A random thread for small entertainment things not warranting their own thread..

[Kim]

Slightly less annoying than most of last series until you get to the [soiler], thobut.

[Mrs Pingu]

Wasn't "Veep" (very) loosely based on "The Thick Of It"?  Somehow I can't imagine the median USAnian audience going for a programme using language like "six-toed pony-fuckers", "marzipan dildo" or ""I will tear your fucking skin off, I will wear it to your mother's birthday party, and rub your nuts up and down her leg whilst whistling Bohemian fucking Rhapsody".

Somebody lent us Veep. I thought I was going to hate it but actually it's a fairly close match for TTOI considering a)it's Usanian and b) there's no Malcolm Tucker.

[citoyen]

Wasn't "Veep" (very) loosely based on "The Thick Of It"?  Somehow I can't imagine the median USAnian audience going for a programme using language like "six-toed pony-fuckers", "marzipan dildo" or ""I will tear your fucking skin off, I will wear it to your mother's birthday party, and rub your nuts up and down her leg whilst whistling Bohemian fucking Rhapsody".

Somebody lent us Veep. I thought I was going to hate it but actually it's a fairly close match for TTOI considering a)it's Usanian and b) there's no Malcolm Tucker.

Coincidentally, I heard an old interview with Armando Ianucci the other day* in which he was discussing the genesis of Veep. Basically, it would have been a straight remake of The Thick Of It but ABC snapped up the rights to that title before HBO could get their hands on it, so instead HBO commissioned Ianucci & co to make a new series on the same lines.

I've not seen the 'official' American version of The Thick Of It but it sounds terrible. Apparently, it was so bad they never got beyond making the pilot.

Veep, on the other hand, is pure genius.


*an episode of Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast from 2012 in which he interviews Armando Ianucci and Graham Linehan together. Most entertaining.

[Pingu]

It’s Roy Batty of Blade Runner’s inception date! Happy Birthday Roy!

[ian]

I prefer Veep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is wonderful and the cast gels and there's just an outre about US politics that our own marvellous system of upper class men hawing and gaffawing at each other just can't match. And they can be sweary as they want as it's on HBO. Ianucci has a gift.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Having today discovered a factoid about Uriah Heep, a band which I've never taken any notice of, I started listening to Youtube's Uriah Heep mix. I'm not looking at the youtube, just listening. Suddenly the folk-tinged heavy rock with metal leanings is interrupted by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John singing You're the one that I want! Imagine how well that fits in! So I switch to the youtube tab and what do I see to explain my bewilderment? An advert for Uncle Ben's Quinoa and Rice, a product of whose existence I have been even more ignorant than of Uriah Heep. Informed but not enlightened. Perhaps the weirdest thing was that the (American-sounding) voiceover produced quinoa "correctly" rather than "naturally".

[Deano]

I got all excited when I saw Explosions in the Sky were going to play Durham (in addition to Glasgow, Manchester and the usual places)

Then I realised it was Durham, North Carolina. Arse.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Colin Vearncombe is critically ill in hospital after a car crash, and Celine Dion's husband has died.

[TheLurker]

I note that Bergerac's Triumph Roadster is earning a crust in the Go Compare "Brief Encounter" advert.  How the mighty are fallen.

[Vince]

You wouldn't say that if you had watched the recent repeats of Bergerac - hasn't stood the test of time.

[Steph]

And another one gone
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11860014

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Steph, did you look at the date on that article?

[Vince]

And another one gone
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11860014
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35342699

FTFY

[Vince]

I wonder if an "IPlayer Original" is the equivalent of a film being released straight to DVD?

[Kim]

I wonder if an "IPlayer Original" is the equivalent of a film being released straight to DVD?

I think that's code for "we commissioned this before we decided to axe BBC3".

[Steph]

And another one gone
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11860014
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35342699

FTFY

Just seen that. Arsebollocks.

[Vince]

And another.
http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2016/01/20/rock-legend-animal-dies-aged-66/

(click to show/hide)

[Wowbagger]

I happened on this yesterday whilst driving:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06whsx1 start a 13m 50s.

It's a song. I found it very funny. I insist, however, that it does not in any way apply to me. Oh no! Not at all...

[cycleman]

   that was fun

[hillbilly]

Currently making my way through every episode of South Park in order.

The show is funny as hell, suitably puerile, with an irreverent streak of social commentary (increasingly so from series 5 or thereabouts) that puts Family Guy and Simpsons and all those other jaded and less mirthsome American wannabees in the shade. 

Anybody who disagrees with me is either a hippy or a pussy.  And should respect my authority.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Currently making my way through every episode of South Park in order.

The show is funny as hell, suitably puerile, with an irreverent streak of social commentary (increasingly so from series 5 or thereabouts) that puts Family Guy and Simpsons and all those other jaded and less mirthsome American wannabees in the shade. 

Anybody who disagrees with me is either a hippy or a pussy.  And should respect my authority.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDDJvC2CGaU

[ian]

Hillbilly is correct, but man, that's a lot of episodes.

I just like saying gluten makes your dick fly off. Oh, and singing the gayfish song.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

TIMMY!

[tiermat]

The first batch of artists playing at Deer Shed have been announced.

Most I have never heard anything by, but two I have. Beth Orton and Everything Everything.

[Mr Larrington]

With all the hoopla over David Bowie the death of Mott The Hoople drummer Dale "Buffin" Griffin seems to have slipped under the radar, in much the same way as Lee Brilleaux dying at the same time as Kurt Cobain.