll add. (My own sarcasm here is noted, thank you for pointing it out to me).
The narrator ruins this whole thing. He talks to you with too much familiarity, like you're two gossiping old women in a tea room that know the contestants personally and who you've both heard something about - that means he's contaminating us whenever he makes one of his annoying little quips. Every single bloody time he says something about somebodies cooking it's like another little nudge in the ribs from a pudgy little fat man going "oop, looks like Liam's on the war path again!" You, the viewer, sicken me. The narrator provides some company for you! The poor wee viewer all alone, friendless and cold, but somehow attends an interactive dinner party - well, well done to you, I'll give you an 8 for sheer effort and self-ambiance.
Let's be honest though, the reason I that I really don't like That Wanker is because he does my job for me. He makes remarks at the television, annoying comments on the program while everyone else is trying to watch it. He's me. I'm That Wanker.
Tuesday 25 August 2009
Wednesday 19 August 2009
Murder She Comitted
As a student there comes a time when your brain abandons all hope, miss-spells his name as Brian and moves to the Andes - at which point you find yourself suddenly enjoying daytime television.
Murder She Wrote has been on the air for many a year, as evidenced by the grainy quality of the filming and the near 80s style of filming, where if someone is in a building, an establishing shot of, say, the hospital will be taken, and then just to make sure we know what room our characters are in, a mad, head-first zoom towards that room will deliver us to where we need to be. Friends uses this as well, which is why it has always seem so disgustingly dated.
Every episode follows much the same pattern. Mrs. Fletcher (our elderly protagnist whose keen wit defies her age, as does her smart dress sense) turns up in another exotic location or holiday locale alongside just a handful of what must be a world network of friends. The characters, whatever their names are, follow much the same pattern. There is inevitably a lovely young lady in the group playing the role of 'the real victim in all this', who was just so darn naive she didn't know the new man she was about to marry was such a pig. Said pig, played by a strapping young gent, is usually our first suspect, but despite his being an undebatable pig, it just wasn't him in the end. He has no scruples, but he plays the role of 'well I may have done [blank], but I AIN'T the murderer, lady'. This role can also be played by some harlet or money-grabbing wife, but she ain't the murderer either, lady. Of course there's the decent crime solving man of experience. Needless to say he's not the murderer, but could sure do with some guidance from Mrs. Fletcher. In fact in all this Mrs. Fletcher either guides those who need her help or comforts those affected by the murders. Thank God that she turns up at these hot spots to help everyone out, I mean, what would they do if she weren't there!?
Well, in my opinion, they would live.
Doesn't it seem a LIT-tle too convenient that every time someone dies, Mrs. Fletcher just happens to be there, and then thanks to her 'CRIME SOLVING' (crime committing) and 'CLUE FINDING' (clue planting) some other poor sucker (usually some fat guy playing the role of 'I could have had a million bucks thanks to this deed to the old mine, if it hadn't been for you, lady') goes straight to jail. All the loose ends are tied up, and Mrs. Fletcher gets into a cab, goes to the airport and flies to some other exotic location (given the time frame it's usually an eighties status spot like Alpen or Haiwii) and goes on to commit, sorry, solve another murder, which she wasn't expecting, and neither was anyone else.
And isn't it just a little bit suspicious that she writes ingenius murder mysteries for a living? Yes, alright, that might make her the ideal person to solve a murder, but doesn't it also make her the ideal candidate to commit a murder as well? I mean, who would have managed to think of all the funny, weird tiny details that she spots, her, or the brutish park keeper, or the snooty banker, the dullard peroxide blonde wife? Line them up, and the others pale in comparison.
And she does SO, MUCH, GUESS WORK. She jumps to conclusions from nowhere! She simply approaches the supposed villain, says something like "oooh, but you were there Jim - because I noticed that Amanda's left shoe lace had been untied the moment she got off that bus, and the steleto that you murdered her with didn't have laces, and it was red. And I'll bet that if you check that brand of gum you're using, it's spearmint, not sugar free like her bodyguard was using. You almost had me fooled along with everyone else, until I had a hunch that Amanda's scuba-diving instructor had been a Romanian, and I recalled seeing that you had a Romanian dictionary in your glove compartment that day we went to see the variety show..." - and so on in that fashion, until the poor sap just gives up. Who'd argue with such an authorative yet gentle old woman? No one, and that's why she always gets away with it. Murder she wrote? More like murder she fucking committed.
------------------------
The simple reason I love this program though is because of the end music. I'm very happy to sit calmly for an hour watching all of the characters operate in the heated fall-out of a violent murder (which we of course never see, because it's 2 in the afternoon and I'm having my lunch). Emotions never seem to run very high in Murder She Wrote, despite a person having recently died. It's almost like watching an episode of Cluedo, only no one really wants to play and instead they'd rather be watching The Wire, which knows how to murder people properly. Anyway, at the end of the hour long show, the characters, the victims and the audience get a sense of closure on the gruesome and horrible chainsaw murder that befell an elderly man - WHICH IS MET WITH A LAUGHING FREEZE FRAME AND A CHEERY LITTLE TINKLE ON THE PIANO! Ye-ah-cha-cha-, ye-ah-cha-cha, a man's dead but plinky-plonk-on-the-piano, cha cha cha! How fun! It makes murder a child's play thing. Murdering people's SO light hearted and fun, we should do this every week! And so they did. It's on everyday on BBC1 at 2:15pm.
Murder She Wrote has been on the air for many a year, as evidenced by the grainy quality of the filming and the near 80s style of filming, where if someone is in a building, an establishing shot of, say, the hospital will be taken, and then just to make sure we know what room our characters are in, a mad, head-first zoom towards that room will deliver us to where we need to be. Friends uses this as well, which is why it has always seem so disgustingly dated.
Every episode follows much the same pattern. Mrs. Fletcher (our elderly protagnist whose keen wit defies her age, as does her smart dress sense) turns up in another exotic location or holiday locale alongside just a handful of what must be a world network of friends. The characters, whatever their names are, follow much the same pattern. There is inevitably a lovely young lady in the group playing the role of 'the real victim in all this', who was just so darn naive she didn't know the new man she was about to marry was such a pig. Said pig, played by a strapping young gent, is usually our first suspect, but despite his being an undebatable pig, it just wasn't him in the end. He has no scruples, but he plays the role of 'well I may have done [blank], but I AIN'T the murderer, lady'. This role can also be played by some harlet or money-grabbing wife, but she ain't the murderer either, lady. Of course there's the decent crime solving man of experience. Needless to say he's not the murderer, but could sure do with some guidance from Mrs. Fletcher. In fact in all this Mrs. Fletcher either guides those who need her help or comforts those affected by the murders. Thank God that she turns up at these hot spots to help everyone out, I mean, what would they do if she weren't there!?
Well, in my opinion, they would live.
Doesn't it seem a LIT-tle too convenient that every time someone dies, Mrs. Fletcher just happens to be there, and then thanks to her 'CRIME SOLVING' (crime committing) and 'CLUE FINDING' (clue planting) some other poor sucker (usually some fat guy playing the role of 'I could have had a million bucks thanks to this deed to the old mine, if it hadn't been for you, lady') goes straight to jail. All the loose ends are tied up, and Mrs. Fletcher gets into a cab, goes to the airport and flies to some other exotic location (given the time frame it's usually an eighties status spot like Alpen or Haiwii) and goes on to commit, sorry, solve another murder, which she wasn't expecting, and neither was anyone else.
And isn't it just a little bit suspicious that she writes ingenius murder mysteries for a living? Yes, alright, that might make her the ideal person to solve a murder, but doesn't it also make her the ideal candidate to commit a murder as well? I mean, who would have managed to think of all the funny, weird tiny details that she spots, her, or the brutish park keeper, or the snooty banker, the dullard peroxide blonde wife? Line them up, and the others pale in comparison.
And she does SO, MUCH, GUESS WORK. She jumps to conclusions from nowhere! She simply approaches the supposed villain, says something like "oooh, but you were there Jim - because I noticed that Amanda's left shoe lace had been untied the moment she got off that bus, and the steleto that you murdered her with didn't have laces, and it was red. And I'll bet that if you check that brand of gum you're using, it's spearmint, not sugar free like her bodyguard was using. You almost had me fooled along with everyone else, until I had a hunch that Amanda's scuba-diving instructor had been a Romanian, and I recalled seeing that you had a Romanian dictionary in your glove compartment that day we went to see the variety show..." - and so on in that fashion, until the poor sap just gives up. Who'd argue with such an authorative yet gentle old woman? No one, and that's why she always gets away with it. Murder she wrote? More like murder she fucking committed.
------------------------
The simple reason I love this program though is because of the end music. I'm very happy to sit calmly for an hour watching all of the characters operate in the heated fall-out of a violent murder (which we of course never see, because it's 2 in the afternoon and I'm having my lunch). Emotions never seem to run very high in Murder She Wrote, despite a person having recently died. It's almost like watching an episode of Cluedo, only no one really wants to play and instead they'd rather be watching The Wire, which knows how to murder people properly. Anyway, at the end of the hour long show, the characters, the victims and the audience get a sense of closure on the gruesome and horrible chainsaw murder that befell an elderly man - WHICH IS MET WITH A LAUGHING FREEZE FRAME AND A CHEERY LITTLE TINKLE ON THE PIANO! Ye-ah-cha-cha-, ye-ah-cha-cha, a man's dead but plinky-plonk-on-the-piano, cha cha cha! How fun! It makes murder a child's play thing. Murdering people's SO light hearted and fun, we should do this every week! And so they did. It's on everyday on BBC1 at 2:15pm.
Tuesday 11 August 2009
Where There's Crime, There's Television.
There's scraping the barrel, and then there's ITV. Not content with whoring out our nations lack of talent (not to mention our celebrities lack of celebrity), for the past few years, it now seems to be investing all of its energies into an old favourite at ITV; CRIME.
There has been a noticeable increase in the amount of genuine crud that ITV has shown in recent years, and never has this been more evident than on a Tuesday evening, where it's sole activity is to follow around, and surely hinder, every single aspect of crime fighting that their can possibly be in this country.
Send In The Dogs - yes, all you wanted to know about how dogs are used in crime fighting. Surely all that anyone has ever wanted to know about this grim angle of our police force could be contained on the back of a match box? But no, ITV sees it as pedigree television. Predigree is a word often associated with dogs by the way, but I haven't quite used it in that way, thus creating a pun.
Not content with analysing every molecule of dog-doo in the police force, ITV charge ahead with CAR CRIME UK, a title so brash that it ought to be shouted about eight times at the viewer before the program actually commences, just to frighten them into a full sense of close attention. This of course is the very worst of Americas influence on British television and the show contains more than it's fair share of grainy car chases, serious voice overs (always with a witty retort such as "it looks a life of crime has really taken it's - toll - on this criminal", just as he plummets to a hault at the Dartford Crossing. It's a dirty, smudgy, nightmare of flashing lights. Watching it makes you want to scrape the filth from your eyes, it's like eating gravel. These programmes swallow up your minds-eye view of your community and make you think that you are living underneath a canopy of traffic cones, police brutality and people with blurred out faces wearing trainers.
It is of course, more voyeurism for the avid viewers. Something for the old, stodgy folks of this world to shake a stick and go "fyyeaurgh, yeeeah, gertchya - see love, I told you so din I, din I tell you? This country is going to the fucking dogs". These men probably drive cabs, or distribute beer.
Never fear though, it's not all that bleak! Aware that this kind of line-up might lack some of it's traditionally tacky Hollywood-come-Majorca glamour, ITV jazzes up the proceedings with that age old film-making phrase, "Police, Camera, Action!". If you haven't had enough by this point in the evening then...well, actually, you're a disgusting human being. But, due to the cruel laws of this world, you're in luck, because it seems there is more of the same! At first, this third crime themed programmed appears to be different, presenting us with a cleverly twisted view of our own society, a dystopia where illegal car parts have become the most important things in people's lives and big-brother camera watches with cold sepia vision as the last resonants of humanity duck for cover from their equally dim pursuers known only as, THE POLICE - it's at this point you realise that it's not a dystopia at all, and is of course our own society. Upon this realisation, I would strongly advice cutting your head open and whisking your brain to a soft pulp, so as to better absorb the misery.
And don't try and weasel out of this on the BBC; they're actually just as bad, they've got Crimewatch on the Streets and Neighbourhood Watch. What a fantastically relentless night of televison! Mother's lock up your daughters! And all your precious belongings.
There has been a noticeable increase in the amount of genuine crud that ITV has shown in recent years, and never has this been more evident than on a Tuesday evening, where it's sole activity is to follow around, and surely hinder, every single aspect of crime fighting that their can possibly be in this country.
Send In The Dogs - yes, all you wanted to know about how dogs are used in crime fighting. Surely all that anyone has ever wanted to know about this grim angle of our police force could be contained on the back of a match box? But no, ITV sees it as pedigree television. Predigree is a word often associated with dogs by the way, but I haven't quite used it in that way, thus creating a pun.
Not content with analysing every molecule of dog-doo in the police force, ITV charge ahead with CAR CRIME UK, a title so brash that it ought to be shouted about eight times at the viewer before the program actually commences, just to frighten them into a full sense of close attention. This of course is the very worst of Americas influence on British television and the show contains more than it's fair share of grainy car chases, serious voice overs (always with a witty retort such as "it looks a life of crime has really taken it's - toll - on this criminal", just as he plummets to a hault at the Dartford Crossing. It's a dirty, smudgy, nightmare of flashing lights. Watching it makes you want to scrape the filth from your eyes, it's like eating gravel. These programmes swallow up your minds-eye view of your community and make you think that you are living underneath a canopy of traffic cones, police brutality and people with blurred out faces wearing trainers.
It is of course, more voyeurism for the avid viewers. Something for the old, stodgy folks of this world to shake a stick and go "fyyeaurgh, yeeeah, gertchya - see love, I told you so din I, din I tell you? This country is going to the fucking dogs". These men probably drive cabs, or distribute beer.
Never fear though, it's not all that bleak! Aware that this kind of line-up might lack some of it's traditionally tacky Hollywood-come-Majorca glamour, ITV jazzes up the proceedings with that age old film-making phrase, "Police, Camera, Action!". If you haven't had enough by this point in the evening then...well, actually, you're a disgusting human being. But, due to the cruel laws of this world, you're in luck, because it seems there is more of the same! At first, this third crime themed programmed appears to be different, presenting us with a cleverly twisted view of our own society, a dystopia where illegal car parts have become the most important things in people's lives and big-brother camera watches with cold sepia vision as the last resonants of humanity duck for cover from their equally dim pursuers known only as, THE POLICE - it's at this point you realise that it's not a dystopia at all, and is of course our own society. Upon this realisation, I would strongly advice cutting your head open and whisking your brain to a soft pulp, so as to better absorb the misery.
And don't try and weasel out of this on the BBC; they're actually just as bad, they've got Crimewatch on the Streets and Neighbourhood Watch. What a fantastically relentless night of televison! Mother's lock up your daughters! And all your precious belongings.
Tuesday 4 August 2009
Unfriendly Fires
Bastard little indie bands or for that matter any genre of band can whine loooong and hard about the public downloading music until the cows come home...look, here they are now...but even Daisy here will concur, that most new bands of any description are total cunts. Moo. See. That's yes in cow speak.
The reason? Wer-ho, you know the reason as well as I do. Every time a vaguely new band springs into life, like a relentless daisy of pain, the gormless members of the consuming public (such as myself) are given a choice, a choice which is two-fold:
(a) NEW BAND - DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM AND SEE IF IT'S ANY GOOD!!!
or
(b) Listen to their first two singles legitimately. If you think they're good, buy the album.
Wise people will of course take option A, to the intense rage of music peoples the world over. But they can, again, of course, FUCK RIGHT OFF.
I have a rather hardy and justice laden policy of, if I like five or more of a band's songs (having illegally downloaded them) I will then legitimately purchase their CD. If, however, they suck balls, I will not buy it, safe in the knowledge that I have once more avoided buying a shoddy album. This is a very safe method, and even if you follow it with three songs or five songs, it is a good and fair way of consuming music. The errors occur if you suddenly become consumed with an attack of zombie like naivety. Like what follows..
I, like a common Frenchman, my head full of romance and soft cheese, purchased the Friendly Fires album on a whim. I was going to Glastonbury. They were playing. I might as well listen to the rest of their songs, on top of their three I had. I'd seen them live in DC. They were very good.
Yet...YET, their album was a fucking nightmare. It was as if the Arnold Schwarzeneger of Terminator had been sent back in time purely to rape the 80s. Then it was as if the offspring of this tragic affair had been forced into a grotesque, corporate mating program with a CasioClub M-100 electronic keyboard. The bastard of this experiment was the Friendly Fires album.
My point being that it was a horrific album. My point being that, for my part, it was an error of a purchase that I afforded little replay value.
WHEN SUDDENLY, like a dynamo out of the night sky, came "Kiss of Life", by Friendly Fires! A great song to my ears, that I liked, and I thought, holla motherbitch, I like it, I'll whip that right up on the album I purchased!!
If only that were possible. A song like that only appears if it's the last option. It's the mechanical lung for an album which is rapidly circling the drain, and so early in life too. Song like 'Kiss of Life' are only released if a band is so initially crud that they must re-release new and better songs to promote sales of will eventually be their 'new and improved album' (which, as is well documented here, was originally crud). I mean what a cunt.
It's like a man with a history of spousal abuse coming back to a woman and saying "baby, I can change" for the fifth fucking time, before blowing her brains out with another mediocre album. Shut up, that's exactly what it's like.
Friendly Fires aren't the only ones. MGMT, Summer 08's precious golden child and official Doors look -a-like winners, are another fine example of this bastard-like tomfoolery and did the same fucking thing. I'm very glad that I never bought their album. Pretty much all of their competent or good songs were thoroughly absent from their album. Why? There's honestly no reason. Oh, except that anyone vaguely involved with the music industry is a cunt.
So fucking download every single piece of music that you can for free! Because if you don't your good-will will only get raped by injustice; and injustice has a big fucking cock, alright.
The reason? Wer-ho, you know the reason as well as I do. Every time a vaguely new band springs into life, like a relentless daisy of pain, the gormless members of the consuming public (such as myself) are given a choice, a choice which is two-fold:
(a) NEW BAND - DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM AND SEE IF IT'S ANY GOOD!!!
or
(b) Listen to their first two singles legitimately. If you think they're good, buy the album.
Wise people will of course take option A, to the intense rage of music peoples the world over. But they can, again, of course, FUCK RIGHT OFF.
I have a rather hardy and justice laden policy of, if I like five or more of a band's songs (having illegally downloaded them) I will then legitimately purchase their CD. If, however, they suck balls, I will not buy it, safe in the knowledge that I have once more avoided buying a shoddy album. This is a very safe method, and even if you follow it with three songs or five songs, it is a good and fair way of consuming music. The errors occur if you suddenly become consumed with an attack of zombie like naivety. Like what follows..
I, like a common Frenchman, my head full of romance and soft cheese, purchased the Friendly Fires album on a whim. I was going to Glastonbury. They were playing. I might as well listen to the rest of their songs, on top of their three I had. I'd seen them live in DC. They were very good.
Yet...YET, their album was a fucking nightmare. It was as if the Arnold Schwarzeneger of Terminator had been sent back in time purely to rape the 80s. Then it was as if the offspring of this tragic affair had been forced into a grotesque, corporate mating program with a CasioClub M-100 electronic keyboard. The bastard of this experiment was the Friendly Fires album.
My point being that it was a horrific album. My point being that, for my part, it was an error of a purchase that I afforded little replay value.
WHEN SUDDENLY, like a dynamo out of the night sky, came "Kiss of Life", by Friendly Fires! A great song to my ears, that I liked, and I thought, holla motherbitch, I like it, I'll whip that right up on the album I purchased!!
If only that were possible. A song like that only appears if it's the last option. It's the mechanical lung for an album which is rapidly circling the drain, and so early in life too. Song like 'Kiss of Life' are only released if a band is so initially crud that they must re-release new and better songs to promote sales of will eventually be their 'new and improved album' (which, as is well documented here, was originally crud). I mean what a cunt.
It's like a man with a history of spousal abuse coming back to a woman and saying "baby, I can change" for the fifth fucking time, before blowing her brains out with another mediocre album. Shut up, that's exactly what it's like.
Friendly Fires aren't the only ones. MGMT, Summer 08's precious golden child and official Doors look -a-like winners, are another fine example of this bastard-like tomfoolery and did the same fucking thing. I'm very glad that I never bought their album. Pretty much all of their competent or good songs were thoroughly absent from their album. Why? There's honestly no reason. Oh, except that anyone vaguely involved with the music industry is a cunt.
So fucking download every single piece of music that you can for free! Because if you don't your good-will will only get raped by injustice; and injustice has a big fucking cock, alright.
The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack
In a mad twist of irony the first entry that I cannot possibly keep in a thoroughly positive review on a cartoon, a medium that I am a great advocate of. It's called 'The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack'.
What a fantastic cartoon. It's a cartoon that captures that pure essence of imagination that we disgusting young adults - well, we don't even dream of it, such is our lack of imagination nowadays. But this show is just unashamed pure enjoyment and invites you back into that realm with a crooked, well-illustrated finger. It makes me so happy.
It features two main characters, Captain Knuckles and Flapjack, a cynical, lazy sailor and a happy-go-lucky idealistic young lad. They live in Storm-Along Docks, where the main currency seems to be candy. The relationship is classic, Flapjack being young, naive and idealistic, always hungry for adventure, alongside a Knuckles, who is jaded, manipulative and something of a fraud. But, of course, Flapjack idealises him! Boy, they really are the original odd couple! Well, not quite. But it's a classic set-up with an original 'by-the-sea' back-drop bordering on simple genius. I don't want to build it up too much, judge for yourself.
Their adventures feature such wonders as 'mechanical genie island', self amused jokes like 'what say we let the cats...out...of the bag' (where cats are of course literally let out of a bag) which is followed by excessive laughter. This is a cartoon that is allowed to be a cartoon.
Flapjack could be annoying, but he is embarrassingly lovable. His plasticine features are not unlike Spongbob Square Pant's, except he is a human and not a sponge, giving him less excuse for flexing his face in such an awful manner, which makes it all the better. This cartoon couldn't exist without Spongebob Square Pants. The nautical themes, the main character bordering on irritating and loveable at the same time, etc. This is much better though, the cartoon lovers of this world would be wise to migrate from Bikini Bottom to Storm-Along.
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Quotes (which are possibly slightly wrong as typed here) and that you won't understand until you watch an episode but that I can't resist recounting:
-Flapjack: "Baa little lamb; the lamb says baa"
-Flapjack: "THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD!? - I would very much like to go there someday" "THE STORY TELLERS CLUB!? - I would very much like to hear tales there someday"
-Flapjack: "Iiii'm...think-ing of a number...it's a number you know..." Knuckles: "Eurgh - One?...three?...twenty?...nine?...fourteen?...eight?...five?...six?" Flapjack:"PHHFFFT...nooo...ITS TWO!"
-Knuckles: "Here it is Flapjack, the Storm-Along Wishing Well" Flapjack: "Well well well well well well well, neyarghahahahahaha"
-VOICE OVER: "cats are attracted to fiiiish!"
aaand, so on in that manner...
There is a a fantastic dark element to this cartoon as well. It has some of the grotesque elements and close-ups that one might associate with 'Ren & Stimpy', 'Argh Real Monsters', or even more recently. 'The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'. Exploitation and sudden moments of a detailed, sketched drawing of a certain character and loud scream will suddenly burst onto your screen and leave your eye-brows hanging from your hairline out of pure, surprised, enjoyment. In one episode they harvest Flapjack's love, he becomes sick, and they turn out to be disgusting gnats shaped like hearts. In another episode, they get trapped for eternity by a giant baby. It's ALL, GOOD.
The very darkest character who I'm afraid I have to mention in this sickeningly long and positive rant is Dr. Barber, who's gums show when he speaks and who laughs under his breath and always says in between sentences "mmmyes, mmmmyes" like a disgusting pedofile.
All in all, it's the first thing in years that has made me really happy and that can dig me out of a mood. It's a glorious programme that I have not given full justice right now because it's midnight and I'm very tipsy, but at least there's quantity, if not quality, that should indicate how good it is. Seriously, give it a genuine go, it's on weekdays on Cartoon Network & Cartoon Network Too. You'd do yourself a favour by watching it.
And to get you in the mood (it's all on youtube) copy and past the link below. It's the first one I watched. I've run it past my sister and she found it funny, so that's endorsement enough if you think you're too cool for me or something:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3sbVZ8HwCY
What a fantastic cartoon. It's a cartoon that captures that pure essence of imagination that we disgusting young adults - well, we don't even dream of it, such is our lack of imagination nowadays. But this show is just unashamed pure enjoyment and invites you back into that realm with a crooked, well-illustrated finger. It makes me so happy.
It features two main characters, Captain Knuckles and Flapjack, a cynical, lazy sailor and a happy-go-lucky idealistic young lad. They live in Storm-Along Docks, where the main currency seems to be candy. The relationship is classic, Flapjack being young, naive and idealistic, always hungry for adventure, alongside a Knuckles, who is jaded, manipulative and something of a fraud. But, of course, Flapjack idealises him! Boy, they really are the original odd couple! Well, not quite. But it's a classic set-up with an original 'by-the-sea' back-drop bordering on simple genius. I don't want to build it up too much, judge for yourself.
Their adventures feature such wonders as 'mechanical genie island', self amused jokes like 'what say we let the cats...out...of the bag' (where cats are of course literally let out of a bag) which is followed by excessive laughter. This is a cartoon that is allowed to be a cartoon.
Flapjack could be annoying, but he is embarrassingly lovable. His plasticine features are not unlike Spongbob Square Pant's, except he is a human and not a sponge, giving him less excuse for flexing his face in such an awful manner, which makes it all the better. This cartoon couldn't exist without Spongebob Square Pants. The nautical themes, the main character bordering on irritating and loveable at the same time, etc. This is much better though, the cartoon lovers of this world would be wise to migrate from Bikini Bottom to Storm-Along.
-------------------------------------
Quotes (which are possibly slightly wrong as typed here) and that you won't understand until you watch an episode but that I can't resist recounting:
-Flapjack: "Baa little lamb; the lamb says baa"
-Flapjack: "THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD!? - I would very much like to go there someday" "THE STORY TELLERS CLUB!? - I would very much like to hear tales there someday"
-Flapjack: "Iiii'm...think-ing of a number...it's a number you know..." Knuckles: "Eurgh - One?...three?...twenty?...nine?...fourteen?...eight?...five?...six?" Flapjack:"PHHFFFT...nooo...ITS TWO!"
-Knuckles: "Here it is Flapjack, the Storm-Along Wishing Well" Flapjack: "Well well well well well well well, neyarghahahahahaha"
-VOICE OVER: "cats are attracted to fiiiish!"
aaand, so on in that manner...
There is a a fantastic dark element to this cartoon as well. It has some of the grotesque elements and close-ups that one might associate with 'Ren & Stimpy', 'Argh Real Monsters', or even more recently. 'The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'. Exploitation and sudden moments of a detailed, sketched drawing of a certain character and loud scream will suddenly burst onto your screen and leave your eye-brows hanging from your hairline out of pure, surprised, enjoyment. In one episode they harvest Flapjack's love, he becomes sick, and they turn out to be disgusting gnats shaped like hearts. In another episode, they get trapped for eternity by a giant baby. It's ALL, GOOD.
The very darkest character who I'm afraid I have to mention in this sickeningly long and positive rant is Dr. Barber, who's gums show when he speaks and who laughs under his breath and always says in between sentences "mmmyes, mmmmyes" like a disgusting pedofile.
All in all, it's the first thing in years that has made me really happy and that can dig me out of a mood. It's a glorious programme that I have not given full justice right now because it's midnight and I'm very tipsy, but at least there's quantity, if not quality, that should indicate how good it is. Seriously, give it a genuine go, it's on weekdays on Cartoon Network & Cartoon Network Too. You'd do yourself a favour by watching it.
And to get you in the mood (it's all on youtube) copy and past the link below. It's the first one I watched. I've run it past my sister and she found it funny, so that's endorsement enough if you think you're too cool for me or something:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3sbVZ8HwCY
Sunday 2 August 2009
Introduction to The Idiot Box Reviews
Oh, hahaha, this is just like something Charlie Brooker would write, just fuck off alright. I write, and television frequently enrages me, it's all very independent and self-serving. In a mad fit of metaphoric marriage and rampant similie honey-moon sex, this blog was spawned. Hello.
Television, particularly adverts, but also many of its shows, suck beans. Sour, sour, beans. By putting all of them in their place in this limited space - oh, that rhymed - ahem, but by writing about them in this blog, I will satisfy my deep rooted need to put the world of media to rights. Pointless, pointless, rights.
And Charlie Brooker? He's like, 50 years older than me (pretty much) and he's going to die eventually, and then you'll have no one left but me. ME. ME. ME. So get to used to it, get reading, and bookmark this blog.
Regards, Danger.
Television, particularly adverts, but also many of its shows, suck beans. Sour, sour, beans. By putting all of them in their place in this limited space - oh, that rhymed - ahem, but by writing about them in this blog, I will satisfy my deep rooted need to put the world of media to rights. Pointless, pointless, rights.
And Charlie Brooker? He's like, 50 years older than me (pretty much) and he's going to die eventually, and then you'll have no one left but me. ME. ME. ME. So get to used to it, get reading, and bookmark this blog.
Regards, Danger.
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