"Pound as in the pounding of these zammoths' feet?"
"What zammoths? The ones to our right?"
"The ones I'm pointing at. Well, yeah, those ones, okay. God. So I wasn't exactly pointing at them. But yeah. God."
"No. Pounds as in insert-national-currency-here. The future has no regulated currency."
"Oh, and air?"
"No. And no zammoths. They're hallucinations. This planet's atmosphere is too thin. We're dying of radiation sickness."
"Speak for yourself. My body's packing in because it doesn't know how to function on a planet that has only a third of Earth's gravity. Hey, where are those guys going?"
It was in those small hours, the sleepless hours, tending the Sentient Wurtlizter Node long beyond her command, that Zimogen Fingertickler could feel her late husband by her side, or possibly just the ghost of someone dressed as her late husband, he was tickling her finger whoever he was.
"Tell me... Zenneth, was it? We mut do something about that name... Do you like my Mister Blisters? I've just had them fitted. I know blister mist is not to everyone's taste – Hush! – Ignore Nillson and Bucky, they're just muscle..."
The fact my laptop now crashes every time I so much as look at iMovie has made editing this video an act of pointilism, and for all the the time it took, it clearly needed more, but once I'd imagined the haves of Metropolis confronted with Ben Turpin in A Clever Dummy, I knew I had to see it. So at least now that's done. And let's face it, for all his singing, George Seurat wasn't so hot at painting hats either. Speaking of a Sunday on La Grande Jatte, here's some people meeting today in groups of no more than six...
Today this blog is fortunate enough to celebrate yet another birthday of the irreplaceable James Bachman, which the keener-sensed of you will notice I have marked this year with a video of myself. This is only because missing from last year's thanksgiving was any mention of what a generous hub James Bachman has been in my life; James Backbone, I call him. I've probably never felt more legitimately acceptible among stangers than at his birthday bashes, and the video above (filmed at the London Dungeon in 2012) is something James put up on his channel only because I was too late submitting it for inclusion in the video below, even though, obviously, the far easier course would have been not to put it up at all. Here's what I missed, featuring contributions from a murderer's row of the brightest white, male, then-mid-to-late-thirties comedy writing talent knocking around: Richard Glover, Miles Jupp, Rufus Jones, Jason Hazeley, Joel Morris, Toby Davies, Jonathan Dryden Taylor, John thingy, pretty much every name James had to plough through at the end of every episode of That Mitchell and Webb Sound. He doesn't appear himself (UPDATE: Wait, is that him as Sir Ian McKellan?), but it's a beautiful example of the funniness that could happen around and because of him. I'm very glad he's in Los Angeles, because – you know me – I'm happy when anyone's in Los Angeles, but I've also enjoyed spending today wondering what fun would be happening if he was still local.
Many happy returns, James. I honestly appreciated being bunged on at the end of this.
Not every power would be relevant to every challenge. Reed understood this even if Sue didn't. Still, he was glad he'd brought the ropes along. It was nice to have something to do...
A classic Jack Kirby cover – which my friend Alex Fitch got Stan Lee to sign for my birthday! – and which, decades earlier, I ripped off, from memory – (I hadn't noticed the other eye) – for the front of a Conan spoof I then never got round to drawing.
The overture began. Dimly, but that's what the volume knob was for, or whatever it
was one had now to root around for with a cotton bud in place of a volume knob. It didn't really matter who was broadcasting, or why. It never had mattered, which had been part of the problem, but true nonetheless. There were no wings to wait in as such now, but the stool and dresser provided a suggestion of "backstage", and the teetering remains of the unpowered servers enough cover for these few last-minute rituals. Or, at least, what she hoped would become rituals - everyone has to start somewhere... Was that the end of the overture? That was the end. Cyber Security Unit 14-R rose without a squeak and, almost floating, joined her new colleagues. And the ballet began.
From "Cyber Security Unit 14-R's Soft Reboot". Illustration by Mel Hunter.
Their patience was wearing thin. Zoger had to choose. He could hear the mockery of the arena through the plasti-hull. But the umpire had checked; there was nothing in the rulebook against climbing insider a "view-loosener" (as Zoger had termed his new conveyance).
Lady...
Or tiger...
Zoger checked the screens again. The readouts were clear enough.
Or were they? Was that a scar? Were those supposed to be tits? And even if he could decipher what he saw, was he certain which screen related to which door? The lights along the top had thrown him.:White... Red... White... White... White... Did that mean something? How to tell what was behind the doors? How? The panic rose in Zoger's chest as he began to wonder if it might have been a better idea to put the window at the front.
Dick Van Dyke, Rose Marie, Mel Brooks... it really did seem as if that gang of pioneers would live for ever, but it turns out writer, perfomer and director Carl Reiner would only make it to ninety-eight. Well, hallelujah for him. It can't have been easy to build movies around a conceptual stand-up like Steve Martin, but you wouldn't know it looking at Reiner's CV. He absolutely understood "stupid", and I don't think there's any more spirit-lifting proof of this than the clip below.This is Your Story is the Sid Caesar's Show Of Shows sketch my family would look out most often, when wanting to get delerious, but thisis my own personal favourite. It might actually be the most influential bit of comedy I've ever watched, which might explain why I didn't really go into comedy: even making fun of how little work you're doing looks really hard. That's Carl Reiner on the left. This went out live. God, it's good. Hallelujah. Enjoy.
"So shall we go back into our home?"
"Then we can take our helmets off."
"I mean, sure."
"Mars though!"
From "Boring Space Aventures"
Again, a post that was hanging around on the reserve benches for months, and never meant to be remotely relevant. I bet those bubbles smell horrible.
Morning! I hadn't heard of him until last week, but, continuing with the unintentional theme of German enertainers, posted below is a wordless sketch from the late Vicco von Bulow – or Loriot – a writer, comedian,
and animator for whom I can't think of any English-speaking
equivalent. (This is why I always sit in the seat I have been allocated. Also, interruptions are funny.)
Each of them held a clicker. They could count down from nine thousand in perfect unison without looking, but they liked the noise the clickers made. "Fiiiive." Click. Entirely still, their green eyes fixed on the stripey horizon. Countdown nearly done. "Fooooour". Click. No horizons more stripey than the unmatched horizons of Zuu-cakeymoon. No plains more bare. "Threee." Louder now their high voices. Click. "TWOOOO!" No matter how much they puffed out their chests, their voices were just high. Click! "ONE!" Click! And as one, they turned clockwise: "COOOOOOMINNNNNG! READY OR N-...... Tt."
Deliciously, this is what the actual Daniel Day-Lewis was up to when "Tash" first aired.
Listening to Robert Webb talk on "Rule Of Three" about Gareth Edwards' writers' room meetings, I was pleased as pencil-cases to hear how vain he feels watching "There Will Be Tash", because I love everything everyone does in that sketch, and have seldom felt more useful as a writer. Just to elaborate a bit on what Jason, Joel and he were saying: I did indeed come in with an idea that Daniel Day-Lewis might be secretly scared of his own moustache, and that there might be out-takes proving this, but it was crucially Robert who suggested, already stroking his upper lip, that the real focus should be an interview with the actor in which the interviewer refuses to discuss anything else. What I wrote then was what Robert described, and while I think I did a cracking job, it was by then not a hard job.
I didn't even write my favourite line in it. Similarly, in another meeting at which I suggested a Victorian picnicker ask if anyone else could smell "come", it was
Jesse Armstrong first who observed that this was actually the smell of linden trees
(although I've since heard others say it's horse chestnuts) and, crucially, it was David who suggested that the focus of this sketch should be the assertion that specifically never asking this question was the whole point of the society these people inhabit. So, again, while I'm happy to go along with saying that that sketch is one of mine, it could never have been written outside of what was always, wall-to-wall, Robert-and-David's show. ("Prayer and a Pint" on the other hand...)
Here's 23 seconds of slapstick from 2005 and the devising process of shunt's Amato Saltone starring Kittens and Wade (to give it its full title). That's me on the left, Layla Rosa on the right. We had the idea to project shadows onto the windows, but none of it was used in the end, so seeing this turn up a decade later on Susanne Dietz's vimeo channel was a lovely surprise.
"Well I don't know what we were expecting to see..." muttered Zorian.
"You - You guys didn't think that was wild?! I thought you'd really dig - No, uh, no problem, there's other sights!" But Plok could see his fare slipping away...
"SO SHOULD I SEE SOMEONE ABOUT THIS THEN OR > BWAAAP > WAIT, ARE NONE OF YOU DOCTORS?..."
Speaking of "The Adventure Game", what should we give Uncle?
Series Three sees Charmian Gradwell get interactive with the kids, inviting them to call in with gift suggestions for "Uncle", an alien despot who had – in a Douglas-Adamsian twist that seems to have gone over most callers' heads – adopted the form of a grumbling aspidistra steered around the studio floor by Kenny Baker inside a cardboard plinth. Nothing in "The Adventure Game" could be described as slick, by any decade's standards, but these call-ins from 1984 provide a particularly sweet illustration of just how few fucks could be given back in the day, not just on behalf of the show's Pebble Mill production-team, but nation-wide...
Now, both of these clips were posted to my instagram account a while ago. That's one of the places I've been hiding out these past months, playing with faces, not blogging. Dipping. I got an iphone before I went to Frankfurt, back in May, downloaded some apps, and pretty much everything I feared might happen to my attention happened. Did we all read this brilliant article, on the "Silicon Valley refuseniks" who woke up to the addictiveness of the apps they helped create and, more specifically, of their updates – comparing them to the pull of a one-armed bandit? So yes, I became a creature of appetite, fidgety and unblogging. But I did make these...
In short however, I'm going to resolve yet again not to shun boredom so much next year.
Oh and yeah, check out my instagram!
