#i downloaded an ENTIRE DVD for this :]]]

[dutchwinter]

this is the last time this will happen [x]

[agenderarkham]

Once I figure out how to get the audio tracks to line up right on my movie rips it’s OVER

[badnewswhatsleft]

Would you ever consider ripping and uploading the ybc longform? I know it’s available on yt but it would be great to have a backup in case something ever happens and it gets pulled. So much media has been lost over the years 😔 if you ever did I know many people, including myself, would be so appreciative! 💖 Thank you for all of the uploads you’ve already done, it’s so great of you to do and so appreciated.

mmm do you mean as in like the dvd that they released of ybc like in 2014? unfortunately i don't own it 🥲

however from what i hear it's apparently not really worth it, what with it being dvd quality (compared to the nice 1080p that's currently up online) so.. you might be better off using a downloader?!

[omanu]

.

[xenadaily]

I recently started watching Xena but the quality is... not great. I noticed your gifs don't look like they were filmed with a potato, so I was wondering where you got it in such good quality

Hey anon! I put this same question to another blog and they said they found someone online who had upscaled the entire series to 1080px. I went searching and found the original reddit post. It has since been deleted but you can find it here: XXX. It has each season and it took me a few days to download each one but it's well worth it. I have all the DVDs but had the same issue as you, which was especially frustrating when wanting to make HQ gifs. Hopefully this works for you! Thanks for the question :)

[hayaomiyazaki]

sharing my googledrive

hello (◠‿◠)👋 over on my panel show blog, i host a googledrive of about 2tb of british comedy content that people have really seemed to enjoy over the years! i have a lot of storage available, so i figured i would do the same over here~

➤ userhayao google drive

this is a totally random assortment of about 1tb of films as well as mini/series, audiobooks, and stage plays: things i love, things i've never seen but want to, a few requests and fan faves — and i'll be adding more things regularly. i make an effort to get everything in very high quality, typically .mkv files of 1080p/2160p bluray rips, if i can :')

plenty of it is nothing particularly rare or special, but i personally think there are some real hidden gems in there, so i hope people will enjoy them!

i will also leave a link to the drive on my pinned post ^‿^

⚠️ discretion is appreciated, so of course i don't mind if the links are shared but it'd be safest for the drive if people could link back to this/my pinned post opposed to posting individual drive links! thank you in advance (◕v◕)

based on the asks i get about my other drive, here are a few notes/faq items below the cut!

— i'm streaming a film but it's in another language/commentary is on. how can i change that? i've downloaded some of these from foreign hubs, so the default audio tracks are not always the originals. googledrive doesn't support multiple audio tracks, so you'll need to download the film and switch the audio track like so:

— what do i do if there isn't a subtitles file? almost all files have the subtitles built in, so you can turn them on like this:

— what is VIDEO_TS and how do i watch it? a video_ts folder is a full-blown dvd! after downloading the VIDEO_TS folder, you simply drop the entire folder into your media player and it will function like a dvd with a home screen you can click on:

— i wanted to watch _____ but it's missing from the drive. is it gone forever? i probably removed it to make room for other content. if you really need it, even temporarily, just let me know!

— do you take requests? i'm open to requests! for specific details about 🏴‍☠️ sites and resources, it's best to dm me off anon :')

— won't google...take this down? probably one day 😅 as i mentioned above, a degree of discretion is key! still, i do this on a burner email and everything is backed up, so it's no big deal. if it gets removed i'll just throw it up again hehehe

additional faq here!

[solar-sunnyside-up]

Hi there... I really love the idea of solarpunk but like. The "punk" part of it makes me so anxious. I think it's a vital part of the movement, but I can never imagine doing something like that myself.

If you have any small (tiny) tips or ideas on things I can do on a more personal level I would appreciate them. Everything seems so overwhelming and completely out of my wheelhouse and skill base

Hey ya 🌱 Sprout!! It can be hard to recognize, particularly in solarpunk, but your already punk and already doing praxis. I'm sure of it.

If you've ever pirated media, DIYed or mended clothes, have a rain barrel, spoke out against poor labor conditions, provided a safe space for anyone in an uncaring world even for a brief interaction- Your already punk!! Anyone who fights and gatekeeps that title from you bc of age, aesthics, or experience is a poser and a FED!!

That being said tho--

If you want to do more outrageous projects there's a few things I can recommend depending on how much you wanna do!!

Battlejacket- TBH the purpose of a battle jacket is to soothe this exact anxiety while also being a fun project and being a single to others!! There's many examples in both my Battlejacket tag and patch idea tag to get you started. You can get iron on patches/print paper that transfers pretty well if your not used to DIYing stuff. If this feels like to big if a step and is too much tho keep in mind you can make a battlejacket and not wear it outside right away. It's a second skin to make you feel and others feel safe, but it's also a big neon target on yourself depending on your environment and where you are. So it's ok to just make one and not wear it out until your ready!! (If you do this-- my only demand is you show me when you do it!! I want to see all of those kinda projects bc I'm obsessed with them)

Getting out there- If starting a guerilla gardening project or joining a community garden, or community association isn't an option for you- be that bc of accessibility/time/energy- I'd recommend starting to archive and getting out there! Inaturalist or falling fruit are awesome programs where you identify plants/animals/stuff outside in general. It gets you outside, your adding to a community which gets the feeling of a ball rolling building confidence and your praxis muscles!!

Root yourself in your community- This is a hard one if your busy/have low spoons/are introverted but I promise its worth doing even if you arent super active in those spaces! Even just researching the history of your town/city/neighborhood and seeing what programs are running can really connect you to the area. A lot of us due to the renting crisis never truly attach to our neighborhoods or are too busy to look into local artists. (Not your fault babes, its built to do that to feed monopolies) Pick even just 1 thing you care about (local artists, teashop, bands, libraries, community fridges, etc..) and find the closest thing to you and get obsessed. Being a regular in any space is an awesome feeling, its where you'll find friends, and you'll directly see any change you provide there.

Media archiving- There's a lot of ways of doing this one but just pirate the fuck out of everything!!!! Burn it to a physical copy, share it with your friends/family! Make mix dvds, burn movies/tv shows! Directly download youtube videos! Print off your fave fanfiction and bind them into books! Particularly with streaming services directly deleting content and getting rid of them entirely this is important work but its also just very fun!! Seeing my wall filled with dvds and books and objects makes my brain happy but also again, the physical exchange of handing the media you love to another person is so unique! Theres lots of guides and methods of doing this depending on the method and medium your using.

Utilizing public spaces- Loitering is a good one as well to push yourself and to interact with things IRL! Use your public libraries and parks excessively! Spend a weird amount of time at the mall not buying stuff! This might seem like a weird one, but its a long term thing. It shows that ppl are supposed to be out and about without spending money, but also many of these places (except the mall obvi) get funding based on usage so the more you use something the more likely they are to make it accessible to more ppl! It also makes it more normal for ppl who need to loiter to be in these spaces which again adds more accessibility. This is also one that might get you unwanted attention so decide your comfort and safety level. Pushing boundaries is good but do it at your own pace.

Vandalize! - Again we're ramping up a bit on risk levels but I recommend it, particularly bus stops or putting up posters. Bus stops is bc at least in my city they only maintenance them once they've been 'ruined' so its actually a cosmic positive to do it in these spaces. Posters are also good! Ive seen quite a few for tenant unions but also a handful of them that are food resources or call outs for police. This is mostly to have passive way to show solidarity or get a message across. But also like your doing art! Great stuff! Again tho this comes with risk if caught or if you dont know what your doing so start with baby steps (like using sharpie on an Ad you fucking hate or putting up a poster in a neutral space to get used to it)

Hopefully these tips get you started!

[vilevampire]

the viewtiful joe anime is not lost media anymore. btw

quick context if you have no idea what I'm talking about. viewtiful joe was an anime that aired in 2004-2005. it was not particularly high quality or anything but regardless I have been pathologically obsessed with this stupid anime for like. 3 years atp I think ?? I started a whole project dedicated to it and I did (and still plan on doing) lots of things related to viewtiful joe but the important part is that a while ago someone joined my project's discord server saying he had the WHOLE ANIME IN JAPANESE !!!!

this was HUGE because so far I had never been able to find the whole series in its original japanese dub, only in some other dubs. I searched far and wide on the internet but to no avail. my biggest success was actually in stumbling upon the episodes ripped from brazilian DVD which just happened to come with the japanese audio track as an option, but that still was only some episodes. it wasn't even enough to complete season 1 (this anime has 2 seasons and 51 episodes total) let alone the whole series.

but that's in the PAST because now the whole thing is available FR FR. it took me a while to check the links this person sent me thru discord because my head's been so full of other stuff lately but I finally downloaded them yesterday and honestly. got UNBELIEVABLY emotional bc oh my god I love this anime AND I THOUGHT the day I would be able to see it in its entirely IN JAPANESE would never come... link here btw (some episodes haven't finished uploading completely yet so they appear frozen on archive.org's video player but that's temporary)

they have no subs because ofc nobody cares about this series enough to sub it but at least now if anyone became interested in subbing this anime they'd be able to do so without a hitch :)

[lastweeksshirttonight]

LEE'S FAQ!

Over the past nearly-two years, I've noticed that I get some questions about John's work asked repeatedly. That doesn't bother me - half of his prominent work is somewhat lost media, Tumblr's search is super fucked, and I always want to help anyone falling down the JO rabbit hole - but I realized that one central pinned post would be helpful! I'll keep this up to date as much as possible.

I know I have a lot of international followers, and if you have any knowledge of where to stream or find some of these items, please let me know and I'll update this post.

WHERE CAN I FIND...?

Anything really, I've just started going down this rabbit hole:

The John Oliver Masterlist is an incredible resource - while it hasn't been updated since about 2017 and has some broken links (especially in the LWT sections), it has functional links to every JO clip from The Daily Show, all the main segments of LWT through 2017, radio shows, and lots of other material. This was made by @johnoliverphotos and @ilovejohnoliver, and I'm eternally grateful for it.

The Department:

YouTuber Ben Jennings has the entire series on his channel.

Player FM has the series uploaded here as well.

The Bugle:

The Bugle Archive has all Times Online era episodes available to download. PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE EPISODES DIRECTLY; DO NOT STREAM FROM THIS SITE.

The Bugle is starting to upload Times Online era episodes to their official channels, which can be found here. They're up to ep 75 as of June 2024.

All post-Times Online episodes (starting with episode 179) are available on The Bugle's official channels.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

Paramount has axed the Daily Show archives online as of 6/26/24. It's absolutely gutting how little they give a shit about this program. Fuck them.

You're gonna have to sail the high seas to watch this. I'm sorry that this is the state of the US' most important comedy show of the 2000s. Since Paramount hasn't done shit with the old episodes for decades, I wouldn't hold your breath on it entering streaming.

Community:

In the US, this can be streamed on Peacock. Individual episodes can be purchased on YouTube, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime.

Worldwide, Community is now on Hulu.

Every season of Community is available on DVD and Blu-Ray.

John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show:

In the US, the whole show is on Paramount Plus and can be purchased through Amazon and Apple.

This show also got purged in the big Comedy Central erasure, but at least you can buy it still?? Shit silver lining, I know.

Back catalog episodes of Last Week Tonight:

You can buy back catalog episodes on YouTube and Amazon in the US.

The first through sixth seasons of LWT have been uploaded fully on their YouTube in the US, with plans to upload future seasons during breaks in the show's current episodes!

In certain areas outside of the US, LWT is now being uploaded in full on their YouTube channel as well.

HBO Max no longer has back catalog episodes because capitalism is fucking ridiculous, I pay monthly for this service entirely for this show and I can't even watch old news from 5 years ago

The Horne Section:

The whole series is on Taskmaster Supermax+, which should work everywhere except the UK.

In the UK, you can stream this through Channel 4.

Taskmaster:

I've been trying to will this into existence for multiple seasons, no one can stop me

BLOG-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

How did you get into John Oliver?

I answered this in too much detail in two posts, here and here.

Where is your icon from?

UPDATED: It was made by the lovely @stalebagels for me. She is wonderful <3

Is this blog a bit?/Do you really find this man attractive?

No, this is not an ironic bit, I really like John Oliver and find him genuinely hot. (Tbf, I get this question way more in person than online.)

[extralively]

Satoru's apartment (Part 1)

Continuing with my whole thing of trying to make the characters' apartments from my fic in The Sims, let's finally get into Satoru's apartment! ....Or part of it, because his apartment is fairly big lol. Here's the layout:

*The office and washroom are blurred because I haven't actually gotten around to them yet lol

Satoru's place is pretty big, but not the biggest he could have afforded because he is just one guy... so a fairly "modest" apartment will do.

("modest" my ass lmao)

His apartment is pretty neat, which tends to surprise people that expect someone like him to make a mess of things, lol. But Satoru had a pretty strict childhood so some things just stuck with him, and along with the way his family never allowed him to decorate his room in the Gojo Estate with trinkets and stuff, most of his apartment ended up the same--almost void of personality. The things he actually cherishes are kept away from prying eyes, even if this is his own apartment.

Honestly, I had a few very vivid images of what I thought his apartment looked like in my head (or parts of it), and it was kinda tough trying to put them all together into a definite layout lmao. If I made some weird architectural choices, well.... good thing I'm not an actual architect! I just really wanted to make it look like how I pictured it in my head.

In this post we'll take a look at the living room/fireplace/dining area and the kitchen after the cut!

The entrance is pretty spacious, and right behind the camera here there's a door leading to a whole ass closet for shoes and coats and stuff.

This here is the living room, where Satoru spends a lot of his free time watching movies (especially when he has people over. And by people I mean Yura and Shoko, mostly). He has a bunch of DVDs and Blu rays there on the shelf behind the TV, and he also has a couple of video game consoles that he doesn't use a lot.

Yes, this is where the Movie Night oneshot took place (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)... among other scenes.

(That corridor in the second pic with the white door leads to the guest bedroom, the office, and the washroom. That white door is the guest room, specifically.)

This is the fireplace area! Satoru doesn't actually use the fireplace a lot since he has central heating in the entire apartment, but in the opening chapter of Deeper in the Dark, this is where Satoru made a little pillow nest on the floor for him and Yura to snuggle... and yes, other things.

It's got a pretty good view! (...just pretend it's Tokyo back there)

(That corridor in the first pic leads to his bedroom.)

Here is the dining room that Satoru only uses when he has people over, otherwise it's just easier to eat in the kitchen or outside in the balcony (more on the balcony in another post... cause I still need to make it prettier lmao)

Also I might make some changes to this dining area at some point because I'm not 100% sure on the decor yet....

And here's the kitchen! This is the one place that has the most trinkets on display, a lot of novelty items that were mostly gifted to him by Yura over the years (and that he actually makes a point to use). Funny mugs, cookie jars, silly sugar bowls--since Satoru is filthy rich, it's very hard to give him gifts, so Yura eventually found out that he actually likes being given 'stupid stuff', in her words.

I had a very vivid image of the kitchen entrance in my head from that chapter where Yura was sleeping in the guest bedroom after coming back from NYC, and she sleepily stumbles into a shirtless Satoru with his back to her by the counter... cue her brain short circuiting for a moment lmao.

Anyway, next up should be the bedrooms! It's been a struggle making this apartment because I had to download so much CC and mods to be able to make things look the way I wanted to, and I'm still constantly changing things lol. If I do decide to change something, we'll just call it Satoru renovating his apartment at some point throughout the years lmao

[ask-artsy-oncie]

I was already pirating well beforehand (idk how frequently I've mentioned it but almost my entire experience with the Disney Afternoon was through piracy because I didn't watch Toon Disney enough to catch these shows naturally) but I think what truly Radicalized me into insisting everything be pirated was back in late 2015/early 2016 when I got a PS3 for the first time and wanted to watch Strange Magic on the console (having a video game console in itself was a novelty to me, so watching a movie on it was extra novel). It was purchasable for $15 on the PS Store and I thought "Perfect! For just under the cost of a DVD I get this digital file to keep on my PS3 and watch whenever I want!"

I could not have been more fucking wrong lol. I was slammed hard into the world of shitty movie DRM. The file was NOT on my actual PS3, it was on my PS account and HAD to be streamed with a necessary constant connection to the internet. My internet sucks, of course, so that meant I couldn't fucking watch the movie I just bought without it buffering every few seconds.

I contacted customer support with genuine confusion because surely, surely, this couldn't be the way they were running their business. Only to be met with "this is how we run our business. Also no refunds ♡".

So I immediately opened the PS3's web browser, opened up a piracy site, found the movie, and hit download to put the MP4 file directly on my PS3 for free. And it's still there to this day.

I made it to the mid 2010's without knowing you could buy something and not own it by means of DRM. While using a decade-old console. And that makes me realize that there are nearly fully grown (if not adult) individuals contributing to the DRM discourse today who likely have grown up never knowing anything different. The thing that straight-up radicalized me to piracy and made me paranoid about owning offline back-ups of EVERYTHING is just completely normal for some people. If you're one of those people. Come with me. Take my hand. I have a wonderful and morally correct world to show you.

[hamlet-the-dane-official]

Oh Prince of the Danes, what is the best movie adaptation of your story? I’ve been hired by my English teacher to find a nice adaptation to present to the class, and I think that getting The Guy’s input is probably good

you've come to the right place entirely, my good celeste! it would be my honour -- what little honour is left to me -- to assist an artist such as yourself in finding a suitable movie adaptation of my stupendous and terrible story!

the best you will find is the adaptation with andrew scott, himself! he's far more muscular than i but he does a compelling job! however, this adaptation is not so easily found though this prince may know where one could download it.

there is a toss-up, i believe, for second best and that goes to the portrayals of laurence olivier and david tennant. these adaptations are easily found online and in dvd format!

it is my recommendation that if you seek a well acted piece that you stay away from kenneth branagh and mel gibson. their work is miserable at best and fails to consider the true scope of my life.

i wish you luck in your endeavour! it is kind that you should come to me to ask how i wish my story to be told. few consider my input in my own life! you have touched me well and truly.

[battleangel]

The End of Weird Anime

What happens to 80s & 90s anime that arent streaming right now when VHS & DVD completely go away?

The obsession with micro everything, everythings a sound bite, everything is 5 to 7 seconds, even songs, the chorus IS the song now, noone else ever hears anything else.

Only sports, reality TV and competition games can be watched week to week in real time.

All TV series now have to be immediately binged and consumed.

Its essentially bulimia.

Binge Loki in a weekend. Binge Ahsoka in a weekend. Its already done.

Whats next.

What else can I feed the machine with.

No waiting week to week. No such thing as a cliffhanger. No anticipation. No guessing whats next. No watching together as an audience.

Everything segmented, everything bifurcated, nothing in real time, nothing communal.

No season finale, no season premiere.

Same with anime.

Its not VHS or DVD anymore.

Youre not waiting for a release.

Its crunchyroll and Netflix and Funimation and Hulu and streaming.

Its the entire season of Psycho Pass all at once whenever I want to binge and gorge myself.

No asking to be taken to the mall.

No driving to Suncoast Video.

No deciding which $30 VHS or DVD to ask to be bought.

Martian Successor Nadesico or Ayashi no Ceres?

Everything is accessible.

Its less for 3 months of streaming anime than 1 anime used to cost on VHS or DVD.

No downside, if it sucks, move on.

Its not even the old school illegal Crunchyroll which was essentially Limewire for anime where you could illegally download different series.

I didnt waste time downloading for hours on my brothers computer for a shitty anime.

I didnt risk getting a virus on my brothers computer.

I dont have to clear up space.

I dont have to waste time.

I dont have to spend money.

I dont have to risk anything.

I dont have to exert any effort.

Its just, on to the next.

What does the algorithm say a Demon Slayer fan should watch next?

What should I watch now that Attack on Titan is over per the almighty algorithm?

No Viz anime catalogue to pore through.

No RightStuf catalog to highlight and fold the corners of the pages of.

No Animerica to read through every month once it arrives in the mail.

No going through AOL message boards and anime ezboards and geocities and angelfire websites to try to determine what to watch next.

No asking to be taken to your local Blockbuster to check the newest anime rentals in the "Independent/Foreign" section.

Just scroll, select, click and move on.

No need to even download and delete.

Its all streamable, instantly consumed, immediately binged then thats it.

On to the next algorithmic recommendation.

The algorithm never ends.

It always has another suggestion for you.

No meticulously going through myanimelist.com, putting up the hundreds of anime youve watched so far then scouring everyone elses lists to get ideas for new anime to watch.

Whats next after Vision of Escaflowne?

What should I watch after Yuu Yuu Hakusho?

If I can get a ride to the flea market on 18, I wonder what else they'll have similar to Dangaioh & Orguss 02?

To Macross Plus?

I wonder if Sci-Fi Channels Anime Week Festival will show something similr to Iria Zeiram or Armitage III this year.

Ninja Scroll was amazing, I wish I could see Wicked City since its by the same director, Yoshiaki Kawajiri. But I know I wont be allowed to. I had to sneak watch Ninja Scroll at my friends house and her older brother had bought it and thats the only way I even got to see Ninja Scroll at 13.

Everyone talks about Sailor Moon but noone talks about Bubblegum Crisis 2032.

Why not? The Knight Sabers are cooler than the Sailor Scouts and Ill take a cool motorcyle riding ass kicking punk rock singer like Priscilla Asagiri over a whiny, annoying, immature Serena any day. I dont care that shes 14 like me. Shes freaking annoying and a crybaby.

I wonder what other anime are like 8 Man After. It was so hard-boiled and dystopian and futuristic.

What happens to 80s & 90s anime that arent streaming right now when VHS & DVD completely go away?

When laptops and videogame systems are discless?

Then what?

What happens when Crunchyroll, Netflix and Hulu dont want to pay to license some amazing anime that are hidden gems?

In 25 years, when very few VCRS and DVD players and video game systems and laptops that can play VHS tapes and discs are still in circulation and functioning, then what happens?

What their plan has been this whole time: we will only have access to watch what the streaming companies CHOOSE to pay the license for to stream.

We will lose everything else.

We'll lose Cybernetics Guardian, Genocyber, Twilight of the Dark Master, Robot Carnival, Vision of Escaflowne, Iria Zeiram, Armitage III, Saber Marionette J, Martian Successor Nadesico, 8 Man After, Lensman, Demon City Shinjuku, Fancy Lala, Tekknoman, Full Metal Panic...

Only the biggest hits, the most iconic series, the most controversial OVAs and movies will survive in the brand new streaming world devoid of any physical VHSs and DVDs.

Only the Akiras, Neon Genesis Evangelions, Urotsuki Dojis, Berserks, Gantzs, Sailor Moons, Dragon Ball Zs, Pokemons, Gundams, Bleaches, Narutos and Spirited Aways will survive to be streamed.

What about the Serial Experiments Lain?

What about the Nausicaa of the Valley Winds?

What about the Angel Sanctuarys?

What about the Please Save My Earths?

What about the Here is Greenwoods?

Will they be lost forever?

[slut-4-remuslupin]

You know you have a PROBLEM When A03 randomly goes down for like 7 hours and it feels like your entire world just comes to a complete stop, because you have no idea what to do with yourself for that time period😭

Did I have access to literally every social media still, including Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, online shopping apps, and even Tumblr? Yes.

Did I even consider perusing them? Nope.

Did I consider utilizing my access to Netflix, Prime Video, and Tubi, not to mention my collection of DVDs? Nope.

What about the literal hundreds of physical books I have between my room and my basement? Not for a second.

Did I take this opportunity to go talk to my family members, spend some quality time with them? Why would I?

It deadass took me FIVE hours before I even considered opening one of the 75 (which represents a problem in and of itself) fics I have downloaded on my phone for offline reading.

To be fair, I can’t focus on reading more than 1 book at a time and I’m already taking a break from CR, so I didn’t want to add another fic into the mix, AND MY FIC WAS LEFT ON A CLIFFHANGER but still.

I really just sat there and did absolutely nothing but sleep and feel like an NPC for 6 hours😭

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

In advance of Taskmaster season 18 starting, I found Andy Zaltzman's old episodes on a couple of Alex Horne podcasts, and listened to those. This sent me down a route of finding various Zaltzman appearances on podcasts, and I was reminded that there's an entire Zaltzman-hosted thing that's easy to find that I've never heard. It's his "Summer of Sport", which was a podcast he did for The Guardian throughout summer 2016, discussing the various sporting things happening. Rio Olympics, obviously. Also other stuff. I think there was cricket on.

It's weird that I've not listened to that before, and that it's not even something I think of if I think of Andy Zaltzman's career, even though I know Andy Zaltzman's career very well. I know Andy's pre-Bugle career because that's Chocolate Milk Gang stuff; I have studied that era in, probably, far too much detail. And anything he's done since The Bugle started, I know about it because I've heard it plugged on the podcast.

But Summer of Sport fell through a crack, as the John Oliver era of The Bugle ended in March 2016, and the reboot started in October 2016. This one little six-month window of Andy Zaltzman's career where I don't know what was going on, and he hosted a whole 12-episode podcast without me noticing. I mean, I was vaguely aware that it existed for some reason, but didn't really know what it was until I came across it this weekend.

So I picked a couple of episodes that had guests I wanted to hear from, and downloaded them. I think I'll end up listening to the whole thing, but I've started with that. And I'm not hugely proud to say I started with a Russell Howard episode because it had Russell Howard. It also had Steve Williams, a guy I know three things about: he's a Welsh stand-up, he appeared in that Comedians' Football video on YouTube (on the non-Avalon team... which might be why I know so little about him), and he wrote on Russell Howard's TV shows.

I will still be annoyingly quick to click on any podcast that has Chocolate Milk Gang person + Russell Howard, because they'll bring out the CMG-type humour that Russell Howard does sometimes, which I still quite enjoy.

It is odd that Russell Howard is still quite near the list of comedians whose voice I've spent the most hours listening to. 125 hours of the BBC 6 Music show with Jon Richardson, plus all his Mock the Week, plus every episode of Good News and nearly every one of The Russell Howard Hour (minus the last few, when I gave up on it after he started throwing in the alt-right stuff) - that adds up. It's all stuff I watched earlier in my time getting into Britcom though, a few years ago. Basically, Taskmaster was the first thing I watched, and Russell Howard was one of my very favourites on Taskmaster (I didn't even know when I first watched season 6 that he was one of the most famous ones, I just knew I found him the funniest and most interesting), so one of the first things I did after that was look up what else he'd done, and it turns out there's a lot. I watched all his stand-up DVDs before I got into most other people's stand-up, when I was mainly watching panel shows - so I quite liked those stand-up DVDs, but I'm pretty sure I was easily impressed by generic charm and would be less impressed if I re-watched them now.

He was also the first British comedian I saw in person, in early 2022 when my then-girlfriend got us tickets because she knew I liked British comedy and saw Russell Howard coming to town and she didn't know that I was mad at Russell Howard for bringing Jordan Peterson on his TV show, and I didn't tell her that because it was a nice gift so we went, and to be completely honest, we had a fantastic time. Did he have the best material in the world? I don't know, probably not? But he had some pretty good material and a lot of fun stage presence and the night felt exciting and electric I hadn't been to in-person comedy besides my local clubs before, and he was a lot of steps up from that (actually that's not quite true, I saw Trevor Noah in an arena in 2019, which was not great). He'd done a bit of local research and talked shit about the truckers who'd recently taken over our city and that got massive cheers from the crowd and then there was one moment when he muttered that even though they'd gone about it badly you had to admit they had a couple of good points, and I thought "Fucking hell Russell do not do this now, for the sake of the 125 hours I spent listening to you talk on the radio in 2007 when you were cool, please just be that guy tonight and don't fucking ruin this", and then he didn't, no more right-wing stuff, just impressions of family members that I probably enjoyed too much.

Russell Howard is actually back in my city this month, he's done one night here a couple of weeks from now. I have to admit I briefly considered getting tickets. I am curious as to what sort of material he's doing these days. Curious as to whether his comedy would hold up, in my eyes, now that I've seen a lot more stand-up (almost definitely not, but I'm curious). Curious as to whether he's turned around the right-ward political drift, or doubled down on it. Though ideally I'd like to find that out in a way where I don't give him money, in case it turns out to be the latter. And I have to admit... okay, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have bought a ticket anyway, but the thing that made me decide to definitely not buy a ticket is I remembered that I read somewhere he had a kid earlier this year. So the show will presumably be about that, and I don't want to hear that. Yesterday I watched John Kearns' The Varnishing Days and thought that was absolutely brilliant, earlier this year Anne Edmonds released her special Why Is My Bag All Wet and I found that hilarious, and a few months ago I heard Josie Long do an hour-long WIP that I loved. All three of those stand-up shows were about the comedians' kid(s), and it is so unlikely that I'm going to find four parenthood-based stand-up shows in one year that I like, given my general aversion to the topic. I realize it's not great that the threat of parenthood material put me off a show even more than the threat of right-wing material, but I just can't listen to another person tell me how tiring it is to raise a baby.

Anyway. I was trying to think, today, of why I keep being interested in hearing Russell Howard talk even though I know he's not that great, and it occurred to me today that of all the British comedians, Russell Howard's the one who's most like most people I know in real life. I've written lots before about which comedians' personas or material most remind me of myself, and of course I like those, everyone likes some relatable comedy. I almost never find Russell Howard relatable (except sometimes on Taskmaster, when the ruthlessly competitive side came out, which was what made me like him so much in the first place), but he does strongly remind me of so many people I know, just overall, in a broad variety of ways.

I've pointed out some of those individual ways before. I knew that part of why I got so drawn into that BBC 6 Music radio show is it reminded me of a couple of my own friendships that strained and/or disintegrated in the same ways as whatever the hell the Jon Richardson/Russell Howard relationship went through on live radio for a couple of years, with me being and OCD obsessive like Jon Richardson (not using the term in the annoyingly quirky colloquial way there, I've got a diagnosis and also have several disintegrated friendships to prove it is not just a fun quirk) and Russell Howard reminding me of some of my more carefree and easily distracted and sunny-dispositioned friends. Russell Howard's vague right-ward political drift is a pattern that I'm sure I'm one of many people who's seen it play out lots in real life from the last ten years, when you know someone who's otherwise cool and then suddenly they're telling you that actually, if you'd just stop and actually read Jordan Peterson's books and consider what he's saying, you'd realize he has some pretty interesting insights that could benefit us all. And you wonder if they've changed suddenly, or if they were always like that and you never really knew them. For comedians who are all desperately seeking ground that hasn't been covered 10,000 times for their material (yes, we all know that raising a baby is hard, we've heard it before), I think the "friend goes right-wing an you wonder if whether they've changed or whether you never really knew them" phenomenon happens far more often than it's been talked about; there's an area of life that's been disproportionately under-covered. Though it maybe it doesn't happen all that often to comedians, what with the liberal bubble and all. That mythical liberal bubble that sounds like such a lovely place to live. It must have happened to some comedians, though. The ones who hang out with Russell Howard, for a start.

Anyway, I found Russell Howard's ComCom episode absolutely fascinating, it's one of my favourite episodes of that podcast. He talks in ways I've rarely heard comedians talk, but that people I know talk all the time. He talked about destructive obsession with self-improvement, in a way that sounded more like an athlete than an artist. The type of athlete mentality that's the reason why so many people I know end up slipping down the Jordan Peterson rabbit hole. And approached several topics with the sort of shoulder chip and hard-headed attitude that I'd expect to see on my own Facebook feed full of athletes, far more than I'd expect it on a podcast about an Art. I've spent many years as a nerd among jocks, and I find it interesting to listen to Russell Howard describe himself as sort of the opposite of that.

Anyway, absolutely none of that was the point of this post. I mean, I guess it's the point now, but I really did not sit down to write that stuff today. I sat down to write this because I wanted to say, I was picking out a few little episodes of Andy Zaltzman's summer of sport to listen to, and I was drawn to the Russell Howard one in spite of myself, because Russell Howard + Andy Zaltzman = Chocolate Milk Gang, and I was not disappointed on that front, as while they were discussing the diving event at the Rio Olympics, Russell Howard said something that is damn close to be exactly what I've written on my blog before:

I have described the Zaltzman/Oliver dynamic in those terms so many times, there's just no way to capture it without comparing it to a sport. Two people who were doing something so far outside the box that their stuff wouldn't fit with anyone except each other, and yet with each other, they're like teammates who are perfectly calibrated to know exactly where the other will go every time and therefore push each other to higher levels.

...That was the point of this post. I just wanted to share that audio clip and say "Look, some Chocolate Milk Gang discussion, and Russell Howard described Zaltzman/Oliver the same way I did." Not really sure what the point was of the several paragraphs ruminating on the nature/draw of Russell Howard up there. Just forget about those.

[witchblade]

everyone reacts to those old dvd/theater ads that are like You Wouldn't Download a Car like LOL this wouldn't work on anyone! but apparently it like did. An entire generation of weird Americans were like He's right I Would NEVER download a Car 😡