There are a few things that get me out of bed at 5 a.m. But when Hall of Fame basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski needs a P.A., I’m there. He’s bringing the Olympic gold back to America. I’ll carry his water for my normal daily fee.
Coach K was starring in an ad campaign for a product I can’t discuss. They needed a P.A. for the website video and the print campaign shoot. In between these gigs, I’d get a breather as the coach would be working with the 35mm commercial crew.
I was still rather sleepy when I pulled onto the Duke campus. I reported to the producer and curiously asked who was shooting the Coach K commercial. The last time I worked with Coach K, it was Oscar winner Errol Morris doing the American Express ad. I was hoping to hear an ex-Propaganda guy would be on the court. The producer softly said, “Joe Pytka.”
This news woke me up better than using a beer bong to chug a gallon of Jolt soda, Red Bull and a meth chaser. While my life didn’t flash before my eyes, my soul could feel the short careers of other P.A.s vanquishing. For those who don’t squirm in horror, Pytka is best known for his thousands of commercials. He brought us the McDonald’s “Nothing But Net” series with Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. He lensed the legendary “Your Brain on Drugs” series. He’s done an astonishing number of ads that ended up on The Superbowl. You might really know him for directing Space Jam with Jordan and Bugs Bunny. But for those who wrangle cable and pull focus, Pytka’s name rates up with “Bloody Mary.” You never say Pytka three times while looking into a Fresnel lens.
Stories of what Pytka has done to crew members are notorious in production circles. I can’t even repeat them on advice of legal counsel. A majority of them end with Pytka firing everybody on the set. But maybe these are just stories told by jealous bitches. Perhaps Pytka is a misunderstood, sweet, warm, lovable guy.
While cutting through the hotel lobby to retrieve stuff from the producer’s room, I spotted Pytka coming out of the elevator. He’s not quite the Lion of legend since his hair has grayed and thinned. He’s almost like a heavyweight version of Riff-Raff from Rocky Horror. Under normal circumstances, I’d say, “Good morning” and introduce myself as part of the crew (although not his crew). But as he got closer, I felt this hideous aura that warned me to not even make eye contact. Darth Vader’s “force” doesn’t come close to the menace of Pytka. The weight of my eyeballs on his black sweatshirt would probably cause him to erupt. I looked directly at the elevator and let him pass undisturbed. Without us exchanging a word, I sensed that all those stories were true. I didn’t breath until the elevator doors were closed.
Even though I wasn’t working on his crew, I feared that he’d fire me for having the nerve to bring myself to his attention. I’ve said hello to Sonny Barger of Hells Angels fame. I’m not a chicken when it comes to saying hello. But Pytka is literally like working with a lion. It’s not a question of if it’ll attack, but what’s your escape route when it attacks. Nobody will ever confuse Joe Pytka for Mr. Rogers.
The shoot location was the brand new Michael W. Krzyzewski Center for Athletic Excellence. Do you want to know why Coach K didn’t run off to the NBA when the Celtics and Lakers threw money at him? Cause he’s got an empire on Duke’s campus. This new Center is huge. It has two indoor basketball courts, massive lockerroom area, a weight room that could house Fit TV’s studios and a “film room” that rivals NASA’s Mission Control or Bill Gates’ home entertainment center. This is a long way from a corner in the gym with an abandoned blackboard and three half pieces of chalk. This is big time college basketball.
When it comes to pitchman, Coach K is a pure professional. I was in complete awe at how he worked his lines and nailed his marks. He needs to quit having VIP basketball camps and train executives how to appear in their industrial videos. I learned a lot watching him operate on the green screen. I was in charge of making sure he had water on the set. Anyone who complains that I’m a water carrier for Coach K, I can’t argue it. When it came time for him to work with Pytka on the courts, I remained hidden in the lobby.
A row of windows looked down on the court. We would sneak peaks of Pytka and his crew. We wanted to see what made him so special. At one point, I saw Pytka’s camera aiming up at our window. I ducked with a fear that Pytka would launch a chair at us for spoiling his shot. But the glass didn’t break. We were informed that it was mirrored on the other side. We exhaled and resumed our observation of Joe the Lion with the security of a security mirror.
Pytka was completely in his environment as he spent plenty of time dribbling the ball and shooting the hoop. No P.A.s attempted to get between the director and the backboard. It was an amazingly smooth shoot without any bloodshed. This was the rarest of Pytka location stories. When Pytka’s crew wrapped, I nervously went down to help prepare the court for the still photos. Even with Pytka done for the day, I kept on the fringes and out of his direct line of vision. It was a great sense of relief when he left the Center. I knew I’d get paid for a full day on location.
Coach K was jazzed about his Olympic prospects. I didn’t want to talk about Beijing with him because my last “Olympic” job involved Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery before the 2004 Athens games. I wished luck on Marion and Tim at the end of that shoot. Both of them are now in prison on various charges. Coach K doesn’t need that kind of luck from me.
GEARS OF WHEAT
A special thanks goes out to Cliff Bleszinski (formerly known as CliffyB) and the folks at Epic Games. I was over at their headquarters for a job that involved Cliff having to walk around in my size 15 sneakers. He walked 10 yards in my shoes around the hallways covered in awards collected for Unreal Tournament and Gears of War. I’m going to be putting them on eBay shortly. There’s got to be a freak in Japan aching for such a great souvenir. Cliff let me play around with an actual size Cog Lancer. I know what I’m putting on the list to Santa.
During our lunch break, I pitched my brilliant new video game: Amish Vengeance. Real estate developers want to buy up all the farms to turn into Super Wal-Marts, Home Depots and Starbucks. It’s up to you, a simple Amish farmer to fight back against the English. Being that you’re Amish, you don’t get to use real weapons. You only have one true super power to defend yourself from those money loving heathens: Shun-Force! In order to get up to critical shun levels, you have to accumulate grace points by building barns, driving buggies and praying hard. All this is simulated physical activity is done with your wii Nunchuks.
Kids always like to brag about their marathon sessions playing videogames. They’ll be in rapture when they enter the “Harvest” mode of the game. Six straight sixteen-hour days of toiling in the fields with their wii controls! You get to enjoy the sensation of using a scythe on the digital wheat! You get to grind the grain. And imagine all the fun with hours of cyber butter churning. The game shuts down on the seventh day to observe the Sabbath. Poorly done research proves this feature appeals to mothers of Orthodox Jewish gamers. After three weeks of playing the game, you’ll be growing a beard and calling yourself Eli Lapp.
Cliff and the Epic Games people seemed impressed and interested in Amish Vengeance, but are extremely focused on getting Gears of War 2 ready for the November release date. With any luck, I’ll have a launch time interview with Cliff for the Party Favors. I’ve already promised to pick up the tab for dinner at Raleigh’s Martin Street Pizza. This is best damn pizza joint in town. The menu is haunted by the ghost of Ed LaDou. Their ultimate is a pizza with prosciutto, asparagus and egg. Mmmmmm.
THE DVD SHELF
Is there going to be an actor’s strike? What’s the point of watching the Olympics when you know that all the winners will be stripped of their medals when they pee wrong in the next decade? Do you really care about watching dogs compete with their annoying owners? It’s all about digging up DVDs for my entertainment until Mad Men starts at the end of July.
Cannon: Season One, Volume 1 takes me back to a time when a really fat detective could solve any crime imaginable. William Conrad stepped away from the microphone as the narrator on Rocky and Bullwinkle. He was a hefty private investigator that roamed the country hunting down crooks, swindlers and homicidal maniacs.. “The Salinas Jackpot” reminds us of the danger posed by rodeo clowns. Tom Skerritt (Alien) looks creepy with the makeup and a gun. “Country Blues” should be seen as the precursor to Star Wars. Mark Hamill plays a kid stuck on the family farm who has ship from space crash on his land. It’s actually an airplane with a dead country star. But doesn’t that sound like Luke Skywalker? While Jaws isn’t influenced by “No Pockets In a Shroud,” Roy Schieder attacks through the screen as a low-life protecting a Howard Hughes-esque rich guy. There’s a dozen cases on this boxset that remind us of that time when an out of shape man could run circles around the bad guys.
Jake and the Fatman: Season One, Volume One brought the husky magic of William Conrad back to the people. He didn’t have to be nearly as active as Cannon in the role J.L. McCabe, the Los Angeles District Attorney. He had Joe Penny as his leg man. Guess which one was the Fatman? “Happy Days Are Here Again” kicks the series off with Robert Reed (Mr. Brady from The Brady Bunch) as a senate candidate who is following around on his wife with a female staffer. Shocking! An overzealous speechwriter (John Rubinstein of Family) solves his man’s problem. Wonder if this is based on Pat Buchanan’s time with Nixon? “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” has Mark Goddard, Major West from Lost In Space. The chemistry between Penny and Conrad works better than I remember. Although be warned that Jake and the Fatman is a gateway series to Matlock!
Beverly Hills 90210: Season Five is the year that Brenda disappeared. She supposedly did so well in her acting classes that she stayed in London to attend RADA full-time. Really? The immediately swapped her for Tiffani-Amber Thiessen from Saved By The Bell. She moves into Brenda’s bedroom after her dad commits suicide. She seems sweet, but you know she’ll have issues. Luke Perry’s drunk in Mexico with his amazing sideburns. Howie Long from Fox’s NFL team has a cameo in the first of the 31 episodes in this boxset. They even hype the upcoming CW resurrection of Beverly Hills 90210. I wonder if they’ll figure out what happened to Brenda. Is she the bad influence on Amy Winehouse?
Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse does not feature any of the shorts from Saturday Night Live. This was an 8 episodes series that aired on the cable channel in 2000. Robert Smigel and Dino Stamatopoulos attempted to expand their few minutes of nonsense into a twenty-two minute show. They made it a freakish kiddie series with Doug Dale as the human host. His Anipals were a mixture of puppets with live animals. The puppets had the same tone as Triumph, the Insult Dog. The best two episodes deal with the Anipals going to Atlantic City to party with Triumph. Robert Goulet swings with the stuffed fur. TV Funhouse makes a good double feature with Wonder Showzen.
Drillbit Taylor (Extended Survival Edition) is must see for those wanting to truly experience “The Summer of Danny McBride.” Forget Owen Wilson playing the title character. This movie is really about McBride as Don, Drillbit’s pal. Both men end up teaching kids without being stopped by the cops running the metal detectors. What does it say about our nation’s educational system when homeless men can clean up and sneak into schools as teachers? What’s child wants to get left behind if they know that Drifter Bob is in the classroom? Make sure you get this in BluRay so you can experience Danny McBride in Hi-Def action.
The Ruins reminds us why package tours are good. This time a group of Americans wandering around Mexico visit the ruins of a Mayan temple. They’re barefoot tour turns to mystical terror involving Mayan weirdness. This is the perfect kinda film for the SciFi Channel after Mansquito. The big plus is getting to watch Jena Malone being terrorized. Someday I’m going to quit confusing Jena with Tina Majorino. Although both were on Big Love.
Stop-Loss is another Iraq war theme movie that didn’t find an audience. This time it’s Ryan Phillippe who thinks he’s fulfilled his military obligations only to find he’s being sent back to the warzone under the Stop-Loss program. This is one of Ryan’s finest performances. Having known a person who was dragged back into the army years after he’d been discharged, this is a real subject.
Evening Shade: Season One brought Burt Reynolds to the sitcom world after returning to the small screen with B.L. Stryker. It’s amazing how much talent was on that soundstage with Marilu Henner, Michael Jeter (The Fisher King), Elizabeth Ashley, Ossie Davis, Charles Durning and Hal Holbrook. Burt’s character is an Ex-NFL player who returns to his quaint Southern town to coach the high school football team. It’s pretty easy work for Burt as he slides on his good ol’ boy charm.
Soul Food: The Final Season wraps up the Showtime series about the Jones family. Augie once said that this Chicago based drama was like Good Times without Jimmy Walker playing up to the studio audience. Girlfriends: The Fourth Season brings more of this quartet of ladies from the glory days of UPN. Remember that network? This season brings plenty of hot forbidden romance. I’m not spoiling the forbidden nature. Soul Food and Girlfriends remind us that there was a time before Tyler Perry.
Shine A Light finally brought the Rolling Stones and Martin Scorsese together after Marty had used “Gimme Shelter” in half of his films. This is a fun show recorded in the intimate Beacon theater. This makes it more enjoyable than the stadium shots in Let’s Spend the Night Together. Mick and Keith show their age, but still move around the stage better than Abe Vigoda. Christina Aguilera looks extra sassy while dueting “Live With Me” to Mick. Buddy Guy brings the blues when he unleashes “Champagne and Reefer.” What really would have made this film rock is if the Stones had brought back Mick Taylor to solo on “Brown Sugar” and “Midnight Rambler.” Couldn’t Marty at least CGIed Mick Taylor from the ’72 tour onto the stage? Bonus songs for the Blu-ray and DVD are “Paint It Black,” “Little T&A,” “I’m Free” and “Undercover of the Night.”
Toxic is one of those violent crime flicks that’s more thrilling for it’s amazing cast of actors. How else do you explain Dominque Swain, Master P, Danny Trejo, Tom Sizemore, Costas Mandylor, Steven Bauer and C. Thomas Howell in the same film? Toss in Bai Ling, Ron Jeremy, Brande Roderick, Shar Jackson, Tabitha Stevens and James Duvall. This is like a messed up Love Boat with the cruise ship replaced by firepower. It’s about deranged mental patients, strippers, crimelords and Ron Jeremy. What happens when they all collide? As a blurbmaster would declare: This film is Toxic! Master P working with Lolita defines fine entertainment.
LA Ink: Volume 1 lets us know what it takes to run a tattoo parlor in Tinseltown. The secret is a lot of hot women with needles. After Kat Von D was fired on Miami Ink, she returned to the West Coast with a camera crew. How come I didn’t get a reality show when my last job fired me? Kat’s got lots of high profile guests wanting tramp stamps and family portraits on their flesh. I’m not related to Corey, but he’s the only one I trust of the bunch. The sound mix on the show gets me queasy with the overwhelming needle sound. You might want to keep the remote close to adjust the volume.
There’s plenty of Blu-ray action coming you way at the end of July. Beowulf: Director’s Cut brings way more excitement to this poem than your high school English teacher’s pop quiz supplied. The animated frenzy of Grendel makes you believe that Ray Winstone is hunkier than those 300 studs.
Top Gun is a film that was made to test your home entertainment system. This was Tom Cruise before he became the sofa jumper. He’s just a cocky fighter pilot attempting to put Val Kilmer in his slipstream. In Blu-ray, the fighter planes pop on the attack. Careful with the volume or the FAA will investigate your house for an illegal landing strip.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series gets the 1080p upgrade. The Hunt for Red October brought Alec Baldwin to the Ryan role. He gets pulled into a case of an incoming Soviet submarine captained by Sean Connery (Bond, James Bond). Baldwin has to figure out if America’s under attack or if Connery is defecting. Patriot Games bodyswaps Ryan so he’s now Harrison Ford. This time he’s battling those pesky Irish. Ryan stops an IRA hit on an English Royal family member. Now they are out to hit his family. Thora Birch plays Ford’s daughter. What happened to Thora after Ghost World? Clear and Present Danger brings back Ford to battle the Columbian drug cartel. The Blu-ray brings the ambush scene to the next level. You’ll duck from the explosions. The Sum of All Fears decides to make Ryan younger by bringing in Ben Affleck. Now he has to prevent a nuclear attack on a football game in Baltimore. This could also mean the destruction of Charm City Cakes! This is a quartet of films that should appease folks that want the theater experience with patriotic action.
SQUISHHHHHHH
Cool Whip now comes in an Aerosol can! What the hell took it so long to finally match the technology that’s given us the goodness of Reddi-wip? Now kids across America have a choose for their daily dosage of nitrous oxide.
FLEEING THE PLANET
George Carlin and Harvey Korman are dead. People are fleeing the earth because they know that something evil is coming down the turnpike. Every time I hear, “Rollerfucking,” I’ll think of Carlin. Anytime I want to hit Tim Conway, I’ll do it in memory of Korman.
TURN IT UP
My incompetent source at Fox News says that Rupert Murdoch is furious at a rumor that Time-Warner cable is lowering the master volume on Fox News to sway their elderly viewers to turn the channel to CNN. Rupes is already sending teams around the country to monitor the sound levels of CNN and Fox News on various cable systems.
With a gaggle of off-the-wall friends and acquaintances, if you think of it as a twenty-something Seinfeld with a postmodern pop culture twist (there are frequent surreal diversions), you wouldn’t be far off the mark.
After much legal wrangling, fans and soon-to-be fans in the US can now pick up Spaced: The Complete Series.
After Spaced, co-creator/co-writer/co-star (with Simon Pegg) Jessica Hynes continued on with her acting career, accumulating quite an impressive CV – including guest appearances on Doctor Who, a regular role on the acclaimed Royle Family, writing the telefilm Learners, and even starring as Mafalda Hopkirk in the Harry Potter series – in addition to many others.
Find out about the Spaced trio’s appearance at LA’s Secret Stash on Wednesday, July 22 HERE. You can then catch Jessica, Simon, and Edgar Wright at the San Diego Comic-Con.
I got a chance to have an in-depth conversation with Jessica about… Well, about a lot of things… Read on…
KEN PLUME: Hiya. This still a good time for you?
JESSICA HYNES: This is fine, yes.
KP: Did I catch you at a bad moment?
HYNES: No you didn’t at all. I was sadly just listening to the podcast of me…
KP: Well, then I caught you at a really awkward, self-reflective moment…
HYNES: You caught me red handed. (laughing) Oh, the sadness of it.
KP: I’ll make sure and send this tape to you for your collection…
HYNES: Yeah! (laughing)
KP: So, let me say, it’s a pleasure to be speaking with you…
HYNES: Oh…
KP: And something that we’ve definitely wanted to do for a few years now, so I’m glad it pulled together.
HYNES: Oh, great…
KP: But since everyone else is talking about Spaced, why don’t we just start off and talk completely about According to Bex?
HYNES: Oh God! (laughing) Do we have to?
KP: Well, all that Spaced stuff is covered. When are we ever gonna have an According to Bex interview?
HYNES: Listen, Accordion to Bex is a show I’m working on now. It’s when Bex finally learns to play the accordion. That was my original suggestion. I thought that’s maybe where the show should have gone in the outset, and they’ve finally come around.
KP: Is this being done for CBBC now?
HYNES:Accordion to Bex is a CBBC show starring, obviously, me. I’m the accordion. So I feel very positive about it. Feel very upbeat about it, yeah.
KP: Well, I heard you were bringing a monkey in for it to.
HYNES: The joke is the monkey tries to play the accordion but fails. He’s obviously not a real monkey, because it wouldn’t be ethical to have live animals on a children’s show. It’s a man dressed in a monkey suit.
KP: Well, I’m surprised that you got Simon to play the monkey…
HYNES: He did it as a favor. He had a week off and was feeling sort of in a good mood, so he came down and put the monkey suit on, and bingo!
KP: It’s good that you finally got a catchphrase. It’s, “Silly monkey, that’s my accordion!!”, right?
HYNES: (laughing) That’s what was lacking from the original format, I felt. No, no accordion catchphrase. No really good catchphrases. So I think we’re all set up now.
KP: It’s a good thing that that’s faded quickly, then, so you don’t have to worry about accordion catchphrases…
HYNES: Yeah, exactly. (laughing)
KP: Now I’m going to put you out of your misery and we’re not going to talk about According to Bex anymore…
HYNES: Okay! (laughing)
KP: I was actually just watching your Room 101 appearance, and your fight against marzipan…
HYNES: Oh yeah, marzipan. What is that about? What the hell? It’s got to be some holdover from the war or something, isn’t it? Some kind of foodstuff hanging over from the time when we didn’t have any nice stuff to eat.
KP: “We have no real food product – can we make some kind of faux food product?”
HYNES: Yeah. “That is disgusting, but because it’s so sugary, we can almost convince ourselves that it’s a treat.”
KP: “How can we make it festive?” “Well, we put it on cakes. People will eat it if it’s on cake.” “But we don’t have cakes right now.” “Well, we’ll just give them the marzipan.”
HYNES: “We’ll camouflage it amongst some actual genuine confectionery, and no one will know it’s there.”
KP: “It’s after the war. There’s no more munitions factories. We can get those people to start sculpting marzipan.”
HYNES: Yeah, all the women returned from the gun to the marzipan sculpting.
KP: You realize that all those wartime factories transitioned over to marzipan after the war…
HYNES: I’d almost rather they were still making munitions, frankly.
KP: Well, your convictions on marzipan were kind of full of holes during the Room 101 appearance. There were a lot of digressions to your hatred of it…
HYNES: Oh yeah…
KP: Which, of course, Paul (Merton) poked further holes in rather quickly…
HYNES: He’s so good at that. I mean, he’s just such a quick wit. He doesn’t miss anything.
KP: What is your comfort level on shows like that? Because you’ve been doing them for the past few years…
HYNES: Oh yeah…
KP: You did a rather memorable appearance on Never Mind The Buzzcocks last season…
HYNES: (laughing) I was really ready for that.
KP: Now, when you’re in the green room on that, at what point did you formulate, “You know, I’m gonna wrestle Simon (Amstell)…” ?
HYNES: When somebody came and interviewed me for the Guardian and they said, “Are you scared? Are you worried?” I said, “Look, I’m gonna snap his little arms like the twiglets they are.” I became extremely aggressive, physically. Honestly, in an ironic way. I’m not an aggressive person, but it was a kind of way of psyching myself up. And then I suddenly realized that I was just… that was it. That we were gonna wrestle as soon as he came out. Because it’s very difficult to get anything past Simon, so I realized the only way to go was just to bring him down. I thought that he would appreciate the physical contact, as well. He always seems to me like somebody who’d kind of, you know, appreciate a hug.
KP: Just needs a hug?
HYNES: Or a wrestle. And a kiss. He was quite keen for the kiss though, wasn’t he?
KP: Yes.
HYNES: He’s just straight in there…
KP: And you completely subverted him on that.
HYNES: Yeah, I did. I did!
KP: So you clearly proved dominance on that.
HYNES: Yes, I did!
KP: And by that point, it was your game to win.
HYNES: (laughing) Yeah. Yeah, he respected me after that, didn’t he?
KP: Yes, now you know. Exactly… wrestle and refuse the kiss.
HYNES: Yeah, I did.
KP: That’s the way to live life, I think.
HYNES: We became friends after that. It was great.
KP: When you talk about friends, what kind of contact have you had with Simon since?
HYNES: He’s in Paris at the moment, and I just got a nice text from him saying, “I’m in Paris and I’m having a nice holiday.” I’ve met up with him and gone out with him a couple of times. We haven’t done any wrestling since then, obviously. But he let me do… I tried out a bit of stand-up, a bit of comedy, in one of his shows and he let me do a warm-up for him. In Brighton. He wasn’t planning to because I’d done a warm-up for him up in London. I just did a tight three minutes at the beginning of one of his sets, because I’d mentioned I was into it, and he said, “Go on then, come along.” And then I went down to one of his gigs in Brighton, which is a sort of 1600 seat theater – and the intention wasn’t to do anything, and then when we got there he said, “Go on, do a bit. Do a bit on the stage while we’re warming up.” And he said, “Go on, why don’t you go on tonight? Go and do a bit.” So I did. It was fun. It was a great night. He’s a great guy. I love Simon.
KP: Now, you’ve done stage work before. How different is the sort of feeling and dynamic when it’s stand-up, as opposed to stage work?
HYNES: Stand-up is a lot more… it’s showmanship, stand-up. It’s showmanship. It’s absolutely about the very immediate and direct relationship that you have with the audience. The connection. (DOG BARKS) All right. That dog obviously disagrees. I’m out in the garden. Yeah, I think stand-up is, from the very little that I’ve done… hopefully I might do more. I’m rehearsing for a play, actually, at the moment. But yeah, stand-up is obviously about an immediate relationship that you have with the audience. It’s not about a character you – stage work is about a character, kind of thinking about the dynamic of the play. You want to play the play. You want to do the play and kind of bring it to life and be faithful and true to the author’s vision, if you like. Whereas stand-up is completely different. It’s pure entertainment.
KP: Do you think, on some level when you’re doing a production, you’re in some ways divorced from the audience?
HYNES: Not entirely. Because you can get a sense of them. You know when they’re with you. But it’s not such an immediate relationship in that way. And you’re not necessarily courting the audience, unless you’re in that kind of play. I’m working with a director at the moment, and he’s saying he recently was working on a comedy. He said it got to the point where everyone realized that everyone could get a laugh on every single line if they wanted to. So there was a point they were saying, “Well, do you know what, cut down the laughs and try not to get a laugh on that, because then that stamps on someone else’s laugh.” I think, when you’re doing a play, you’re not so totally focused on that immediate laugh, that immediate gratification – you’re focused on what you’re actually doing. Whereas when you’re doing stand-up, that’s all you want. You just want them to laugh. You do anything to get a laugh.
KP: Do you think that situation you just described – about toning down when an audience is sort of prompting you for gags – is the difference between stage and sort of panto?
HYNES: Yes. I think that’s where I’m headed. God.
KP: What’s the one panto role you’ve always wanted to play?
HYNES: Oh, god. I think the one panto role I’ve always wanted to play… let’s see. I think I’d like to play… I’d quite like to play a Dame, but I don’t think I can. I don’t know whether they have female Dames. And I don’t know if they have this big panto thing in America…
KP: No, not at all.
HYNES: Well, the whole panto thing in England is the Christmas show, and you tell the same stories. You basically kind of beef up the classic fairy tales – Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Dick Wittington… which is a story about a boy who goes to London. That’s a very famous British panto. And there’s always… the female character is normally the cook in the castle, played by an enormously tall, fat, large drag queen. And that’s a pantomime Dame. And I kind of think that I wouldn’t mind being a pantomime Dame at some point. Sometimes I feel like I am a pantomime Dame.
KP: Maybe you need to break the glass ceiling on male pantomime Dames…
HYNES: Thank you! I don’t know whether that would be right…
KP: Do you think there would be a massive public backlash against it? “How dare a female try and be a Dame!”
HYNES: That’s so British. That would happen. People would boycott the theaters.
KP: “You’re ruining tradition!”
HYNES: “Who does she think she is?” (laughing)
KP: “You’re destroying our culture!”
HYNES: Yeah, exactly.
KP: Maybe that’s how the Spaced reunion has to happen. You all just get together as a rep group and put on a panto for Christmas.
HYNES: And put on a panto. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I’m talking about!
KP: You’d probably have to fight Nick (Frost) for the Dame role, though…
HYNES: Do you know, it’s going to go to him. You know that, and know that. I’d be lucky if I get Buttons to his… if you ever look up. That is also a very famous pantomime role. Buttons. He’s the butler, I think, to Cinderella… or something like that.
KP: Maybe that’s what the panto is about – is the fact that you’re fighting to be the Dame…
HYNES: That’s what my life is about.
KP: It’ll be like a meta-panto.
HYNES: (laughing) Maybe that’s… I see what you mean. Yes, a meta-panto about me wanting to be the pantomime Dame. You’re a genius! I couldn’t take that from you. That’s yours. That’s yours, my friend.
KP: No, you can take it and run with is as far as your legs will carry…
HYNES: Oh my god, the hamster’s got out. The hamster. I swear to god – there’s a hamster on the floor…
KP: Gosh, everyone is disagreeing with this interview…
HYNES: I’m sorry. I don’t think he’s coming in protest. There’s just quite a lot of cats ’round here.
KP: He’s disgusted by the idea of a female Dame, too…
HYNES: I can’t believe… Yeah, he’s disgusted by it. He heard me from his tiny little plastic little network of pods…
KP: And he said, “Enough is enough. I’m dealing with this.”
HYNES: Yeah. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m getting out there. I’m gonna tell her what I think.”
KP: Yes, “Too much subversion of our culture…”
HYNES: No, I’m all about subversion. Yeah, and he better learn to live with it. That hamster, I’m gonna show him! (laughing)
KP: So that’ll be on the 20th anniversary release of Spaced – the meta-panto…
HYNES: The meta-panto. I’m wondering whether the final final might be Tim and Daisy – although I have said this a couple of times in interviews, so it might sound… oh look, he’s there… Maybe in an old people’s home, maybe.
KP: Just sort of what, reflecting?
HYNES: Making kind of catheter bag jokes? I don’t know.
KP: That’s how you do your clip show.
HYNES: What, as oldies?
KP: Yes. And flashbacks to the time when they were younger…
HYNES: Yeah.
KP: Of course, you have it peppered with flashbacks that never happened…
HYNES: Yes, that’s a good idea. (laughing) Lots of good ideas!
KP: Yeah, I’m sure. None of them workable. Strictly an idea person. Not anywhere close to a realization person. So, obviously, you’ve been working quite steadily over the past 20 years…
HYNES: Yeah. Yeah, I have.
KP: What was the appeal… because you started in National Youth Theatre, right?
HYNES: That’s right.
KP: At a rather young age…
HYNES: Yeah. I was 14 when I joined the National Youth Theatre. I auditioned when I was 13, and they didn’t let me in, but they wrote me a really lovely letter. They actually wrote me a letter and said, “Do try again. We just did feel that maybe you were a little bit too young to come up to London alone for two weeks.” But then I got in the following year.
KP: Were your parents always encouraging of that move to theater?
HYNES: Yeah. I mean, I was kinda lucky in a way, because I had quite a sort of… I mean, my situation was that I was able to kind of make those sort of decisions for myself. I mean, it was up to me to kind of get on with it. They were quite… my mother was a working single mother, so she was quite preoccupied with working. And I just got on with it. And I had quite a lot of freedom to do that, really, and no pressure to do anything else. So a friend from school said, “I’m in a Saturday afternoon drama class.” I just found myself a quid from somewhere, a pound, and got myself on the bus and took myself down there, because I wanted to do it and I sort of had that sort of freedom and autonomy. Because I think if you do have a working lone parent, you have to be quite self-sufficient – or, at least in my experience, that was the case. So I just kinda got on with it. It was what I wanted to do. I never met any sort of resistance. I mean, only from a couple of teachers, grumpy teachers. But I just sort of got on with it, and then as it picked up momentum I think my mum came to some… I won the Sussex drama competition or something when I was about 13, and I had to do a poem on stage. And I think my mum by that point was thinking, “Oh, you know, she’s really…” I remember her and my sister coming down and watching it and kind of being like, “Oh, yeah!” You know? It suddenly became so obvious that maybe it was something that was actually gonna happen and I might do it. But I was quite lucky in that way. I just had the freedom to do it, was never discouraged, and just I very, very early on realized that if you focus and you work hard enough, you’ll get there. You just have to keep working hard.
KP: I’m curious when you mentioned the grumpy teachers, how did that exactly take form?
HYNES: Well, I remember when I was at an A-Level college, I was very fond at that point of saying, “I’m gonna be an actress.” And almost enjoyed and sort of relished the response, which was, “Oh really, are you?” And this teacher would do that, and she would just give me a whole list of why that wasn’t gonna happen and why it was a bad idea, and why I should have something else to do. It may be kind of sound advice, but it only fueled my determination to go ahead and do it. I never let it deter me.
KP: Was there any point where your belief in yourself faltered?
HYNES: There’s a very clear point I remember going back to… because when I first started working, through the Youth Theatre, I had a really great foundation. Mainly from doing lots of theater work. And I had a fantastic artistic director who was very encouraging of me, and basically within three or four years of being in the Youth Theatre I was playing the lead in the big musical that year. So when I was 17, I was playing a big lead in a musical at the Youth Theatre. And agents came, and I got an agent. I hadn’t finished my A-levels, even, and I hadn’t finished college, but I decided, “Well, this is it. This is great.” I didn’t leave then. I kind of sat college out, basically, looking at my watch, just desperate to get out there and start auditioning and stuff. Once I finally got out, it wasn’t anything major – it was walking into a restaurant job and a washing up job, and then going to auditions. And on several occasions people would say, “You’re much too young. You’ve no experience. You haven’t been to drama school. You know, this is just ridiculous. I don’t even know why you’re here.” I remember bringing my reviews at one point, which was an odd decision…
KP: “Look! Look! They said I’m good!”
HYNES: My newspaper cuttings of my of reviews! “Would you like to see my reviews?” And I remember my mouth was so dry, my tongue was sticking to my teeth. I was so nervous. It felt like maybe they’re right. Maybe I just need to go to drama school.
KP: Not many actors go into auditions with scrapbooks…
HYNES: I went in with a scrapbook and said, “Here, these are my reviews.” I remember going in and working in a restaurant, and then getting my first job and thinking, “God, a paycheck. Brilliant.” And so you give up the job that you’re doing currently. But then eventually after a week, two weeks, a month, that little chunk runs out and you have to go back. And I always remember those… because you say, “Oh, I won’t need to do a restaurant job for a month or so. I can just relax and I’ll get another job, I’ll get another job,” and then you don’t, and you have to pay bills, so you’ve got to go back. And I think the going back is always… especially if it’s back to the same place…. It’s like you leave in a blaze of glory, “I’m going! I’m going off!” (laughing)
KP: You’ve got those smoke bombs and the flash powder…
HYNES: Yeah, the fireworks are going. “I’ll be in touch, I’ll see you…”
KP: Somebody there with a boom box to play your exit music…
HYNES: Exactly. And then you’re come back asking for your job back again because you’ve run out of money. That happened a couple of times, and I always remember those were the points at which I was low. But I never, ever, ever was ever going to give up, ever.
KP: So there was no point where you said, “Well, this is my fallback position…”
HYNES: My fallback position was busking in Covent Garden. The point at which I got my first job, I was already planning out this character that I was gonna do. He was gonna be a magician who couldn’t do magic tricks – because I couldn’t do magic tricks, so I was gonna play like… I was gonna get myself a fat man suit and a little table, and do magic tricks not very well, in a comedy way. I hadn’t really worked out exactly what I was going to do, but I thought, “Well, that’d be great.” I don’t even know if I’ve actually got notes for that somewhere, but I remember making little notes and jotting down the character and thinking… to me, to just be performing in any way, in any capacity – I had already set the bar extremely low in that way. And it was like, “That’s what I want to do. I want to perform; whatever it is, however it is, I will just do it. I will do it and I will just do whatever…” You know, “Whatever I need to do, I will do it.” And the fact that I was waitressing to pay bills? Well, that was just a necessity, but I was still an actress, and I was still a performer. Maybe I wasn’t making my living at it, but I still was that. And that was all that really mattered to me. And, in a way, I suppose that still is all that really matters to me. That feeling of feeling officially like you’re an actress. Mainly just having an agent, I suppose, and going to auditions. It’s like, if you’re failing at being something, you’re still something.
KP: Even if that agent gets you According to Bex?
HYNES: I left that agent. I left that agent very soon after According to Bex. That was a low point, actually, because that was an instinct that I didn’t follow – because I was instinctively thinking it’s not the right project for me. It’s not the right project for me at all. And I kind of… I let myself be persuaded, and my instincts were going, “No! No! No!” and I didn’t trust them. So, in that sense, you only have yourself to blame in that situation.
KP: Do you think there’s a line to walk – obviously because it’s a fickle business…
HYNES: Yeah…
KP: Do you find there’s a pull between, “Well, do I just take everything that comes along because it’s work and it’s working and it’s a career, or do I pick and choose and navigate it based on what I feel I should be doing?”
HYNES: Well, I think that I was always trying to pick and choose and navigate. But sometimes I was kind of trying to steer a rudderless ship, basically. And I kind of sort of feel, as well – I mean, I was never managed. I never had management. I only ever had an agent – and it’s quite different, actually. Because if you have a manager, they’ll say, “Okay, this is how we see things going for you…” And I never really had that. I had an agent that said, “Well, this person wants to audition you for this. How about that?” There’s a subtle – but I think quite significant – difference. The bottom line for me is that I think I’ve always seen my life as a learning experience. Because I didn’t really go on after college, I’m sort of prepared to accept the reality that I am gonna make mistakes and do things wrong – but then I will just get up and do something else. It’s the getting up and going on really that matters. It’s not the fact that you might take a bit of a bad turn, for whatever reason – it’s the kind of steering back on and keeping going. I think one thing I’ve really learned is that unless something jumps out at me, that it’s not such a great idea for me to do it. Because I’m much happier as a writer/performer, and I can generate my own work as a writer/performer. With the right production company and with the right people, it’s kind of where my heart is really. It’s where I feel I can have the most freedom, the most fun, and do the best work. But it is harder, and it took me a while to find the right production company to do that with. But next year I’ve got work as a writer/performer lined up. And this year I’m doing a play – which is great, because it’s a classic British play, an Alan Ayckbourn play. I don’t know if you know him, but he’s one of the most amazing dialogue and play writers, really, but his dialogue is just so quick and funny, but also very beautifully observed.
KP: Which play are you doing?
HYNES: We’re doing the trilogy, the Norman Conquests trilogy, so we’ve got three plays that we’re doing. And on certain Saturdays we’ll be doing all of them back to back.
KP: Really?
HYNES: Yeah. And it’s going to be at the Old Vic, that they’re turning into in the round. It’s a six hander. But it feels like a really hard, but really great job to be doing. It’s obviously very different from working in television. It feels like I’m very much led to strong scripts – like most actors are. And if those comedy scripts that come my way aren’t so good, I will and am really focusing on writing my own, as I was before. Yeah, but that’s a decision that I made, really, last year. I mean, I did a couple of low budget British films…
KP: You did Confetti…
HYNES: I did Confetti, and then I did Magicians, and then I did Son of Rambow, and then I did Faint Heart. And I really enjoyed working all those films and working with the actors, but I did feel a little frustrated as a performer, as a comedy performer, because I felt that I wasn’t able to really flex my muscles. I kept thinking, “When do I get the gag? When do I get the laugh?” And the thing is, the gags weren’t written. I didn’t have any. The writers were great, but that’s just not what they were writing. They were writing comedy for guys, and I was clearly not a part of that, and that was fine…
KP: Your voice betrays that..
HYNES: Yeah. I really mean that, don’t I? And that was just *fine*. That was just ABSOLUTELY FINE!! (laughing)
KP: “I can be a Dame!”
HYNES: (laughing) I was absolutely fine with that. Thanks very much, it was fine!
KP: Now I feel so bad I brought it up.
HYNES: Oh god. But you know, you can’t moan. You can’t moan about it. You have to just get on with it.
KP: Well, as you said, you’re in an enviable position because you can generate your own material…
HYNES: Yes. And now I’ve kind of hooked up with Julia Davis, who’s a great British actress. We’re going to write something next year together, which will be a really fun, exciting experience, and hopefully it will be a very funny show for ourselves. So that will be great. And then hopefully following that up with some more writing, but more writing/performing work. Writing a film and this sort of thing. So that’s what I’m very definitely moving myself toward. And it feels right. It’s definitely where I’m most happy, I think.
KP: How would you describe the opportunities and reception towards… There definitely seems to be more female piloted shows in the UK than there would be in the US…
HYNES: Are you kidding? America seems to me to be absolutely at the forefront of that. Do you think it’s the other way round?
KP: Yes. I don’t think you’d have a Royle Family or a Nighty Night, or anything like that over in the US.
HYNES: You think?
KP: I most certainly think. Particularly in regards to genre shows. I think a female show runner in the US would be skirted towards soaps or something like a Grey’s Anatomy, but I don’t think you’d get unique comedy views in the US…
HYNES: Yeah. I suppose when I look at the US, immediately I see the comedy icons – people like Ellen, Roseanne Barr, Sarah Silverman. These strong female comics. Joan Rivers, who is the longest living human being as far as I can see, let alone the longest thriving female comic.
KP: But the respect level and the admiration of Joan Rivers is much higher in the UK than it is in the US…
HYNES: You’re kidding me!
KP: In the US she’s viewed largely as a pop culture joke for her red carpet material over the past dozen years…
HYNES: And not for an absolutely consistent and brilliant comedienne, which is what she is…
KP: She’s not given the opportunity to showcase that in the US, at this point…
HYNES: So she’s sort of trapped in her multimillion dollar stand-up career, at this point?
KP: Yes.
HYNES: Poor Joan. (laughing)
KP: Yeah, she’s lonely at the top.
HYNES: But then she exists… We do have some good female stand-ups, but we don’t have any female stand-ups like Joan. And also the Queens of Comedy, the DVD I watched; is one of the most hilarious and dirtiest and filthiest stand-up comedy I’ve ever seen come from American women. We don’t have that here. And I love it. Obviously, on the male front, the stand-up icon for me – well, the major icon – is Richard Pryor. We don’t really… but then again, he found a place in the mainstream with Gene Wilder and a slew of, now I think, classic 80s comedy films. And people embraced him. But I suppose you’re right. It’s very difficult to find and write vehicles for good, strong female characters, I think.
KP: Right. Or they have to be created by the females, like a French and Saunders…
HYNES: Yeah. They are, I suppose, our most successful female comedy export, without a doubt. I mean, Absolutely Fabulous is global. It’s totally global. I love them. I just think they’re amazing.
KP: But again, the fact that you have a track record at this point, obviously with Simon on Spaced, you have a reputation and the ability to open doors.
HYNES: Yeah.
KP: Do you find it’s almost a pressure to now try and get those doors open?
HYNES: Well, it’s a pressure you put on yourself, or you don’t. The sort of pressure I put on myself creatively, in my work mode is… also, in terms of my kind of writing and performing, is just the constantly trying, at this point, to write original funny material, and that’s it. There is no other pressure. There is no other focus. Only to write original funny material. I wrote a film for the BBC last year, Learners, which kind of fell in between things for me, in a way. I was happy with it, but it was slightly more drama-y. I think that experience reaffirmed for me that I was very comfortable in comedy. You know, comedy born out of obviously truth and real relationships. But I have no shame in going all out for a laugh in a scene. I’m almost always inclined to do that as a writer, and that’s where my heart is and that’s where I’m… I mean, last year I did Learners, and that took a while to get on, but we did it and it did well. David Tennant was in it. It was prime time, BBC1. I think we got… I don’t know, we did well. The show did well. It was a one-off film, and David Tennant agreed to star in it, and I wrote it, and I was in it with him.
KP: That was a very good film. I enjoyed it.
HYNES: There was a thing about it, that I would have liked to have gone for more comedy moments. I felt that I’d written them, but because it was supposed to be more of a drama, I think some of that was lost in the making of it. I know now that I’m comfortable – that’s what I want to do. I want to write things slightly more… that are funny.
KP: When it comes to character work like that – and you did a lot of it in the early part of your career…
HYNES: Yeah.
KP: As you progress, do you move away from going back to the sketch comedy route?
HYNES: I never wanted to go back to sketch comedy. I remember doing sketch comedy and feeling so frustrated because the joy of sketch comedy is you sit ’round the table… you all kind of turn up on the Monday or whatever. You’ve got how many sketches you’ve got to do, and you immediately inform that character on the page, that sketch page. And the more you bring to that character, the funnier ultimately it will be. However finely observed it is or nuanced it is, then it’s more enjoyable to watch it. But I would find, more often than not, that I would get to a point where I would think, “Oh, that’s a shame we don’t do more. There’s not more of a story.” And that was really what led me on to wanting to write something like Spaced, because it was just the frustration – it was just sort of the interruptus, if you like, of sketch show comedy was always just deeply dissatisfying to me. I’d get into this character and go for it, and then think, “Can’t we have her doing more?” I suppose it’s the comedian combined with actor, really – ultimately – because as an actor, that’s what you do. You created a three dimensional character, and you really go deep. And then as a comedian, you want to make people laugh. So I suppose that, in a way, is my style, really. And sketch show comedy was always frustration. I mean, this show I’m doing with Julia next year will be… there will be characters, but they will be in half hour shows. So that, in a way – I suppose – is a sort of… not really a halfway house, but I think you can have more fun with them for longer. They don’t have to just be… And sketch show writing is a skill. It’s a specific skill. I suppose a good sketch is like the TV equivalent of a stand-up doing a really good joke. And there are some people who are great at just writing good jokes – joke joke joke. And there are some people who are great at writing good sketches. And it’s just that funny thing that’s just – that’s funny, that’s funny, that’s funny. I don’t know whether that’s particularly my skill as a writer. And I love to perform that. I love to do anything that’s funny. I mean, I love to get laughs, obviously. But as a writer, my skill is much more about character… building character.
KP: I think it’s interesting that you mentioned that’s the tack that you’re taking on the show with Julia. I’ve always wondered why more people didn’t try and do a show like Ripping Yarns…
HYNES: I didn’t see Ripping Yarns…
KP: Really?
HYNES: No… What’s Ripping Yarns?
KP: Ripping Yarns is the follow-up series that Michael Palin and Terry Jones did post-Python…
HYNES: Oh yes. And how did it go?
KP: Basically, each of the episodes was a self-contained sort of comedic play…
HYNES: Oh, well, that’s it. That’s what we’re doing. The only difference is that we are going to join them all up. I’ve had this idea about… I mean, the producer’s already saying, “Why are you making it so complicated?”
KP: You’re screwing up the ability to do the reruns, Jessica…
HYNES: That’s it. That’s the great thing about it in England, is that they really are prepared to make what I suppose you could describe as boutique television. You put everything into it to create this one-off unique series, blood sweat and tears, and your blood is stained on every single page of the writing. And that’s how they do it, I suppose. That’s how we do it. I mean, it’s so rare to find a situation where someone goes, “Great; let’s set up a writing team.” That just very rarely happens. What happens is they like your talent and skill as a performer, and they say, “Well, write a series.” I’m always the first to say, “Couldn’t we get someone else, as well, to help us?” And they go, “No, no – you can do it.” (laughing) That’s how it works here.
KP: Do you find that, more and more, you’re getting this pull from the executive level about, “Well, how can we get this to transition to America? How can we make this appealing enough to get someone to license this?”
HYNES: No. This production company I’m working for, they’re not like that at all. They’re very very happy in their groove, I suppose.
KP: Because I’ve never understood, in this day and age when you have so much exposure through the internet to other cultures, as it were, and the accessibility that you have now to entertainment across the world, why there’s the feeling that – outside of language issues – a UK series has to be adapted for the US and re-imagined. Particularly in light of the whole Spaced issue…
HYNES: I know exactly what you’re saying. I think that is a kind of revolution, in a way, in which we view material. I think that is ultimately changing. One thing occurred to me, when suddenly we were… the prospect that the channel’s streaming through our homes… what was available… the only thing that came into my mind as the only thing that matters, is quality. If it’s good quality, people will want to watch it. Bottom line. Quality is hard work – It’s concept, it’s imagination, it’s passion, it’s enthusiasm, it’s focus. A good example is something like The Mighty Boosh, which is just this really sort of dedicated little… it depends; you might not like it. It might be your thing. But these two stand-ups who nurtured themselves through the stand-up scene have now created their own TV show. And people will come to it and people will love it. But I can’t imagine that ever translating or being translated – or needing, really, to be translated – into a different version of itself, if you know what I mean, for another, different, English-speaking audience. I just don’t think that would ever need to happen. To some degree, there’s almost a case of it being… well, actually I’ve got two things about this. On the one hand, I feel that there’s a slight… it’s almost insulting to assume than an American audience wouldn’t enjoy it and love it for the way it was. Ultimately, America loved Python. There was nobody saying, “Let’s do a remake of Python.” They just loved it. People love what they love. The bottom line is – they love what they love. But what we do not have in England is anything like the kind of business setup and focus, in terms of making TV. We do not have the infrastructure. We do not have the executives. We do not have the companies that want to make 100 episodes of something. We just do not have it. We do not have the audience, specifically, more than anything else. You make 100 episodes of something for an English audience off the bat – like, straightaway, “Okay, let’s do 100,” and it’s not a success…You know, that’s a big deal. Whereas in America, you’ve got a massive audience there. So I think it’s an economic reason, more than anything.
KP: Yeah, but I think you would have an incentive to do more of that production if there was a faith in the universality of comedy.
HYNES: Good point. Very, very good point. That’s a very good point, yeah.
KP: I had this ongoing argument with Phil Jupitus and Alan Davies and Bill Bailey. We were chatting about the idea of how difficult it is for a UK comedian to penetrate America… When their idea of penetrating America is to do three dates in New York and three dates in LA…
HYNES: Yeah.(laughing)
KP: Compared to – and I was talking to Alan about this, because Alan’s a good friend of Eddie Izzard’s – that Eddie set out with a determination to break America. And he played every club and every city from coast to coast that he could, to build up and audience. The same way you would do in the UK. And it’s this weird sort of common sense idea that no one ever tries to do that in the US. I was saying, if you have a Kings of Comedy and a Queens of Comedy, why isn’t there a UK version of that, that goes into the US? Get together a bunch of comedians, and you could have the roster rotate depending on schedules, but tour as a block. Get a headliner that the audience knows, like an Eddie, and take that on the road.
HYNES: I think that’s a good idea.
KP: And the thing is you could do the same thing – I’ve had this idea for years, because I used to run a film fest in Atlanta, but I would show a ton of UK material. Including episodes of some of the television shows. Like, we showed Black Books one year. I showed them an episode of QI. And the audience loved it. The one good thing about a UK series being an average six episodes is you could very easily do a film fest of showing of a show. From start to finish. I know you’re going to be doing it in Austin with Spaced…
HYNES:Spaced, yeah…
KP: But the idea that you could actually say, “We’re gonna have a film fest. We’re gonna show the run of Black Books. We’re gonna show the run of Nighty Night. And expose audiences that way, and make it like a cultural thing… You know, the way Python started out in the US. That it became the thing that hip people knew, who started spreading the word about it.
HYNES: Well, hopefully that will happen with Spaced. I mean, hopefully that will… to some degree, it kind of already has, because it’s reached America and it’s already seemed to have made an impact. I’m not sure how that has impacted, but it seems to have made some impact.
KP: It was obviously strong enough to put a stop to the American version…
HYNES: Well, yeah. Well, I don’t know if that’s what put the stop to the American version…
KP: I would say that they did not appreciate the criticism in public, from the creators, as they were trying to gear up for their remake…
HYNES: Yeah. My feeling about that was that I felt that it ties in with my feeling about the whole mentality of making shows. Somebody has a good idea. They think, “Oh, that’s a good idea. Let’s make that into a show. Let’s carry it on. Let’s turn it into something more. Let’s make it…” Like, The Office had two series, and now the American Office – there’s so many. There’s seasons of them, going on and on. And presumably somebody thought, “Well, Spaced works. Let’s try and do that with that.” And that – as a basic intention – is not… there’s nothing wrong with that, I don’t think.
KP: I think they mishandled things on a very basic level, that would have prevented much of what happened…even if it was just a courtesy acknowledgment and communication…
HYNES: Yeah.
KP: The problem is you still have these production companies and these networks operating like the internet doesn’t exist. That this massive communication network doesn’t exist. And in the past, they would have just licensed something, and the show would have went out. No one would have heard from the creators in the UK, because there was no means to hear from them.
HYNES: Well, apparently they did a remake of Fawlty Towers, and they called it Annabelle’s…
KP: They’ve done it a couple of times.
HYNES: Yeah, they did. And they got rid of Basil. It was all about… oh, what’s her name? Sybil. It was all about Sybil. Basil was out. He was out on his ear.
KP: Did you ever see the remake that starred John Laroquette in sort of the Basil role?
HYNES: No.
KP: Basically, what they did was…
HYNES: I would love to see that.
KP: Their idea of remaking it, and making it unique, was that they mirrored the set.
HYNES: They mirrored the set. They recreated the set?
KP: Yeah. They recreated the exact layout of the set, but they mirrored it. So instead of the reception being on the left, it’s now on the right. Everything was just flipped. The problem is that you’re still retaining the basic stories, but comedy seemed off-kilter…
HYNES: That is a special screening I would like to see. Six of the best remakes. You could probably put the Spaced pilot in there. Annabelle’s would probably be in there.
KP: Red Dwarf…
HYNES:Red Dwarf would be in there. What else would be in there? You need to get hold of the pilots. I think this could be a DVD. I think this could be a box set.
KP: It’d be the only way these things would get released.
HYNES: With the whole Spaced in the US thing, there was a part of me that felt bad that they’d actually put all that effort in and then it hadn’t come off for them. Because at the end of the day, everyone’s just trying to do it. Everyone’s just trying to make a show. Make it happen. And in America, it’s not unusual to pick up a show and remake it. In England, they don’t do that. I felt that was almost… it was a cultural thing going on. There was a little bit lost in translation there. A little bit of, “Oh, we don’t do that in England, because that’s not the way our industry works.”
KP: Well, maybe that’s what you should do. Maybe you should propose a six episode remake of Cheers.
HYNES: I know, a British remake of Cheers. What would that be like? Well, I suppose it would probably be After Hours, wouldn’t it? I don’t know. I think that there should be more British remakes in lots of things. I was thinking maybe you could do an opera of Friends or something. How would that be? I don’t know. We could turn it into a three hour… maybe a sort of Ring Cycle. Maybe a six hour…
KP: You turn it into a period costume drama for the BBC.
HYNES: What, turn Friends into a period costume drama?
KP: Or you can get authentic 1890s costumes meticulously recreated from the massive BBC costume department…
HYNES:Friends in the 1890s…
KP: Yes, exactly.
HYNES: It’s perfect! Do you know, you could probably list it completely and no one would notice. You could pass it off as some Jane Austin classic.
KP: There’s your task.
HYNES: Yeah, there’s my chance. That’s what I’ll be doing in 2010.
KP: That’s good. I’m glad we’re making progress.
HYNES: I really thought it out.
KP: I think that the other issue is – I was talking to John Lloyd about this, because I’ve been a big proponent of QI. I think that what a lot of UK creators are starting to realize is that you’re not really helped by the production companies…
HYNES: Yeah.
KP: And you’re not helped by the UK networks. But you have this marvelous platform in the internet, and going out to the US yourselves to go and make your case and get the show out there yourself, and do this sort of guerilla marketing of this material…
HYNES: Yeah.
KP: Because the audience is receptive. The audience just needs to see it. And to know it exists and know it’s out there. I mean, the audience loves it. I’ll show an episode of Black Books and the audience loves it. There’s no translation issues. I’ll show an episode of QI. John’s been fighting for years, and the response it always, “Oh, we need to Americanize it for the audience.” Well, no. Funny is funny.
HYNES: Yeah.
KP: And the audience loves it.
HYNES: I should tell you the hamster’s back in the cage.
KP: You did it?
HYNES: I did it. It sounds a bit like a spy euphemism doesn’t it? “The hamster is back in the cage.” But he is back in there.
KP: “And the dog digs at midnight.”
HYNES: Yeah. But yeah, it’s exactly as you said. What you said. Funny is funny. Funny is funny… Funny is as funny does…
KP: I’m glad that you’re getting out there and getting the recognition that is well deserved…
HYNES: That’s such a nice thing to say. I’m waiting for it. I’m really expecting… my hopes are quite high now for this tour. Because I feel like I just really, really kind of not at all have… I have no expectations. And actually, it’s only the journalists I’ve been speaking to in the last few days that have made me feel like, “Yeah! Yeah!” I swear to god!
KP: Well, you just have to make sure it doesn’t turn into a boy’s club…
HYNES: Well, you know…
KP: (laughing) They have a habit of unintentionally pushing you out…
HYNES: Yeah.
KP: I notice on the commentaries they wouldn’t allow you to complete a thought.
HYNES: Yeah.(laughing) You just gotta talk quick. I do manage to… I think I manage to… really? Do I not finish anything, or do I finish some?
KP: What I think I noticed was I think you were setting a land speed record during those first couple of commentaries with Kevin (Smith)…
HYNES: Right, good.
KP: It’s like you saw a spot, you saw an opening, you knew you had to fill it quick.
HYNES: I took it.
KP: Yeah.
HYNES: I took it and ran with it. I didn’t look back.
KP: No. No apologies.
HYNES: No apologies. Well I’m a toughie, me. I’m a toughie. I loved it. It was such a thrilling weekend to go and do that. And I love the play I’m doing. I love it. I absolutely love the play. And when it gets rough, I just get rough. Sometimes I get too rough. I was telling Simon that sometimes it feels like I’m… it’s like that thing you sometimes feel a little bit like you kind of misjudge it. (laughing) You get so excited.
KP: Are you the kind of actor that’s able to stand outside themselves and sort of view that performance as you’re doing it, and meter it?
HYNES: When I get into my stride, I’m just happy as anything just honing and getting the best laugh. When I was doing Spaced with Edgar (Wright), that was the best fun. You both kind of know what you’re going for with a gag, and you’re just working it, working it. And you both know when you’d really got it, and it couldn’t be any funnier. Those rare moments, or those few moments, I mean – you always… they’re great. That’s what it’s all about. It’s just the thrill of doing it keeps you doing it, I think. Just the love of doing it.
KP: Is there any regret that divergent careers have separated you from collaborating with Simon further?
HYNES: I don’t know what we would have done next together, to be honest. We would have done more Spaced, obviously. But I know Edgar wanted to do a film, and I know making Spaced, for the money we made it, was extremely difficult. What Edgar achieved was incredible. I mean, it’s basically like building a kind of 747 from a couple of dustbins in the back yard. We were strapped for time. We presented him with these scripts and he was so enthusiastic. But it was tough. I think the thought of a third series was just daunting. But at that point, creatively, Simon and Edgar had just gone “joooooo” over this kind of zombie scene in the beginning of episode three in series one, I think. Tim had been up all night playing Resident Evil 2, and Simon was just like, “We’ve got to do a zombie film. That’s it.” And at that point, that was a project that Edgar and Simon were just salivating over. And I was excited about it, too, but it was their project. At that point, it was like, “We’re going to write this together.” So apart from a third series of Spaced, I don’t know if there was anything that Simon was really craving to write with me. Do you know what I mean? Whereas his only project with Edgar was something he would just absolutely… you know, that was a natural progression from doing Spaced. Hot Fuzz was a pet project, I think, of Edgar’s that he was burning to write. So him and Simon wrote that, and I know Simon’s now writing with Nick on a project that they’re both loving. It’s about finding the project. Spaced was Simon and my writing project, that was fantastic. It was great. It worked out really well as a show. But I don’t know what we would go on to write together. I don’t know if his projects would necessarily need me. I mean, Spaced was particular because of this female character that I wrote, obviously, and because the dynamic between Tim and Daisy and the kind of relationship, and the other characters and the world. It was very much coming from my experiences and sort of gelling with Simon’s kind of brilliant grasp of this kind of… I don’t know.,, The film reference world, which gave this sort of elevated dimension which we’d been striving toward at the very beginning. But Simon really consolidated and brought it into focus. And the combination of those two is really what created Spaced. Any further writing projects would… anything that we would come up with together, I think, would have to be something we’re both just as passionate about, just as into, and just as ready to sort of share. And, as yet, I don’t think that’s happened. But it might happen. I’m looking forward to it. When it does happen, if it does happen, I loved writing with Simon and I hope I do again, definitely.
KP: Do you think that Spaced was sort of an alchemy of the moment?
HYNES: Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. It was born out of my experiences of living in rented flats and squats and shared houses, and the fun I was having even though sometimes you have no money, but you had your mates and you were going out. I wanted to really create a subversive and authentic world that reflected my experiences, and make it really, really funny. And Simon was really, really into that, and I’d always wanted to kind of elevate it from the quite gritty sort of kitchen sink type of comedy that I didn’t feel really served the material. I wanted to elevate it all and make it kind of super and magical. And Simon was so into that. I only realized recently, not that it has any particular bearing on Spaced as it is, but I used to work in a cinema as one of my jobs when I was, like, 14. I worked as an usherette, and one of the films I watched was When Harry Met Sally. I watched it probably about 30 times. And I’ve always been a big… I’m just a total film addict and TV addict. I love watching telly and I love watching films. Anyway, that was a film that was… the core of that relationship, that unrequited love, was something that had really captured my imagination. But I just absolutely loved that film. And then feeding any of that into Spaced – I don’t know what was there, but Simon told me he’d written an essay at college comparing Annie Hall to When Harry Met Sally. Basically, I realized that at that point in time, we were both… that was one detail of our experiences and our education, leading up to the point in which we both sat down and wrote Spaced together. But I just realized that, in different ways, we were both actually completely on the same wavelength. We were both absolutely in the right place at the right time, and writing shows that we kind of both really wanted to write. And that was a really special moment. It was almost like this was a natural conclusion of our television watching childhoods. I imagined both Simon and I had watched probably about the same amount. The same television. Him definitely, definitely watching Star Wars more times than me, although I absolutely loved Star Wars, as well. I’d never dare 66:46) to call myself as much of a fan as Simon Pegg, who wrote his dissertation on Star Wars, but we had both been on this journey of growing up watching TV.
KP: A sort of pop culture odyssey?
HYNES: On a pop culture odyssey. And it had led us… When he would say, “What about this?” I knew exactly what he was talking about, and vice versa. We just absolutely clicked, and that was it. I always knew exactly what he was talking about, and he always knew exactly what I was talking about. And that is absolutely reflected in the show. Our ambition for it – and my ambition knew no bounds in terms of what we were striving for, what we wanted to do – which is comedy, and fun, and entertainment. Like, “Let’s make this fucking brilliant.” And I only felt like that because I was writing with Simon. And, at that point, I like to think he felt the same writing with me. So it was just a great moment for us, creatively. But whether or not that will happen again in a different way, I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t need to. We did Spaced. Isn’t that enough for you? (laughing) ISN’T THAT ENOUGH, FOR GOD’S SAKE?
KP: No! We demand more!
HYNES: But I’d love to write with him more. I mean let’s face it; everything he’s done since then hasn’t been as good – so what does that tell you?
KP: Really. The collaboration with Edgar, what has it really gotten?
HYNES: (laughing) No, I’m joking. That’s my acerbic, sarcastic, ironic British sense of humor. I’m joking.
KP: I don’t think the tape’s picking up any of what you just said.
HYNES: I’m joking. I’m joking with you.
KP: In all seriousness, how does it feel, knowing that there’s probably a college student somewhere who’s written a paper comparing When Harry Met Sally to Spaced? That you’ve become part of the pop culture lexicon?
HYNES: My work is done. That’s all I ever wanted. That was what I wanted. I wanted to be part of the pop culture lexicon. And I wanted to be part of the pop culture lexicon on my own terms without compromising and without pretending to be some idiot. Although Daisy is a bit of an idiot. No… (laughing)
KP: I wouldn’t say that. I’d say that Daisy had a very realistic maturation arc…
HYNES: No, Daisy’s great.
KP: The great thing is you can say that, while they’re the same person, there was a lot of growth between the Daisy in the first episode and the Daisy of the last episode…
HYNES: Yeah, there was. And that was great as well, being able to write a series and say, “Well, let’s make them develop. Let’s make them grow. Let’s make them change.” So I suppose, yeah, there was. There was. But it’s great to think that’s the case.
KP: So, what is Daisy doing now, almost 10 years later?
HYNES: Yeah, what is Daisy doing now, 10 years later? I think she’s still living in flats. (laughing)
KP: Do you think they ever would have moved out of the flat?
HYNES: I think Tim would have moved out. I don’t think Daisy did. I think Daisy stayed there. I reckon Daisy might be having a bad flat mate experience as we speak. (laughing) She’s getting a little fat. She’s got a cat that’s got a little poop tray in the corner.
KP: What’s the name of the cat?
HYNES: The cat is maybe called Maxine…
KP: Even though it’s a male cat?
HYNES: Yeah. Colin’s dead. And actually, she’s never really recovered from the death of Colin, especially since Tim’s moved out. He keeps promising to come back and visit, but he never does. A new flat mate’s moved in.
KP: Male or female?
HYNES: A male flat mate who’s really sullen and grumpy and anal, and won’t take any phone messages. And Daisy’s trawling through a novel. She’s about 3/4 way through the novel.
KP: Is the what the title is? It has no other title but “The Novel”?
HYNES: She doesn’t know what it’s called yet. The novel. She’s thinking about calling it Maxine, but that’s as cute as it’s got. (laughing) Marcia’s got a really good looking new boyfriend, which really pisses Daisy off.
KP: Does she make awkward appearances just to try and upset things?
HYNES: Yeah, she turns up with her gorgeous boyfriend, rubbing it in Daisy’s face.
KP: Is Daisy instigating, trying to orchestrate some kind of breakup?
HYNES: No no, Daisy wouldn’t be interested in that. She tried to gather inspiration from her book. That’s all she wants because she’s running dry. She’s got 3/4 of the way through and she’s just realized she’s absolutely got no clue what happens next.
KP: Does she come to the realization it’s actually an autobiography?
HYNES: (laughing) That’s maybe a little bit too Dada. I don’t know. I don’t know where you’re going with that. She’s writing her own life! Ahh!
KP: Yes, as the camera spirals above her. And where’s Mike?
HYNES: I don’t know. I think Mike is now openly gay and is enjoying… I don’t know, the thrill of being part of the small, openly gay group of soldiers who campaign and make appearances. And very, very happy. He’s in a steady relationship, finally, after years of denial. Yeah.
KP: And Tim? Is he happy?
HYNES: I don’t know. He thinks he is. I think he might be in a kind of loft apartment somewhere.
KP: What caused him to move out?
HYNES: What caused him to move out? Oh god, I haven’t actually thought that far.
KP: Well, it sounds like there’s certainly plenty of stuff that can percolate.
HYNES: Well, yeah…
KP: You realize this entire interview was just a grand brainstorming exercise and Simon put me up to it.
HYNES: Oh right, good.
KP: He figures it’s the only way to get you motivated…
HYNES: Yeah. Well, yeah. I’d always love to go back to those characters.
KP: Maybe it’ll be the Spaced Christmas Special.
HYNES: I would love to do that. I’d love to do the Spaced Christmas Special.
KP: Maybe it can be the Only Fools and Horses of this generation.
HYNES: Oh yeah! God, that was the biggest Christmas special, wasn’t it?
KP: They did, what, three total? Two total, post when the series “ended”?
HYNES: Yeah, they did. The final. “No, this is the final one.” “No, *this* is the final one.”
KP: With massive gaps between them. Wasn’t there like five or six years between at least one of the sets?
HYNES: Yeah, I think there was, actually. And then it was the final one, and they all went off into the sunset, I remember.
KP: Well I hope it hasn’t been too painful an interview…
HYNES: It’s been a lovely interview. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I really appreciate your support. It’s been lovely to talk to you.
KP: Likewise…
HYNES: As I say, you know, every person I speak to makes me more and more excited about coming over to America and promoting the DVD. It’s very gratifying to know that…
KP: Until you spoke with me. I was the one who put the chink in the armor…
HYNES: You really put the chink in the armor. But I know now there are at least 10 or 11 Spaced fans definitely in America, and that makes me feel good.
Once again this week, I’m doing something a little different. Not quite a review, not quite a product overview…but something in between. I’m checking out a hand held game called MatchMaster. This is billed as a ‘head to head soccer game’, just in case you aren’t getting enough of the sport this time of year.
I’ll be at San Diego Comic Con this week, taking in all the sights and sounds, and I’ll be doing coverage every night at my regular site, Michael’s Review of the Week. Next week right here, I’ll run down the top ten best – and worst – news from the show. Until then, let’s play a little soccer…
MatchMaster – Head to Head Soccer
I’m showing you two versions of the game, one light blue and one dark blue. You actually buy one at a time of course, at a SRP of about $20, but you need two if you’re going to do the ‘head to head’ aspect.
Think of this as a Soccer Player Tamagotchie. You ‘train’ your soccer player by deciding when he/she sleeps, eats, and trains – and just what they’ll be eating and doing for their training. You also can play a series of single person mini-training games to increase your players strength, agility and other factors.
The hand held device is egg shaped, with 4 small buttons and an arrow pad. One button is Start – pretty obvious, but you can use it to start the various mini-games, and it also works as a pause button. The ‘sound’ button turns the volume up and down with each press. The A and B buttons are used to navigate the menus. A works like an escape key, taking you back up a level, and B works like Select.
The arrow pad works like you’d expect, moving things and your player left, right, up and down. On the two units, one had some trouble with the pad being a big sticky and unresponsive, making playing the games tougher than it needed to be.
Once you’ve popped in the 2 AAA batteries (not included), you set up some basic info for your player, like the display language, players name, club and number, and the date and time which are critical to the timing of various daily events.
The player has 6 life lines covering Power, Health, Fitness, Sppeed, Ability and Condition. These start out in the ‘danger’ zone, with only 15 points in each. As your player trains, sleeps, eats and plays games, these life lines go up. You want to keep these 6 areas fairly well balanced, to avoid injuries. Over developing in any one can cause your poor player some serious pain.
You’ll use the Daily Routine Planner (DRP), well, every day. Here is where you decide when and how long your player will sleep, what he or she will do for his morning and afternoon workout, and what they’ll eat for their three meals. The better the choices the better your player becomes. However, you can’t set all this up at once – there are specific times during the day (always the same) to set them up. For example, you can’t decide what you’ll be having for dinner except between the hours of 5pm and 7pm that day. That means you need to keep your player with you most of the day.
You can also play the 7 mini-games on your egg, each designed to improve different skills. The first two times you play them in any single day, they add to your lifelines. Any additional plays do not – then you’re just doing it for fun. These aren’t exactly the most exciting games – again, think 90’s Tamagotchies for level of detail and graphics.
When you reach Pro Level on the lifelines (all of them have to be 20 or higher) you can start playing Infrared games against another egg. There are 4 games in this mode – Match (where it’s a straight match), Sprints (where you race against each other using the key pad), Penalty (each player gets 5 penalty kicks against the other), and Free Kick (each player takes 5 free kicks and tries to get it over the heads of the defenders).
All the games, both single and duel player, are fairly quick and easy to play. The outcome usually depends on how well you’ve trained your little guy, so it does help to teach kids about proper nutrition, exercise and rest. The basic graphics are likely to be an issue for kids of the PS3 generation, but this is more in like with the 7 – 9 crowd, kids that love soccer and are looking for something else to fuel their passion. For the average kid that isn’t a soccer fan, it’s far less likely to hold their interest.
These are exclusive to Wal-mart right now, and they run about $20 a pop. There’s also a sweepstakes going on right now where you get a code inside the package to enter, and could win a three day David Beckham Academy course in London or LA for you and several of your friends. Check out more details at MatchMaster Games.
And if you do pick one up, try to treat your little David better than I did…
Welcome back everyone! It’s a new week filled with amazing possibilities (not really) worthy of your television viewing time.
Last week brought us the premiere of both Monk and Psych, even though both shows are only going to have a seven week run and won’t return until after January of 2009 (in other words before we know it they will be gone again). I don’t understand why USA keeps doing this type of scheduling but it seems to be working for them.
Monk delivered a very heartfelt episode while trying to recover from the loss of Stanley Kamel. They did a good job and I was entertained but I really miss some of the more complex mysteries that Monk used to solve like when an astronaut somehow murdered someone while up in orbit in outer space.
Psych is another show that I think is very entertaining but seems to have strayed far from the original concept that I enjoyed. Part of the attraction of the show was the fact that the lead character was what I would call a hyper-observant person that picked up on the details most of us would miss and uses them to solve the crime. Last season there really seemed to be far less observation and more silly theatrics. Here’s hoping they get me to eat my words.
Now, however, it is time to set aside my wordy observations and give you my much shorter picks for your watching week.
MONDAY
VH1 ““ 8:00 PM: If you missed both the premiere and second week of Brooke Knows Best than tonight you have a chance to get caught up.
HBO ““ 8:00 PM:Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal thought she had a great idea in starting a man-whore ranch for lady clientèle. Someone should have told her they already have these”¦ they are called New York Night Clubs. Thankfully HBO was there to capture it all go down in flames.
HIST ““ 9:00 PM:With the record breaking box office of The Dark Knight I bet The History Channel is happy they already had Batman Tech lined up at 9 and Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of the Dark Knight at ten.
TUESDAY
FOX ““ 8:00 PM: Imagine you have a restaurant with bad food and bad service and someone sends Gordon Ramsey from Hell’s Kitchen is the one that comes in to fix it? No wonder the show is called Kitchen Nightmares.
CBS ““ 9:00 PM: In all seriousness, this is one of the better Big Brother seasons in a long time. It’s still not too late to get in to it.
WEDNESDAY
NBC ““ 9:00 PM: This week the Baby Borrowers the teen parents get teen kids. I can already see the fireworks from over here.
HIST ““ 9:00 PM: On MonsterQuest investigators hunt the dreaded animal vampire of legend, Chupacabra. I only bring this up because I love typing Chupacabra.
THURSDAY
G4 ““ 9:00 PM: Day 1 of coverage from The San Diego Comicon. It’s absolutely nothing like being there.
AMC ““ 10:30 PM: If you don’t know who Keyser Soze is than I highly recommend you finally watch The Usual Suspects.
FRIDAY
USA ““ 9:00 PM:Monk and Psych. “˜Nuff said?
G4 ““ 10:00 PM: Day 2 (and the final day) of G4‘s coverage of Comicon. Friday is a big day with lots going on so couldn’t hurt to watch as well.
SATURDAY
DISNEY ““ 2:00 PM: Get ready for the Hanna Montana mania with a marathon of the show before the 3D concert Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds. Get your 3D glasses in this week’s issue of TV guide if this is a must watch on your list.
ABC ““ 8:00 PM:Relive your childhood with the animated classic Peter Pan. Try not to cringe during the scenes with the Native Americans.
A&E ““ 8:00 PM: Proof that someone in programming has a sense of humor. The amazing and powerful The Last Samurai is followed by the laughable The Karate Kid, Part Two.
SUNDAY
DISNEY ““ 9:00 PM:With super hero and comic book movies all over the place you can take in one of the best super hero movies ever rendered with The Incredibles.
COMEDY CENTRAL ““ 8:00 PM & 9:00 PM:I love it when shows tie in to their own mythology and you can see the big set up happen on Futurama with Roswell That Ends Well at eight and the payoff in The Why of Fry at 9.
FOOD ““ 10:00 PM:The big winner is chosen on The Next Food Network Star. You can actually start watching at 8 PM to see the final four get taken down to the final 2. I highly suggest snacking well before watching.
VH1 ““ 10:00 PM:Brooke throws a house party in order to spend time with a cute kite surfer clearly showing that the name of the show may not be right on Brooke Knows Best . Wasn’t this a story line from Three’s Company?
SModcast is the meandering palaver of a pair of dudes whose voices are so dull, they don’t deserve to be on the radio (and, hence, aren’t). Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier are SModcast.The best thing about SModcast? It don’t cost nothing.
SModcast 58: Kodachrome –
In which our heroes talk a little shop, muse over collegiate nudes, wax Parisian, and seek salvation in Shrewsbury.
[CONTENT WARNING]SModcast features harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Listener discretion is advised.
Howdy Inter-Webbers, I’m Matt Cohen and I dig WATCHMEN.
Oh, do I dig WATCHMEN. Besides Hellboy of course, WATCHMEN is my single favorite comic book of all time. I remember reading it when I was 16 years old and being completely and utterly blown away by its level of reality, and depth and respect for the reader. Alan Moore is arguably the greatest comic book writer of all time, and WATCHMEN is his masterpiece. It single handedly reinvented what comics could be, and how fans perceived them (including lil’ old your’s truly). Since the mid eighties there have been various attempts to adapt the twelve comic books into a feature length film, and all had sadly failed. Comic book films in general were hard sells, and one based on a comic book that was read by very few people and contained no iconic characters? Not a chance. And it stayed that way for many years, until a movie by the name of 300 came out; and with it, its director/wunderkind Zack Snyder. The success of that film, both monetary and critical (shrugs), has led to something amazing and unexpected, even – A genuine big budget studio WATCHMEN film. The most anti-superhero of all superhero books, and probably the toughest sell of all. And geek cups (probably those Taco-Bell/Star Wars ones) runneth over. That news broke over a year ago, and though we’ve gotten slight (and I mean slight) glimpses and glimmers of the production, the first real watershed of goodness broke yesterday… and boy did It break.
So without further ado, let’s take a look at the brand new, first ever WATCHMEN trailer. And I promise I’ll do my best to contain myself.
Let me get this out of the way. I really enjoyed Snyder’s first feature, the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake; but absolutely HATED 300. In my opinion it’s not a movie, rather a 90 minute music video/commercial/screensaver. More style over substance then I’ve ever seen in my entire life (except GERRY – and if you know what I mean, I feel sorry for you). So, in my opinion, Synder was 1-1. Basically tied. He had one more chance to win me over to his side before he lost me forever. And what a chance – an adaptation of one of my all time favorite works of art! This was make or break time (’cause I’m sure he was super concerned about my opinion of him). And with my first reaction to the trailer, I have only one thing to say…
Thank… you… dude.
It looks absolutely PERFECT, in my opinion. Every character nailed (with one exception, which I’ll get into in a bit), the look and feel of the city down to a “T” and the effects and costume design are as impressive as I could have ever hoped. We may have a genuine WATCHMEN flick on our hands here, kiddos. Lets break this boogie down. I’m gonna attempt to give two views here, one of the uber-fan I am, and one of a non-fan – someone not initiated into the world of WATCHMEN. Also, the casting, the direction, all that will present itself in due time. For now, I am reacting purely to the imagery.
NON FAN RESPONSE: It’s a solid trailer, though nothing exceptional. It gives absolutely nothing away of the plot and I have no idea what this movie could possibly be about, save a crazy blue floating guy with superpowers and a bunch of scrubby looking b-listers running around a city I’ve never seen before. It obviously has a fan base, being proclaimed “Based on the most celebrated graphic novel of all time” so I’m sure it’ll be good. That owl guy looks a lot like BATMAN. Wait a minute… I like BATMAN! Speaking of BATMAN isn’t that the SMASHING PUMPKINS song used in BATMAN and ROBIN? That movie was awful… Now I’m conflicted. But 300 was visually crazy so at least you know this movie will look great. I’m so confused right now. A new superhero movie about superheroes I’ve never heard of. My head hurts. The effects look cool though, especially that blue magical dude from ALMOST FAMOUS. And that guy with the ink blot mask seems pretty bad ass. Hmmm. I think I do want to see this movie. Maybe I should buy the book its based on.
*Slams door-enters car-heads to LCS-buys trade-goes home-opens book-blows mind.
SPOILER ZONE: If you haven’t read the WATCHMEN comics yet DO NOT read my reaction to the trailer, as I will be discussing specific moments from the plot of the story/film.
MY RESPONSE: Hold on one moment… Lemme dry the tears. Okay. Better now.
OH MY F’ING GOD THEY MADE A WATCHMEN MOVIE!!! My body broke out in goosebumps the second I saw Osterman/Cruddup on screen. I love how the trailer just starts with that cold opening. No warning, no prologue, just the creation of the world’s most powerful superhero. I’ve seen this trailer about fourty times now so I’d like to go through it clip by clip If I may.
1. Dr. John Osterman becomes Dr. Manhattan: This could have gone so wrong. We’ve all seen cheesy and unrealistic transformation scenes in comic book movies before (I’m not gonna drop names, but you know which ones I mean). It is a strong statement to start the trailer off with what is one of the more technologically complex effects shots from the movie, in a world filled with brilliant cgi and big budget blockbusters. How does this effect match up to others of its ilk? Wow… Wow, wow and more wow. I gotta take my hat of to Snyder, who has appeared to have blended his signature 300 hyper-stylized look with one of more traditional “Superhero” CGI, and the result is something that is so stunningly gorgeous and yet hauntingly sad at the same time. In fact, there are so many images from this trailer that I would love to take stills of and have blown up into posters. This is art, at its highest form (much like the comic book it is based on). We get no awful face melting, no hacknied body shakes, the transformation is instantaneous and carries the emotional weight of a fork lift. What a way to start this trailer off, and further, to start our ride down the road that leads to WATCHMEN. And the slight glance at his watch… Yeah.
2. Archie flying out of the water: A perfect adaptation of Nite-Owl’s vehicle. The size is exact, the coloring just as it should be. I love the feeling of speed this shot conveys. Also, that skyline is unbelievable. Archie fits right into this world. Nothign too flashy, nothing too sleek, but it does the job it’s meant to do. Kinda like Nite-Owl 2 (Dan) himself.
3. Silk Spectre crashes down: Booom! And with that millions of fanboys drooled the world over. It couldn’t get better then that, could it? See number 9
4. Nite-Owl 2 in Action: I’ve heard some fans criticize the costume design for Dan in this film, but I think it is exactly how it should look. Semi-Home made, not worn in years, and anything but boisterous or loud. Yes, it rings a little Batmannish, but if you know the history of the book then that makes sense as well. I dig it. The textures, the color… Very good.
5. Bye-Bye Comedian: A glimpse at the moment that (in a way) starts it all. Good job of the editor to keep the uninitiated confused. The sequencing makes it look like Nite- Owl from the previous shot is the one to kick Blake through the window. This film is a mystery. Let’s try our hardest to keep newbies from having the ending spoiled for them. Imagine how amazing it would be to see the final reveal in theaters, fresh and unaware? I get chills…
6. Ozymandias Revealed: In my opinion, the weakest translation from book to screen. I’ve seen MATCH POINT and know that Matthew Goode has some chops, but that costume screams BATMAN AND ROBIN (Trailer song coincidence anyone?). I just imagined Veidt to look sleeker, more refined, less cartoony. We’ll see. of course. in the finished product, but as of now that is the only design flaw to this film, in my opinion. Dig old Nixon in the background though. It’s the little things folks.
7. Manhattan Phases: The good doctor goes all sub-particle and it looks real, if that doesn’t sound ridiculous enough. I love how it’s a seamless transition from form to floating matter. Again, that style that Synder has cultivated fits amazingly well into the world of superpowers and super feats. Not only does it not distract, but it takes this to a whole other level, one closer to an art film then a pumped up comic book movie.
8. Say hi to Rorschach (and a face full of flame): The moment of truth. Undeniably the most popular character from WATCHMEN and one of the most beloved heroes in all of comic books. And… we have what might be one of the greatest on-screen characters of all time. YES!!!! THAT IS RORSCHACH! Everything down to the last minute detail. The mask is downright breathtaking. For a fan who never thought this movie would come out to see Rorschach in living, breathing full color is a dream of a lifetime and a moment I will never forget. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, thanks to everyone who made this movie a reality. Even if it sucks (like that could happen), just to acknowledge something a small group of dedicated people love and to do it such honor is a really amazing thing.
9. Silk Spectre, come on down..: I think I am in love. With Malin Ackerman, with the designers of the film – hell, right now, with planet Earth. I have never been more intimidated – and yet turned on at the same time – by a woman in my life. This IS the only woman who could steal Dr. M’s heart away. Another beloved character seemingly transported straight out of the four color funny book pages and landed onto our respective screens. Respective drool covered screens, that is.
10. Dr. Manhattan X 3: Our first real glimpse at what has become of John Osterman. What many people are calling the most difficult aspect of the translation and, in response to the trailer, the most succesfull. Simply put, that is Billy Cruddup’s face on Dr. Manhattans body. There is NO other design choice for this character. The look we see in this movie is the look Gibbons created for the book, and it is the only look that works. And oh, how it works. This is the image and the character that will draw non-fans into the film. And fans… well, I think you can guess how we feel.
11.Nite-Owl Swoops: Did Snyder just out Batman Batman? That single shot evokes so much emotion, memory, and nostalgia in me that it has became my favorite of the trailer (and the screencap, the background on my computer). Such grace and silent power Dan carries. I love the running citizens in the background. Love how all-business Nite-Owl is. Fanboy gold, through and through…
12. Funeral for a friend?: Not much to say other than tonally it seems to be in the right place. Not overly sad (due to the man Blake was), but mournful – more for the death of an idea then the death of a man.
13. The Comedian and Dr. Manhattan go to Vietnam: Again, Synder wows me with the visuals. Not only is Comedian perfect looking, the color palette of the scenes really go far to paint a picture of this idealized, almost romanticized version of the end of Vietnam that creator Alan Moore crafted. The shot that follows – a few scenes of Dr. Manhattan vaporizing the Viet-Cong gentlemen – is too awesome to put down in words. The look on Dr M’ face – not really contentment, not really purpose… Hell, I don’t want to try and describe it. I just want to see it on a big screen (IMAX big… You listening WB and LEGENDARY?).
14. The Crowd turns angry: One of the more powerful images from the book translated into an extremely powerful image on screen. I love the attention to detail that has been paid on dressing the extras. These people are STRAIGHT out of the comic. Also, it’s reassuring to know that the plot seems to have remained entirely intact on the adaptation.
15. Dr. Manhattan Pops in: Yeah… He can do that. And he is in a prison. Us fans know what that means. The best (fan favorite) sequence in the film is about to begin. Damn teases.
16. Let’s get it on: Laurie and John share an intimate moment. And we, as the viewer, get to see a shot that is so damn beautiful, it should be hung up on the wall in a fine art museam. It’s visuals like this that will make this film so much more then just another “Cape” movie and take in into the realm of “Higher” art
17/18. Blake + Rorschact + Veidt throw their collective weight around: One of my major complaints with 300 was that I was bored with the fighting style/action scenes. Synder, thankfully, has done away with that “Gold Hue” that made me nauseous but kept the intense and artfully choreographed action that first gave him a name in this town. Yes, it appears that this movie will have its fair share of slo-mo, but that is forgivable in a world where we are meant to feel every blow as if it strikes our own body. The viewer SHOULD feel beat up after leaving this film, physically and emotionally. As long as Synder doesn’t rely too heavily on his old tricks, I think we are in store for some truly remarkable action pieces.
19. Nite-Owl screams: A taste of the darkness to come. People think DARK KNIGHT is a tonally bleak movie. Heheheheheheheehehehe. Right….
20. Crowd gives Comedian what for: A powerful, evocative image directly from the books. I love that Snyder and the producers of this film haven’t shied away from the political and non-traditional nature of the source material. Most superhero films present us with a world in which the heros aren’t questioned. This movie will strongly bring up the point “Do we need Superheroes” – and at a tumultuous time in our own society, the question (or deeper metaphor) couldn’t be more perfect.
21. Rorschach busts a pose: Folks, if any single image has excited me more then this one in the past few years, I don’t know what it could be. The moving ink blots? BRILLIANT! The voice… Haley couldn’t have been a better choice.
22.The Moony shot: There it is folks. The future of the human race in all its glory. And impressive is an understatement. What a way to go out. If non fans were confused already, this shot will take their minds over the edge. With this image, I and a countless horde are left waiting and wanting more. Perfect cap to a perfect trailer.
OVERALL REACTION- There is now not a single film I am looking forward to as much as this one. What an incredible trailer/gift for the longtime fan. Sweet, succinct, jaw droppingly badass (I can’t get that song out of my head). Honestly, the best possible trailer I could have hoped for. No need to throw away plot or exposition. Tease em’… and leave ’em wanting more. And I do… A lot more. WATCHMEN countdown officially starts now, folks. I, for one, cannot wait.
So, if you haven’t, read the book. If you have… yeah, I’m that psyched as well.
Check back next week, friends, for more fun in the proverbial sun. And, as always,
“Keep’em bagged and boarded”
–Matt Cohen is currently watching the WATCHMEN trailer again… and again.
I’m writing this only one day after the release of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Only one day. This is not a review. I was lucky enough to be one of the many to catch a midnight screening of the film, and let me tell you… it was jolly good. A wonderfully written, acted, directed, shot, and toned piece of respectful comic book cinema. Heath Ledger’s performance was, no doubt, astounding… possibly the best overall part of the movie. However, since the last frame rolled through the projectors at around 3 am on Friday morning, the entire film/geek/online community has completely jumped overboard into the crazed anus of praise-land, forsaking all else in the name of The Dark Knight. All there is to be seen or heard, from the giddy and temporarily irrational masses, is the following:
“BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE OF THE YEAR!”
“BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE OF THE DECADE!”
“BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE EVER!”
“BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR!”
“BEST MOVIE OF THE DECADE!”
“BEST MOVIE EVER!!!”
“HAVE THEY EVEN EVER MADE ANY MOVIES OTHER THEN THIS!?!?!?”
“HOLY HELL! I CARVED HEATH LEDGER’S NAME INTO MY INFANT’S FOREHEAD!!!”
“LET’S GET THE POSSE TOGETHER AND MURDER JACK NICHOLSON’S FAMILY!!!”
It does not end there even. It is already number one on the IMDB top 250 movies list and if you are bored enough to mosey on over to the IMDB message board for Tim Burton’s Batman, you will find a constant ongoing war between the Bat’s fanboys trying to have a bigger dick contest. Sentiments such as “Well, Nolan just put this movie to rest.” or “Jack should be ashamed of himself considering Ledger’s performance.” can be found through out. To everyone involved, all those calling out these insane, quick claims of instant cinematic glory on behalf of Nolan’s Dark Knight, I would just like to say one thing…
CALM… THE FUCK… DOWN!!!
I understand how you feel. I’m excited too. There is a wonderful new Batman movie playing at my local theater, the best in almost 20 years. It’s an amazing blessing and all living Batman fans (of which I very much am) are lucky to be alive to see it. However, no matter how good it is or how amazing the acting might be, that is no reason to instantly spew geek splooge all over your shorts and act like it’s the greatest film ever. The beginning of my second column on this magnificent site details Matt Damon’s and my opinion on the true judge of quality… time. Now, that argument does not fully negate the instant notion that something is good, which this new Batman movie most certainly is. All I am trying to say is take a big deep breath, and think for a minute… just a minute. I’ll wait.
Ok, feel good? Calm? Alright. Was it a great movie? Yes, yes it was. I agree too. Was it the best movie of the decade, possibly ever? Keep breathing… no, no it wasn’t. Now, let’s examine why you had the initial reaction that you did. First, because the overall quality of the movie, production and acting all considered, crossed with the fact that it is a Batman movie makes it all the more astounding to you as a fan. Now, if we remove Batman, change characters names, keep the Joker as the villain but call him The Clown and show you a movie much akin to Michael Mann’s Heat (Nolan’s supposed inspiration for The Dark Knight) would you be nearly as excited even if it was of the same quality in the acting, directing, writing, and action department? No. You would most likely dig it, as would I, and move on with the possible thought of picking up the DVD in a few months. You wouldn’t scream insane notions of superiority from the mountain tops, you wouldn’t get extremely defensive to those of us who also enjoy the (fictional) Tim Burton Heat-esque movies, and you wouldn’t rush over to the Internet Movie Database and cast your vote to rank a two-day-old film as far superior to about 200 classics that have gestated in the public stomach for decades on top of decades. You would dig it, and leave it at that. Am I wrong? This is a great film, but the only reason I feel people are freaking out is because it is great and it involves a character they love… which does not make it GREATER, it just makes it a pleasant surprise to fans of that character.
As for all the hate being heaped on Tim Burton and Jack Nicholson and their defenders, it is completely unneeded. The 1989 Batman is a different take, by a different director, from a different time, and made in a different world of cinema. If you dislike it that is fine, but why is there a need to be threatened by it? The same goes for the Burton defenders; The Dark Knight does not erase Michael Keaton’s life. If you want to argue comic-book accuracy then both sides have nowhere to go. Either of the two films has just as many comic book inaccuracies as the other… don’t believe me, fine, but you’re wrong. Please understand I don’t care about them being accurate, I am just trying to point out that neither one nor the other is a complete comic book bull’s-eye. I, for one, like all four movies, each of them good or great in their own way and am happy to have a variety of tonally different Batmans to choose from (excluding Schumacher of course.)
Heath Ledger’s tragic death aside (now all the more painful after seeing his amazing performance,) the argument of Ledger being superior to Nicholson is also useless; they are merely two separate performances with two extremely different actors, both doing a great job and giving their own spin on the character. If you are a fan of Heath’s Joker (as am I) and want to tell off all the Nicholson-Joker fanboys (as am I) then you should be fair and also attack all the Cesar Romero fans as well, because when you want to talk about differences of portrayal… I think Romero’s live action Joker is just a tiny sarcastic tad farther from Ledger then Nicholson ever was. This is not the same thing as getting angry because of a remake or a re-envisioning of a character. Batman and the Joker are not screen-derived characters, much like James Bond or Jack Ryan they are derived from an external source, so several different takes on the character are common and there is no reason to get viably angry at the actor whom you don’t prefer. Now I could understand the hatred if, say, they recast Snake Plissken, Ash, Feddy Krueger (they already did), or Doc Brown. Those are SCREEN DERIVED characters, the actors that played them ARE the characters, it is a different story then with the Joker. Anyway, It was a great movie, just not the greatest ever made and if you don’t know who Cesar Romero is, then this entire rant has been directed at you. Damn kids. Thanks for reading!
Adult Swim’s Dana Snyder and FRED’s Ken Plume set out to have a literate conversation between two pals, but inevitably devolve into a verbal, and funny, free-for-all full of bickering, infighting, and the special kind of male bonding that comes from conflict expressed through the podcast medium.
Actor/comedian/raconteur Dana Snyder, you’re certainly aware, is Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Master Shake, Squidbillies‘ Granny, Minoriteam’s Dr. Wang, and The Venture Bros.‘ Alchemist. Available for weddings and bar mitzvahs (bat availability pending), you can keep tabs on him via his website, www.eyeofthesnyder.com.
Ken Plume is the editor-in-chief here at FRED. He is a friend of Dana’s, as well as his arch-nemesis.
KEN P.D. SNYDECAST #52: Holland Tunnel Vision – Ken & Dana return with another of their patented “Dana Is On The Road So The Sound Quality Is Iffy” extravaganzas, as our dynamic duo trade compliments, take a letter from a time traveler, and even debate whether or not Dana’s seen the yo-yo version of a different kind of traveler.
[CONTENT WARNING]:This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…
In what may be the quickest turnaround time from air to release, the complete fifth season of Reno 911! (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) arrives in stores literally within weeks of the final episode airing. The 3-disc set features all 16 episodes, plus audio commentaries, 40+ minutes of extended scenes, and “Cop Psychology: Inside The Minds Of Reno’s Deputies”.
Largely a neglected novelty in the US, Alan Parker’s wonderfully bizarre Bugsy Malone (ITV, Rated G, DVD-£19.99 SRP) is a certified kiddie holiday classic – think of it as the equivalent to what A Christmas Story is in the US. Yes – wonderfully bizarre – how else would you describe a gangster movie starring kids, with music by Paul Williams? It’s never been released on DVD in the States, but they’ve long had a standard-edition DVD in the UK, featuring an audio commentary from Parker, trailers, galleries, and more. Well, now they’ve gone and shown up the States again by releasing a beautifully high definition Blu-Ray edition (ITV, £19.99 SRP). If you’ve never seen the film – well, that’s the way to see it. You must see it.
Back on the road again, actor Robbie Coltrane is exploring the interesting and unique to be found across the breadth of England in Robbie Coltrane: Incredible Britain (Acorn Media, Not Rated, DVD-$29.99 SRP). From 20-ton monster trucks to wing-walkers to rugby played with a beer keg, it’s a bizarre, fun travelogue.
If the slice of the 60’s presented in AMC’s Mad Men leaves you wanting to sonically explore the period a little more, then by all means pick up Mad Men: Music From The Series Volume 1 (EMI, $17.98 SRP). With tracks from Vic Damone, Bobby Vinton, Ella Fitzgerald, The Andrews Sisters, series composer David Carbonara and more, it’s worth a spin.
I always get a kick out of the sheer energy and exuberance – and, frankly, unhinged quality – of talk and variety shows in the UK. Case in point is The Friday Night Project, which is an hour long comedy program presented by Alan Carr and Justin Lee Collins, and featuring a different guest host and musical guest each week. Think of it as a funny Saturday Night Live, deriving much of the humor from the unpredictability of Collins and Carr, and the permissibility of UK television. If you’d like a nice sampler of what I’m getting on about, check out The Friday Night Project: Unleashed (ITV, Not Rated, DVD-£19.99 SRP), which is essentially a bonus-filled best-of compilation.
Anticipation of The Dark Knight is building to a fever pitch, so it makes sense that Warners would quickly shuffle out a Batman Begins: Limited Edition Giftset on Blu-Ray (Warner Bros., Rated PG-13, DVD-$49.99 SRP) to exploit the mood. In a nutshell, it’s got the same on-disc bonus features as the standard 2-disc DVD, plus a 2/12 minute sneak peek at Dark Knight, a collection of postcards, a look at the filming of the prologue sequence of DK, and a comic book adaptation of the same.
And you know that, since you’re already in the rip current, you’re going to pick up the score to The Dark Knight (Warner Sunset, $18.98 SRP), by Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard. You know you’re going to get it. You just know it.
Despite cultural affectations, the bottom line is that funny is funny. Such is the case with Al Murray: The Pub Landlord Live At The Palladium (ITV, Not Rated, DVD-£19.99 SRP). It’s always wonderful to watch a comedian craft stand-up that transcends a stage persona, while still firmly rooting it in said character. Al Murray’s nationalistic, xenophobic, lager-loving pub owner is a thing of cliched glory, ranking right up there with Bob & Doug McKenzie. Heartily recommended. The DVD also features a behind-the-scenes featurette.
First of all, let me say that it’s no Meet The Spartans. And I mean that as a compliment, because that was just unwatchable excrement. No, Superhero Movie (Dimension, Not Rated, DVD-$29.95 SRP) is better than most of the horrid pop culture parody flicks to come down the pike since the high water mark of Airplane!. can you guess what the subject matter is this go round? Can you? I knew you could. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, an alternate ending, featurettes, and the theatrical trailer.
They still haven’t found a good vehicle for Raven Symone, but Disney’s College Road Trip (Walt Disney, Rated G, DVD-$29.99 SRP) is an amiable enough affair, as its essentially Planes, Trains, & Automobiles, but with a father (Martin Lawrence) taking a road trip to check out colleges with his soon-to-be-leaving daughter (Symone). The DVD features audio commentaries, deleted scenes, a video diary, a gag reel, and more.
Finally, what has become an iconic bit of television finally hits DVD with the complete ninth season of Dallas (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). What iconic moment do I speak of? Well, let’s just say it’s the second most iconic shower scene below Psycho‘s. The 4-disc set features all 31 episodes, plus an in-depth featurette on the season’s elaborate dream sequence.
It’s not a full season set, but at least it’s a solid batch of episodes in the first set collecting The Adventures Of Ozzie & Harriet. The Best Of Ricky and Dave (Shout! Factory, Not Rated, DVD-$34.99 SRP) features 24 episodes spanning the show’s 14 season run, with Ricky becoming a teen idol in the process.
Dr. Alec Holland’s hulking, green alter-ego returns to DVD with the second volume of Swamp Thing: The Series (Shout! Factory, Not Rated, DVD-$34.99 SRP), which collects the first 26 episodes of the show’s massive 50-episode 3rd (and final) season.
Everything – and I mean everything – comes to DVD eventually, even when it’s such an embarrassing disappointment as the short-lived Birds Of Prey (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). In fact, the best thing I can say about comic book series is that – in the flashback showing how the former Batgirl, now Oracle, was crippled by the Joker – they were smart enough to cast Mark Hamill as the voice of the Clown Prince of Crime. The 4-disc set features all 13 episodes, plus the unaired pilot and all 30 episodes of the animated web-series Gotham Girls.
So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…
Reading my report on the press preview of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current exhibition, “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” (see “Comics in Context” #224: “My Cinco de Mayo”), you doubtless realized that the emphasis of the show is not on superhero costumes, but on how creations by leading contemporary fashion designers parallel the costume designs used in comics. So you might expect that when the Metropolitan devoted one of its “Sunday at the Met” symposiums of lectures and panels to this exhibition on June 22, the emphasis would likewise be on the show’s sponsor Giorgio Armani, Alexander McQueen, Jean-Paul Gaultier and other leading fashion designers whose work is represented in the exhibit.
But you would be wrong.
If comic books got their figurative feet through the doors of the Metropolitan through providing background for this fashion exhibit, they took center stage in the symposium, which was entirely about superhero costume design, whether in comics or in the movies. That’s because the Metropolitan’s Costume Institute entrusted the task of organizing the symposium (within a mere six weeks) to Dr. Peter Coogan, who should be a familiar name to regular readers of this column. Dr. Coogan wrote the landmark book, Superhero: The Secret Origins of a Genre, which defines both the superhero concept and the genre, and which I critiqued at great length over five weeks last year (See “Comics in Context” #162: “The Superhero Defined”, #163: “Are They on the List?”, #164: “Super Slayer”, #165: “The Supervillain Defined”, and #166: “Megahero vs. Megavillain”). Coogan is also co-founder and co-chairman of the Comic Arts Conference, which is held every year at the San Diego Con (Go see him there this month!), and has just founded the Institute for Comics Studies.
Introduced at the symposium by the exhibition’s curator, Andrew Bolton, Coogan set the stage for the day’s panels by delivering a talk entitled “E Pluribus Unitard: Notes toward a Theory of Superhero Costuming.”
He began by projecting onscreen an image of the cover of Action Comics #1, the comic that introduced Superman, the first true superhero, complete with colorful costume. Coogan told the audience that publisher Harry Donenfeld thought the cover looked so “ridiculous” that he banned Superman from appearing on the cover for the next five issues. Of course, Superman and Action #1 actually turned out to be enormous, revolutionary successes. But Donenfeld’s reaction suggests how new the idea of an action hero in costume was in 1938, so startlingly different that the close-minded thought it laughable. (Many people still have this knee-jerk reaction to the idea of heroes in costume today.) But Coogan declared that “superheroes wear costumes” and that the costume is a “central element” of the genre.
The costume, Coogan continued, projects a sense of authority. He described an experiment in which people proved more likely to obey individuals wearing gray uniforms reminiscent of policemen’s than they would obey people wearing casual street clothes.
Different colors convey different meanings. A light-colored uniform, Coogan said, seems “a bit weak,” whereas a black one conveys “power” and “strength.” The color blue, he said, projected “comfort” and “security.”
Coogan showed us a photograph of two police officers (a man and a woman, if I recall correctly), whose uniforms included blue shirts, thereby conveying the sense of security, and dark pants, projecting power, this achieving an appropriate balance.
Superman, Coogan went on, wears blue, the color of security, and also red, sa color that he said conveys “excitement,” “speed” and “action.”
Next up on screen was the original Captain Marvel, a character who is ignored in the exhibition. The Captain wears primarily red, the color of excitement. But he also wears the colors white and yellow, which Coogan contended, are “a little weak.” The result, he asserted, is that Captain Marvel is appropriate for “lighter” kinds of stories than Superman, even more “comedic” ones. The yellow in the Captain’s uniform, Coogan went on, is more properly identified as gold, which has “upper class connotations.”
The color black, Coogan stated, is appropriate for a “more aggressive” kind of hero. Hence, he said, Batman wears “dark colors” which convey “dominance.” Coogan pointed out that it was Batman’s original writer, Bill Finger, who suggested that Batman wear dark colors; Bob Kane, who first drew Batman, wanted to put him in a bright red shirt. Coogan explained that the Batman creators achieved “balance” by adding the sidekick Robin, who wore bright colors instead.
(Reflecting on Coogan’s lecture, I found myself thinking that he had made it clearer why Spider-Man’s notorious black costume was wrong for the character, who traditionally wears red–representing excitement and action–and blue, conveying his goal of protecting ordinary people.)
Showing Captain Marvel’s enemy Black Adam on screen. Coogan noted that Black Adam wears black, but also gold, denoting “royalty” and “privilege.”
“Costume expresses character,” Coogan summed up. It also provides “credibility,” indicating “expertise” and denoting that the wearer is worthy of “trust.” Coogan referred us to a sequence in which Dick Grayson, in between abandoning his role as Robin and becoming the superhero Nightwing, realized that he needs a costume in order to be taken seriously as a superheroic crimefighter. The costume is the outward sign that the wearer is a competent, trustworthy superhero.
Then Coogan drew our attention to the superhero’s traditional chest insignia, which Coogan calls his “chevron.” Superman’s “S,” he said, stands for “Superman,” itself, a name that indicates the “best we can be.” Batman’s bat chevron refers to “his biography,” specifically the moment “when the bat flew through his window”: a part of his origin that the public does not know. So the chevron, too, expresses something important about the hero’s character.
In contrast, Coogan then showed us Doctor Occult, an early character devised by Superman’s co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. this image was from a storyline in which Doctor Occult, a detective who investigates the supernatural, abandoned his ordinary street clothes and donned a costume, including shorts and a cape. But, Coogan pointed out, this “costume doesn’t convey anything.” Indeed, it lacks a chevron; it’s a generic outfit with no specific reference to Doctor Occult’s mission, biography or character.
Returning to Batman, Coogan noted that the character is primarily devoted to “vengeance” on criminals, not “saving” innocents,’ and that Batman’s dark costume and bat chevron “reinforce” that idea. (I suggest that it’s not quite that simple. Certainly the contemporary tendency is to put Batman in very dark colors, and in the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan Batman movies, he’s all in black. But for much of his history Batman’s costume was colored light gray or even light purple, with his cape, cowl, boots and gloves in ordinary blue, the color of security and “saving.” This color scheme was more appropriate to the Batman of the 1950s and 1960s, including the 1960s TV show, when Batman was portrayed as neither grim nor gritty, and he was not written as if he were compulsively driven by a need for vengeance on all criminals. Indeed, the Batman of this period would exchange wisecracks with Robin in combat.)
Showing us a picture of the Golden Age Flash, Coogan pointed to his combination of red, for “power, speed and action, and blue, communicating trustworthiness. (So what does it mean that the Silver Age Flash is dressed almost entirely in red with no blue at all? That the Silver Age series put more of an emphasis in his unearthly speed, as indeed it did? That its focus was on Flash battling super-villains rather than rescuing ordinary people?)
Captain America, of course, wears the colors of the American flag, representing, in Coogan’s words, “the best of America.” But Coogan reminded us that in the 1970s, when writer Steve Englehart reacted to the Watergate scandals by having the Captain become disillusioned with the government, he temporarily adopted the persona and “dark costume” of Nomad, the man without a country.
As for super-villains, Coogan noted that they “tend to lack chevrons” inasmuch as they “don’t need to establish credibility” for trustworthiness. A super-villain’s “whole costume” or “whole body” is what “expresses character.” (The Green Goblin would be a good example, I think, or the face of the Joker.) Super-villains with chevrons, Coogan continued, include “doppelganger villains” like Black Adam and Venom. (They wear the chevrons of the heroes of whom they are the opposites.)
Coogan also pointed out that DC uses chevrons more than Marvel does, that “Jack Kirby created the Marvel costume tradition,” and that the Hulk’s entire body expresses his character: that he is a monster. Coogan may be overstating the difference between Marvel and DC. When the Fantastic Four acquired their costumes, they had “4” chevrons, indicating the individuals’ primary role as being members of this team of four. Of course, Spider-Man has his spider chevron; Daredevil has his “DD” insignia, reinforcing his name; the original X-Men had their “X” belt buckles indicating their team membership, their allegiance to Professor X, and their “x-tra” mutant powers; and Thor had a hammer symbol, shaped like a “T,” the first letter of his name, on his belt buckle. Even Doctor Strange’s Eye of Agamotto amulet doubles as a chevron. But yes, with Marvel’s emphasis on heroes who were “different,” Kirby co-created heroes who were identifiable from their unusual shapes and physical appearances, like the Hulk, the Beast, the Angel, Iceman, and the Thing. This continues a tradition that goes back at Marvel to the original Human Torch back in 1939.
Coogan next turned to Zatanna, who in the 1960s and today wears a classically sexy variation on a stage magician’s traditional top hat and formal wear. Indeed, Zatanna is a professional stage magician who also knows real magic, which she employs when acting as a superheroine. Then he showed us the cover of Justice League of America #161, in which, in perhaps DC Comics’s greatest fashion faux pas in its history, Zatanna switched to what seems a more generic sort of costume. Coogan noted that Zatanna now seemed more like a “sorceress” or “witch,” but not a “stage magician.” In other words, her costume “didn’t express character,” since show biz is essential to Zatanna’s character. So there’s one reason why it was a relief when DC put Zatanna back in her original costume. (Her long legs in her trademark net stockings were a good reason, too, but Dr. Coogan didn’t mention them.)
Concluding his talk, Dr Coogan showed the audience a costume design that he and his brother had created based on that real life iconic figure, Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D. F. A.. As “Americon,” Dr. Colbert was garbed in the patriotic colors of the American flag, since, as Coogan noted, Colbert has been pictured literally wrapped in the flag on his television show. The credit sequences of The Colbert Report prominently feature an American eagle, which Dr. Colbert has clearly adopted as a symbol of himself; Dr. Coogan reminded us about “Stephen Jr.,” the baby eagle named after Colbert. And so there’s an eagle chevron on Americon’s costume. Americon also wears cowboy boots, since Dr. Colbert advocates “cowboy politics.” And, of course, Americon wears prominent bracelets, reminiscent of the real Stephen Colbert’s celebrated “wriststrong bracelet.” Now here is a costume that truly expresses character, mission and biography!
My one quarrel with Americon’s costume is that he doesn’t wear glasses, which seem to me to be Colbert’s foremost iconic visual trademark: even his science fiction avatar, Tek Jansen, wears glasses. Dr. Coogan told me that Americon as Colbert’s secret identity, so he wouldn’t want to be recognized. But it seems to me that Stephen Colbert, in his TV persona, always wants to be recognized. So Dr. Coogan and I have agreed to disagree. Dr. Colbert, if you somehow find and read this, only you can resolve our dispute.
Next came the writers’ panel, moderated by British scholar Richard Reynolds, whose pioneering book, Superheroes: A Modern Mythology, I acquired and first read many years ago: it was a pleasure to meet him at last. The panelists were Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics, and Danny Fingeroth, whose books Superman on the Couch and Disguised as Clark Kent I have reviewed in this column (see “Comics in Context” #41, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204). Both Levitz and Fingeroth have also been superhero comics writers and editors, Paul for DC, and Danny at Marvel.
On the auditorium screen. Reynolds displayed images from Action #1. Referring to Disguised as Clark Kent, Reynolds noted that Fingeroth regards Superman’s adoption of his Clark Kent identity as as “metaphor for the assimilation of the immigrant.” Before answering, Fingeroth drew our attention to Joe Shuster’s strikingly drawn panel in which Superman, having just rescued Lois Lane for the first time, tells her she “needn’t be afraid of me.” As Danny pointed out, though Superman is smiling and trying to be reassuring, he is also leaning into her. She looks terrified, and why not? Superman is definitely sending mixed messages. I suddenly realized that Siegel and Shuster may be more sophisticated in their writing and art than I had credited them for.
Then Fingeroth referred to Quentin Tarantino’s screenplay for Kill Bill, Part 2, in which he raises the question of whether Superman or Clark Kent is the “real one.” “The real one is Kal-El,” Fingeroth declared, referring to Superman by his Kryptonian name. As for Superman and Clark Kent, “both are assumed identities.” (This is actually still more complex. In the Golden Age continuity and in John Byrne’s revamped Superman continuity, Superman/Clark did not learn he had been born on Krypton–and had been Kal-El–until after he became an adult.) As he does in one of his books, Fingeroth referred to film director Sam Fuller’s observation that each of us has three faces: the one we show to the world, the one we show to family and friends, and the face we see in the mirror. Presumably in Fingeroth’s view, Kal-El is this third face.
Fingeroth said he was also now accepting the idea of the superhero costume as a “full-body mask”: he means that it is an extension of the mask, helping to create the alternate persona as the mask itself does.
Fingeroth also took an approach making the point that for a superhero to adopt a costume is not all that different from what all of us do in everyday life. Earlier that day, I had asked Danny if he had seen the statement on the Met’s website regarding the “Superheroes” symposium that no one in costume would be allowed admission to the museum. I wondered if the Museum staff really thought there was a danger of fans in costume showing up, as at a comic con. Danny replied, quite correctly, that all of us are in costume, meaning that anything we choose to wear is, in a sense, a costume.
Indeed, it was amusing to see how some of the symposium’s panelists defied the ban on costumes in minor ways; Danny wore a tie with Spider-Man images, another speaker, Scott Bukatman, wore a shirt covered with reproductions of comics panels, and even the characteristically properly attired Paul Levitz wore a black necktie with a Batsignal on it.
Now on stage, Fingeroth made the same point: “We all make choices what to wear.” He assured us, “I don’t wear a Spider-Man tie every day.” But his unspoken point was that he wore it today in his role as comics expert and veteran Spider-Man writer and editor.
Fingeroth observed that “people wear a suit and tie to work” but then “dress casually on weekends,” as if to say, “that’s the real me.” In contrast, he went on, “people who work with their hands,” such as construction workers, “will often dress up on weekends,” as if to say “this is the real me.” Thus the character who dresses in a superhero costume is raising the question of which side of a person represents his job, and “which is the free part of ourselves.”
I’d go further by saying that the superhero persona and the civilian identity both represent real sides of the character’s personality. Neither the “suit and tie” nor the “casual dress” by itself represents a person’s “real” character. Rather, each represents a different side of the same person’s character. But what Fingeroth insightfully pointed out seems to indicate that people have a need to believe that they can alter their identities, that they are not defined by the humdrum duties of life, and that they each have a “real” personality that manifests itself outside the world of daily drudgery. Obviously, this is part of the psychological appeal of superheroes: the costumed superhero represents that liberated inner self who doesn’t have to wear the uniform society imposes on him in his job.
Displaying images of Batman over the decades, Reynolds described a shot of Adam West and Burt Ward as the Dynamic Duo in the 1960s as “playful, easy on the eyes” and not scary.” In contrast, he showed the battlesuit worn by Michael Keaton in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film. which Reynolds described as “more technological, more like armor.” The later, more serious Batman is clearly more formidable and intimidating, and lives in a more dangerous and sinister world than the paternal, protective, but somewhat ludicrous Caped Crusader of the 1960s television series. Reynolds then showed a picture of the Batman costume from the current film series, which he described as “even more technological” in appearance. The 1960s TV Batman now seems to live in a very innocent world indeed, where he needs no more bodily protection than his cloth costume affords, and his principal weapons are his fists, not anything technological.
Next Reynolds showed the classic Captain America costume on screen. Probably thinking back to Peter Coogan’s discourse on costume colors, Paul Levitz observed that “˜like most comics artists,” Jack Kirby was “not very analytical.” Levitz said that such artists would say that if the hero wore blue and red, then “the villain must be green,” implying that these artists would not have thought about what each color signified psychologically. However, Levitz praised “Kirby’s instinct” in creating enduring superhero costumes. I believe that a number if the great comics creators of the past, including Kirby and Stan Lee, to a large extent worked from instinct, devising characters and stories with depths and subtexts that they may not have consciously been aware of.
The original Captain Marvel was followed in the auditorium screen by Jack Cole’s Plastic Man. Reynolds likened the stretching Plastic Man to “the mutant body,” the term that Andrew Bolton applies in the exhibition to the unusual bodies of various X-Men characters. Paul Levitz proposed that “Jack Cole’s work descends more from animation than other comics of the time,” and that Cole “saw the character in motion.”
Moving to Wonder Woman, Reynolds commented on how a Greek statue of an Amazon, complete with a “short skirt, even” (clearly alluding to Wonder Woman’s costume) stands on the way to the Met’s “Superheroes” exhibit. Paul Levitz noted that Wonder Woman and the original Captain Marvel were the major characters in the “1940s pantheon” of superheroes who were not created by Jewish immigrants. Both Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman are explicitly “influenced by classical mythology,” and Levitz speculated that their creators were “perhaps more likely to be exposed to that on a formal level.”
When he got to Iron Man, Reynolds pronounced him the “first completely technological superhero.” (Well, there’s the Golden Age Robotman, but I see Reynolds’ point.) Reynolds pointed out that from Iron Man’s first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39 to his next, he switched from gray armor to gold armor, and within less than a year to the more familiar, far less bulky red and gold armor. Paul Levitz then commented that it was Jack Kirby who drew the first cover with Iron Man (Though Levitz did not say so, it seems that Kirby designed the original armor) and Steve Ditko who designed the red and gold armor. Levitz called this an example of the “improvisational feeling” of the comics of this period: “We’re making this up as we go along.”
Levitz was struck by the fact that the new Iron Man movie “finally explains the circle on his chest.” (It is the power source that keeps his heart beating.) “forty-six years later” (after Iron Man’s creation) Levitz said, a “facet” of Iron Man’s costume “becomes a storytelling facet.” Fingeroth marveled that this circle. which he called an “insignia,” was “always just above his heart. . .always subtly there.” I’d say it was as if Kirby subconsciously connected the circle to the heart, and it took all these years for someone to consciously figure out that connection. (To nitpick, past Iron Man writers and artists, including Stan Lee, have used the circle on Iron Man’s chest as a device to project energy beams. But I agree that the movie came up with a better explanation which turns that circle into a chevron linked to Iron Man’s character and history: the outwardly invincible, armored warrior dependent on an injured heart within.)
Next on screen was the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #3 with the introduction of Doctor Octopus, whose body, with its four metal tentacles, serves as the equivalent of a costume. Reynolds observed that Doctor Octopus is a villain “mirroring” his nemesis Spider-Man, since Doctor Octopus actually has eight limbs, just as a real spider does.
Reynolds then moved from the Ditko Spider-Man to John Romita, Sr.’s work on the series. Romita made Peter Parker much handsomer and is justly known for his glamorous depictions of female leads Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson. Reynolds remarked that Romita captured the “swinging ’60s” in his portrayal of the supporting cast. Paul Levitz commented that “Many great artists clearly didn’t look at people in the streets,” perhaps because a comics artist would be “locked in a room by yourself” working long hours. But Romita, Levitz asserted, was an exception, who not only paid attention to “fashion” but also the “physicality of motion” and “acting” in portraying his characters.
Then up on the screen came the cover of The Incredible Hulk #195, showing those two current movie stars, the Hulk and the Abomination, grappling with one another (see “Comics in Context” #226″ “Half a Decade with the Hulk”). The Hulk’s green skin serves the identifying function of a costume, and as Danny Fingeroth explained, so too the Abomination’s grotesquely reptilian hide became “an identifying covering for the character.” Fingeroth also pointed out that the Abomination was a “darker, more powerful, crazy house mirror version of the Hulk.”
On showing of the cover of X-Men (first series) #100, by the late Dave Cockrum, Reynolds said that Levitz had told him that Cockrum loved creating costumes. Levitz remarked that typically, an artist will do one costume sketch for a character, but that Cockrum was different: “he’d do a dozen different costumes” (see “Comics in Context” #172).
Then Reynolds showed the cover to Captain America and the Falcon #176, in which the original Captain, Steve Rogers, instead wore the Nomad costume that Peter Coogan had mentioned earlier, rather than submit to government control. Reynolds segued from this tale inspired by Watergate, to a story that Paul Levitz had written regarding masks and costumes, inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s political witch hunts of alleged Communists in the 1950s. In Levitz’s “The Defeat of the Justice Society” in Adventure Comics #466, Senator McCarthy demands that the Justice Society, the leading superhero team of the 1940s, unmask and reveal their true identities if they are truly law-abiding citizens. Rather than comply, the Justice Society disbands and the individual members retire from their superhero careers (see “Comics in Context” #217: “The Next Frontier”). Of course, in real life it was during the McCarthy era that most Golden Age superhero series came to their end. Levitz explained on the panel that the “1950s witch hunts” provided him with a “good metaphor to explain the “absence of the heroes,” adding that their position was that “Our faces–our names–our lives are our own business.”
Reynolds then suggested that Levitz’s McCarthy story had “opened” the way for the political themes later on in Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Levitz shrugged and said, “I don’t think this story has linkage to Dark Knight” or Watchmen, but noted that as a comics writer “you’re working on the shoulders of others,” and comics writers “are conscious of stories that have gone before.”
Reynolds’ array of images included not only costumes being worn by heroes, but also empty costumes that proved strangely affecting. The cover for Avengers #230, in which Yellowjacket (Henry Pym) is expelled from the Avengers for betraying them, shows his teammates looking down at an empty Yellowjacket uniform. Danny Fingeroth said that the artist, Al Milgrom, “conveyed a sense of shame in the empty costume,” so much so that “you want to look away.”
A little later, Reynolds showed John Romita, Sr.’s classic “Spider-Man No More” cover from Amazing Spider-Man #60. This iconic image, which director Sam Raimi recreated in his Spider-Man 2 movie, shows Peter Parker walking away from his empty costume, which he has consigned to a trash can. Danny Fingeroth pointed out how the figure of Peter Parker was “framed by rain clouds,” and how the abandoned “costume has a life of its own,” with the glove lying on the ground looking “forlorn.” Fingeroth also noted “what you can do with the eyes of Spider-Man’s mask, as in this picture,” to convey emotion, despite the fact that the eyes are blank.
Reynolds also showed the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #252, which introduced Spider-Man’s black costume, which eventually became the costume for Venom, a character who better suited the costume’s color scheme. Fingeroth, a former Marvel editor, explained that the black costume was originally “tied in with he promotional series Secret Wars” and “was a thing we were going to do for a few months,” but it “was popular,” so it “went on and in.” I remember that at the time Marvel gave the impression to the public that Spider-Man’s costume change was permanent, or at least for the foreseeable future. (I was working at Marvel, and that’s the impression even I got!) So it was gratifying to hear Danny admit that the black costume was always meant to be a short-term gimmick.
Images from Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen showed lovers Nite Owl and Silk Spectre both in costumes and completely nude; Paul Levitz confirmed that next year’s Watchmen movie “will be R-rated.”
When Todd McFarlane’s Spawn came onto the screen. Reynolds commented that he was an example of “heroes who look like villains,” with his red and black color scheme for his costume, and his “complete head mask” completely concealing his face. (Then again, Spider-Man also wears a full face mask, and his costume was originally colored more as red and black, with blue highlights. Surely it’s the angular, even pointed design elements of Spawn’s costume, masking the natural, rounded shape of the human body, that makes it seem more sinister than Spider-Man’s costume.)
Moving further towards the present, Reynolds unexpectedly showed the concluding sequence from Alex Ross and Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come, set in the “Planet Krypton” theme restaurant. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman turn up in everyday “civilian” clothing, but the waiters and waitresses are all garbed as members of the Justice League. Reynolds confessed that he found this role reversal “very disconcerting.” I personally am not disturbed by this, but I’m aware if another, metafictional level of reversal that perhaps Reynolds is not: Alex Ross depicted some of the people in this scene as lookalikes for real life comics professionals.
Next came a group portrait from Alan Moore’s Top Ten series, which Reynolds described as “Hill Street Blues with superheroes.” Reynolds drew our attention to the way that this series combines characters in superhero costumes with characters who look like they’re from horror movies, and characters dressed to suit other genres as well.
Then there were two sequences from Marvel’s The Ultimates, which presents the Avengers of an alternate continuity. The first sequence paralleled the one from Kingdom Come: Captain America, Iron Man and Thor were in everyday dress at a restaurant, though they chose not to go to a theme restaurant. Danny Fingeroth pointed out how each character retained a distinctive look, even out if costume. You couldn’t say that Captain America was in his civilian identity: as Steve Rogers, he wore a military uniform. Tony Stark (Iron Man) was described as wearing a “royal” collar, suggesting his status as a member of America’s wealthy elite. So even their everyday clothing expressed their characters.
The other segment spotlighted the Ultimate universe’s version of the Defenders, whose tacky outfits reflected their status as incompetent superhero wannabes. Reynolds pointed to what he termed a “peekaboo” shot of Valkyrie in a thong and suggested that her costuming indicated her real motives for trying to become a superhero.
Then came a sequence in which the Justice League meet with Lex Luthor, when he was President in DC’s continuity, in the Oval Office. Reynolds said he found this image “disconcerting” and tried, but failed, to draw comments from his wary fellow panelists on the subject of a super-villain as U. S. president. Danny Fingeroth joked, “But a lot of old Jewish people in Florida voted for Lex Luthor,” a reference to the confusion about the “butterfly ballots” in the 2000 election.
Whereas the Justice Leaguers in this scene are in full costume, Luthor wears an ordinary black business suit. But Paul Levitz perceptively pointed out that “In a sense the Oval Office is an analogue to the costumes.” Not only is the Oval Office itself an iconic image, but it incorporates symbolic imagery”: as Levitz said, “even the presidential seal in the carpet,” thus creating what he termed “a ceremonial space.”
Then Reynolds showed the cover from Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier Vol. 1 paperback, in which Cooke both recreates traditional superhero costumes of classic characters as they looked in past decades but also, in Reynolds’ word, manages to “refresh” their look. Levitz hailed Cooke’s work as an example of the “power of the individual artist to interpret” tradition and to utilize a “personal style” to make “a new statement with characters that are as much as “seventy years old.”
Towards the end of his PowerPoint presentation, Reynolds showed the audience a picture of costumed superheroes from comics in India, telling us that this “way of storytelling”–the use of that American creation, costumed superheroes–has spread outside the United States, across the world.
However, later that day, after the end of the symposium, the participants headed to an Upper East Side bar, where Richard Reynolds and I discussed just why as Reynolds contended, attempts to create British superheroes never quite worked. What is it that is specifically American about the superhero concept, and that is alien to British culture, even if so many Brits read superhero comics and even write and draw American superhero comics?
But that was still hours off. I’ve only covered the first two panels in this day-long landmark Metropolitan Museum symposium on superheroes, and I will return to my account of the day in the near future.
LINKS IN THE AMAZON CHAIN
You can find the following books by participants in the “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” symposium at the following locations on Amazon.com:
Paul Levitz’s “The Defeat of the Justice Society” from Adventure Comics #466 is reprinted in the paperback Justice Society Vol. 2.
ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF
Two of my own books are being sold at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in connection with “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.” They too are available on Amazon: The Marvel Vault, which Roy Thomas and I wrote, and The Official Marvel Travel Guide to New York City.
From the premise itself to the actual execution of it there’s a sense of appreciation for those of us who like to be talked to and not talked at that which at least saves this program being like so many other clones which dabble in pulp comic book wackiness. Even though THE MIDDLEMAN deals in a kind of sci-fi and comedy usually reserved for summertime blockbusters the writing is exceptionally good and that’s because it’s coming from one of Lost’s writers’ own, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, graphic novel. That said, I am blown away at how sharp it is.
You would expect that a show that is on ABC Family would be as milquetoast as it comes but the true delineation from what you would think it would be comes when you see how much thought has gone into creating a viewing experience that at once titillates a kid’s need for eye candy with an adults desperate need, that is, if we must watch everything our kids watch in order to be good stewards to the youths, to feel engaged as well. From fighting bad guys with big guns and enough wit to carry through an entire program admirably, it doesn’t hurt to be noticed by Variety for all the work as well.
Matt Kesslar is the star of this program and he is, without question, a real honest actor when it comes to knowing the difference between those actors who eschew television work and those who see opportunity in any project that is handled with enough care and thoughtfulness as this has. You’ve just got to root for a guy who is slugging it out in order to make a name for himself, professionally, and who is honestly just excited to be a working actor.
Not only can you catch THE MIDDLEMAN on ABC Family every Monday at 10/9c but you can also catch Matt and Javier at Comic-Con on Thursday, July 24th. To wit:
2:00-3:00 The Middleman – Creator and executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost) and The Middleman Matt Keeslar ( actors Dune) and Natalie Morales (CSI: Miami) discuss the bizarre world of The Middleman. Based on the graphic novels by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, The Middleman follows the surreal life of twenty-something Wendy Watson as she gets recruited by a top secret agency to fight comic book-esque criminals under the guidance of her straight-laced boss, The Middleman. Room 5AB
CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Thank you for making time for me. I appreciate it.
MATT KESSLAR: No worries.
CS: I’m kind of unsure, exactly, and I usually don’t usually ask the question “What’s the show about?” but since I haven’t been able to see the show itself and can really only read a little show description, can you tell me: What’s the show’s about?
KESSLAR: There’s actually a free download on iTunes now but The Middleman is a tongue-in-cheek look at comic book superheroes. That’s the genre we’re working in. Specifically, it’s about a girl, Wendy Watson who is played by Natalie Morales who is fresh out of art school and looking for a job and gets inducted into this secret crime fighting organization that is headed by a mysterious middleman character. And this crime fighting organization has been around forever and has been fighting evil ““ sort of like the X-Files characters. Paranormal characters, so there is a relationship of big brother/younger sister relationship between Wendy Watson and the Middleman, the character that I play. We’re a crime fighting duo.
CS: When you first initially received a script, listening to the premise, was there any hesitation on your part of was this going to be done well or more of a Sci-Fi Channel movie of the week, Mansquito kind of project?
KEESLAR: I didn’t know anything of the premise, I just got the script. So I didn’t know anything about the comic books or the writer or anything. I just got the script and came from ABC Family which in and of itself made me raise my eyebrows ““ is this a family show, what’s it going to be about but the level of ABC Family’s scripts and the work they have been doing has been progressively better and better and I did a television movie for them this summer which was very well written, so I read it bearing that in mind and I really thought it was a great script. It was very smart, very witty, but at the same time it’s a little silly, something that can be enjoyed on many different levels ““ little kids watching monsters type level and then also the adult allegiance to sci-fi series and references to a lot of different pop culture references ““ so it can be enjoyed on many different levels. I was very excited about the script and the moment I read it I thought my character, Middleman, was sort of a mysterious character. He’s just an interesting guy ““ very ultra clean living former Navy Seal crew-cut type of guy but also has some odd quirks about him. In particular the way that he speaks. He’s obviously very intelligent ““ just an interesting character to portray.
CS: You mentioned ABC Family. There seems to be a shift toward family entertainment type things that kids and adults can enjoy. Certainly, Pixar is one example of the kind of company who is a vanguard in making things for kids but not making it completely devoid for something for adults. Is that something that is important to you?
KEESLAR: It doesn’t really matter to me. Let me put it this way: I think good art appeals on many different levels of a person appreciating it. There are some movies, novels, art work, paintings, etc. that appeal only to adults and that’s mainly because they are adult themes that kids don’t have the experience of yet. However I think there are a lot of things that can appeal to children like classical music for example that can appeal to anyone. And I think that that’s one of the watermarks of a good piece of art that it can appeal to a broad section because it appeals to humanity, not just to a particular demographic. It’s not my goal to make a family-friendly television show but it just happens that a good piece of work appeals to many.
CS: You brought up the idea of super powers to super human these sorts of things, is the shooting schedule heavier because of the effects that are needed in the show or is there a reliance on practical effects in order to save on money?
KEESLAR: Well, there are effect shots in every show. Obviously we don’t have the budget of I AM LEGEND or something like that that we can make amazing effects. We are a television show on basic cable network and we wouldn’t be able to just pull off those kind of effects. But the nature of the project, because it is a tongue-in-cheek project ““ it’s a lot like the old Dr. Who and even Star Trek for example – those effects were pretty basic but got the point across of what we were trying to show what we’re going for. We have some special effects but if that’s the reason you are tuning in, it’s not the reason. The show is more about the wit of the characters and the relationships of the characters and as I said before the kind of tongue-in-cheek plot lines that are at once parodying to other sci-fi television shows, novels and movies.
CS: Right. And Javier comes from a pretty rich pedigree writing for television. Is there a lot of input from you ““ are you able to go back and forth ““ or are the scripts just being pumped out, one after another, in spite of your thoughts?
KEESLAR: So far there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for a lot of back and forth although occasionally I’ll have an idea of a way I think will help the story be told better but at this point, Javier has ownership of this character ““ this project. When you start a show, the actor is coming in at the 11th hour, after the director has been hired, after the set has been built and the costumes are made, then they hire the actors.
So, really, when you start a show the actors know the least about the project but as the show progresses and different writers are brought in and different directors are brought in the actors are able to be with the character for a long time, eventually the actors know more about the character than anyone. So since we are just in the beginning of the process, it’s all about Javier and Javier’s vision which is totally fine with me. He has a brilliant, encyclopedic knowledge of sci-fi and pop culture so he’s setting up everything for us right now and eventually we will have more understanding of the characters and the plot lines.
CS: As you go forward, it only lists two episodes so far, is this slated for any number right now of episodes of the season?
KEESLAR: Thirteen episodes, so it’s twelve episodes plus the pilot are scheduled to air on ABC Family on Monday nights at 8:00 PM ““ that’s the slot it has right now. Greek is going on hiatus. They have an option to buy the back nine although ABC Family doesn’t typically do a 22 episode season with any of their shows so it will be the first time if they did decide to do 22 episodes. It would be the first time they have ever done that. Certainly for me I think the main thing is to put in 13 great episodes and see what happens from that. If that is something ABC Family is into and we have established an audience for, great. If not, then we have a really great back set of DVD’s.
CS: How do you feel about this thing starting in the summer as opposed to starting in the fall ““ is it one, less pressure or is it two, well it’s the summer or is it a misnomer ““ can a show find an audience despite when it debuts?
KEESLAR: I don’t know. This is my first television series so I’m not sure about that whole thing. Not sure when shows finds audiences or if they do. I think we have a bit less pressure because we are on a small cable network rather than being on a prime time television network. And, I don’t know whether or not Monday night is a good night or not. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t know much about anything.
(Laughs)
We’re shooting in the summer in a wool Eisenhower jacket which is what I wear throughout the series ““ it can be a little warm.
CS: Does the set feel like a comic book in a way or, like you said, does it feel like a Dr. Who in a modern environment?
KEESLAR: It definitely does have a comic book look and feel to it. There’s a super-villain in each episode. So, it’s everything from a mind controlled gorilla to a Peruvian flying pike that turns people into trout craving zombies. There’s an episode we are doing that a haunted tuba from the Titanic that played when people drowned in the icy waters of the Atlantic to anyone who hears it. Every plot line has some bizarre supernatural element and it’s certainly shot like a comic book. Lots of wide angles ““ not exactly like Batman and Robin ““ POW and stuff like that but definitely elements of a cartoon. For kids to enjoy as well as adults to enjoy. It has elements for both.
CS: As I was looking over your resume it is certainly filled to the brim with a lot of television work. Are people who are actors set on television work saying that this is where I want to make my stand or do you hope this translates into some film work?
KEESLAR: I don’t really care that much anymore. When I was starting off”¦.starting off in any profession you want to shoot for the stars. I wanted to be a big movie star or movie actor in any case. That was 17 years ago and now I’m married and have a kid and all I want is a job I’m happy to do and have enough money to feed my family. It really doesn’t matter that much anymore. I am perfectly happy doing this television show and if it went on for 6 years I would be ecstatic. If I had an opportunity to do a movie, I certainly wouldn’t turn it down. I think that there are great things about both. The nice thing about his project is that it shoots in LA which is where I live and I get to come home and see my family at the end of the day.
CS: That must certainly play into your decisions as you get into projects. Do you find yourself just shrugging your shoulders and say “What will be will be”?
KEESLAR: I think so. I think, it’s kind of hard to say, that I’ve come so close so many times to just having to go back to college and take up another profession because I ran out of money or didn’t take this job because it wasn’t right for me. I couldn’t even book an audition for three years. No matter how many I tried for I couldn’t book a single one. I’ve come so close so many time to just chucking it all and go back to school and trying a different profession. But I am more than happy to do whatever I need to do. I am excited about having a job and getting the opportunity to do what I do which is acting. And it’s an added bonus having this project to work on ““ Middleman.
Filed under: Cabin Fever — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:52 am
Oh no! Just when you thought it was safe to hang out at the Quick Stop…
Cabin Fever (hosted by the twisted souls Brian Fitzpatrick and Aaron Poole) is the result of having too much time on your hands and access to your local community radio station.
Over the course of an hour, they manage to trawl the depths of good taste, plus throw some music in. How much more could you want from a podcast?… Quality? Oh… we didn’t think of that.
Enjoy! And we hope our cross Atlantic friends can understand the Irish accent 😉
Hugs and Kisses,
Aaron P. + Rev. Fitzy
CABIN FEVER #31: P.S. I Love Blake – Aaron has an emotional plea this week in order to win back the love of a friend. The lead singer of Cabin Fever’s favourite band, The Tastydactyls, needs to be told just how much we love him. In a heterosexual way (mostly). Of course, we have the usual talk of Koala bears, complicated chainsaw suicide, and Jason Patrick. But mostly it’s about man-love. As always, there is music thrown in to break up the sexual tension.
[CONTENT WARNING]:Explicit contents! We say every naughty word you can think of. You have been warned!
First of all, yes, I’ve been late with my blog. I apologize to all my loyal readers (hi Mom!). I know you’ve been dying to know where I’ve been (not under a rock) and what I’ve been up to (yes, I did meet Steven Spielberg – he’s short but quite friendly).
I haven’t been able to see many of the summer movies so far, but I was very fortunate last Monday to catch a sneak preview of a film everyone is dying to see”¦
The Dark Knight
“Some men just want to watch the world burn.” ““ Alfred Pennyworth
There has a been a lot of hype surrounding this film. At first it was almost solely about Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker and how because of his tragic death he was all but assured a posthumous Oscar nomination. This, of course, brought forth a lot of backlash saying no performance would be worthy of that. And when the film started to be screened it was compared, as a sequel, to “The Godfather Part II” and “The Empire Strikes Back” in terms of how it topped the original.
On Monday night I caught an early IMAX screening and let me tell you, “The Dark Knight” lives up to NONE of the hype.
Comparisons to other fantastic sequels are unfair because it so far exceeds its predecessor. “The Godfather Part II” was great, but “The Godfather” was equally brilliant. “Empire Strikes Back” was easily the best Star Wars film. But “The Dark Knight” makes its predecessor “Batman Begins” look like the campy Adam West show – and I thought “Begins” was a pretty damn good movie. While the first film was inspired by Japanese samurai films, this was clearly inspired by great crime thrillers such as “Heat” and “Seven”.
I don’t want to spoil this film for you all with plot details. I will say that it is a study in polarity. Of white knights and dark knights. Of order and chaos. And where we all fall in between them. It’s surprisingly topical, dealing with issues such as personal privacy and terrorism. And it’s a fantastic, globe-trotting action movie owing more to the James Bond franchise than any other comic book film. It relies on practical effects over CGI and is all the more stunning for it (George Lucas, take note). Seeing a semi-truck and trailer flip over its front end will astonish you – and they actually did that in the streets of Chicago.
Most of the cast from “Batman Begins” is back. Michael Caine is perfect as Bruce Wayne’s Jiminy Cricket, Alfred Pennyworth, offering sage advice with a sardonic and honest wit. Morgan Freeman returns as Lucius Fox, a brilliant businessman and scientist. And Gary Oldman is given even more to do as Lt. Jim Gordon, who tries desperately to hold his city together while the Joker tries to tear it apart. Each of these actors has at least one great scene. Gordon has one that will make you stand up and cheer.
New to this instalment is Maggie Gyllenhaal taking over for Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. Gyllenhaal brings a more mature side to the character than Holmes was capable of. Aaron Eckhart plays straight-as-an-arrow DA Harvey Dent. Eckhart’s Dent is hard working, incorruptible, and humble – that is, until a shocking tragedy leaves him emotionally and physically torn in two.
But above everyone in an outstanding cast stands Heath Ledger. Ledger’s performance is simply stunning. His Joker will go down in history as one of the best screen villains of all time. Ledger makes the Joker amoral, psychotic, terrifying and hilarious all at the same time. The Joker is also the smartest character in the film, manipulating everyone like marionettes. The performance is absolutely pitch perfect and simply the best performance Ledger ever gave. An Oscar nomination is required here – not because of sympathy for a talented young actor who died too young, but because the performance merits it.
I saw it this film on IMAX and I was skeptical that it would work given most of the film is in a 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio while IMAX is traditionally more like 1.33 to 1. But it is absolutely worth making the effort to see these action scenes in IMAX.
I can’t give enough praise for this film. I was blown away. This isn’t just the best movie of the summer, it’s the best of the year.
Brett Deacon apologizes for his tardiness. Please accept his note from Epstein’s mother.
To most of the American audience, the name Dom Joly will most likely spark no response.
Well, let’s change that.
To audiences in the UK (and some of the hipper viewers in the US), Dom Joly is best known as the creator and principal dada anarchist behind the Channel 4 hidden camera show Trigger Happy TV – which is best described as guerilla improv.
He followed it up with a move to the BBC and the meta chat show This Is Dom Joly, in which he interviewed guests through a concussed haze. He then returned to Trigger Happy territory with the globe-spanning World Shut Your Mouth.
He’s also morphed himself into a globe-trotting host of travel documentaries (nipping on the heels of Michael Palin), beginning with the one-off special Dom Joly’s Excellent Adventure, which saw him traveling back to the country of his birth, Lebanon, before heading into Syria (with best mate Pete at his side) to try and find a Syrian cave upon whose wall he carved his name into during a childhood vacation. What other documentarian would drive through Syria while blasting “Don’tcha” over the car stereo?
In Dom Joly’s Happy Hour, he and Pete hit the road again, circumnavigating the world while documenting the drinking habits of cultures from Europe to America to India. (Okay, honestly, it was really just an excuse to get a network to pay for an elaborate drinking holiday, but the end product totally excuses his base, self-admitted motives).
He recently fronted a series called The Complainers, which sought to examine the British reluctance to declare “enough is enough”, and is a frequent guest on panel shows, including Have I Got News For You, Would I Lie To You, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and more. He’s also regularly on radio, podcasts, and writes a column for The Independent.
He’s just a busy guy.
And an interesting one.
Here’s a little look at the show that started it all, Trigger Happy TV…
And now here’s our chat…
KEN PLUME: First of all, I heard you did an episode of QI…
DOM JOLY: Yeah, I did a QI, yes.
KP: I believe the Christmas episode, right?
JOLY: I think it was the Christmas one. It was very weird. There was lots of hats and log fires going on…
KP: Well, I hope it was the Christmas episode, then…
JOLY: (laughing) Yeah…
KP: It would be rather awkward otherwise. I’ve noticed that, in the past couple years, you’ve definitely increased your appearances on the panel shows…
JOLY: Yeah. I’m not really a panel show sort of person. I never really enjoyed them. But actually, I’ve got a bit more… comfortable with them, I suppose is the word. Because I’m not a stand-up comedian. I’ve never done stand-up or anything like that. I never really enjoy doing that sort of thing. But actually, recently, I have enjoyed them a little bit more. Especially QI, actually. It’s the best one I’ve done, just because it’s one of the few shows I’ve done where you sort of completely forget there’s an audience and you actually are just enjoying the conversation. I mean, being with Stephen Fry is always quite exceptional.
KP: Is it something you definitely would like to repeat on the future series?
JOLY: What, on QI?
KP: Yes…
JOLY: Oh, definitely QI. I mean, it’s just right up my street – just sort of talking nonsense about weird things is perfect.
KP: Now, what was the first panel show that you had done?
JOLY: The very first one I did was Have I Got News for You, which is when I was doing Trigger Happy, and they asked me, and it was a kind of… it felt like a kind of acceptance, you know? You’ve made it to a certain level to be asked on Have I Got News For You, because that was always the big show for me. So I was so excited to go on it, and I’d always watched it – and I’m a bit of a politics junkie, anyway, because I used to be a journalist, so I kind of quite cockily thought, “Oh, this’ll be easy.” I’m just sitting there going, “This is gonna be great.” And I turned up and I didn’t really know what a panel show involved, and I just sort of sat down for the warm-up and it was fine and everything was good. Then I remember them introducing everyone, and I was just backstage not at all nervous, and I sat down, and I remember the theme tune starting and literally disappearing into a black hole and just sort of suddenly realizing where I was. I don’t think I said anything for the first 20 minutes and in the end, Ian Hislop passed me a note saying, “You’re really going to have to say something.” And I was just fiddling with this pencil, just like moving it back and forward. But they were very kind, actually. They edited me in the end so that I managed to say a couple of things by the end. So it wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been.
KP: You know it’s rather awkward when Ian has to prompt you to say something.
JOLY: Yeah, I know…
KP: This was back towards the end of the Angus (Deayton, HIGNFY‘s first host) period…
JOLY: Yeah. Angus was still there, that’s right. I think it was 2001.
KP: So, would you say that – at that point, anyway, when you were doing panel shows – it was sort of almost an autopilot you would go on?
JOLY: Well, the thing is, it kind of depends what panel shows you go on, because some panel shows are very political. I mean, Have I Got News For You is quite political in the sense of the people that are on it every week, and I think they kind of have to be edited equally so that they all look funny. So, as a guest, you’re kind of there as fodder. Whereas other ones, like QI, it’s up to you what you do on it, really. If you’re good or you chat away, then you kind of get given more time. But yeah, mostly I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Everything I did on Trigger Happy, most of the time it’s kind of made up on the spot and I’m in control of it. So I always find it very odd being on something that… well, it’s just a bit show bizzy. I’m just not very show bizzy. I’m kind of… I hate to use that word “guerilla”, but I kinda always feel a bit guerilla and not really fitting into comedy because I’m not a standup, I’ve never been to Edinburgh, never done anything like that. So I always feel slightly odd when I go on those shows with proper stand-ups and… I don’t know, I just don’t feel like I fit there, basically.
KP: Well, obviously you’re a quick thinker on your feet. You’ve certainly survived well within that environment…
JOLY: Yeah…
KP: I’ve noticed a couple of times that you’ve mentioned “standup comedian” being obviously, in your mind, a definition of something. How do you define that sort of performer, in your view?
JOLY: Well, it’s not that… It’s just that, because I’ve never done standup, I’ve always felt… I mean, I don’t know if it was rightly or wrongly, but I felt when Trigger Happy first came out, normally people who do a show on television have kind of established a bit of a pedigree, and they’ve been doing a bit of standup or they’ve done Edinburgh or… you know, and they build and then suddenly they go on television. I was really lucky. Trigger Happy literally was the first thing I ever did, you know, having been a journalist, and it just appeared. And I remember at the time stand-ups going, “Who the hell is this guy?” Like, “Where does he come from?” So I’ve always felt a bit like I haven’t paid my dues, you know? But on the other hand, when you put stand-ups on television, it doesn’t really work that well. It’s the same thing. It’s a completely different job. I couldn’t go in front of a crowd. So I feel awkward in the standup sense – in that when you go on a panel show, I think – as a standup – you’re kind of used to talking to crowds. You feel comfortable in front of an audience. You’ve got set lines that, if you have to go back to them, you know are gonna be funny. And I don’t have any of those. I suppose I’m always astonished on panel shows, actually, how much people do prepare – whereas I always just assumed you went on and winged it. Which is what I always do with everything. And I think recently, if I go on one, I do try and get as much preparation as possible. But I’m just too lazy, really. I don’t really prepare very well. I just like trying to spin off people.
KP: You went back a few years later and did another Have I Got News For You after you had a lot more experience doing that sort of thing. How different was the experience?
JOLY: I didn’t have that much more experience. I think it was still only about my fourth panel show, the second one, but I think I was a lot less cocky, and I was a lot more nervous. And I think, because I was nervous, it made me really think about the news… I mean, you know, I read newspapers and watch TV anyway, the news, so I’m kind of aware of what’s going on, but with that week I kinda tried to guess what they were gonna talk about and, I suppose, I also had slightly more stories. When I first went on… you know, they do a lot of, “So this interesting happened to you.” In 2000, I’d just started – whereas since then, I’ve had quite a few odd things happen to me. So I think I had more to talk about. And because it was a guest presenter, it was kind of… Angus was kind of untouchable. He was very good at what he did, and you sort of felt you couldn’t really have a stab at him. Whereas the guest presenter is much easier, and you just… you know, you kind of joshed with them. So that was easier.
KP: Going back to Trigger Happy, when you talk about that sort of coming out of the blue, there were a few things you did prior. You did a Paramount Comedy Lab prior to that, right?
JOLY: Well, I did a year of doing sort of what was called “interstitial”, where they basically just paid me to go out and film weird stuff, all sorts of weird stuff, and then they put it in between, you know, Friends and Frasier, or whatever, just to kind of put bits in between the actual shows. And that was invaluable to me, because normally in television, you know, you kind of… you might do something on radio or you might do something on stage, but the first thing you put out on television is normally your practice, really. But I’d had like a year with a camera just doing loads and loads and loads and loads of stuff – a lot of it complete rubbish – and just occasionally thinking, “Well, that works.” So by the time Trigger Happy came round and Channel 4 saw lots of little things we were doing, I kind of was quite honed. I was good at being self-critical. It wasn’t just, “Oh my god I filmed something; it’s got to go on television.” It was kinda like, “That’s rubbish. That’s good.” So I think I was a bit tighter than I would have been.
KP: So you’ve got a camera, and you’re out there doing this guerilla material. What’s the learning curve, going out there? Because what you were doing at that time, during the Trigger Happy period, was rather fearless material…
JOLY: I think… my main thing was I couldn’t understand, because I didn’t have any background in it. I used to seek various people I like – like, Dennis Pennis was a big influence. I don’t know if you know him…
KP: Yes…
JOLY: And I remember watching that, and I think the first thing was that we literally arrived just at the time when cameras changed. So you didn’t need to hire a film crew to go out and film silly pranks – you used to have a limited amount of time because you’ve got to pay the film crew. The year I started it was literally about the first year where you could go into a shop and, for a grand, buy a camera that was easy to use and good enough to put stuff on television straight away. And so that allowed us just to… you know, I did it with a guy called Sam Cadman. It just allowed us to literally just go and film and film and film. We didn’t have to worry that we had to pay a crew, so we could do lots of stuff ourselves. And then I think the thing I really learned after a bit was that there is no right and wrong in comedy. I don’t believe anything’s unfunny. If you find something funny, then that’s funny. It’s just you’ve got to hope that what you find funny other people find funny. And I think I was really lucky because when I met Sam – who I made it with – we just both had exactly the same sense of humor. And so we just were doing stuff… I learned to do things to amuse us. So even the style of Trigger Happy that people used to talk about… There was the slightly shaky camera. That was only because Sam was laughing. And that was really good. We were just trying to… I was trying to show off to Sam and make him laugh. And I suppose what I learned was you’ve just got to trust that. The moment you try and think, “What will people find funny?”, then I think you fail. You’ve got to just do what you find funny and hope that other people find it funny. So I think it was confidence, a little bit, is probably what you learn.
KP: Are there any particular bits from that period that you can look back on and think, “I over thought that…”?
JOLY: Loads. Terrible, big, cartoon jokes. I had a long series where I was trying to do a cat chasing a mouse around London. And it was kinda funny, but we’d build big props like a big one ton weight that was hollow and drop it off a roof and land on the mouse. And it was all just… I don’t know. Also, I learned… we had someone in charge, though, who kept insisting we put cartoon music on the dog, on the sort of costume jokes, and it was just so wrong. And in the end, I put on my own music. Which unfortunately was never shown in the States because it was library music. But the one we used here was proper good music. And that’s why I really knew that great music was gonna work with really silly stunts and stuff. But I just think a lot of it was down to keeping it short, really. You know, we used to put everything we filmed on telly, and then you just think, “No no no – it’s all about minimum amount of stuff. Minimum amount of stuff.” So we didn’t want anything more than a minute.
KP: Now would you generally cycle through things quickly, or would there be particular ideas that you thought, “You know, I’m gonna get this to work somehow…”?
JOLY: No. Really quick and bored, really. It was very low attention span. The reason it really worked was Sam, who was the camera guy with me, he’s basically a sort of obsessive compulsive and attention deficit disorder, and basically he’s just very, very… everything has to be perfect. Whereas I’m very much like, “Right, let’s do this,” and then I’m bored ’cause it’s not working. So we work quite well together, because I’d rush things on and he’d try and say, “No, let’s do it again.” But it was very organic the way we’d come up with stuff. So we’d drive around and we wouldn’t really know what we were doing, and then we’d see a milkman and we’d think, “Oh. Milkman. We haven’t done a milkman.” So we’d go off to a costume shop and find a milkman costume and then go and just start doing milk stuff, and normally something funny would happen. And then we’d think, “Oh, that’s good…” and then we’d do that until we were bored of it. But we were also quite curious, which meant it was very difficult… I think a lot of shows just fake a lot of stuff, and we were determined that everything had to be bang on and had to be the first time, and if it was the third time it wasn’t as funny. And I think we kind of stopped ourselves doing stuff much quicker, in some ways.
KP: It’s a very intense thing to try and do these sort of pieces where you’re maintaining whatever the character and situation is within a public that doesn’t know what you’re doing…
JOLY: Yeah, it’s a nightmare.
KP: How difficult was it for you not to break during this?
JOLY: Not to what?
KP: Not to break during those scenes…
JOLY: What do you mean, not to crack up?
KP: Not to crack up, right…
JOLY: Oh, god, it was easy, actually. It’s the one thing that everyone always says, and it’s really funny – I never, ever crack up during a scene, because it’s kind of so embarrassing doing what you’re doing, and you’re it in a weird costume and you’re doing everything that, in a normal world, you just wouldn’t do, and approach people and make an idiot of yourself, and the only thing that’s saving you is, in your head, you know that you’re doing this for a reason and that it’ll be funny because you know. And if I suddenly cracked up halfway through a scene, I’d kind of suddenly become me, and then I’d suddenly become incredibly embarrassed. It would just be like suddenly waking up from a dream and you’re naked in a sitting room with a whole lot of people. So I’d never, ever do it. The only time I’ve ever cracked up was in the very first Trigger Happy. I was dressed as an old sea captain and I’m in some port down in Somerset and I’m talking to these two old ladies about how my dog and my wife and everyone’s been lost at sea. And I couldn’t believe… they were the first people we met. And literally we dressed up as this sea captain and I thought I’ll just wander into the village, start chatting, and we’ll kind of develop what the character is. And the first two people we met were these old women, and all they said was “Oh yeah, oh yeah,” to whatever you said. Because I literally said, “I’ve just murdered a man.” “Oh yes.” And there was just one second where I couldn’t believe it and I cracked up. So I turned it into me crying. So there’s a little bit where it looks like I’m weeping slightly. So that was my only way of getting out of it. If I giggled I’d pretend to start weeping. So it’s very rare for me.
KP: And how often would you say that a situation got dangerous?
JOLY: Never really very dangerous. Actually, weirdly, the States was a lot more dangerous than here. Just because, always at the back of my mind in the States – I just thought the worst that could happen in England is someone would give you a slap, but always in the States you’re just thinking, “Is this guy carrying a gun? Has he just been released from somewhere?” And I just always have this horror of some headline – “Minor English comedian gunned down in Arkansas dressed as a squirrel.” So I don’t know – you’re never quite sure there. And also, I can kinda read people in England really well. You get to read people really well. You just kinda know what they are. The moment you go out and talk to them, you just have no idea what people can be like. But the moment you look in their eyes, you can tell whether they’ve killed, basically. And just occasionally you’d go and there’d just be those dead eyes looking at you. And you just go, “Oops, sorry, I’ve got the wrong person…” and wander off. So I was pretty good at avoiding complete lunatics, basically. I’d just walk away normally. Just occasionally you’d get quite aggressive people but I think it’s quite easy to calm down aggressive people in England. For some reason. Especially if you’re in a costume.
KP: Well, I’m curious… and I’ve talked with quite a few other comedians in the UK about this, but I’m curious as to, when you come over to the States – either to work or just for leisure – what is your perception of going and working in the US? You mentioned a little bit about how you could read people more in the UK than the US. What is your perception of the US, as a place to work and a place to visit?
JOLY: God, this is a huge one. I mean, I love the US. It’s always been… I think it’s still… I’ve been to over 100 countries now, and I think it’s the most exciting place I’d ever go to, just because everything about it is kind of different in the sense that within one country, there’s so much diversity. And there’s something exciting about going there. When I went there to work, that was like, I couldn’t believe I was actually being paid to go and do something in America. I do have a flip side to that, is that because I was born in Beirut – although I’m not Lebanese, I’m now on some list of potential terrorists. So every time I come to America, a red light goes above the passport guy and I get taken to a room and I’m held for about three hours and interviewed and asked questions like why do I speak French. And then someone always gives me an anal frisk for no reason whatsoever. I’m not joking.
KP: Maybe they just saw the US version of Trigger Happy.
JOLY: Yeah, possibly. I don’t know. Well yeah, I agree, I should have been imprisoned for that, but that was not my fault. But that’s another story. But yeah, so I kind of… I tend to avoid going to the states if I can, because I just hate the hassle I get at the airport. But once I’m there, I absolutely love it. And I think the problem… I’m kind of… we’re just thinking at the moment – Sam, who I made Trigger Happy with, now lives in LA, and he’s a director in LA, and there’s been a lot of people talking about how they love Trigger Happy to him, and we’re actually putting together a Trigger Happy movie at the moment which we’re about to pitch in LA. And my worry is whether we were gonna film it in the States or in England, because why it works in Britain is kind of because the reaction of people in Britain is different. We kind of have this thing of… a fear of embarrassment, and a terrible… If you approach someone in England, they don’t react – they kind of back away. That means you can do anything, really. They’re just like, “As long as you don’t stab me, I’m fine.” Whereas in the States, when we did things like the big mobile in New York, they’d just turn around and go, “Hey, shut the fuck up.” And there’s a much more direct thing, so it’s kind of more difficult. But also there’s just things that I can read in England, and we can sort of subtly satirize – you’re not even trying to satirize anything, but it’s just part of you which I think it’s very difficult to do if you haven’t grown up in a country. So I think it might be different in America.
KP: Well, what I find curious is that there’s a set amount of locales that UK comedians or UK performers coming to the US – who want the “US experience” – go to…
JOLY: Well, actually, that’s very very interesting you say that, because one of the main things Sam and I have been talking about is that obviously when you come and film, you go to New York, you go to Miami, you go to San Francisco and LA, you basically do… to me, America’s two countries. When I first arrived, I couldn’t see who voted for Bush, because you go New York, Miami, San Francisco, and you’re like, “Well, everyone’s normal here. They’re great. Who votes for Bush?” And then I did a drive through Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana, and you’re like, “Ah, I get it.” So to me, America’s two countries. It’s like a big circle with all the coasts, and then there’s a kind of inner circle – which is where the crazies are, in my view. So our idea is that if we film a kind of American Trigger Happy, I wanted to do it in real America – like, places that we don’t always see. So we wanted to go to Alabama and Charleston and just kind of weird inland Texas, and do stuff in the center of America that no one ever sees… Well, they do see, but it’s not the kind of flying to LA stuff.
KP: The other location I was going to mention is that people always go to the south. And you never see anyone go to…
JOLY: Minneapolis.
KP: Right. Minneapolis or Wisconsin or Idaho or Iowa or Illinois…
JOLY: Yeah, well, we’re going to Montana, if that’s any good.
KP: You’ll have difficulty finding people.
JOLY: Yeah, I know. And the other place I’ve always wanted to go to, so we’re going to, is Maine. Just because I have a lot of lobster jokes.
KP: Well, in Maine you also get that sort of cultural mix. They’re almost our Canadians.
JOLY: But that’s exactly it, and that’s what we’re trying to do with locations, is to get one of each kind of American stereotype – even though each state is kind of its own country. But to do it in places that you don’t normally see – and also aren’t that TV savvy because, again, you go to LA or New York and everyone’s just like, they’ve got a lawyer when you’re trying to get a release form off them.
KP: Well, I would recommend you try Appalachia in the western half of North Carolina.
JOLY: I’ve been there. I filmed a thing there. I went to about 10 miles from where they filmed Deliverance…
KP: Well, that was the moonshine episode of Happy Hour…
JOLY: Yeah. A very, very scary place, but I loved it.
KP: You should hit Dollywood while you’re out there.
JOLY: I really wanted to go to Dollywood, yeah. Is that near there? I didn’t realize it was near there.
KP: Yes. It’s sort of right on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.
JOLY: Well, I have a friend who’s American who’s from West Virginia, and her mother is a born again who speaks in tongues and she keeps inviting me over, but I don’t know if it’s my bag
KP: If you do, one of the most fascinating and terrifying journeys that I’ve ever taken is on a road that goes down the Appalachian mountains, called the Blue Ridge Parkway.
JOLY: Right.
KP: And basically has all of these odd stop offs like the coal mines of West Virginia, the sort of Cherokee gambling reservation in North Carolina, Dollywood, the Smoky Mountains…
JOLY: It’s got everything.
KP: And they have you know massive aqueducts that run through it to service this rural America, to bring some kind of civilization. But it’s one of the oddest drives you could ever take.
JOLY: I’d just like to drive all over the states constantly, but unfortunately my wife wouldn’t let me. She’s Canadian and wants me here.
KP: What’s the longest time you’ve ever spent in the US?
JOLY: Well, for filming it was about two months, when I was doing the American Trigger Happy – which is just such a long story and such a disaster I’ll not go into it – but that’s when I kind of first got flown around lots of different places. Seattle and Miami and stuff.
KP: But that was flown around and not driving around, right?
JOLY: That was flying, yeah. My best drive time was basically when I was making World Shut Your Mouth for BBC1, and we kind of went Miami all the way to New Orleans and then across to Vegas up to Reno and then through the Joshua Trees and the Mojave desert into LA. That was the best road trip thing I’d done. And then in my year off between school and university I lived in Washington, DC for six months, so I kind of did a lot of traveling around there as well.
KP: Is this when you still thought you were going to pursue a political career?
JOLY: Yeah, that’s when my first career started. I started well. I was going off to work for some congressman – you know, the usual sort of political internship. And I ended up working in the women’s department of Banana Republic on M Street.
KP: So can you still fold a pair of Chinos?
JOLY: I can fold a pair of Chinos really well. That’s one thing America taught me. Actually, Banana Republic is one of my favorite reasons for visiting America. We just got one here. I love Banana Republic. It’s sort of posh Gap, so when you’re approaching 40, I can really start shopping there with pride.
KP: Have you bought your first Panama hat?
JOLY: No. Well, I’ve got a Panama hat because I’ve just been in Nicaragua and I thought it would be quite fun to do a sort of Graham Greene type thing. So I bought a Panama hat and went out there with it but I lost it after the first day. It was a bit rubbish. I don’t really like hats.
KP: Well, next time will be the pith helmet.
JOLY: Yeah, a pith helmet would be great. That’s actually become very fashionable in Africa at the moment. And it’s a sort of ironic, you know, anti-colonial thing. Sort of young hip Africans in Nigeria and Kenya, they all go nightclubbing in pith helmets, which I long to see.
KP: What is on your current hit list? Obviously you’ve been trying to hit just about everything…
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: What’s still on the to do list?
JOLY: Well, I kind of want to be Michael Palin, is what I’m aiming for at the moment. I mean, obviously, I haven’t managed Monty Python, but I saw him in the street the other day… because I’m doing a little travel journalism, and I think I’m about to drive from London to Sydney in a bus in September, which is kind of like a huge trip. So I’m really looking forward to it.
KP: There’s some watery bits that might be difficult.
JOLY: Not too many actually. You can do it all the way to… well, obviously the English channel is one, but we’ve got a tunnel. And then it’s over land all the way to East Timor, and then it’s just a ferry ride from East Timor to Australia. But otherwise, it’s all overland. Through Iran. Used to go through Iraq, but that’s kind of not an option right now.
KP: Well, it is if you want to be a little adventurous.
JOLY: Iran’s good enough, I think. Because you guys are about to nuke it anyway, so I’m just hoping that I can slip in before it goes.
KP: Well, we have a couple of months, hopefully.
JOLY: No, I think Bush will do it as a sort of farewell address. As he’s actually saying goodbye…
KP: What do you think; he’s going to bring the button out with him to the podium?
JOLY: Yeah, he’ll just say goodbye. But no, I saw Michael Palin in London about three weeks ago, and I was in a car and I saw him and it was quite a tight street, and the temptation to just pretend to sneeze and turn the car and smash into him and just think, “Right, that’s it, I’m ready now. I can take over.” But that’s kind of what I want to do. There are three things – I’m trying to do this, the travel journal, but try and do it in a kind of spoofy way, because there’s a big debate at the moment about how TV is all faked, and there’s been a lot of problems here in England.
KP: Oh yes, I’ve seen the columns…
JOLY: It’s insane. All TV is fake. Otherwise you’d watch cooking shows and you’d have to watch for 40 minutes while something cooks in the oven. It’s ridiculous. But the one area of TV they never talk about is travel journalism, which is just the most fake of all. You know, you only ever arrive at Sunset, and Michael Palin always does this thing where he’s kind of rushing and he has to get a train at 1:00 to take him to Egypt, otherwise he misses it. And he gets to the train just on time and then there’s a beautiful shot of the train leaving and you’re like, “Well, who’s filming that?” I just love all that sort of stuff, and it’s slightly this feeling that when you go abroad, everything is just amazing and like totally holy, and you can’t say, “This place stinks.” It’s really weird, but it’s not very real. So that’s kinda what I’m interested in.
KP: I always just assumed that they had really bad producers planning that timing out.
JOLY: I don’t know. I don’t know what they do. I’ve just been in Nicaragua where they said to me, “We found a volcano where everyone snowboards down. Would you be up for that?” And I’m like, “Well, I’m more of a skier really,” and they said, “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll ship some skis out.” I personally spent five hours trying to get the only pair of skis ever to be imported into Nicaragua, because they think it’s some cocaine, gringo smuggling thing. So I get the skis, we get all the way to this volcano, climb up it, and it turns out they don’t snowboard down it. It’s just, like, a couple of local idiots tobogganing, and they’re still cutting themselves up. And I’m standing at the top of this volcano in skis. So I tried it, and I went about three meters and then rolled down the whole thing. It was just unbelievable.
KP: You’re standing at the top of this volcano. You’re in skis. There’s no point where you can just say, “You know what? No.”…?
JOLY: Very weirdly, of all he things I’ve done, that was the one moment where I literally am standing on the edge and this camera’s there, and I just have a moment where… normally I’m just, like, I’m totally up for this. I just thought, “This is absolutely insane.” There’s been no health and safety, and I’ve seen this somewhere on telly before, in kind of “When TV Idiots Go Bad”, you know? And that was nearly the moment where I went, “You know what? Let’s forget this.” But I just… I don’t know. You just have to do it, really. I was pretty sure I wasn’t gonna die. And I thought, worst case scenario, if I break stuff it’ll be a good news story. So that was the only one where I really thought, “Hmm, maybe not.”
KP: But it’s got to be an awkward moment when you think, “You know what? I could be part of a clip show for years to come…”
JOLY: (laughing) I’m constantly part of a clip show. But yeah. Well, the worst thing was, just as we were climbing up this volcano, my guide – who, you know, assumes I’m an experienced volcano skier – is going, “Yeah, you know, you have seen this before on the television.” I go, “No, I haven’t.” They go, “There’s this really famous clip where this guy is on a mountain bike and tries to break the world’s bicycle record going down this particular slope. And he gets to 180 miles an hour in his mountain bike and the bike snaps and he’s in hospital for nine months,” and I’m like, “Oh really? That was here?” And he goes, “Yeah yeah yeah. Very funny. I was here.” And I go, “Oh good, good. Looking forward to that.”
KP: Well, I’m sure he had the tape to show you later.
JOLY: Yeah. (laughing)
KP: So, what’s your thought halfway down the mountain, as you’re careening?
JOLY: I’m thinking, “This is not what I was hoping, but it’s gonna make great television,” because it was so bad that I know it’s gonna be funny. But on the other hand, in my mind, I was hoping for a sort of heroic, beautiful ski down where everyone will be like, “Jesus Christ, he can really ski.” So, you know, it was good in the end because it’s kind of… the director came down and he was just thrilled, you know?
KP: Do you feel it’s sort of a bizarre thing when, in those kind of moments, you start thinking, “I hope this is good TV…”?
JOLY: Well, that’s all you’ve got left, really. That’s pretty much what goes through my mind almost all the time at work, is that I’m not really enjoying myself but I’m just thinking, “As long as it’s good TV, it’s good.” And you kinda know it is, so that’s alright. It’s when you’re doing something you hate, and you know it’s gonna be shit TV and it’s not even gonna make the final cut, that’s when it’s really depressing because you think, “There’s no need for me to be doing this.”
KP: Now is there any… not just a segment, but a project that you can describe as such that you just knew going in, “This is gonna be shit…”?
JOLY: I don’t know. No, I haven’t really taken… I mean, it’s funny; I did a chat show when I moved to the BBC after Trigger Happy. To me, it was really obvious that if someone had a hit show, what they tended to do was move to the BBC and then make a chat show with their name on it. A kind of Letterman thing. And just go on a huge ego trip. So, to me, it was really obvious when I moved to the BBC that I was gonna make a chat show called This Is Dom Joly, and it was kind of gonna be someone called Dom Joly – but it wasn’t me, because I was wearing glasses. And it thought that was a really obvious disguise, so everyone would know I was being ironic. And the idea was just have this terrible show where he just stumbles on and talks to bands in really crass questions, and asks shit questions. And I remember, as we were making it, I was talking to Sam and just saying, “You know, some people are really good and then they just make really shit shows. And I wonder whether they’re aware while they’re making it that it’s a turkey.” And Sam is like, “No, you’d definitely be aware.” And then we just got slated for this show – like slammed – saying, “Is this the worst chat show ever?” And part of me was thinking, “Well, that’s kind of what we wanted.” I wanted people to watch it and think, “I can’t believe how bad this is,” not realizing it’s real – because no one realized it wasn’t real and they just thought it was the worst show ever. So that was probably the worst thought through show ever. But I really enjoyed making it. It was kind of… I mean, I’m not going to say it’s in anywhere the same league, but the idea was a kind of – before Curb Your Enthusiasm – it was like it had video diaries of my life, and following me around demanding that, you know, when I’m selling my house that there was a celebrity premium on it and… I mean, all sorts of weird stuff and cameos, but it wasn’t nearly as well thought through as Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is total genius, but it was kind of in that vein.
KP: So what’s the current status of that? That hasn’t seen a DVD release, has it?
JOLY: No, that was never a DVD. That was on BBC3. It launched BBC3, and pretty much buried BBC3. There were two series of it. And I think it had moments of… probably some of my favorite moments, actually, but it was all about anti-television. I wanted to call it Dead Air, but they wouldn’t let me. And I should have called it Dead Air, because then they’d have understood it. Dead Air with Dom Joly. And the whole joke was gonna be that I start the whole series with me coming on and saying, “I’m at the BBC, I’ve made it,” and starting to sing a song called “Sympathy” from the 70s – that I loved – and then a light hits me on the head, and for the rest of the series I’m in concussion. That’s how it was gonna start, but they wouldn’t let me do that, so the whole show went on without the start so people didn’t realize I was supposed to concussed – they just thought, “Jesus, he’s an asshole.”
KP: Have there been discussions about a DVD release for it?
JOLY: Oh no, god, this was years ago. This is four years ago. I don’t think there’ll be a DVD of that. BBC was deeply embarrassed of it…
KP: Everything makes it to DVD eventually…
JOLY: Well, I hope it’ll make a DVD, because I think there are some really good bits. But I don’t know. The BBC hid it very well.
KP: I’m interested in the idea that – because obviously Trigger Happy started on Channel 4…
JOLY: Yeah…
KP: What did a move to the BBC represent? Because it seems odd to me – you would think there’d be more money outside the BBC, but all the big contracts and the big money seems to be at the BBC…
JOLY: Well, it was… there were two things. The reason I moved to the BBC was because I’d done a second series. I didn’t want to make any more. I wanted to kinda stop Trigger Happy when it was good. And Channel 4 said, “Oh, we really want you to do a Christmas special,” and I kind of said yes to that, but I still didn’t really want to make them. And then we did that and then I said, “Right, now I want to kinda do some other stuff.” And in hindsight I should have been smart and just said, “Look, I’ll do you a Trigger Happy every three years, but meanwhile let me do some other stuff.” But I was just like, “I don’t want to do another Trigger Happy,” and they were like, “We want you to do Trigger Happy,” and so I just was thinking, “Well, I don’t want to do Trigger Happy,” and suddenly someone from the Beeb turned up and took me out for lunch and said, “We’ll give you a three series deal and you can do what you like and we think you’re brilliant,” you know? Just total schmooze. And I was like, “Cool.” I mean, because I didn’t want to do Trigger Happy, but also there’s just something when you’re British about the BBC. It’s kind of… my mum doesn’t really understand what Channel 4 is, but BBC she’d understand. She’d be able to tell her friends, you know, “Yeah, he’s on the BBC.” It just sounds a bit more official. So it was kind of that, really, and I just thought, “Great, we’ll go to the BBC. It all sounds very exciting.” And then I got there and it’s just… it was like moving into the movie Brazil. It’s just this huge, huge bureaucratic organization where – when you arrive and you’re hot – everyone’s talking to you and everyone’s responsible for you, and then the moment things start to look bad, you just can’t speak to anyone. When I finally left the BBC I was there two years. My third series ended, and there was nothing. I just sat there in my office – which I’d had painted red – for two weeks, and nothing. No one heard, and I rang my agent and I said, “What’s going on? Are we meeting something?” He said, “I have no idea.” And in the end, I literally just… I had to just pack my stuff and… I mean, no one said anything. I could still be living there, I think. So I just went downstairs and I just thought, “This is a great paparazzi shot, with me just putting all my posters and occasional awards into the back of my car,” and I just slammed the boot and literally I just looked around and then I drove off. And then I’d forgotten something, and I came back the next day and I put my pass in the door and it didn’t work. It wouldn’t let me in. It was just extraordinary.
KP: Well, that’s good. At least they’re quite quick and responsive when you decide to leave.
JOLY: But that’s the point. I think they didn’t want to tell me to leave, but obviously someone said, “He’s gone, he’s gone,” and they switched it all off.
KP: It’d be great if the Joly Alert went up through the building.
JOLY: Yeah. It was a huge conga going around the building.
KP: So the last series for the BBC then was what, World Shut Your Mouth?
JOLY: That was World Shut Your Mouth – which again, I’d loved the chat show and I’d done two series of it, but I realized that no one had understood it and, you know, it probably was crap. I don’t know. I mean, I liked it, but so I thought, “Well, I’d better give them a banker, you know? So I said, “I’ll make basically a Trigger Happy type show, but I want to call it World Shut Your Mouth because I want it to be more global – because, basically, I just want to travel.” So it started the best joke, I think, in the history of television, as far as I’m concerned, for its sheer pointlessness. I wanted to start each show with me in front of one of the wonders of the world, and so I’m at the Taj Mahal and I’m standing there at dawn and it’s just beautiful and there’s just one other person, a real person there, and I’ll just walk up next to them and stand and we’ll both look at the Taj Mahal for a bit, and then I’ll go, “Ah, Taj Mahal.” And they would say, which they did, “Yeah, it’s just amazing, isn’t it?” And there’s a long pause and I just go, “That is shit.” And basically I managed to get the BBC to pay me – in one trip – to go to the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, the Grand Canyon, the Guggenheim, and the Coliseum. Two days in each place just so we could go and film me saying, “That’s shit.” And that was on the BBC license payer’s money. That was my greatest achievement in television. So I just thought, “You can’t fail with that.” It’s such a great beginning. And I thought World Shut Your Mouth, in a lot of ways, was stronger than Trigger Happy, actually. But it was BBC1, 10:30, prime time, and it got three and a half million every time, but it just – they didn’t want another series, and I don’t know why, actually. And it’s never been shown again. I still think that’s my favorite show.
KP: It also seemed that World Shut Your Mouth was subtler…
JOLY: It was more about… it was kinda the darker side of Trigger Happy. In hindsight, actually, World Shut Your Mouth should have been run on Channel 4, because it was more… slightly weirder. And Trigger Happy, which was much more kind of just big fluffy costumes and stuff, should have been the 6:00 in the evening, Saturday BBC1 show. But I’ve constantly done shows for the wrong channel – like Happy Hour, which I loved. But it was a kind of spoofy, weird travel show. It was definitely not Sky 1. They just thought, “Great, he’s doing something about alcohol.” But I did alcohol because Sky said, “We need you to do something that will interest the channel.” So I’m like, “Well, that’s tits or alcohol for you guys, so…” But anyway, one day I’ll get it right.
KP: You’re talking about moving Trigger Happy to film…
JOLY: Well, just we’re thinking of doing a Trigger Happy type project. I wouldn’t call it Trigger Happy. We’re going to call it War of the Flea. Which I just think is a great name. It’s the name of a book in the 50s, to describe guerilla insurgency and the fact that one flea scratching a dog does nothing, but if you have a thousand fleas scratching the dog it’s worse than the bite of a tiger. So it’s kind of the idea of this kind of irritant basically just popping up everywhere and annoying people.
KP: And the title will sell tickets in America…
JOLY: Do you think?
KP: (laughing)
JOLY: (laughing)
KP: You know what, you should put a 2 after it.
JOLY: Yeah, well, it had… That’s right. War of the Flea: It’s Back.
KP: Do you view TV as something that holds less interest for you at this point?
JOLY: No. I love TV. I have no interest in doing films. I mean, obviously if someone offered me a film I’d do it, but I’m not an actor or anything, so the only reason I’m thinking of doing a movie for Trigger Happy is that I’m very happy to do another Trigger Happy here but no one wants to do one. Channel 4 feels that they don’t ever go back to something. And because they own the name Trigger Happy, I can’t do that anywhere else. So I suddenly thought, “Well, actually, I’ve got loads of big ideas and stuff,” and so did Sam, so we thought, “Well, before we get too, old let’s make a big movie.” Because at the time when Trigger Happy happened, we were offered a huge movie deal and we said no because, to us, what happens when you make movies from TV stuff is kind of like that first Ali G film. It just was really watered down shit, and I just had this idea of sort of the big mobile guy would have a love interest. It would just be crap. So we were like, “No, no, no – we can’t do that.” And then, of course, the Jackass movie came out and it was just one huge Jackass episode. And we were like, “Fuck, we could have just done that.” Just a big Trigger Happy, you know? So that’s kind of what we’re doing with the idea we’re doing now, is we want to do a film which, you know, most movies normally have sort of two big set pieces, and our idea is this is just a movie with 100 big set pieces. That’s it. No story.
KP: Yeah, but I think that’s what movies are moving towards anyway. You might as well just push it over the edge…
JOLY: I just think movies are something that should be an hour and a half long and you go in and love it. And that’s it. The only reason these are movies rather than TV stuff is because they’re kind of bigger setups. They’re all kinda big crowd setups, so we want two-three hundred people in each scene. But you know, there’s no reason… I love television. I think television’s far more interesting to me than movies. I hardly ever go to the movies.
KP: Well, after you skirted around the disaster of the US Trigger Happy…
JOLY: Well, I haven’t skirted around it – I’m just too angry to ever think about it.
KP: I’ve read your statements in the past about it. You made the decision based on certain factors and you would have made it differently, but your decision was right at the time…
JOLY: Well, it’s basically that I’d finished doing Trigger Happy, and for that reason I’d gone to the BBC – and suddenly we get this offer from the States. And, in hindsight, I should have just said, “Great, I’ll go out there and we’ll make a show…” You know, as everyone else has. What Little Britain seems to be doing, and everyone did. But, you know, I just had a kid and I had a family and I didn’t want to go to the States, and also I just didn’t want to make more Trigger Happy at the time. I thought, “There’s loads of other things I’m going to be doing.” But then they came back and said, “Well, we’ll only make it if you’re in it, and you can sort of do a little bit of producing on it.” And I thought, “Well, that’ll be alright. I’ll go out and have a look at it,” and the guy I talked to from the production company at Comedy Central who had decided they were gonna make it seemed okay. And then the moment I got out there it was just like… I remember watching the first rushes of the stuff they’d made and it was like someone had made Trigger Happy on acid, really. I mean, it was just random music, and I met this asshole from Comedy Central who’d been brought in. And what I didn’t realize is while we were actually filming, they were literally sending the rushes to LA. They were assembling them and it was going out as we were speaking – whereas the understanding I’d had was we’d film it all and then I’d sit in the edit, which is where I’m good. The whole thing was unbelievable. And I remember them showing me the first episode they’d cut together, and it was… I mean, it was just… I just wanted to weep. It was in some studio in New York and there was just this long silence at the end and they go, “What do you think?” and I’m like, “That’s just awful.” I mean, it was kind of like… it was a joke. It was almost like someone had spoofed it. It was like, “Let’s get some shit fluffy costumes and random indie music and…” It was just awful. There were a couple of good ideas in it, but it was just terrible.
KP: Well, I remember watching it at the time going, “I can’t stand this.” And the sad thing was it turned me off ever investigating, until a year or two ago, the original Trigger Happy.
JOLY: Have you seen the original one with the original music?
KP: Yes. In fact the DVDs are sitting right over there.
JOLY: Good.
KP: And that’s another thing that I find quite remarkable, is sort of the care and attention you paid to choosing the music for the series.
JOLY: But Trigger Happy is quite funny if you strip it… I mean, it’s all about the edit. There’s a lot of stuff in there that’s pretty average. It’s kind of just filler stuff or visual stuff, but if you put the right music on, I mean, everything. We did it from the first idea to the delivery at Channel 4 – no one touched it. We just did it totally on our own, and that’s where comedy’s great, you know? If you really love what you’re doing. The moment you kind of get lazy or you hand it over to a committee, it’s fucked.
KP: The great thing about… you know, you can sit down with Trigger Happy and you can watch it, and it feels like a whole piece.
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: It doesn’t feel like somebody threw a bunch of clips together.
JOLY: Oh no, it’s not. But even the video is annoying, because actually the real works are the half hour shows. And we had to make a best of because we couldn’t afford to use all the music in the shows.
KP: Well, luckily the half hour shows are available on the internet.
JOLY: Oh, are they? Good. Yeah, the shows are the real ones that we spent time doing so everything’s paced and… you know.
KP: Now has that ever been a movement to readdress with Channel 4, in this age of “everything’s gotta be on DVD.” to actually do full releases of the episodes?
JOLY: Well no, not really. They’ve now got this thing – Channel 4 On Demand – so you can buy them all online. I think Channel 4 are more interested in selling them there than putting them on a DVD.
KP: Maybe you could do some kind of podcast commentaries that people can synch up with the copies of the half hour episodes.
JOLY: Yeah, I can’t remember. I think we did commentaries for the DVDs. We didn’t for the half hour shows. But the problem still is the music. To clear music is just so expensive, but it just doesn’t make it worthwhile for anyone financially, which is just so annoying.
KP: If someone were to present it to you, would you even think about doing another American show?
JOLY: I think I’d kind of do a… I think I’d do a sort of cross between a char… I think I’d have a couple of characters kind of arriving in the States. So I’d do a cross… it’d be like a sort of Trigger Happy, in the sense that it was meeting real people, but dressed as characters. And just kind of do a travel across the States, or some sort of road trip across the States. I don’t know, really. I still think I’d love to make a great hidden camera show in the States. It’s just there’s so much more that you can do out there than there is here. There’s just more variety of stuff from beach to snow to… just geography-wise, gives you ideas for jokes and stuff.
KP: I’ve also seen the Excellent Adventure documentary you did with your friend, Pete…
JOLY: Oh, I love that.
KP: It takes a certain person, a certain performer, to have a knack for doing a travel show and making travel interesting beyond just looking at the video…
JOLY: Well, that one we were particularly lucky though because it was quite… you know, the alcohol ones were just piss ups, but that one was quite moving for me. (laughing) Because that was going back to my roots, and also it’s just a place where people don’t think you go on holiday, Lebanon, so…
KP: Well, you know, when you talk about, you’re almost sounding dismissive of Happy Hour. Which I think is unfortunate, because travel shows… say the Michael Palin shows, Michael Palin shows are all about the grandeur of certain places…
JOLY: Yeah…
KP: Or the eccentricity of a place. In an almost caricatured form. I thought what was nice about what you did with Happy Hour was that you took it for what it was. You didn’t try and dumb it down and you didn’t try and gussy it up.
JOLY: Yeah, because when you travel – I mean, most of the time it’s shit and it’s uncomfortable, and you kind of remember the glossy bits when you come back. And that’s what I think people never do on travel shows. And, also, I love traveling, and I love being abroad, but I think people are kind of scared that if they say they don’t like somewhere that they’re being racist or something, and it’s just crazy. And, you know, why you can take the piss out of a Frenchman but you can’t out of an Indian is ridiculous.
KP: Or what you so wonderfully did with your handlers in various countries…
JOLY: Well, they were the… that was the real Happy Hour. That really taught me…well, this might be completely unethical… but it was, if you have anyone that can help you in a foreign language, it’s fantastic because you can give them any joke you want in the subtitle. It was just great.
KP: You’re also self-aware enough to play with the form…
JOLY: Yeah, but I’m a bit too much, sometimes. I kind of think, “Chill out, it’s all a bit too in-jokey.” But I just love that. I just love all the things like that.
KP: I mean, that’s why I would love to see you do sort of your tour of the US…
JOLY: Well, so would I, but I don’t know how I’d do it yet.
KP: How long have you been friends with Pete?
JOLY: Pete and I have been friends since we were… it’s so funny, actually, because everyone thought Pete was an actor, and he was a plant. The idea came… I don’t know if you’ve seen The Long Way Round, with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman…
KP: Yes.
JOLY: Sky kind of commissioned that show, our show, on the back of that, thinking, “Oh, we like celebrities traveling with their friends.” I would have chosen Pete anyway because, unfortunately, what we never got into… one of the series we were gonna start… because Pete actually lives in Newfoundland, of all things – because he married a Newfoundlander who’d been in Europe for only three weeks. He got her pregnant and then she basically just took him back to Newfoundland, and he’s been stuck there ever since. Which is the asshole of North America, although it’s quite a weird place to visit. So we were gonna kind of explain that Pete lived out there and is an artist. And because he’s English he’s about the only person that’s ever moved to Newfoundland rather than leaving. He’s kind of a local celebrity, and he’s now just won some art prize. But when they said, “Have you got a friend?” I just thought, “Well, actually Pete is exactly like Charlie Borman.” He’s a bit sort of dim and curly haired. But, of course, he turned out to be absolutely brilliant because we literally didn’t argue once all the way through. Because we are proper, proper close friends. So it was quite nice. I finally got a new catchphrase. People would just come up to me and say, “Up yours, tiger…” – which was really nice. Because we had a long discussion before the show that, for reasons I can’t even remember, we’d call each other “tiger”, and it all just sounded a bit gay, and I just said, “Look, we can’t honestly call each other ‘tiger’ on telly. It’s just gonna look really bad.” And he said, “Yeah, you’re quite right, tiger.” So I’m like, “Really, we can’t.” But after about two days, we just gave up. So I don’t know, it was a bit weird.
KP: What I love about Pete on Excellent Adventure is that – as that sort of perfect traveling companion – he wouldn’t question your decisions for long…
JOLY: Yeah… (laughing)
KP: After a certain point, it was just, “Oh, we may get shot? But you know what? Let’s do it.”
JOLY: Yeah yeah yeah. No, Pete’s wife was terrified. She was… because we were gonna do a Happy Hour… The only thing that’s ever been vetoed is we were gonna do a Happy Hour in Iran, because I just thought it’d be really funny to do a show about alcohol where you never, ever saw a drop of the stuff. But she absolutely refused to let them go to Iran, so we couldn’t do it. But, actually, I then went to Iran recently – skiing for a piece for the Observer – and I’ve never been more drunk in my life. Because they all make their own booze, basically, and they call it “pizza”. And they have a “pizza” guy who they ring up who comes along and delivers plastic bottles of moonshine, basically. I mean, Tehran is a… You know, it’s an alcoholic state.
KP: See, if only we’d send a copy of that piece to Bush…
JOLY: I know. He’d love it. Well, he’s given it up now. He’d probably bomb them anyway.
KP: Going back to Lebanon in Excellent Adventure, how would you describe the differences between now and what it was like when you were growing up in the early 70s?
JOLY: Not many, actually. I mean, the difference was that the center of Beirut has been rebuilt in this kind of mod colonial way. There’s a bit where we’re smoking hubbly bubblies and stuff in the middle of Beirut. That’s kind of the shopping center which has actually been built quite tastefully in what used to be the front line. And when I grew up – from 1935, onwards, I was on the Christian side. I wouldn’t have been able to go there because you couldn’t cross over the green line, which was the kind of demarcation zone. But really, it hasn’t changed that much at all. The Lebanese still refuse to accept they’re Lebanese. They all think they’re French and they all drive round in BMWs and they’re incredibly rich and there’s always… amongst all this rich stuff going on, there are kind of little pockets of incredible poverty, and it’s why Lebanon’s always screwed up is that it’s just this real divergence between the really rich and the really poor. There’s no medium ground. And occasionally people just get pissed off. And also, there’s a whole generation of people who have grown up sort of having power by having guns, and it’s very difficult to just have peace and suddenly say, “Right – you guys, piss off.” And they can’t. But it hasn’t changed that much. Apart from it’s been maybe a lot more overgrown and a bit more polluted, but it’s still one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
KP: You’ve been around Africa, as well…
JOLY: Yeah…
KP: How would you describe the feeling in countries where there’s still the lingering feeling of their colonial periods?
JOLY: I don’t know about the colonial period. I have this thing about totalitarian countries. One of my favorite books ever is by PJ O’Roarke, Holidays in Hell, and I kind of love the idea of going to places that are supposedly dangerous – or not a place to visit because, firstly, they’re about the last places in the world that you can visit that still are proper travel, in that there probably isn’t a Starbucks around the corner and things are actually… you’re actually experiencing things rather than just sort of following a whole lot of backpackers around. But I don’t know… I just think there are less and less places to go in the world that you can properly go to that are unspoiled, and that’s why I like going to those sort of places.
KP: Is there any place at this point that you wouldn’t go?
JOLY: That I wouldn’t go?
KP: Yes.
JOLY: Well… no. I mean, Iraq I wouldn’t go because I’d kind of be depressed to go, I think, but I wouldn’t have a problem going to Iraq. I really want to go to North Korea. That’s kind of my… top of my list. I’m off to Libya in a month.
KP: Well, you saw the speech. North Korea’s now a happy place.
JOLY: Yeah, and Bush just let some stuff over as well.
KP: We officially love North Korea now.
JOLY: Yeah, you’re now close friends. That’s good.
KP: We’re going to be sending over some video games…
JOLY: Excellent. That’ll help them.
KP: And a few packages of DVDs…
JOLY: And invade Cuba.
KP: Well, slowly but surely. I guess it looks like Cuba’s opening up now.
JOLY: I haven’t been to Cuba, and I really want to go to Cuba because the moment Castro actually dies, that’ll be it. It’ll be the invasion of the property developers. But, I mean, it’s already happening, but…
KP: Well, once you had the internet restrictions being dropped…
JOLY: Yeah. Actually, I’m quite interested in internet restrictions. Iran was very weird. When you go on… it was the first time I’d had proper internet restrictions. I went on Google and tried to find BBC News, and it’s just this really ominous sign comes up saying this access is denied to this website. And I’m off to Beijing for the Olympics. I’m writing for the Independent, and again they’ve had to… they’ve got a special area around the Olympic Village where, apparently, access to every site is fine. But if you go further away then you can’t get anything. It’s gonna be really fascinating.
KP: Theoretically, I would assume that they’re going to be using some kind of Wi-Fi within those areas…
JOLY: I think they have a special Wi-Fi. I don’t know. That’s why I’m fascinated. I have no idea how they’ll do it.
KP: So, I’m wondering if you’re gonna have people trying to steal that signal and boost it…
JOLY: That’s what I was thinking. I was thinking there’ll be a whole lot of kind of rebellious students coming nearer and nearer the Olympic Village and kind of sitting… piggy backing…
KP: Wearing those Wi-Fi boosting tee shirts.
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: When you were in Iran, did you encounter anyone who evaded the system? Because obviously there are ways to get around those internet blocks…
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: Through proxy sites and such.
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: Did you see that sort of information underground at work?
JOLY: Yeah… Yeah. Basically, how it works in Iran is that any sort of middle class intelligentsia or kind of students who are trying to rebel, they all hang around… it’s very kind of 1920s, because there aren’t any pubs or bars. They all hang out in coffee shops, so it’s very kind of coffee shop revolutionaries. And you kind of imagine coffee shops to be these beautiful old Oriental places, but actually they’re hideous little smoke filled chambers in shopping malls, and they all sit in there, and almost all the coffee shops have a secret Wi-Fi satellite dish that kind of gets stuff out of Iraq, weirdly, or Turkey. So yeah, people huddle in there and get it, and then if the religious police come round everyone kind of closes their laptops and smokes away. It’s totally surreal.
KP: So, do you think it’s just a game that’s being played with both sides knowing what’s going on?
JOLY: Oh, definitely. I mean, I went there skiing because, again, I’d seen a picture of a woman in full chador skiing, and I was like, “Where the hell’s that?” And it was Iran. So I went there, and until two years ago they segregated the whole mountain. It’s an hour from Tehran, and they put a big fence down the middle of the mountain, and the idea was that women skied on one side and men skied on the other side. But the problem was there were only male instructors. And so some of the women I’d met, who were very westernized, very bright Iranian girls about 30, they were all saying how they all had to change their name to male names and dress up as men, supposedly, to get ski lessons when they were kids. Everyone knew they were girls, but they kinda let it go. And even the segregation of the hill now they’ve given up because they said, “Mullahs can’t snowboard,” so all the religious police would just be at the bottom, and they can’t go up and check. It was just crazy. It is a kind of game, but it’s also… they all play the game and they know how to do it, but deep down, although it’s funny and probably quite fun, it’s deeply depressing that this kind of backward thing is running a country like that, because they’re amazing people.
KP: Do you feel sort of a tipping point in that attitude within the generation that you were encountering?
JOLY: Yeah. Well, the thing is now that travel is much… you know, in the old days, you couldn’t travel very much. And I think they were much more fighting it. But now if you really tip and you just get pissed off with it – Most of them go to university just outside LA or in Oslo, and so they kinda come back for the summer, these kind of middle class kids, and I think they can handle it for a couple of months because they see all their friends and they kinda live a different life. But I think for parents and people staying there it’s kinda just… they’re institutionalized.
KP: How would you compare that to… because obviously you’ve gone into some former war zones, like Nicaragua…
JOLY: Yeah…
KP: What was the feeling, then, going into those sort of locations where it’s not so much a cultural issue that’s kept the people at a certain level, but more the decades of conflict?
JOLY: Nicaragua was totally different in that it’s just a really unlucky country. It’s a huge earthquake zone. Managua was completely destroyed in 1972 by an earthquake and the dictator at the time, the US backed dictator Somoza, just didn’t bother to rebuild anything. So Managua is not really a city in a functioning sense. And then it’s got a line of active volcanoes which Nicaraguans seem to find it absolutely obligatory to build their cities on, and then they get wiped out, and then they build on it again, and you’re just like, “Why don’t you just *not* build it on volcanoes?” I don’t know if it’s to do with Latin machismo or whatever, but… and then, of course, they’ve had political unrest for about 60 years. But it seems to be coming out of that now, actually. They’ve been sort of peaceful for about 15 years and there’s really a feeling… I think Nicaragua’s going to be one of the kinda new places, because it’s pretty empty. It’s got some amazing cities. I went to their one beach resort called San Juan del Sur, and it’s where surfers have really discovered Nicaragua because it’s got an amazing surf. And the first night I was there I go to this little beachside restaurant and I go and sit down and I’m having a drink and there’s this American guy stumbling around on the beach completely drunk, and he’s got one shoe on and a sort of headlamp, and he’s like, “Where’s my shoe? Where’s my shoe?” We’re laughing at him, and after about ten minutes he comes in through the restaurant… and it was Matthew McConaughey. So that’s obviously where, you know – once he’s made a shit movie he thinks, “Great, I have two million. Let’s go and blow it in Nicaragua.” But he needs shoes.
KP: Well, once you’ve got Matthew McConaughey, that’s a sign that you’ve normalized as a country.
JOLY: That’s what I think. I think once McConaughey is surfing with you, things are looking up.
KP: Maybe we need to send him to Iran.
JOLY: I think he needs to go to Iraq first. And then quickly to Iran.
KP: We should just start a campaign to send Matthew in.
JOLY: With his goofy drawl.
KP: Shoe somewhere, just stumbling around…
JOLY: Yeah. Just sort of out in a good ol’ Texas way…
KP: Just so the people know they’ve got nothing to fear from Americans.
JOLY: (laughing) “Bush wouldn’t kill me!”
KP: “They sent McConaughey in and it’s all good.” So is there any place that you’ve actually felt for your safety?
JOLY: There’s a town near me in England called Swindon…
KP: (laughing)
JOLY: You joke, but actually it’s very weird. I’ve been to the most threatening places in the world, but I’ve never really felt threatened apart from an occasional roadblock where there’s a soldier with a jittery thing, but it’s kind of, you know, nothing’s really gonna happen. Whereas, honestly – I’m not joking – there’s just something unique about England. Any kind of small town, market town, after 10:00 in the evening… I’ve just been filming in a place called Weston-super-Mare, which is far from super, and it’s just one of those horrible, depressing English seaside towns that were probably quite cool in the Victorian times, but…
KP: The birthplace of John Cleese…
JOLY: In fact, you’re very right. That’s where he was born. But not his home. He left as soon as he could.
KP: Yes, like most people.
JOLY: And actually, he’s now in Santa Barbara, isn’t he? It was kind of like Santa Barbara, but just a lot worse. And so it was great. We were filming down there, and I’m filming a sort of golf DVD, and I’m dressed in old golf gear, and there’s like four of us and the crew – so it’s not a big production – and we’re in this kinda pedestrianized zone. No one around. And we’re just filming this little scene. The first guy just wanders into the take and he looks around and, in all seriousness, he goes, “Is this the new Indiana Jones movie?” But not as a joke. Like, he thinks this is the new Indiana Jones movie we’re filming. And then the sound man gets his boom taken by a cross-eyed man who’s going, “Is this a radioactive brush?” So we had to get out of town before the sun went down and it’s just… it’s a scary, scary place.
KP: On Swindon – is this the same Swindon you were taken to when you had your recent illness?
JOLY: Yeah, that’s right, actually. I had pneumonia.
KP: Rather bad case, it seems…
JOLY: Well. it wasn’t that bad. because bad cases you die.
KP: Well, when you have that as a demarcation for bad….
JOLY: It was weird, but they took me to hospital because they thought I had meningitis, so actually I was so relieved I didn’t have meningitis that pneumonia was kind of like a bonus. But it was great. I lost a stone and a half, so that was the plus side of it. And, actually, the people of Swindon didn’t kill me in their hospitals, which I thought they would. So it was all alright, actually. But no, that was a bit of a shock, actually.
KP: Well, after they read the article, then they realized that they should have killed you.
JOLY: Then they realized who they’d had, yeah.
KP: I hope you don’t get sick again.
JOLY: Yeah, so do I. Well, if I do I’m going to go Cheltenham. I’m always nice about Cheltenham.
KP: I’m sure you’ve already got a “Do Not Call Swindon” bracelet…
JOLY: Exactly, yeah. (laughing) I need that tattooed, like, with my blood group. “Do not resuscitate. Do not take to Swindon.”
KP: I was reading the comments you made last year in the lead up to the mayoral race in London…
JOLY: Yeah…
KP: And your thoughts on Ken Livingston and Boris Johnson. Do you still hold to those views on both of them?
JOLY: Well, the joy for me is I don’t live in London anymore. I’ve got a place there, but I don’t have to suffer all the stuff they do. I loathe Ken Livingston. I mean, I really do. Of all the people… I did him for Trigger. Weirdly, I did both him and Boris Johnson for Trigger Happy. Boris Johnson was just himself and kinda thought I was Ali G, and we couldn’t use it. But Ken Livingston was… actually, though, he behaved quite normally and said I should be arrested when I’d beaten up a gorilla behind him. He’s kind of held it ever since and he still gets angry occasionally on radio phone ins and calls me a cunt – which he did, which I was quite pleased with. But I just think he was… I really, really genuinely think he was very bad for London. I think he was very corrupt. I think there’s something about being a mayor where you’re kind of not really a politician and you just get very corrupt very quickly, and I’m very pleased he’s gone. I don’t know whether Boris Johnson will do anything good for London, but I think he’ll be entertaining, at least.
KP: You’ll have to check out the “Boris for President” website.
KP: Theoretically if he’s maintained a residence in New York, then yes.
JOLY: Unlike McCain, who was born in Panama, I think.
KP: Yes. So, you know, we could trade. We’ll send over John after November. Get him in as mayor of Swindon.
JOLY: I tell you what – Boris Johnson, president of the States, that would be fabulous. He wouldn’t even be able to find Iran to bomb it, but he’d find ancient Greece.
KP: Yes. “I’d like to tell you about the Romans…”
JOLY: Yeah…
KP: Are there any plans for a new series of The Complainers?
JOLY: I didn’t enjoy The Complainers. The problem with The Complainers – I know I grumble about every show I make – but with The Complainers, they came to me and it was a really good idea, because everyone’s grumbling in Britain at the moment, saying it’s shit. And it kind of is. And they were like, “It’s called The Complainers, and basically the idea is we just get all the things that annoy people and we go out and get a bit of revenge.” And I thought, “That’s brilliant.” So I said yes to it. And then when I got there, we just waited for two months because Channel 5 seems to change whoever’s in charge of it every three months, and so whoever had commissioned this had gone, and the new person came in, looked at it, and said, “No no no, we don’t want a comedy. We want a serious investigative show.” And so half of us were being pushed to do… literally trying to bring the government down, and the other half just wanted to go and hit traffic wardens. And it kinda ended up… the best thing someone said about it is it was like Michael Moore in Northamptonshire.
KP: It was like TV Nation in the UK…
JOLY: Yeah, well, I loved TV Nation. I thought it was amazing. But TV Nation – at times, Michael Moore really annoyed me, but at least it had a real focus. And the problem with this show was like, they did all the hidden camera stuff and didn’t even involve me. I’m like, “Hello? Isn’t that what I should be doing, more than these weird kinda long stories?” Everything we should have done should have been about things we were complaining about – and actually a lot of them, I just thought, “No one’s complaining about that.” So I think Tuesday I’m gonna get the new series commissioned, and I’m producing it this time. And basically it’s just gonna be really simple. It’s just we’re gonna take a kinda poll of the hundred things that annoy people the most, and then we’re either gonna try and deal with them or get revenge. And it’s gonna be that simple. And I think it’ll be really good. Because despite itself, it did really well. Because I think people just like the idea of complainers. I just thought it was a bit of a confused show, and it’s gonna be much more focused next time.
KP: I think people just like the idea of you doing work.
JOLY: Yeah, well, so does my wife. (laughing)
KP: How often do you get presented projects that you turn down flat?
JOLY: Every day. The Complainers is the very first thing that I was ever proposed that wasn’t mine that I did, and I was very pissed off for that – because I am a control freak to an extent, but because I genuinely care about what I make. I really don’t want to just make stuff for the money. So it did really annoy me, because it was so obvious how it should have been made, and it wasn’t. So that’s why I’m doing a second one, because it’s very rare you get the opportunity to look at something and think, “That was shit,” and then get given a second chance to repair it, which is what we’re doing on this. So I’m quite excited about it, actually, as it’s really clear. But I get offered all sorts of things. Mostly weight related. I just got one yesterday. I got offered the role of the young Pavarotti about a year ago. Offered the role of the young Harry Secombe. And what did I get yesterday? Some big BBC1 primetime show called 10 Things You Didn’t Know – and this was all about weight loss. So it’s like, “Look, fuck off. Go and ask Gervais.” (laughing) “I had pneumonia. That’s how I lose weight.”
KP: You’ll be playing Santa Claus before you know it.
JOLY: Yeah, I know! (laughing)
KP: Besides being overweight, what do you feel is the perception that people have of a “Dom Joly project”?
JOLY: What, of me?
KP: Yeah.
JOLY: I think loud and shouty is the main thing. Which actually is the one thing I’m really not. I mean, I am on camera, but I’m not really that loud and shouty. I used to be really loud and shouty, but there’s a weird thing about becoming successful or well known or whatever, is that I kinda felt I had less to prove. So when I go places I don’t… in the old days I’d kinda walk in and, “Hello, it’s me,” and just sort of try and impose myself, and now I don’t need to do that. So I find it very relaxing. So someone’s like, “Oh look, it’s Dom Joly.” They either hate me or like me, but there’s nothing much I can do about it. I don’t know what they think. Genuinely, I hope that the one thing… I think a lot of people think, “Oh, we thought he was going to be, like, really really huge after Trigger Happy,” and I wasn’t, and I think some people think, “Oh god, he fucked it up.” Whereas the majority of people I meet seem to get the fact that I’ve never yet done anything for the money, and I haven’t sold out. Whatever sold out means. Not that I’ve had some great artistic credibility, but I think I’ve done everything that I’m proud of, so far. I’ve never done anything for the wrong reasons. And that’s been a problem, really, because I think it stopped me from doing lots of stuff, but at least I’ve never done anything really bad yet.
KP: Is there anything that you can look back on and think, “Well, you know, I really should have done that…”?
JOLY: Well, there’s one thing I did fuck up on. I got called by… I mean, I’m not an actor, but I got called by Danny Boyle in the middle of Trigger Happy, and he was casting for 28 Days Later. And he said he was a huge fan, could I come in, and I said, “I’m just not an actor.” And he said, “Well, yeah, but I want you to play this part. It’s the baddie. I think you can do it.” And I said, “Well, I know I can do it. Look at Trigger Happy. You know I can do it. But if I have to come in and audition, I’m gonna be shit. I’ve never auditioned in my life.” He said, “No no, you don’t have to audition, but just come in and meet the producer and the writer.” So, of course, I went in and they made me read a piece out, and I was just awful. You can see Danny Boyle just, like, totally embarrassed, and then sent me a letter saying, “I know you could have done it, but they weren’t so sure.” So that was my big movie break that could have happened. So I’m not really interested in doing other people’s lines, that’s the point. What really I get off on is kind of having to think on the spot. That’s what I really, really get excited by. And that’s what Trigger Happy was all about. It’s just walking up to someone and just thinking, “Right, how can I make this into a funny, controlled situation,” and I get a real buzz out of that adrenaline. But I don’t think I would out of just reading someone else’s lines.
KP: So what would it take for you to do a scripted piece?
JOLY: For there not really to be a script. I mean, my dream piece would be Curb Your Enthusiasm, because I kind of think they worked a bit like I do – but obviously far more successfully, in that they probably have a page written out of what they need to get out of this scene and where it’s going, and you all kind of understand the characters, and then you riff and make it better and better and sound naturalistic. That’s what I’m really into. Or the kind of Spinal Tap type approach to stuff.
KP: Well, hopefully you’d do a better job at it than Jack Dee did…
JOLY: What, Lead Balloon?
KP: Yes.
JOLY: I’ve never seen Lead Balloon, actually.
KP: It’s…
JOLY: Is it terrible?
KP: The awkwardness of it is that it just such… it fails to capture what Curb is, but it’s so desperate to be Curb.
JOLY: Yeah, that’s what I felt. That’s why I didn’t really want to watch it. Because either it was gonna be so good I’d be bitter, or it was so bad I’d be upset. There was gonna be no medium ground.
KP: You can see the strain of them trying to get it right.
JOLY: The thing about Curb is that, what I’ve learned, is that it works because everyone’s having fun in it, I think, and it kinda just feels… you know it’s good. They’re making each other laugh. Whereas the sort of… I haven’t seen Lead Balloon, but the things that attempt to be Curb are… they’re almost like students of it, and it’s like, “Just forget the studies. Just try and have fun and make each other laugh.” That’s what it’s about.
KP: It sort of reminded me of the sort of vibe I got off of the show Nighty Night…
JOLY: (laughing)
KP: Which was just so relentless in its depressive nature that you get to a point where you go, “I’m tired.”
JOLY: Well, it was kinda like Chris Morris in The Last Jam. It was like, “Okay, any humor is pretty much gone now. This is deeply, deeply upsetting.”
KP: Now you’re just acting out…
JOLY: You’re just acting out in group therapy.
KP: How do you feel about the article writing that you’ve been doing over the past few years? How does that fit into how you view your career…
JOLY: Well, I’ve never written anything for television or radio or… you know, I’ve never written anything I’ve done on television. It’s all made up, literally, on the spot. And yet I love writing. It’s the one thing that Trigger Happy kind of did, was open doors for me and allowed me to… you know, someone offered me a column and I kinda thought, “I know I’ve got this column because I’m on telly, but they’re not gonna keep me unless I can write.” And I’ve been writing it for seven years now, for the Independent on Sunday. It’s kinda weird. It’s like this weekly diary. And it’s great. I find it totally liberating. I can write about anything I want. So I can write about, “I’ve been in Nicaragua,” or I can write about the man who breeds 50 foot chickens next to me. It’s kind of totally what I want it to be. And then I’ve done more and more travel writing, which I love doing. I just love writing, because it means I can do it from anywhere in the world. I can be at home, see my kids, and I really enjoy writing. I can really escape in it. And then I do a spoof column whose name I can’t reveal because no one’s guessed it yet, but I’ve been doing it for two years for the Independent. And that’s really good fun once a week, and that really winds people up. That’s my favorite column.
KP: Have there been any discussions to do a book collection of the travel pieces?
JOLY: I’m just about to sign a book deal, actually. I just got a new agent and we’re just talking about next week, and I’m going to do a book called Totalitarian Tourism, which is basically gonna be my attempt to do Holidays in Hell – which is still the greatest book ever. So I’m just gonna go to six or seven… I mean, my dream TV show’s already been made, which is Holidays in the Axis of Evil, but it was done by someone with no talent, sadly, so it was really dull. And I just think, “How can you fuck that up?” It would just be so much fun.
KP: Why do you feel you can’t do it now?
JOLY: Well, just because it was such a good name and Britain’s such a tiny place, so they kinda think, “Oh, that’s been done.” “But it was done really badly..” And they’re like, “No, it’s been done.”
KP: But why this sort of parochial feel that, you know, you’re only shooting for the UK? Why not look at a broader audience?
JOLY: Because I don’t know anyone anywhere else. (laughing) You know, I live in the Cotswolds. I don’t really take many meetings in LA. I’m longing to do something like that, but I’m genuinely… I’m just a bit… I’m not lazy, I’m just… I don’t know what the word is. I just need someone to ring me up and say, “Do it,” and if I love it it’s like, “Fantastic, let’s do it.”
KP: So that’s all it takes, right?
JOLY: Really, genuinely. I think the most common question to me is, like, “How can you do all this stuff when you’re so busy?” I’m on Facebook a lot. And, like, “How can he do this when he’s so busy?” Like, “Yeah, I’m real busy.” I mean, the whole reason I do my job is so I’m not that busy. Because I do it… you know, I wrote two columns this morning and that’s it. I’m going to watch Wimbledon this afternoon.
KP: So, really, that’s all it would take – a phone call.
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: So let’s say if someone were to get off the phone doing an interview with you, make a few phone calls, get some people interested in talking to you about getting a project going, that’s all it would take for you.
JOLY: That’s all it would take.
KP: Let me write this down. So, are we making a gentleman’s bet on this?
JOLY: Honestly, it’s very weird because I get asked this quite a lot, and I sort of joke about it and I think, “I don’t know. I’ve always waited for someone just to ring me up and say it, but it just never happens. What would I do? Do I go to LA and I wander around with a sign saying, ‘I want to make TV?'” I’ve no idea how you do it. But the problem is no one’s ever known my work in the States because the American Trigger Happy had crap music and then, of course, the American Trigger Happy itself pretty much killed it all off.
KP: Well, I can tell you – I’ve never been to the UK, and I know your work…
JOLY: Well, that’s good. If you could just have another one, we could have a club. You’ve never been to the UK?
KP: I have never been to the UK.
JOLY: You’re slightly obsessed with English comedy. You know Nighty Night. It’s very impressive.
KP: I have a lot of friends in the UK. And it’s not terribly cost effective to travel to the UK at this point.
JOLY: No. Or much fun, actually.
KP: Well, I’m afraid I’d get knifed.
JOLY: Well, you would. Trust me.
KP: It seems like… what has it been, the past couple of years?… Where all of a sudden it seems that crime is taking this tremendous spiral upwards in the UK?
JOLY: It’s only going to spiral upwards, and I think knife culture has become much more prevalent. But, actually, it’s always been like that. I was just reading a paper… it’s not that I read old papers, but I was reading a paper from 1968, and there were huge problems with razor gangs in Glasgow. So it’s kind of a fad thing. But actually, Happy Hour nearly made a serious point – I stopped it quickly – but it is very odd that in of all the places in the world we went where people got drunk to the extent of death, in Russia and Germany and Mexico and everywhere, there was nowhere where I couldn’t just wander out at 11 at night in a city and I’d just feel completely fine. I mean, possibly – you walk into a dodgy area, you might be worried about a mugger. But, I mean, not really. Whereas England, genuinely – in the five towns within ten miles of where I am, I would feel really nervous at 10:00 at night, because someone would definitely come up to me… not just because I’m me on the telly, but to just say, “You looking at me?” and then just start a fight. There’s something very inherent… we like fighting in England. And I don’t. So that’s why I’d like to come to the States. I don’t want to fight.
KP: Do you think that fighting is alcohol created, or just a natural state that the alcohol brings out?
JOLY: I think there’s probably something a little bit natural within us. Is it because we’re an island? I don’t know… And feeling like, “Oh, no one’s ever beaten us…” although everyone actually has, but we just don’t realize it. And definitely alcohol fueled… we definitely drink… we just can’t handle our drink. We drink to get drunk, rather than drink to have fun.
KP: It was touched upon in The Complainers, the sort of British reserve…
JOLY: Yeah. But it’s definitely reserve. My theory behind being drunk is that we’re so kind of nervous and socially inadequate, that it’s about skin contact. If you get drunk, you either fight someone and you touch skin or you get a shag if you’re lucky. Either way, it’s the only way we can kinda make contact with people.
KP: So you’d say that, 11:00 at night, you feel safer on the street in New York City than a street of London?
JOLY: Oh, New York City? Piece of piss. I feel safer in the streets of Tehran or Managua or even Baghdad than 11:00… London’s actually really not too bad because it’s so big. But somewhere like Swindon or Oxford or any kind of small place – you know, kinda market town where there’s nothing for people to do, so they all just hang out round the kebab stand at midnight and then just all fight each other…
KP: Where are the smaller “safe haven” areas? You moved out of London. You’re obviously not living in Swindon…
JOLY: No, I’m in the Cotswolds, so I’m kind of in the middle of nowhere.
KP: So you’ve essentially moved out to the rural area.
JOLY: Yeah. I’ve done my sort of New England move. My Connecticut move – except without the huge house. And without the lovely flat in Manhattan.
KP: So if you were to choose a foreign location to live, lets say for a year, where would you live?
JOLY: San Francisco.
KP: On the hill?
JOLY: Yeah. Well, I’d have a little Vesper, but I love love love San Francisco. I love north California. I’d probably live in Oregon, actually, if I had a choice. I haven’t been there yet, so I can’t quite say that with conviction. But there’s something I find amazing about crossing the bridge in San Francisco and going up Highway 1. I just was absolutely… I’d be very happy there. Also I’m off to Canada, because I married a Canadian. I’d never have gone to Canada otherwise. And I’ve got a place on Lake Muskoka, which is three hours north or Toronto. It’s kind of the Canadian’s version of the Hamptons, but it’s a bit shit. But I love that. And there are no English at all, which is the best thing. Basically, I tend not to travel anywhere where there’s a direct flight from England. I know there’s one from Toronto, but…
KP: But you’re getting awfully close to the Quebecois…
JOLY: Well, actually, I love the Quebecois. I did a piece on Quebec City last year, and I think Quebec City is the most underrated city in North America. I mean, it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s very European. You don’t need to visit Disney if you don’t want to go to Europe – you can go there. And the food is just astonishing. It’s kind of like nice French.
KP: But you speak French…
JOLY: Yeah, but that’s nothing to do with Quebec, trust me.
KP: There’s still a bridge. If you speak no French…
JOLY: Honestly, most Quebecois you meet… I mean, I have better conversations with my dog. I mean really, it’s such extraordinary French. It sounds like a man’s being strangled. But yeah, it does help a bit.
KP: I spent some time in Montreal, and it was the most dismissive atmosphere towards anyone who did not live there and speak French.
JOLY: I like Montreal less, actually. Everyone seems to like Montreal. I find Montreal a bit too American, really. I mean, you know, you go there for something different, and it’s kind of wanting to be American. But no, I really like them – but I agree that speaking French does help. They kind of accept you a bit more.
KP: So, besides Swindon, what’s the one place that you would never want to spend time in?
JOLY: Well, I’ve just been there, weirdly, this weekend, and I’ve just written my column about it. Weston-super-Mare.
KP: So it is Weston-super-Mare.
JOLY: I think Weston-super-Mare is the single most depressing place I’ve visited. Weston-super-Mare or Coventry. But Coventry has the excuse that the Germans leveled it in the Second World War with the firebombs. So at least they have some sort of excuse – whereas Weston-super-Mare was completely untouched, and it’s just the land that time forgot.
KP: Is it the people? The atmosphere? What is it that…
JOLY: It’s just this… there’s something about what we do to seaside towns. Because we build big seaside towns, and then we forget that our weather’s rubbish – so no one’s ever gonna go to the sea. And so it just ends up sort of horrible penny arcades and it stinks of urine and there’s depressed donkeys. It’s kind of like Coney Island but times ten. And it’s just everything’s peeling and faded and it’s all empty, and the people are all cross-eyed. I mean, it’s really no joke. It’s just there’s something very very odd about it.
KP: So, never gonna go back?
JOLY: I will never go back to Weston-super-Mare, no. There are many other ugly places to visit.
KP: So are you ready for them to burn you in effigy?
JOLY: (laughing) Well, I wrote… I got in a lot of trouble over Swindon, and I’ve just written an even worse column which is coming out this Sunday about Weston-super-Mare, so I’m pretty sure there’ll be a huge wicker man of me burning by Sunday night.
KP: So at what point are you just gonna have to move? Because you’ve pretty much trashed every place in the UK…
JOLY: Well, I think that’s my plan, actually. I wrote a golf book last year because I realized I was starting to play golf, and I was so rude about everybody that they don’t really let me play anywhere now – so that’s kind of got me off golf, which is good. So I’m just hoping soon that the government will actually pay for me to leave, and then I can go and live somewhere nice and hot.
KP: So your preference is the Pacific rather than the Atlantic…
JOLY: Well, I’m really selfish. I’d live in four places. I’d probably have a little place in Morocco, San Francisco, and have a place in Muskoka – I absolutely love that. And then… I don’t know. Somewhere hot. But I don’t know where, really.
KP: Now, if things stabilized, would you spend any significant time back in Lebanon?
JOLY: No. My family’s there. And I hate them. My sister runs the family company that I was supposed to take over and… you know.
KP: We didn’t see much of that in your Excellent Adventure…
JOLY: Well, that was the… if only you knew the weirdness of that. My sister refused to be filmed, as did my father – as did my whole family, basically. So when I went out there, there was a fantastic bit where we’re filming at this seaside restaurant where I’m trying to give them my photograph, and I went there because that’s where we’d always go every Sunday. And suddenly my entire family turned out without knowing I’m there. There, sitting at the next door table to me, is my dad who I haven’t spoken to for about 10 years, my sister who’s taken my rightful job and who I don’t really get on with, and various other people. And the director’s going, “So these are your family?” I go, “Yeah.” They go, “So can we film them?” I go, “Unfortunately not.” So we’re having this totally weird conversation with me and Pete, with all my family listening in, and the one interesting thing in the whole country and we can’t film it – because it would have made incredibly awkward TV.
KP: I’m assuming there was a nice conversation after that bit of filming?
JOLY: No. It was pretty awkward. I mean, they don’t really understand what I do at all. They don’t really see TV as a career. They think it’s a sort of punishment. I think they have no clue. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a program I’ve made.
KP: On purpose?
JOLY: Probably. Well, they don’t watch TV. They kind of live in the 1950s, really.
KP: Are they big Mr. Bean fans?
JOLY: I think they probably are. I think they probably think that he’s the height of sophistication, actually.
KP: I think, at this point, you’re just going to have to work with Rowan Atkinson.
JOLY: (laughing)
KP: Just to get known outside the country.
JOLY: Yeah, I know. I’m gonna have to bite the bullet. It got worse last week when I was filming this golf DVD. Some woman came up to me and goes, “I don’t know who you are, but my daughter says you’re the new Benny Hill.” And I’m like, “Oh fuck that.” Then I looked at his DVD sales and I was alright.
KP: So what is the golf DVD that you’re doing?
JOLY: Oh please. It’s just another low in my career. It’s Dom Joly’s Golfing Goofs and Gaffes.
KP: Oh really.
JOLY: That’s the stage I’ve got to.
KP: Was this your idea?
JOLY: No, someone came to me. And actually, I did have lots of good ideas for golf. So I just thought, “All I have to do is do some stuff in between clips.” And I had a lot of hidden camera golf gags that I never used, so I just did those. They were great fun.
KP: So this is obviously a direct to DVD.
JOLY: Christmas special.
KP: Is this going to be the big sell at Tesco this year?
JOLY: Do you know what? It just might. Because I’d laugh at these things every year. And actually, I did a spoof documentary of what my life was going to be like, called Being Dom Joly, which was kind of eight years ago. And in it, one of the big jokes was that I was gonna end up on the celebrity charity golf circuit playing with Ronnie Corbett – and there I was making Dom Joly’s Golfing Goofs and Gaffes just thinking, “Fucking hell. What happened?”
KP: And no Ronnie Corbett.
JOLY: And no Ronnie Corbett. He couldn’t be bothered.(laughing)
KP: Well, maybe you need to be a little more discriminatory when these things come in.
JOLY: That’s one of the few things I’ve done because I needed to pay some school fees. But actually, I did it because I thought it was gonna be funny, and it was funny. So I’m not embarrassed by it, because it is funny. It is a sell through, but I’m very pleased with the stuff we filmed, so it’s alright. And I got to visit Weston-super-Mare. So, really…
KP: It’s kind of like an investigative recce…
JOLY: Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.
KP: Now you’re knocking it in print.
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: So you got a second series of The Complainers coming up…
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: You have the golf video…
JOLY: Yeah. DVD.
KP: DVD, sorry. Is that what the producer told you to keep saying?
JOLY: Yeah, he’s here right now he’s got his hand up my arse.
KP: So what else is on the agenda for this year? Obviously the columns are still ongoing…
JOLY: I’ve got my columns ongoing. I’ve got a possible show, which I’m just waiting to hear about, which is driving from London to Sydney. It’s going to take 92 days, which is gonna be kinda cool. And then I’m writing a book – written by my fictional character in the Independent – which is hopefully gonna be the next Bridget Jones, because he now takes Bridget Jones’s place there. And I don’t know… That’s about it, really.
KP: And you’re doing a podcast for Cobra beer?
JOLY: Yeah. You got me.
KP: It almost sounds like you’re trying to ignore the fact that you’re doing a podcast for Cobra beer.
JOLY: No no, I’m very proud of that.
KP: Is the travel challenge podcast over and done with now?
JOLY: Well, that was just a one-off thing for the Sunday Times. And again, it was just one of those very weird things where they said, “We’ll fly you around the world and do these exciting things.” But I just thought, “Really, how exciting is it listening to a man canoeing?” But they paid me and it meant travel and doing really weird things, but I always thought that was one thing that really didn’t lend itself to a podcast. But I thought, “Well, they must know better than me…” And they didn’t, actually. We’re supposed to do another lot this year, but they’re going to make them vodcasts now, where they video them as well. So you just think, “Well, in the end, doesn’t that just become a really cheap TV program?”
KP: And the answer is “Yes,” and you’re doing it rather cheaply.
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: They finally found a way to get you cheap.
JOLY: Yeah. And I’m not dumb. Basically, I’ll do anything if it’s something I want to do. Most of the things I do I just sit there thinking, “God, if only they knew I’d pay them to do this.”
KP: So what is the status of… I noticed your website hasn’t exactly been updated…
JOLY: Well, I never did a website. Someone set it up for me. I’m just too… I couldn’t work out how to upload anything or anything, so I’ve become obsessed with Facebook. So everything I do is on my Facebook page. All my photos are up there, all my columns go up, and I change my status every day. But unfortunately, I’ve just reached a huge problem – I’ve reached 5,000 friends, and that’s the limit on Facebook. So I don’t really know what to do now.
KP: I guess now you’re going to actually set up a website.
JOLY: Yeah. I can’t, though. Facebook’s so easy. I can just… if I’m on the train I can do it. I’m really good. I’m on it every day. I reply to stuff. I’m really accessible, and that and it works for me. I can put all my photos up, all this stuff. But I don’t know what I’m gonna do now. I’ve never been very good with that sort of thing.
KP: Do you have any plans to do your own personal podcast?
JOLY: I was thinking about it, because that’s one of the reasons I did this Cobra thing was because I know Danny Wallace really well and he does a radio show, and his podcast was doing really well, and he asked me to do it, and I thought, “Well, I’ve never done this before, so I might as well have a look at it.” And actually, it really doesn’t seem very complicated. So yeah, I am thinking about it.
KP: Well, you’ll have to let us know, so we can actually let people outside the UK know that you’re doing these things.
JOLY: Yeah, you know, I’m not very keen on that, though. (laughing) I don’t trust foreigners.
KP: I can tell. I’ve seen your programs.
JOLY: (laughing)
KP: It’s a healthy distrust, though.
JOLY: Yeah.
KP: So when is your next trip to the US?
JOLY: Next trip to the US? I don’t know. Well, I do. I’m going to Canada on July the 7th for a month, and then I’m going straight from Canada to Beijing for the Olympics, and then I come back here for a week, and then I’m going to LA for a week to have an extraordinarily huge amount of meetings with financiers for this Trigger Happy type film.
KP: What would you do if someone came to you with a scripted piece?
JOLY: I would look at it and get very excited and show it to my friends in the village and say, “Look – this is from America. They want me.” I don’t know. I honestly would love someone to suggest something that they thought I’d be good at, because I’m just a bit lazy. But very excited…
KP: Well, it’s certainly been a pleasure speaking with you. And I intend to win the bet. Did we actually make the bet yet?
JOLY: (laughing) Listen, anything that gets me out of the house and away from Swindon.
KP: Weston-super-Mare’s going to come after you.
JOLY: (laughing) Yeah, that’s what it will be called – The Dom Joly Weston-super-Mare Show! (laughing)
KP: I’m writing that down.
JOLY: Yeah! Where are you based?
KP: I’m in North Carolina.
JOLY: Ah, there we go, I knew it. I knew there was an edge to your “always going to the same places” type conversation.
KP: Well…
JOLY: I was nearly with you. I was in South Carolina.
KP: That was close, but it’s not quite the sort of void of North Carolina.
JOLY: Yeah, but it’s not bad. Come on. I made the effort. How many other comedians are doing that?
KP: It’s not Weston-super-Mare, I’ll grant you, but…
JOLY: (laughing)
KP: Now I’m going to have to do a sort of cultural exchange and experience Weston-super-Mare for myself.
JOLY: That would be fantastic. I’ll get my moonshine guys to do a house swap with people in Weston-super-Mare.
KP: That’s what you should do…
JOLY: That’s a great show, actually. There it is – Hillbilly House Swap.
So, in the spanse of one month, I was going to E3 and had a car.
Then, my car died, and I was no longer going to E3.
Now, I have a NEW car… but alas, because of this, I’m NOT currently at E3. In fact, I’m practically torturing myself now by watching G4’s coverage of E3… wishing I was there.
It seems that every year I ALMOST get to go… but then, nope, I’m denied. Admittedly, this year I actually even registered, but damn it all if my car didn’t blow the fuck up and denied me the upcoming gaming goodness. I could have been at the press event for Microsoft, drooling with all the other fanboys about FFXIII coming to the 360, or remarking at how much KILLZONE 2 looks like the footage they HOPED it would.
But I digress. No use crying over spilled milk.
Ahem.
Anyway, I used to review games, didn’t I? Wow, going monthly gives me a large build up of stuff to talk about then, doesn’t it? And what’s with all the rhetorical questions?
Nevermind.
So… what to talk about then? I’m not in LA…what have I been doing? Well, it’s the summer, so the summer movies have started up… and so have the games based on them. Thankfully, the quality of the licensed game has improved greatly over the years, and this makes my summer log of games based on Blockbuster movies more tolerable. Take for example the lighthearted children’s fare of KUNG FU PANDA. With careful level design and tight controls, Activision has released a fun experience for both older and younger gamers to enjoy. Rather than churn out a quick cash-in, the game actually is FUN to play, with great combat, exciting levels, and a good mix of what’s seen on the big screen recreated in the game, with you not just controlling the Jack Black voiced Po, but other members of the Furious Five as well.
LEGO INDIANA JONES: THE ORIGINAL ADVENTURES also takes a step in the right direction… by not offering ANY levels based on THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Now, I didn’t mind the movie, but I will say I could have done with out the last 20 minutes (from Shia’s TARZAN impression on). Thankfully, the LEGO title is all the GOOD stuff you remember, and plays just as well as the LEGO STAR WARS titles did. Cute characters, great, funny recreations of the film’s plots, and easy pick up and play control It would have been nice if they included online co-op, but as it stands, it’s more fun playing with a friend in the same room anyway… why did THAT ever go out of style?
On the Marvel Comics side of things, both IRON MAN and THE INCREDIBLE HULK were surprising hits at the box office. Sadly, their video game counterparts aren’t as exciting. For IRON MAN, the problem lies in the camera. It swings way too wildly, and makes flight during combat a chore. Once you do get the hang of it, you’ll encounter dull levels and repetitive tasks throughout. INCREDIBLE HULK, thankfully, takes a page from what came before, and is essentially the next gen version of the previous game, ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION. And while this new title may not have the humor of the previous game (there’s no bowling for soldiers) EVERY building is destructible. It may not follow the film’s plot much, but it’s a fun diversion for comic fans and fans of the new film alike.
With licensed games like this, it’s easy to get disappointed. Like I said, IRON MAN isn’t the quality of game that the film is. Disappointments aren’t reserved for games based on movies, though. Sometimes, an anticipated title doesn’t live up to the hype either. Such is the case with ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS on Xbox 360 and PS3. The PC title was touted as a stellar multiplayer experience with a rich single player game rounding out the equation. Sadly, the same doesn’t hold true for the console version. I was looking forward to this tte, and once i popped it into my system, I wondered why it had been hailed in it’s original release. It’s slow paced, the AI of your teammates is appalling )sure, walk RIGHT into MY line of fire!) and the character models are pathetically small and lacking in detail. There also seems to be some sort of pseudo-lock-on feature with the aiming that randomly activates… but only when you don’t need it. The PC title was great, so the console versions discrepancies are inexcusable.
Ah well. At least we have more things to look forward to. Like, everything at E3.
Anyone have a spare plane ticket… and a place I could crash?
KUNG FU PANDA
One Gamer’s Opinion:
LEGO INDY
One Gamer’s Opinion:
IRON MAN
One Gamer’s Opinion:
HULK
One Gamer’s Opinion:
ET QUAKE WARS
One Gamer’s Opinion:
THE GAME ON! RATING SYSTEM
Ratings From Greatest to Least:
Kick Ass, Right On, Okay, Eh, and Stinker (aka CRAPTACULAR
It’s a hot summer out there so, in conjunction with Hasbro Toys, we’re giving three (3) lucky winners a super-duper, ultra-refreshing, and totally fun INCREDIBLE HULK GAMMA STRIKE WATER BLASTER!
Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Tuesday, July 22nd.
CLOSED! THANKS FOR ENTERING!
Official Rules
No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.
No Purchase necessary to win.
Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.
One entry per day, per person.
All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Tuesday, July 22nd.
The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.
We here at Quick Stop Entertainment are true lovers of music, in all its forms. We’re also quite keen on the spirit of competition, and of spurring creativity through said competition.
To that end, we’ve launched a brand new form of creative combat here at the Stop.
In this age of manufactured and painfully earnest talent contests, we’ve decided to instead shine a light on the quirky, quixotic underworld of musicians that don’t get nearly the attention they deserve.
Ah, but I did mention that there was a competition involved…
A few weeks back, we sent out the call for challengers. Hundreds of you heard the call and fought for a chance to be in the initial group. 20 were selected. Only 19 responded in time.
Like a songwriting version of Iron Chef, the challengers were presented with a very specific songwriting challenge. They were given one week to complete their songs – however they saw fit, within the parameters set forth below…
ROUND 1 CHALLENGE
You must do a song in the style of a classic television show. Not only that, but this song is the theme for a fictional television show about yourself (or your band). By “classic television show” theme song, we mean the type of themes found in shows from the 1960’s – 1980’s (ie Gilligan’s Island, Cheers, The Fall Guy, Diff’rent Strokes, Welcome Back Kotter, Greatest American Hero, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, The Facts Of Life, Green Acres, Gimme A Break, The Monkees, etc.). Your theme song must include both lyrics and music. It must run no shorter than 30 seconds, and no longer than one (1) minute.
When all was said and done, only 16 of the 19 Challengers were able to send in the songs in time. You voted HERE. The TOP 7 vote getters then moved on to Round 2. Here’s the challenge given to our 7 Semi-Finalists…
ROUND 2 CHALLENGE
Here’s where we step things up a notch. Your challenge is to write a song that utilizes a repeatingsyllable (ex: la, na, doo, etc.). The syllable must repeat at least 5 times in a row (ex: la la la la la). The resulting “repeated syllable” phrase can appear anywhere in your song, but must be repeated in full at least 3 times within the song. Also, this challenge includes a thematic element. Your song must feature a conflict between two (2) elements, provided below.You must choose one (1) element from COLUMN A and one (1) element from COLUMN B.
COLUMN A
—————
Santa Claus
Miami Dolphins
Stephen Hawking
A Beach Towel
High School Physics
Albania
The Color Orange
A Toothpick Factory
Marc Singer
Hydroponics
———————————————————————–
COLUMN B
—————
Dracula
Linux
Pudding
Coupons
Scabies
Cosplayers
Your Kindergarten Teacher (must be named)
Albert Camus
Non-Alcoholic Lager
Doc Hammer
Your song must be at least 1m45s in length. Finally, your song must be an ORIGINAL CREATION, both music and lyrics, and can not utilize or sample a preexisting work.
You also voted on the contributions of our three Masters, eliminating one. Two Masters remained, and they were presented a special challenge of their own. Their entries were also be voted on by you, the readers. The winner of the Masters Challenge is the one who duels with the winning Challenger.
ROUND 2 MASTERS CHALLENGE
The following challenge applies to our Masters of Song Fu only. As Masters, it is expected that they have achieved a musical voice all their own – but does their mastery extend to assuming the voice of another artist? With that in mind, Each Master is tasked with writing a song in the style of their opponent. The Masters will be judged on how accurately they write a song in their opponent’s style without it becoming a simple parody. When listening to their entries, you must genuinely believe that they were written by the original Master. Got that? The Master’s songs must also be no shorter than 1m45s.
Well, you voted on the Round 2 Challenge HERE. Below, you’ll find the Master and the Challenger who will be battling head-to-head, and whose fate will also be determined by you. Beneath their section, we reveal The FINAL CHALLENGE!
MASTER OF SONG FU
JONATHAN COULTON
Jonathan Coulton on Jonathan Coulton: “In 2005 I left my day job writing software to pursue music full time. To keep myself busy I released a new song on this website every week for a year in a project called Thing a Week. A few of those songs became big internet hits (my folky cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”, a funny video called “Flickr”, a song called “Code Monkey”), and I am now fortunate enough to make my living as a musician.
I write about a lot of geeky stuff because I am a geek. Some of it’s funny, but a lot of it’s not so funny, and even more of it is somewhere in between. I’ve been compared to They Might Be Giants, Barenaked Ladies, Loudon Wainwright III, and other musicians you REALLY LOVE.
I give lots of music away because I believe it helps my cause, and I love it when people use my music to create other stuff – music videos, pictures, remixes, etc. At the moment I’m unsigned, and I’m proud to say I’ve created this whole thing mostly on my own (with plenty of help from an amazingly supportive bunch of fans). But it certainly is getting busy… I will probably sell out and go Hollywood any day now…”
The Deal: After 20+ years making music as a hobby, I recently wrote and recorded a song for my daughter. I got a little taste of mild success (hey, my mom liked it). So now I’m taking my music out of the closet, dusting it off, and seeing how it does in the sunshine. Who knew there was so much work in just attempting to do music for a living. I feel like I am opening a Subway franchise (Only opening a Subway franchise seems more fulfilling in a creative way).
THE REIMAGINING (aka THE RECKONING): For this final duel between Master and Challenger, we’re going to combine a little bit of all the previous challenges. For this ultimate show of skill, adaptability, and personality, you will be given a preexisting song. Your task is to completely reimagine that song with your own lyrics and music – while retaining the same basic story and at least some sonic “cue” or “quote” from the original tune (a short phrase or series of chord changes; the key word here is “brief”). THIS IS NOT A COVER – you are crafting something more akin to an homage, but with your own creative voice. Here is the song you’ll be reimagining:
DAVID BOWIE: “SPACE ODDITY”
You will be judged on how closely your reimagining hits the basic “story points” – spaceman goes up, spaceman talks with control, spaceman goes for a walk, spaceman disappears – but beyond that, anything goes.
The song must be at least 1min 45sec, and must be an original creation.
The deadline for delivery of the song is 11:59pm EST on THURSDAY, JULY 24th.
If you triumph, not only will you win remarkable (and potentially off-putting) bragging rights and a clutch of fantastic mystery prizes, you will also become the proud owner of the magnificent, one-of-a-kind MASTER OF SONG FU TROPHY, designed and handcrafted by [adult swim] superstar Dana Snyder. Yes. Dana Snyder.
Today’s column isn’t quite a review…but it’s more than a product announcement. It’s someplace in between, making it very different from the usual. I’m checking out Doko’s, these little heavy discs of metal and glass. Will they become the next hot sensation? I’m sure Mammoth Brand, the folks behind them, are hoping so.
If you have any questions or comments, drop me an email at mwc@mwctoys.com or visit my site Michael’s Review of the Week. On to the revie…er…something!
Doko
Doko discs are about 1 1/2″ in diameter, and a whopping 1/4″ thick. Each disc is made up of a steel rim around an hard, solid acrylic center. There’s one of a multitude of designs in the acrylic center. They’re definitely cool looking, and I love the heft that they have.
The concept is pretty easy. You get a Doko disc, and you head over to the website to register it. By registering it under your Login, you’ll get Official Points. Each Doko disc can be traded to others up to 5 times, and each time it’s registered, both the trader and tradee get points. These points can be used toward all kinds of things, including unlocking various additional Doko World features, and stuff from partners like Toys R Us or etoys.com.
To get things started, in the spring Mammoth ‘dropped’ a million bucks worth of Doko’s around the world for people to find. They were left in major cities like New York, London, Tokyo and Sydney, for kids to find and register.
The Doko virtual world also allows traders to chat or instant message with other traders, as well as play hundreds of online games. All of that is cool, but the nicest feature is the ability to track your Doko’s as they make their way from trader to trader.
In fact, there’s a world map on the home page that allows you to view all the traders in the world by location, as well as all the Doko’s (or just yours). This feature works great, and I suspect that the Doko trade limit of five was set because of the old adage of six degrees of separation. With five trades, your Doko could theoretically end up with anyone in any part of the world!
So let’s get this party started. I have a couple Doko here that I’ve registered, and I’d like to trade them with you. Now technically, I could just send you the code and you could register it – I don’t technically have to send you the disc I suppose. But where’s the fun in that? I’d even like to see Mammoth add a feature where you can upload a photo of you holding the respective disc in some far away land.
But back to trading. Go over to Doko’s website and create yourself a user profile. Hunt me up on the map (moospiz3 – don’t ask) and request a trade through their messaging system. I’ll get back to you asking for your location, and I’ll send along a Doko! Let’s kick the tires on this thing…
I don’t know that it’s going to take off, but I like the trade tracking concept. I’m not sure if they have enough meat on the bones beyond that to bring people in and keep them, but with some additional enhancements they might just creat a virtual world that kids too old for Webkinz and too young for MySpace. Or for those that can’t stand either!
Summer is still moving along and the options for things to watch still aren’t very strong.
Last week I wrote about my excitement on the beginning of another season of Big Brother. With season 10 they’ve decided that the big twist for this season is that there would be, in fact, no big twist. Not one of the 13 players of the show (whom they call Houseguests) know each other or are related in any way, which is the first time in about seven seasons. No ex-girlfriends/boyfriends, no long lost relationships, no couples, nothing. Instead they decided to ratchet things back to the basics and just have 13 strangers that I am sure have been hand selected to produce conflict amongst each other.
Another thing unique about this season is that they cast the eldest Houseguest that they ever have, a 75 year old former Marine named Jerry who says he has a solid plan of attack after being a long time fan of the show. Unfortunately we were treated to the fact last night that his two choices for Houseguests to put up for eviction were ones that he didn’t even choose himself. This could mean he is either going with the flow to try to build trust with a group to ensure longevity or he is going to be easy to manipulate (and I really hope it is the former).
If you want to get in on the Big Brother action you have a bevy of choices as well. The show airs every Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The show also has a pay-to-watch live 24/7 Internet feed from the house and there is a daily talk show named “House Calls” that you can watch every weekday at 1 PM Eastern/10 AM Pacific at CBS.com.
All that being said, let’s get to the (not so) good stuff.
MONDAY
ABC ““ 8:00 PM:The Bachelorette:Engagement Party tries to hang on to viewers for one more week with what is undoubtedly a flash back show with cocktails.
PLANET GREEN ““ 8:00 PM:Emeril Lagasse is back on television with his new show, Emeril Green.
TNT ““ 9:00 PM:The Closer returns tonight on TNT, along with a marathon leading up to the premiere that kicks off at noon.
TUESDAY
http://www.drhorrible.com ““ 12:01 AM: The first act of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog goes live for all to see.
NBC ““ 8:00 PM: This week on Celebrity Family Feud there’s a blue collar theme with Larry the Cable Guy and kin going up against Bill Engevall’s crew.
CBS ““ 9:00 PM: If you haven’t already read about it on the Internet you can find out who might be taken off of their nomination from eviction tonight when we see the veto competition and ceremony on Big Brother 10.
WEDNESDAY
NBC ““ 8:00 PM: This week the Baby Borrowers the teen parents get their pre-teen kids.
CBS ““ 8:00 PM: Someone gets voted out on Big Brother 10 and by the end we might know who the new Head of Household is. I promise after this week I won’t highlight each day the show is on.
A&E ““ 8:00 PM: I’m not sure which is harder for Dog the Bounty Hunter, catching the bad guys on the run or rebounding from that phone message fiasco.
TVLAND ““ 10:00 PM: Ladies and gentlemen, the latest contender in the reality show ring is”¦ George Foreman with Family Foreman. Sales of those grills are going to skyrocket!
THURSDAY
http://www.drhorrible.com ““ 12:01 AM: The second act of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog goes live for all to see.
NBC ““ 8:00 PM: On Last Comic Standing the remaining comics have to fill shopping carts with props and will have Carrot Top judge the performances they do. I think I had a nightmare like this one.
USA ““ 10:00 PM: Last week’s episode of Burn Notice was very well structured and recovered well from last season’s cliff hanger. I’m hoping this week is just as good.
COMEDY CENTRAL ““ 10:00 PM: I knew that the New Millenium was missing something. A new incarnation of a 70’s classic is premiering tonight: The Gong Show with Dave Attell. It just won’t be the same without Chuck Barris.
FRIDAY
USA ““ 9:00 PM:Monk buys a house and Brad Garret guest stars. This show is bittersweet as we see Hector Elizondo join the cast as Monk‘s new therapist, replacing the late Stanley Kamel.
USA ““ 10:00 PM: The return of Psych brings us Cybil Sheppard as Shawn‘s Mom and Gus‘ boss demands he stop moonlighting (yes, I meant to do that) at the detective agency.
SATURDAY
http://www.drhorrible.com ““ 12:01 AM: The third and final act of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog goes live for all to see. Be sure to watch it before it’s gone!
ABC ““ 8:00 PM: On the Wonderful World of Disney we get another glimpse of The LL before implosion in Freaky Friday. No, I’ll never get tired of mocking the Lohan.
HIST ““ 8:00 PM:Sit down for a good laugh and enjoy Countdown to Armageddon.
CMTV ““ 10:30 PM: Feel so young and beautiful with the airing of the Elvis Presley classic Jailhouse Rock.
SUNDAY
CBS ““ 8:00 PM:The week isn’t over yet so tune in and see who was nominated on Big Brother 10. Usually by now we also start to see the crazy coming out in people so it could be a real good ride.
VH1 ““ 10:00 PM:I can’t believe I let this one slip under my radar last week. Brooke Knows Best follows Brooke Hogan as she ventures out of the nest on her own to live her own life and manager her own career. Her mom is dropping in to check things out at the new pad and I’m dying to know if she is going to bring the 19 year old boyfriend.
A&E ““ 10:00 PM:On The Two Coreys it turns out that Haim is in a slump. What do you do with a former substance abusing child star who is feeling alone on Valentine’s Day? Hook him up with a Centerfold of course! This will end well, I’m sure.
– Will Wilkins truly could believe it’s not butter.
SModcast is the meandering palaver of a pair of dudes whose voices are so dull, they don’t deserve to be on the radio (and, hence, aren’t). Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier are SModcast.The best thing about SModcast? It don’t cost nothing.
SModcast 57: Terrorist Pizza –
In which our heroes wake and bake, party hardly, and face off against a righteously indignant Canadian.
[CONTENT WARNING]SModcast features harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Listener discretion is advised.
The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…
As a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 from “back in the day”, for years I’d hoped for the return to performing of MST creator Joel Hodgson and writer/performer Trace Beaulieu (Dr. Forrester & Crow T. Robot). Even though we’ll probably never see MST return for various intractable reasons, both Joel and Trace returned – along with fellow alums Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, and Josh Weinstein – to form Cinematic Titanic. For all intents and purposes, it’s pretty much MST – only all 5 members are silhouetted onscreen at the same time, stationed on a tiered series of platforms on either side of the screen and commenting on the flick. Their first flick was the delightfully awful The Oozing Skull($14.99), but they’ve just released their second flick – Doomsday Machine ($14.99). You can pick up both discs – and all forthcoming titles – via www.cinematictitanic.com. The magic is back, my friends. Snap it up, post haste.
William Conrad – now THERE was an outsize TV star that filled the screen in ways today’s stars only wish they could. And I don’t mean that in just the obvious reference to Conrad’s fabled girth – no, he was an old school TV actor who commanded your attention, much like William Shatner still does on Boston Legal. If you don’t believe me, check out the first volumes from the respective first seasons of both Cannon (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$36.98 SRP) and Jake And The Fatman (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$ SRP). Cannon features 11 episodes of Conrad as LA PI Frank Cannon, while Jake And The Fatman sports 11 episodes of Conrad as one half of the titular team of LA District Attorney J.L. McCabe (Conrad) and his on-tap PI Jake Styles (Joe Penny). Both sets feature the original episode promos, but nothing more. Where’s the tribute featurettes?
As anyone who’s seen Wall-E knows, sitting in front of a computer all day (working, in my case) doesn’t exactly lend itself to muscle toning (or avoiding the dread carpal tunnel nightmare). Maybe that’s why everyone who sends their days bathed in the LCD glow should pick up a Powerball ($59.99). This remarkable little exercise ball – which contains a gyroscope at its core – is such an amazing piece of kit. It derives its amazing kinetic energy – up to 15,000 rpm – just from manual manipulation. Get one of these.
Ah, Peep Show. If you’re a fan of The Office – or just offbeat British comedy in general (you know, the smart people) – you’ll probably dig Peep Show (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-£44.99 SRP). Gosh, how do I describe such a unique premise… In the show, you see the lives of roommates Jeremy & Mark through their eyes – and inner monologues. Jeremy is a wannabe pop star, Mark is an obsessive loser, and their thoughts and actions are truly hilarious. Think of it as a small-screen take on Being John Malkovich, without all the arty pretension. The 5-disc Region 2 set features all 5 current seasons, with bonus features including audio commentaries, featurettes, bonus scenes, and more. Check it out. Now. NOW!
If you’ve ever had the desire to live a Wodehousian existence and be as coddled and pampered as Bertie Wooster – or you just feel like being awakened in the morning by the mellifluous tones of Stephen Fry – then you’ll want to make sure to get your own Voco Alarm Clock (£39.95 each), which features 150 different wake up messages recorded by Mr. Fry in his finest Jeevesian delivery. The clock is available in both a “Good Morning, Sir” and “Good Morning, Madam” version, and is an incredibly fantastic idea for an alarm clock.
Anticipation of The Dark Knight is building to a fever pitch, so it makes sense that Warners would quickly shuffle out a Batman Begins: Limited Edition Giftset (Warner Bros., Rated PG-13, DVD-$39.92 SRP) to exploit the mood. In a nutshell, in addition to the previously available 2-disc special edition of the film, the set contains a 128mb flash drive with Dark Knight images, a 2/12 minute sneak peek at Dark Knight, and a collection of postcards.
And speaking of the Caped Crusader, I can see what they were going for with Batman: Gotham Knight (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP). Essentially, it was the Batman equivalent of the animated explorations done for The Animatrix, employing non-traditional artist’s takes on the Caped Crusader. Unfortunately, much like the Matrix vehicle, we get an uneven affair of fascinating interludes and forgettable ones. Still, it’s worth a spin, and the 2-disc set contains audio commentary, a documentary on Batman creator Bob Kane, a featurette, and 4 bonus episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. Will they bring that back already?
Did you know that there was a new Mummy movie coming out? No? Well, even I barely knew there was a new Mummy movie coming out. In order to mark the occasion, Universal has cooked up a batch of new special editions related to the franchise, starting out with 2-disc special editions of both The Mummy and The Mummy Returns (Universal, Rated PG-13, DVD-$19.98 SRP each), both containing a clutch of newly-produced featurettes. Also in the dock is a new 2-disc edition of the original Mummy (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$26.98 SRP), starring the great Boris Karloff. The new Mummy film features Jet Li, so why don’t we throw in a new special edition of Fearless (Universal, Rated PG-13, DVD-$19.98 SRP) featuring 3 versions of the film, as well? And even though nobody asked for it, even director Stephen Sommers’s massive disappointment Van Helsing (Universal, Rated PG-13, DVD-$19.98 SRP) gets a collector’s edition of its own.
In the legend that is the emerging grunge scene in the early-90’s, you may not know the name of a band called The Gits. The reason for that omission is the brutal tale of the rape and murder of the band’s lead singer and emotional core, Mia Zapata, after the group returned from a successful European tour. Over a decade later, new evidence would reopen the case, leading to the arrest of a suspect and a tale captured in the documentary The Gits (Liberation Entertainment, Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP). Bonus features include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, trailers, and a featurette on the non-profit organization that was formed in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Eager to make sure that their second theatrical outing isn’t met by the same slack-jawed confusion of their inaugural go, the folks behind the X-Files (Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz) have selected 8 essential episodes in the 2-disc X-Files: Revelations (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$22.97 SRP). The set also features episode introductions, a WonderCon panel, and the theatrical trailer for the upcoming flick.
Another in the long line of Iraq war related films that failed to perform at the box office, Stop-Loss (Paramount, Rated R, DVD-$34.99 SRP) is, at the very least, worth a second chance on DVD, as it’s actually a decently crafted portrait of what today’s generation of military men are facing as their home lives crumble in the face of open-ended overseas commitments. Bonus features include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, and a pair of behind-the-scenes featurettes.
Ignoring the double negative, Jimmy had it right when he said they don’t dance like Carmen no more – and you can see for yourself with The Carmen Miranda Collection (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP). The set feature a quintet of remastered catalogue titles starring the lady with the fruit hat – The Gang’s All Here, Something For The Boys, If I’m Lucky, Greenwich Village, and Doll Face. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, featurettes, deleted scenes, galleries, and more.
If you want to feel the colossal loss of Joe Strummer all over again, by all means check out Julien Temple’s magnificent documentary The Future Is Unwritten (Sony Legacy, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP), providing an affectionate but unvarnished portrait of the Clash frontman. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, 100 minutes of exclusive interview footage, and the theatrical trailer.
Despite all of those peanuts, it’s nuts to Jericho (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP) as its hard won second season of post-apocalyptic politics proves to be its last. The 2-disc set features all 7 episodes, plus deleted scenes, audio commentaries, featurettes, and the unaired alternate ending that was filmed in case the show got a third season pick-up. Which it didn’t. So here it is.
Where are you going to take the relationship between Jeannie and her “master”, Tony, in the fifth and final season of I Dream Of Jeannie (Sony, Not Rated, DVD-$39.95 SRP)? To the altar, of course! That’s right – they walk down the aisle, and are thrown into a guest-star studded series of magical escapades. The 4-disc set features all 26 episodes, but not a single audio commentary from Larry Hagman.
Six seasons in, Monk (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP) just keeps obsessively compulsively plugging along, an amiable little character treat. The 4-disc box set features all 16 episodes, plus audio commentaries.
Even with the arrival of Amanda Tapping’s Colonel Samantha Carter, Stargate: Atlantis (MGM, Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP), I still can’t get behind the spin-off series of the almost always enjoyable Stargate SG-1. Either way, the 5-disc set features all 20 episodes, plus audio commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, galleries, and bloopers.
A pair of DC animated series come to an end with the release of their respective fifth seasons – The Batman and Teen Titans (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP each). Both sets feature 13 episodes across 2 discs, plus behind-the-scenes featurettes.
Mix The Fast and The Furious with Miami Vice, and you pretty much get the short-lived Fastlane (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP), co-created by fauxteur McG. The 6-disc complete series et features all 22 episodes, plus an extended scene from the pilot, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and outtakes & and bloopers.
I admit – by the team Sabrina The Teenage Witch reached its fourth season (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP), I really didn’t care. Sure, I watched the first season, but that was because it featured Paul Feig, had Frank Conniff as a writer, and had practical magic effects by Joel Hodgson. By season 4, all we had was Nick Bakay’s sarcastic feline, Salem. The 4-disc set features all 22 episodes, but zero bonus materials.
So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…
-by Ken Plume
KEN PLUME: Hiya. This still a good time for you?
KP: Now, when you’re in the green room on that, at what point did you formulate, “You know, I’m gonna wrestle Simon (Amstell)…” ?
KP: Is there any regret that divergent careers have separated you from collaborating with Simon further?
Howdy Inter-Webbers, I’m Matt Cohen and I dig WATCHMEN.
12. Funeral for a friend?: Not much to say other than tonally it seems to be in the right place. Not overly sad (due to the man Blake was), but mournful – more for the death of an idea then the death of a man.
20. Crowd gives Comedian what for: A powerful, evocative image directly from the books. I love that Snyder and the producers of this film haven’t shied away from the political and non-traditional nature of the source material. Most superhero films present us with a world in which the heros aren’t questioned. This movie will strongly bring up the point “Do we need Superheroes” – and at a tumultuous time in our own society, the question (or deeper metaphor) couldn’t be more perfect.
In what may be the quickest turnaround time from air to release, the complete fifth season of 
There are some things in life that are practical, that make you feel like a genuine cliché of an adult. Like buying a weed-wacker. Then there are things that have no practical purpose other than to make you feel absolutely, unashamedly, giddily childish in their uber-cool appeal to the 10-year-old still kicking around in your brain. Such is the case with the high-resolution 
Largely a neglected novelty in the US, Alan Parker’s wonderfully bizarre 
Back on the road again, actor Robbie Coltrane is exploring the interesting and unique to be found across the breadth of England in 
If the slice of the 60’s presented in AMC’s Mad Men leaves you wanting to sonically explore the period a little more, then by all means pick up 
I always get a kick out of the sheer energy and exuberance – and, frankly, unhinged quality – of talk and variety shows in the UK. Case in point is The Friday Night Project, which is an hour long comedy program presented by Alan Carr and Justin Lee Collins, and featuring a different guest host and musical guest each week. Think of it as a funny Saturday Night Live, deriving much of the humor from the unpredictability of Collins and Carr, and the permissibility of UK television. If you’d like a nice sampler of what I’m getting on about, check out 
Anticipation of The Dark Knight is building to a fever pitch, so it makes sense that Warners would quickly shuffle out a 
And you know that, since you’re already in the rip current, you’re going to pick up the score to 
Despite cultural affectations, the bottom line is that funny is funny. Such is the case with 
First of all, let me say that it’s no Meet The Spartans. And I mean that as a compliment, because that was just unwatchable excrement. No, 
They still haven’t found a good vehicle for Raven Symone, but Disney’s 
Finally, what has become an iconic bit of television finally hits DVD with the complete ninth season of 
It’s not a full season set, but at least it’s a solid batch of episodes in the first set collecting 
Dr. Alec Holland’s hulking, green alter-ego returns to DVD with the second volume of 
Everything – and I mean everything – comes to DVD eventually, even when it’s such an embarrassing disappointment as the short-lived 
Reading my report on the press preview of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current exhibition, “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” (see 
CS: I’m kind of unsure, exactly, and I usually don’t usually ask the question “What’s the show about?” but since I haven’t been able to see the show itself and can really only read a little show description, can you tell me: What’s the show’s about?
KEESLAR: Well, there are effect shots in every show. Obviously we don’t have the budget of I AM LEGEND or something like that that we can make amazing effects. We are a television show on basic cable network and we wouldn’t be able to just pull off those kind of effects. But the nature of the project, because it is a tongue-in-cheek project ““ it’s a lot like the old Dr. Who and even Star Trek for example – those effects were pretty basic but got the point across of what we were trying to show what we’re going for. We have some special effects but if that’s the reason you are tuning in, it’s not the reason. The show is more about the wit of the characters and the relationships of the characters and as I said before the kind of tongue-in-cheek plot lines that are at once parodying to other sci-fi television shows, novels and movies.
CS: How do you feel about this thing starting in the summer as opposed to starting in the fall ““ is it one, less pressure or is it two, well it’s the summer or is it a misnomer ““ can a show find an audience despite when it debuts?
Oh no! Just when you thought it was safe to hang out at the Quick Stop…
CABIN FEVER #31: P.S. I Love Blake – Aaron has an emotional plea this week in order to win back the love of a friend. The lead singer of Cabin Fever’s favourite band, The Tastydactyls, needs to be told just how much we love him. In a heterosexual way (mostly). Of course, we have the usual talk of Koala bears, complicated chainsaw suicide, and Jason Patrick. But mostly it’s about man-love. As always, there is music thrown in to break up the sexual tension.
To most of the American audience, the name Dom Joly will most likely spark no response.
KP: So you’ve got a camera, and you’re out there doing this guerilla material. What’s the learning curve, going out there? Because what you were doing at that time, during the Trigger Happy period, was rather fearless material…
KP: Well, you know, when you talk about, you’re almost sounding dismissive of Happy Hour. Which I think is unfortunate, because travel shows… say the Michael Palin shows, Michael Palin shows are all about the grandeur of certain places…
KP: But why this sort of parochial feel that, you know, you’re only shooting for the UK? Why not look at a broader audience?
Jonathan Coulton on Jonathan Coulton: “In 2005 I left my day job writing software to pursue music full time. To keep myself busy I released a new song on this website every week for a year in a project called Thing a Week. A few of those songs became big internet hits (my folky cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”, a funny video called “Flickr”, a song called “Code Monkey”), and I am now fortunate enough to make my living as a musician.
The Deal: After 20+ years making music as a hobby, I recently wrote and recorded a song for my daughter. I got a little taste of mild success (hey, my mom liked it). So now I’m taking my music out of the closet, dusting it off, and seeing how it does in the sunshine. Who knew there was so much work in just attempting to do music for a living. I feel like I am opening a Subway franchise (Only opening a Subway franchise seems more fulfilling in a creative way).
As a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 from “back in the day”, for years I’d hoped for the return to performing of MST creator Joel Hodgson and writer/performer Trace Beaulieu (Dr. Forrester & Crow T. Robot). Even though we’ll probably never see MST return for various intractable reasons, both Joel and Trace returned – along with fellow alums Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, and Josh Weinstein – to form Cinematic Titanic. For all intents and purposes, it’s pretty much MST – only all 5 members are silhouetted onscreen at the same time, stationed on a tiered series of platforms on either side of the screen and commenting on the flick. Their first flick was the delightfully awful 
William Conrad – now THERE was an outsize TV star that filled the screen in ways today’s stars only wish they could. And I don’t mean that in just the obvious reference to Conrad’s fabled girth – no, he was an old school TV actor who commanded your attention, much like William Shatner still does on Boston Legal. If you don’t believe me, check out the first volumes from the respective first seasons of both 
As anyone who’s seen Wall-E knows, sitting in front of a computer all day (working, in my case) doesn’t exactly lend itself to muscle toning (or avoiding the dread carpal tunnel nightmare). Maybe that’s why everyone who sends their days bathed in the LCD glow should pick up a 
Ah, Peep Show. If you’re a fan of The Office – or just offbeat British comedy in general (you know, the smart people) – you’ll probably dig 
If you’ve ever had the desire to live a Wodehousian existence and be as coddled and pampered as Bertie Wooster – or you just feel like being awakened in the morning by the mellifluous tones of Stephen Fry – then you’ll want to make sure to get your own 
Anticipation of The Dark Knight is building to a fever pitch, so it makes sense that Warners would quickly shuffle out a 
And speaking of the Caped Crusader, I can see what they were going for with 
Did you know that there was a new Mummy movie coming out? No? Well, even I barely knew there was a new Mummy movie coming out. In order to mark the occasion, Universal has cooked up a batch of new special editions related to the franchise, starting out with 2-disc special editions of both 
In the legend that is the emerging grunge scene in the early-90’s, you may not know the name of a band called The Gits. The reason for that omission is the brutal tale of the rape and murder of the band’s lead singer and emotional core, Mia Zapata, after the group returned from a successful European tour. Over a decade later, new evidence would reopen the case, leading to the arrest of a suspect and a tale captured in the documentary 
Eager to make sure that their second theatrical outing isn’t met by the same slack-jawed confusion of their inaugural go, the folks behind the X-Files (Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz) have selected 8 essential episodes in the 2-disc 
Ireland’s soul singer supreme gets a quintet of special edition catalogue remasters. Now you can snag your own copies of Van Morrison’s 
Another in the long line of Iraq war related films that failed to perform at the box office, 
Ignoring the double negative, Jimmy had it right when he said they don’t dance like Carmen no more – and you can see for yourself with 
If you want to feel the colossal loss of Joe Strummer all over again, by all means check out Julien Temple’s magnificent documentary 
Despite all of those peanuts, it’s nuts to 
Where are you going to take the relationship between Jeannie and her “master”, Tony, in the fifth and final season of 
Six seasons in, 
Even with the arrival of Amanda Tapping’s Colonel Samantha Carter, 
A pair of DC animated series come to an end with the release of their respective fifth seasons – 
Mix The Fast and The Furious with Miami Vice, and you pretty much get the short-lived 
I admit – by the team