don’t come here with your Voot-Voot nonsense!
August 12th, 2008SC hipped me to this at work. Don’t know why but I think its great. Something to do with the great lo-fi UFO and the accents…
Good Lord no. Are you mad?
August 11th, 2008
Among the various podcasts out there, I have to give a serious shout-out to Stephen Fry’s podgrams. Fry is a BBC tv comedy institution and he also shows up in various films and TV shows, but the most fun thing about him is how British he is. He has a great accent, seems to both enjoy being from the whole Oxbridge crew as well as satirizing being from it, and really enjoys being well-spoken and intellectual-y. All tempered with the off-the-cuff best British silliness in his humor. The BBC describes him thus:
"Stephen Fry seems as English as tweed, silver toast racks and the London black cab he can be seen driving around the streets of the capital."
His podgrams are very irregular, but are always a blast to listen to. His latest consists of Mr. Fry reading a speech he recently gave regarding the BBC and the motion to "slice" their licensing fee to include the (apparently) foundering Channel 4. He uses this speech as an excuse to talk about his own history with the BBC (from listening to BBC radio to making shows of his own) and to explore the current state of media production and distribution today. For anyone in or connected to any kind of "content production" in today’s world, it’s a pretty great podcast.
The podgrams can be found here, though you’ll have to subscribe via itunes…in case you’ve no time nor audio to listen to a podcast, there’s a text transcript here…and his blog is also fun (he’s a bit of a tech-head)…he’s got a great post talking about being semi-famous and what it’s like to have people coming up to you all the time to talk to you, have pictures taken, etc. Interesting stuff…
I love this bit from the BBC podgram:
And as for broadcasting, well after a mad diversion of believing that it was all about distribution, every media boss now repeats the mantra Content is King.
‘We repent,’ they seem to be saying, ‘being a media boss is no longer about owning as many stations, networks, nodes, outlets and ports as possible – it’s about production, about making things. I see that now.’
‘Hurray,’ shout the programme makers, ‘finally you’ve understood. So, give us the money then.’
‘What money?’ say the media executives, ‘there is no money. We spent it all buying up companies and their back catalogues. We needed content in a hurry, because – in case you weren’t aware … content is king, you know.’
‘Doh. Hang on … but what about new content?’
‘Good lord no. Are you mad? Far too expensive.’
every boy wants to be in his boots…
April 15th, 2008I remember watching Ali G for the first time on a tape that Roscoe got while we were both working at BBC America (were they thinking of licensing it?), and we laughed until it hurt. This is a great interview with Beckham and Posh Spice from the UK’s Comic Relief…British cultural references abound, but even if you’re not getting them, it’s still pretty funny…
Even though his schtick is a little played out, I still find Ali G really funny, much funnier than Borat for some reason. Borat’s humor seems to come from exploiting cultural foibles, which can be funny, but relies on us being able to point our finger and mock whichever regular person he’s interacting with. Ali G on the other hand takes apart so-called experts in some field (is being famous a "field"?)…I think he has to be quicker, smarter, sharper. The character of Borat bases his misunderstandings on cultural mismatches, where Ali G’s are based on clever use of slang, and youth culture stereotypes. Or something like that.
More analysis is called for, but I don’t have the time or inclination. Plus, with humor it really just boils down to what you think is funny.
UPDATE – I should point out that this vid is old, as Maxine somehow knew it was old and Roscoe’s link to an old Vanity Fair article mentions it…still funny tho…