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I once theorized that all British comedy sketch groups were required to do a Scott-themed skit – of course by 'all' I meant Monty Python, The League of Gentlemen, Horrible Histories,* and The Cheese Shop, which had a running gag in one of their shows based on Titus Oates' lifelong passive-aggressive use of what would become his famous last words. This is, in reality, a tiny sliver of the general population of sketch comedy groups, but today one more has crossed the line:

Oh BBC, you bring so much joy to my life, but you really know how to twist the knife sometimes ... does anyone know if this is a sketch that has aired already, or might it be from an upcoming season? (after all, it is centenary time!) Or did they make this publicity image just to taunt me? Of course, it might be Shackleton, but nobody writes comedy sketches about Shackleton!
*to be fair, history is kind of their thing, so they came by it more honestly than the others
EDIT: Hooray!
moonlingmaid has come forth with a link! Once again, the Internet provides. Many thanks!
Anyway, in case you're curious, that's the iPlayer image for an incredibly comprehensive show on comedy writing which can be found, in its five hour entirety, here. I've listened to the Mitchell & Webb writers' bit, the interview with Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton,** and Andy Hamilton, and declare it quite good!
**half of the League of Gentlemen, who disclosed that the very distinctive 'honking' laugh guy in their laugh tracks is none other than a third Gentleman, Jeremy Dyson. I had no idea!
On the other hand ...
I recently discovered that the Winter Journey had been put through the meat grinder of a low-budget educational cartoon. Isn't that nice, I thought. I wonder how awful it is.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.
A few days later, after I'd girded my loins against that monstrous scene, I actually watched it from the beginning (that's part 2, which I skipped to because they were taking a very long time to get to Antarctica), and have to concede it's not actually that badly written, for a low-budget educational cartoon. The voices are slightly dreadful, the Cape Crozier party mysteriously decided to man-haul the biggest tent in the world, and someone's swapped Bill for Captain Haddock, but ... if you can be flattered by a compliment that is not paid to you, I guess I feel kind of flattered that they bothered to tell this story at all. Maybe 'chuffed' is a better word. There are kids out there – kids with a very high tolerance for atrocious animation – who know this story now. And that's not such a bad thing, is it?

Oh BBC, you bring so much joy to my life, but you really know how to twist the knife sometimes ... does anyone know if this is a sketch that has aired already, or might it be from an upcoming season? (after all, it is centenary time!) Or did they make this publicity image just to taunt me? Of course, it might be Shackleton, but nobody writes comedy sketches about Shackleton!
*to be fair, history is kind of their thing, so they came by it more honestly than the others
EDIT: Hooray!
![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Anyway, in case you're curious, that's the iPlayer image for an incredibly comprehensive show on comedy writing which can be found, in its five hour entirety, here. I've listened to the Mitchell & Webb writers' bit, the interview with Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton,** and Andy Hamilton, and declare it quite good!
**half of the League of Gentlemen, who disclosed that the very distinctive 'honking' laugh guy in their laugh tracks is none other than a third Gentleman, Jeremy Dyson. I had no idea!
On the other hand ...
I recently discovered that the Winter Journey had been put through the meat grinder of a low-budget educational cartoon. Isn't that nice, I thought. I wonder how awful it is.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.
A few days later, after I'd girded my loins against that monstrous scene, I actually watched it from the beginning (that's part 2, which I skipped to because they were taking a very long time to get to Antarctica), and have to concede it's not actually that badly written, for a low-budget educational cartoon. The voices are slightly dreadful, the Cape Crozier party mysteriously decided to man-haul the biggest tent in the world, and someone's swapped Bill for Captain Haddock, but ... if you can be flattered by a compliment that is not paid to you, I guess I feel kind of flattered that they bothered to tell this story at all. Maybe 'chuffed' is a better word. There are kids out there – kids with a very high tolerance for atrocious animation – who know this story now. And that's not such a bad thing, is it?
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Date: 2010-04-22 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 03:27 am (UTC)