Filed under: Channel 4, Great Moments in TV History, Sesame Street | Tags: Bert, Channel 4, Ernie, Great Moments in TV History, Sesame Street
Of all the terrific music that Sesame Street brought us, this was arguably the best. Stu-bloody-pendous…
- Mario and Lisa talk to each other like they’re in those ‘Creature Comforts’ ads.
- Mikey could well be Scotland’s worst stand-up.
- It’s possible for mascara to be “natural”.
- Ironically, now that she’s left the house, the only thing I can remember Alex telling me is to remember she told me.
Filed under: Big Brother, Channel 4 | Tags: Alex, Big Brother, Channel 4, Eminem, Mario
So the least popular “Moose-lim” since Bin Laden has been kicked out of the BB house, just days before the public were about to do the same job anyway. That means good news for not only her would-be eviction night opponent Sly LeBlanc, but also for his “massive fanbase”, who can now keep their phones on the hook until next week, when he’ll inevitably be up again.
But is Alex’s premature ejection really a good or a bad thing? With her triple standards, faux-gangsta catchphrases and impressive ability to reduce grown men twice her size to tears, she was undoubtedly making for great TV. And the other thing she was making, quite nicely, was a rod for her own back. Despite seemingly believing that by chastising the sin of fancy-dress she would somehow win the voting support of “Moose-lims” everywhere, what she seemed to forget is that, regardless of religion, nobody likes a moaner. Except, perhaps, Eminem fans, and there surely can’t be too many of them still around.
Good riddance, Alex – and remember we told you.
Filed under: Big Brother, Big Brother's Big Mouth, Big Brother's Little Brother, Channel 4, E4 | Tags: Big Brother, Channel 4, Dermot O'Leary, E4, Big Brother's Little Brother, Big Brother's Big Mouth, Russell Brand, Davina McCall, Queens of Noize, George Lamb, Zezi Ifore, Ted Danson, Dom July, Mario
Okay, I’ll admit it – this year’s Big Brother has won me over. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment at which it happened, but it was somewhere between Sylvester LeBlanc bringing up his own mythical fan club and Mikey sneezing in the crisps. Rex’s combover and Darnell’s continued insistence on looking exactly like Ted Danson haven’t done any harm either.
Sadly though, the rest of this year’s BB package still has a long way to go to get me onside. Big Brother’s Big Mouth has become a rambling, self-important and completely humourless mess, fronted by a procession of witless randoms dragged in off the street (this week it’s presented by ‘Queens of Noize’ – I rest my case). Last night’s only saving grace was Dom Joly, wasted as a studio guest when he’d have been a far better choice as outright presenter (particularly as he took the time to jump on my Darnell-is-Danson bandwagon). Whether you loved or hated Russell Brand, there’s no denying that the format was ideal for him, and it’s deteriorated beyond all recognition since his departure.
Big Brother’s Little Brother, too, has plummeted downhill at an incredible rate of knots. Sure, Dermot O’Leary had clearly lost interest over the course of the last couple of years, and he’d long since resorted to simply going through the motions – but even that was preferable to George Lamb and Wotsherface.
Even Davina no longer seems to be making as much of an effort – she hasn’t even bothered to get preggers this year. Shame on you Davina, and shame on your skewed priorities.
Filed under: BBC, Back to You, Big Bang Theory, Channel 4, Cheers, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, ITV, More4, Seinfeld, The Office: An American Workplace | Tags: Back to You, BBC, Big Bang Theory, Bill Cosby, Channel 4, Cheers, comedy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, Jerry Seinfeld, Kelsey Grammer, More4, Patricia Heaton, Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show, The Office
So Channel 4 have unleashed yet another American sit-com upon us, in the shape of newsroom-based Back to You. With Frasier’s Kelsey Grammer and Everybody Loves Raymond’s Patricia Heaton teaming up to form something of a US comedy dream team, this one should really have laugh-a-minute written all over it. Sadly, though, even a lab-created hybrid of Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby and the entire cast of Cheers wouldn’t be able to prevent this labouring show from feeling incredibly dated.
In these days of The Office: An American Workplace and Curb Your Enthusiasm, it’s hard to believe that these fake-laughter-filled, predictably punchlined, uber-generic shit-coms are still coming out of the States. Once upon a time Back to You might have worked, but in the context of today’s comedy scene this show’s entire format is the equivalent of a dodo operating a Betamax.
What’s far more depressing than this show’s very existence, though, is that the main channels here in the UK are happier to invest money and schedule time into played-out guff like this and Big Bang Theory, than they are to show the afore-mentioned Office and Curb. Why is The Office buried away on ITV 37 and Curb doomed to an eternity on More4, while this tripe is somehow deemed worthy of the wider audience?
It’s BBC’s scandalous treatment of Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Show all over again.
Filed under: BBC, Big Brother, Channel 4, Euro 2008, ITV, Match of the Day: Euro 2008, Russell Grant's Postcards | Tags: Alex, BBC1, Big Brother, Channel 4, Euro 2008, Gordon Strachan, ITV, Match of the Day, Ronaldo, Scolari
Following on from the Big Brother drinking game, here’s an Alex-specific version that you can all play along with at home. All you need to do is take a swig of your chosen tipple every time this year’s favourite anger management candidate utters any of the following phrases:
- “I’m not trying to be funny, but…”
- “Do you know what I mean?”
- “Remember I told you.”
- “My fings.”
- “Deal with it.”
Alternatively, if you’re more likely to be spending your evenings watching the far more civilised Euro 2008, you can still play along. All you need to do is take a sizable gulp every time any of the commentators or pundits mention any of the following:
- The home nations’ failure to qualify.
- Ronaldo.
- The Alps.
- The Premier League.
- Dutch “total football”.
- Scolari’s going to Chelsea, don’tcha know.
By the way, what is the point of the current trend of cutting from the presenter and pundits in the studio, to a different presenter standing on the touchline with a different pundit? Does the touchline pundit know something that the others don’t? And, if so, why can’t they just let him sit in the studio with the rest of them? Of course, it’s understandable in situations where the touchline pundit is Gordon Strachan, because clearly nobody can bear to be in a room with him for any significant period of time. But what of the others? Answers, as usual please, on the back of one of Russell Grant’s Postcards.
Filed under: Big Brother, Celebrity Big Brother, Channel 4 | Tags: Big Brother, Celebrity Big Brother, Channel 4, Jackie Stallone, John McCririck
I’m going to sound like a wrinkly old curmudgeon by asking this, but I’m going to ask it anyway: why is Big Brother always full of young people? Every year it seems to be exactly the same 18-30 crowd, and if you take Sylvester LeBlanc and Lisa out of this year’s mob then it’s the same thing again. The show’s producers seem to make a genuine effort to find a cross-section of races, sexualities, classes and backgrounds, so why not ages?
Sure, there’s been the occasional instance of an oldie slipping through the net. Sandy, the kilt-wearing bin-pisser, is the most obvious example to spring to mind. But even he wasn’t a proper oldster. I don’t want the sort of oldie who thinks they’re still “young at heart”, and wears combat pants and daft fashionable glasses to prove it. Nah, what I want to see in the BB house is some genuine, wrinkly old gimmers, clad in brown from head to toe and ready to moan, disapprove and walk incredibly slowly around the kitchen at every given opportunity.
Throwing a couple of short-tempered coffin-dodgers into the mix would add a completely new dimension to the show, and would surely also create plenty of conflict (which is, let’s face it, what we’re all looking for). To me, the wider range of ages normally found in Celebrity Big Brother has a lot to do with why that version often works so much better. John McCririck and Jackie Stallone, to name but two, were involved in the sort of vintage BB moments that the current lot can, so far, only dream of.
Of course, getting the wrinklies to take part could turn out to be the difficult bit of my plan – which is why I’m saying it’s high time Big Brother participation was compulsory. The Government should stop wasting their time yabbering on about education and housing, and pass a worthwhile law for a change: one that says if the BB producers want you to go into the house, then you have to go in, and that’s that. Let’s get rid of the audition process, because all it essentially does is attract spiky-haired cretins who start every sentence with “do you know what”. Instead, the producers should be allowed to go out onto the streets with a big net, and catch themselves some genuinely interesting people. And first into the net is you, Grandad.
- Mario and Lisa: Mario’s been on TV before. I can’t remember what programme it was, but what I do remember is that it was purely for the reason that he simultaneously manages to look a bit like both Matt LeBlanc and Sylvester Stallone following an horrific industrial accident. Lisa, meanwhile, looks like the sort of woman you might see dripping from either LeBlanc or Stallone’s arm following said accident.
- Luke: a bizarre cross between a Tory MP and a Butlin’s Red Coat. This year’s Eugene. Could be a decent bet to make it to the end.
- Stephanie: wants to be in Nuts magazine, and is exactly the same as all previous housemates who have wanted to be in Nuts magazine. Somewhere there’s a factory churning these girls out, I’m sure of it.
- Rachel: strangely reminiscent of one of those wind-up sets of chattering teeth. Much like said teeth, there’s a good chance she won’t last long.
- Dale: yawn.
- Sylvia: double yawn.
- Dennis: looks strangely like Jade Goody.
- Michael: says he doesn’t want to “play the blind card”, a statement sensitively accompanied by the words “blind” and “card” flashing up on the screen in large letters beside him. Nice.
- Alexandra: says she’s “special”. You won’t get many people disagreeing with that one.
- Rex: haven’t we already seen this bloke? It’s just Dale in a ginger wig, surely.
- Mohamed: helpfully points out that not all Mohameds are terrorists. Jeez, everyone knows that. At least one of them is a teddy bear.
- Rebecca: yeah but no but yeah but no.
- Darnell: looks strangely like Ted Danson.
- Jennifer: Jim Davidson called – he wants his opinions back.
- Kathreya: looks strangely like Nancy Lam.
Filed under: Big Brother, Channel 4 | Tags: Big Brother, Channel 4, Dermot O'Leary
Big Brother is getting so close, you can almost smell the vomit. So what better way to make the whole thing bearable than to play your if-you-can’t-beat-’em-drink-yourself-into-oblivion card. To help, I’ve compiled a list of phrases and general goings-on to look out for during this year’s coverage. All you have to do is watch every last second of painful action from the BB house, and down a glass of something suitably coma-inducing each time you hear, or spot, any of the below…
- A housemate starts a sentence with “You know what…?”.
- A housemate starts a sentence with “At the end of the day…”.
- A housemate ends a sentence with “…end of”.
- A housemate describes a fellow housemate as being “real”.
- A housemate describes a fellow housemate as “being himself/being herself”.
- A housemate describes a fellow housemate as “playing a game”.
- A housemate or BB presenter uses the word “journey”.
- A BB presenter uses the word “cathartic” (likely to be more of a rarity this time, now that Dermot “All things must be described as cathartic” O’Leary has departed).
- A housemate says the word “Day”, followed by a number, in an attempted Geordie accent.
- A housemate demonstrates their furious rage at a fellow housemate by throwing a small amount of water at them.
- A housemate says in the diary room that they want to leave.
- A housemate uses “not gelling” with someone as a reason to nominate them.
- A housemate cries.
- A housemate defends himself/herself following an offensive outburst by saying “at least I’m being me/real/honest”, as if being “yourself” somehow makes it okay to scream obscenities into someone else’s face purely because they ate the last Hob-Nob. When did society come up with this new rule anyway?
So there it is - my attempt at making the BB clichés vaguely interactive. Feel free, of course, to add your own by using the comments thingy below. Not that I’m forcing you, or anything.
Filed under: BBC, Big Brother, Channel 4, I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, ITV, The Apprentice | Tags: Big Brother, I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, The Apprentice
While the other reality big-hitters like Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity etc etc Blah-de-Blah-de-Blah increasingly seem like tired, spent formats, The Apprentice continues to make for fantastic viewing. That said, if the unthinkable happens and slimy slimeball Michael Sophocles somehow manages to win the thing, I’ll pretend never to have said any of the above. So there.
