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My Comedy Heroes - Part 1
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My Comedy Heroes - Part 1 One question I used to ask women regularly in chat that I've retired completely is 'What makes you laugh?'. What I meant by this was what TV shows, films, stand ups etc really tickled their fancy. The responses were generally so dire it was something that drove a wedge between me and the women on here, the two main ones being 'The Two Ronnies' and Jim Davidson. For those outside of the UK, Jim Davidson is a working class sexist, racist 'comedian' with a history of domestic violence against wives/girlfriends, is a habitual drink driver and has gone on record saying 'I hate women'. If you tell me you like Jim you're basically saying 'I have no self-respect and I hate my own gender'. The whole 'What makes you laugh' thing really stumped me, it was as if a parallel universe existed where women who eventually signed up for online dating had TVs that ran dead air instead of Monty Python, Rising Damp, Fawlty Towers, the Young Ones, Blackadder, Reeves & Mortimer, The Day Today, Father Ted, The Fast Show, Brass Eye, M*A*S*H, Taxi, Cheers, Seinfeld or the Larry Sanders Show. The one upshot of this almost total ignorance of comedy is that you can quote lines relentlessly from your favourite shows and pass them off as your own (lowdown dirty ploy explored at length in Evelyn Waugh's 'The Loved One'). It does make me wonder if I could curl up for an evening on the sofa with a girl from here and she could stomach my DVD collection, which is mostly comedy and a few sporting documentaries such as 'Wales's Heaviest Defeats'. I like to think I've got a good and diverse taste (who doesn't?), which ranges from madcap screwball stuff like It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, the National Lampoons films, right through to the super dry and sarcastic Curb your Enthusiasm and Jack Dee.  Blazin Saddles, Jewish Comedy at its best To be honest I could write about comedy heroes every week between now and Christmas, I'll try and rein myself in but I'll make a start with Jack Dee, who is an inspiration to all of us who seem to be banging their head against a wall in life. People now know Dee as a regular on TV ever since the mid-90s, however he first got in front of a mic in 1986. His content and delivery style was radically different from the deadpan Dee we see today. Like a lot of people trying a new medium he was energetic and eager to please. However in trying hard to grab attention and to please Dee simply wasn't very funny. He spent a few frustrating years making his way up the first rungs of the comedy ladder very slowly, until he got his own UK tour. Something was still lacking in Dee's act, however, and audience reaction was lukewarm at best. Around halfway through the tour Dee decided to quit at the end and try something else - he decided to see out the rest of the dates as a contractual obligation but he was past caring. This led to a major change in his on-stage demeanour and the world-weary miserable cynic that we all love suddenly came to the fore. By not caring about anything any more Jack Dee got people to love him by accident. It could be seen as a brave move but it wasn't intentional, which perhaps shows how your unconscious natural self can be more attractive than a contrived and deliberate persona. So that's Comedy Hero #1, sorry this blog wasn't remotely funny, but at least it's consistent with my other drivel   Jack Dee, miserable, anti-social, awkward and difficult - my kind of guy |
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Oh don't apologise about 'Wales's Heaviest Defeats' Ginger, you have correctly identified it as a rugby video, and a source of great merriment. My local watering hole is a sports pavilion which is dominated by the local rugby club. Like many larger rugby clubs in England it's a magnet for the local celtic community. Pretty much every Scottish, Irish and Welsh person in the area goes there. In the last few years one particular Welshman has been in attendance for international matches. He screams and bellows until he is purple in the face - it's incredibly tiresome to witness but I console myself that one day he's going to get so agitated during a game he'll have a heart attack. Some people actually think I'm really mean for wanting this to happen - I point out to them that heart attacks only have a 50% mortality rate and they have no sense of humour . . .
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Thanks for entertaining us with your blog - perhaps not funny but entertaining all the same. What makes me laugh - an intelligent person, who is slightly sarcastic, that can engage in witty repartee... What / who would fit this criteria: Billy Connolly - when not swearing too much... Alan Davies - on QI - not the crappy detective series... And finally - Welsh Defeats part Un et Deux (although I've not actually seen either - yet, I am sure I would find them very amusing!). The Welshman started with 50% but his odds must be increased now due to the number of disappointments he's had to face. You can only take your head to purple so many times before something finally pops!
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Intriguingly, the chances of my purple-faced friend having a heart-attack are pretty high as I recently learnt he has a fondness for a certain powdery stimulant that originates from Latin America and is an ingredient in Coca-Cola. Use of this stimulant might explain why he is quite so 'ebullient'. I can't stand all the swearing and foul language in those Jane Austen books that are 'so called' comedies. I'm going to pretend I know nothing of the Ricky Gervais show where the F-word and the C-word are showered around like confetti . . .
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