#my tag for favourite episodes of four panel shows

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Since the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, I have been doing basically nothing with my hours that are not occupied by work (thankfully a job I can do from home) besides watch British comedy. So far there are four panel shows of which I’ve watched every single episode since March 2020: Taskmaster, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Catsdown, and WILTY.

I have decided I want to do a post about my favourite episode of all four of those shows, now that I have seen all of them and can have an informed opinion. Here’s the second one.

Taskmaster

Season/episode number: s04e05

Date it originally aired: May 23, 2017

Lineup: Hugh Dennis, Joe Lycett, Lolly Adefope, Mel Giedroyc, and Noel Fielding; with Greg Davies and Alex Horne hosting

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljLBbpnkK2c&t=23m27s

Why it’s my favourite: When it comes to Taskmaster, I have binge watched every season in a couple of days or fewer, so I don’t really think of them in terms of episodes. Unlike other panel shows, the panelists don’t change until the end of the season. So in my mind, every episode blends together and each season feels like one long episode divided into tasks.

It’s very difficult for me to pick my favourite season of Taskmaster because they’re all really, really good. There are days when I could swear up and down that I don’t like anything in the world as much as I like Taskmaster. But if I’m forced to narrow it down to a favourite season, it has to come down to 4 or 7. It’s really hard to pick just one favourite between those two, because that’s comparing apples to oranges. They are so different from each other and I love them for such different reasons. Season 4 is this 6-hour beautiful dream that gives us a little flash of what the world would be like if it were populated by unspeakably lovely people who get along and are just perfect to each other. And season 7 is this 7.5-hour journey through increasingly frenzied chaos, in which five different people were having five different breakdowns that lasted throughout all ten episodes.

If you really made me narrow it down to one favourite, it would have to be season 4. And my favourite task of season 4 is an exception to the theme of this being a group of people who are perfect to each other all the time. In episode five, there was a team task in which one person had to fill a bathtub with things, one person had to cover it with Saran Wrap, and on the three-person team, one person had to fill it with water. I watched this season once myself and then re-watched it with my dad when I was staying with my parents for a while early in the pandemic (my dad raised me on old school British comedy when I was a kid/teenager, and in 2020, I’ve returned the favour by getting him into more recent panel shows). As this task started, I told him, “I don’t know if this is the funniest task of the whole season. But it’s definitely the one that made me laugh the hardest.” I watched it again just now and it still does the same thing to me. It makes me laugh so hard I tear up and can’t breathe. My throat is actually a bit sore right now from laughing.

First we see Mel and Hugh, and it’s perfect. Mel’s, “Oh, Hugh, no,” when she saw him putting things in the bath instead of covering it is maybe the most adorable thing to happen in a season that’s chock-full of adorable moments. The way they figured out they had to work together and Hugh started helping Mel with her task before the end. The way they were so pleased with their work when they were done. Hugh taking off Alex’s shoes and then Mel wrapping his feet in Saran Wrap.

And then Greg makes a big deal about how there’s no reason why the younger people (and Noel) can’t work together just as well, so you go into it knowing that we’re about to see them not do that. But nothing could prepare the viewers for the God damn calamity that is Joe, Lolly, and Noel completing this task. I will never, ever get tired of watching Lolly throw the table into the bathtub and Joe throw it out over and over. Just when you think it can’t get funnier, Lolly steals his Saran Wrap and runs off to throw it in a bush. Yet somehow, I think the funniest part of it all is Noel just standing there with a hose in the tub – in the words of Greg Davies, “While Rome burned.”

This task just perfectly encapsulates everything that’s great about Taskmaster. The lovely working together contrasted with the competitive chaos. The silliness of the task’s premise contrasted with the seriousness with which the contestants take it. The contestants sitting in the studio, looking at the video of their own performance, and not being able to explain what the fuck they were thinking.

Runner up: Not an easy choice, but I think I’d have to go with the task at the end of season 7, when Rhod Gilbert broke the task by tying up Alex in addition to tying up himself.

Honourable mentions: There have been so many tasks across the nine seasons and so many of them are great that I couldn’t come up with a decent, concise list of the best ones. So I’m just going to make a list of what I can think of off the top of my head that are really good tasks. It is a cop-out, but this is my blog and I’ll cop out of I want to.

- I know Alex Horne has said he doesn’t like the task in season 1 where they had to high five a fifty-five-year-old because it brings in strangers in a way they don’t like doing, but God I enjoyed watching that one.

-The time Rob Beckett lost his mind while trying to play charades with Sara Pascoe across a river and then Dave Gorman just got Ben Fogle to do it for him.

-The time Jon Richardson had to do four of his own tasks, including a makeup tutorial, and got so upset but then redeemed himself by getting four points.

-The time they all had to carry giant balls up the hill and everyone had a breakdown except Katherine Ryan who somehow turned it into a feminist statement and Richard Osman who brought the mat down the hill and then got vindicated by Susie Dent.

-The time Josh Widdicombe had to count beans by himself.

-The time David Baddiel and Jo Brand stopped for a sandwich and a cup of tea in the middle of the task and still almost won it because the other team was so bad.

-Every time they’ve brought in that poor Swede.

-Basically everything that happened in season 7, but I have to give special mention to the extension on the house team task and to Rhod fucking with Greg all season by using that picture of him and also his mom and also a video of him sleeping.

-Also that time when they had to compose songs in season 7 and James Acaster slipped in a season 1 reference by asking, “Or is it a big rock?”

-Noel Fielding looking like a hero, tearing through that task where they had to hop on one foot - doing it better than every other contestant even though he was doing it in heels.

-The obstacle course in season 4 where a blindfolded person had to put their teammate in a bin and Mel shouted at Hugh in German.

-Sally Phillips fucking a water cooler.

-That time they had to build stuff out of sand in season 5.

-Also season 5: that time Nish Kumar and Mark Watson had to make a song and I braced myself for it to be terrible and then it was really good.

-The nursery rhymes in season 2.

-Also season 2: impressing the mayor. Jon having to leave the room. Joe buying him ice cream and alcohol. Doc the rapper singing a show tune. Kathrine writing a rap that I assumed would be shit but then it was good, and Osman writing a poem that I assumed would be shit and then it was good, and also apparently he can juggle.

-Remember that time when Noel Fielding married a duck?

-Also season 4: dragging the camel through the gap.

-That task in season 8 where they had to move a ball only using water and most of the contestants did slightly different variations of using a hose but Joe Thomas lost his God damn mind.

-All those times that Russell Howard tried so hard to beat Liza Tarbuck and would think he’d finally done well enough and then she’d do something cooler. Special mention to the time that this happened when they had to lower the wooden spoon.

-The time the season 4 cast had to set music videos to ringtones.

-The time the season 3 cast had to make snowmen and Paul Chowdry created an absolute abomination.

-Also in season 3: propel the pea. Rob Beckett thinking he was so clever by putting it in a wheelbarrow but then Al Murray put it in a car. Dave Gorman really obviously cheating and pretending he didn’t. Sara Pascoe actually just doing good a job of throwing a pea. And Paul Chowdry fucking up as always.

-Draw the best picture of a horse while riding a horse.

-The time they had to build a bridge using on things that were on the table and it broke Jon Richardson’s mind when he realized the boat was a clue.

-"Fiddly. How?" "Bubbly fuck!"

-Basically all the “pick your ingredients and then cook a meal” tasks have been great.

-Another candidate for a task that can be described as “I don’t know if this was the funniest task of the season, but it’s the one that made me laugh the most”: the very first task of season 1, when they had to eat as much watermelon as possible in a minute.

-The last task of season 9, where Rose Matafeo sailed through the seven tasks because she got them in the right order but everyone after her did it wrong, leading to Ed Gamble taking forever and replying, “fuck you” when Alex tried to say goodbye to him. But then everyone but Ed ended up getting disqualified so he still won.

[darkestwolfx]

Brains VS. Brawns - Re-Review #52

Look at MAX with his weapon of choice!

Right, now I’ve got that desperate exclamation out of the way, let’s get to the proper part of the review.

This is the final episode of series 2. Goodness grief, I cannot believe we’ve made it this far already. But we have, and so once again, I will give out one of my massive thank you’s to you all for supporting the Re-Review Series (even though the author has been massively busy in lockdown [ironic, right?] and so has given you some rather poor ones some days).

But, let’s begin with this shot of the desert, which somehow reminds me of TOS ‘The Uninvited’. What was it Scott said in that episode about unfriendly places?

Yeah, Thunderbird One got shot down in that episode... and in this episode, someone is also shooting at it, but with a giant, very dangerous - if you remember Brains trying to tell us all the possibilities back in ‘Power Play’ (or Battle of the Bad Guys Volume 1, as I like to remember it) - very powerful laser!

Yes, the desert is a very unfriendly spot.

So yes, this episode if where we get to see Project sentinel, a weapon that was beyond The Hood’s realm of conscience. Personally, I think The Hood would have definitely used that laser.

I thought this shot from ‘The Uninvited’ was relevant to show what I meant about the desert. See, unfriendly place. And I officially respect Adam Wilkin of the interweb for making this! It fits perfectly with my current line of conversation and really looks like it could have been a TAG episode.

Anyhow, moving on from my line of thought from the title card, let’s get down to business. And by that I mean the rescue business! 

And let’s just casually take Thunderbird One out to the desert - even after everything we’ve just been discussing and looking at? Yeah, the desert and Thunderbird One aren’t friends, but folks, be reassured, we don’t get to see it shot down today! Live in reassurance that TB1 is fine. I couldn’t have a certain someone holding their breath all the way through the review to hear that nugget of knowledge.

“I’m tracking the source... oh no! We have a situation. A really, really big one. A massive laser satellite just showed up on scanners. Guys, I think The Mechanic’s Project Sentinel is online.”

Because these bad guys have really been quiet since ‘Home on the Range’ so what else could we expect for the series final? And if there was ever a time for the “we have a situation line” it was now.

“That laser blast revealed a hidden underground facility. my scans show one life sign trapped inside.”

Hmm... the cogs in my brain were already turning at this. An underground facility with no records available to John?

“John, where am I exactly?”

“I can’t find any record of it. Whoever built that place didn’t want anyone to find it.”

“Well, The Mechanic found it.”

Yeah, I was suspicious.

“Losing those power cells didn’t stop The Mechanic. He’s using the sun to power it now!”

Why would The Mechanic want to fire at the Sahara? Yeah, I was doubly suspicious.

Yep, and we’ve yet to find a way to stop solar power - especially if you’ve got your solar panels up in space right near the source. Let’s power the world environmentally and take a leaf out of The Mechanic’s books.

“Scott, the Sentinel is firing!”

Warnings are useful given in advance Brains!

I sort of felt that. It looked and sounded like it hurt... It’s always Scott isn’t it? I bet they’ll be more prompts going up after this reminder... I’m still working on the rockfall, they don’t give us (or Scott) much chance to recover here).

“That was way too close.”

Yeah, you’re telling me!

“It looks like the longer the Sentinel charges, the more powerful it’s laser.”

Basic solar energy principles, right there.

Throw back to Friday - you know, hypercars, Tycho, David Tennant - “he will knock four times”, remember that line (different fandom I know, but go with it).

* Knock knock *

And we only get two. Shame. See where my mind wanders?

“This is International Rescue. Open up. I’ve come to get you out of here.”

“Ah, Scott Tracy. It took you long enough.”

“The Hood!”

Bet no one saw that coming.

Oh, wait, me! I did!

Cue obligatory gasps.

*Gasp*

*Gasp*

“The Hood!”

“What are you up to Hood?”

Punch him, Scott, please punch someone for once.

(Reminder that this show is universally rated).

Or not.

Just let The Hood walk right past you.

Universal rating.

There’s a parallel world somewhere - I like to think - where Scott does punch that smug face.

“Isn’t it obvious? The Mechanic is trying to fry me with a space laser.”

I know he’s the bad guy, I know we’re not meant to like him, but that line was humour central, I laughed massively. I’d forgotten it completely!

“I’m waiting for you to rescue me.”

“Us rescue you?”

“You are International Rescue, are you not?”

Sorry, you must have dialed the wrong number, this is International Gardening, supported by the one and only Ned Tedford. The only thing we rescue is geranium’s, definitely not super villains. Just imagine that world for a second.

But uh, no, this is International Rescue, reporting for duty.

“And that makes you think we’ll rescue you?”

“I’m counting on it.”

Remember that quality of Scott’s we love? The calm thinking, forward pushing, forgiving;

“Who you are and what you’ve done doesn’t matter.”

Yeah, well here it wavers, because it matters. This is the one (possibly there’s more on Scott’s bad list, but I think The Hood is probably the one he really can’t see past - I mean, he forgives Fuse, but I’m saying no more because we’ll get there later) person that Scott cannot treat with the same attitude he faces the rest of life and their rescues with. Everyone has their limits and for Scott, I think forgiving and saving the person who killed their Dad is just a step too far. And I don’t blame his lapse, it’s completely understandable. Put in his position, I think I would have been the same.

“Scott he has a point. We have a duty to protect people from harm. We don’t get to choose who that is.”

“Grandma...”

“But- just because we have to save him, doesn’t mean he’ll like it.”

I like her thinking.

“International Rescue, my life is in your hands.”

“Just make sure you remember that.”

Yeah, and then take shots at them again in Series 3.

Right, so summarizing up until here;

Let’s save The Hood - because morals demand it, rightly so - but that doesn’t mean we can’t imprison him at the same time! See, Scott is kinda getting what he wants.

“To The Hood. You can hide no more. Give me what you want or be destroyed.”

The Hood is controlling The Mechanic! But he’s refusing! I love it when someone overcomes challenges. So the whole controlling thing, definitely changes the playing board.

“I don’t think International Rescue will let that happen.”

“He’s right, Mechanic. Stand down.”

“I’m not after you International Rescue. I only want The Hood. Step aside.”

“As much as I’d like to, I can’t do that.”

“Then go down with him.”

He’s not actually a bad guy deep down. I knew there was more to this guy than we ever saw in ‘Earthbreaker’. And now, for one of my favourite events - the TAG game of Catch The Hood.

“Thunderbird One is about to be toast.”

“Maybe Thunderbird Shadow could carry the weight for a while.”

“What are you doing?”

“This is where you get off.”

Ding. Going down.

“Where are you going?”

“To Thunderbird Three. I’m going to take out Sentinel and The Mechanic before he takes out a Tracy.”

Got to love this boys spirit. That, and he hates to be left out.

“Alan, that’s a terrible plan. Firstly, The Mechanic will be operating the Sentinel remotely, so we don’t know where he is. Secondly, it’s a giant laser. Thunderbird Three would be shot clean out of the sky.”

Brains’ practically really is a good at being crushing. But it is practical.

“Let Thunderbird Four take the package for a while. I hope you don’t get seasick Hood, because we’re going all the way down.”

“John, this isn’t working. We’re in hot water down here.”

“Don’t worry, Thunderbird Four help is on the way.”

“Our turn to play pass the parcel. Parker, active the magnetic bumpers.

“Yes, M’Lady.”

“Here that Hood. You’re going for a nice drive in the country. He’s all yours, Lady Penelope.”

“Parcel received.”

Honestly, there’s no better way to document this scene really, save the scene itself, so I’m trying my best here.

“The magnets locked hon but gaw hit’s ‘eavy. hI do ‘ope hit will ‘old.”

“Parker, that magnet could hold a tractor if it had to.”

“We know that M’Lady, but The ‘ood doesn’t.”

Loved that laugh, Parker!

Meanwhile, on the chase;

“Can’t we just ditch The ‘ood? Better him than hus.”

“That’s not very International Rescue now, is it Parker?”

“No, M’Lady.”

But I’m with him.

“Thunderbird Two couldn’t sit by and let you have all the fun.”

No, and Alan tagged along. Virgil probably - wisely - pulled him off the island before he exploded.

“Magnetic coupling detached.”

“Got it.”

“This is the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

I’m honestly not sure the being chased by a giant laser part is fun... playing catch with The Hood? Yes, that’s fun. Better with no fear of being blown up!

Sorry, the game of catch distracted me, let’s get to the Brains part of the episode. Little bit of jumping around to be had.

“I wonder what it is The Mechanic wants exactly...”

Well, why don’t you go and find out.

There’s was a full Brains and MAX gear up sequence. About time.

“No, MAX. This laser’s far too dangerous for anyone to be on board. Rockets disengaged. That should let us slip through undetected.”

And they’re nearly detected! Contradiction number 1.

“Quiet MAX. There’s no one here, but we don’t know what kind of alarms there are.”

You know, the amount of times Brains has very definitely said (I think we’re on three) that The Mechanic couldn’t possibly be here, is really making me think The Mechanic is actually going to be here. Any one else?

Remember what you were saying to Alan and MAX about remote operating? That looks like The Mechanic to me.

“What are you doing here?”

“Well?”

“I asked first?”

“It’s my satellite.”

“Yes. Good point.”

Adored MAX, head turning, not sure where to look. These two were meant to be besties. It’s the joint speaking that gives it away.

“What could The Hood possibly have that you want so badly?”

Yes, let’s get to the point.

“It’s not what he has. It’s what he does. What he makes me do.”

“His cybernetic eye! The Hood is controlling you!”

Well done! It’s only taken 26 episodes! I mean, I guessed by around 13, but okay...

“Not always. I’ve learnt to fight it. That’s much easier up here. But I can’t fight him forever.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this. International Rescue can help you. I can help you.”

“No one can help me.”

Why does no one ever take the help first off! Trust in Brains mate! Sorry, Mr Mechanic, Sir.

“Maximum power!”

Yeah, Brains, I’m with John.

“The Mechanic is powering up for a single shot that will take out everything in the vicinity of The Hood. Brains, it’s now or never.”

MAX being such a hero fighting the Meccas.

“There! I’ve shut down his controls.”

“You’ve ruined everything! now I’ll never be rid of him.”

“Mechanic, trust me, as Chief Engineer of International Rescue, we will find a way to make sure The Hood never has control over you again. You’re coming with me.”

“You want to arrest me that much.”

“I’m not arresting you. I’m saving you.”

This is the start to a beautiful friendship. Just wait another twenty-odd episodes for it. Sit back, kick your feet up,

“The Mechanic is not fully responsible for his actions. He must be protected from The Hood. International Rescue will be in touch, I promise. Engineer to engineer.”

All’s well that ends well.

Speaking of;

“Hood, you’re under arrest.”

“Yes, please! Just get me away from International Rescue!”

I know they’ve just thrown him here, there and everywhere, but somehow I don’t think The Hood would ever take to arrest that easy. Not without a plan... and let’s face it, he had one in ‘Legacy’, what’s the bet he pulls the same trick?

“It seems like we can’t say it enough. Thank you, International Rescue.”

Yes, because not seem rude, but you would probably have lost the world ten times over with what we’ve seen of the GDF’s ‘show of force’ so far. They didn’t even notice when Captain Foster wasn’t Captain Foster! Really, The Hood should have set his sights higher and tried to play Colonel Casey. International Rescue might have been the only ones to notice.

“With those two in custody, all of you might just get a break.”

“Well, to be honest, I’m looking forward to some good old fashioned rescues for a change.”

“Sea quakes.”

“Rock slides.”

“Runaway asteroids.”

“Petty thieves stealing classified technology.”

“Unruly Ambassadors.”

“Dog sitting.”

“And fused power relays.”

And there you have it. What International Rescue call a normal Tuesday.

And we’ve reached the end Series 2!

Oh, wait, it’s like a post credit scene (only before the credits) and look!

Handcuffs on the floor and tied up GDF officers? Well, here we go again.

I mean, is anyone surprised that he found a way out? I’m not. And look at these people in purple! We haven’t had much purple yet in this show - besides the fact Grandma Tracy wears it all the time, so I feel a little like they’re stealing her signature colour. Couldn’t they have gone for black like every other bad guy in TAG? Apparently not.

“Everything has gone according to plan. The Tracy’s have taken care of The Mechanic and now, nothing to stop us causing global chaos.”

Is that a hint dropped there, you know like an easter egg?

But that is the end of Series 2. New bad guys to be introduced properly in tomorrows re-review!

[meeedeee]

Vidding Linkspam May 28, 2019

I make monthly Vidding Linkspam posts on my Dreamwidth blog. Look under the “Linkspam” tag.

Announcements: Vid Recs: Submit Your Favorite Vids       http://VidRecs.com Now open. Got Recs?

Announcements: LilacEdits — If you are a video editor on YouTube you can join...  If you are a video editor on YouTube you can join my Multifemale collab I just started :)

Announcements: EoV | Elements of Vidding Contest | Round One: Why We Vid  Remember that contest I was tweeting about a few weeks ago? Well, it's finally happening! Join now! https://t.co/9i9jK2UBZJ

Announcements: Looking for Vidders : Calling UK/Italian Vidders Looking for Vidders I'm at the early stages of developing a documentary on Vidding. I am looking for UK or Italian based Vidders willing to appear in the documentary and talk about their passion for Vidding. As a former Vidder I want to highlight how it can be entertaining for the audience to see their favourite shows in a new way and also how it offers the artists a chance to be creative as well. Many thanks, Carlotta Montella.

Conventions: FanWorks 2019 Vidding Panels! Vidding Panels at the Fanworks Convention, Aug 2019

Conventions: Looking for vids to Vienna Teng songs! https://fairestcat.dreamwidth.org/660760.html                                                         I'm VJing a Vid Show of vids to Vienna Teng songs at FanworksCon in August. I pitched it as "Come Out and Level Up: Narratives of Resistance as sung by Vienna Teng" but I'm taking a very broad definition of "resistance."

Meta: The mentor ship of vidding communities https://twitter.com/redimine/status/1128666188454801408 The mentor ship of vidding communities, either directly or through observation, is one of those things I really like about fandom I just wanted to draw attention to today. Thanks for the help and inspiration throughout the years!

Meta; "Vidding doesn’t have the accessibility of fan art or the group mentality of fan fic https://twitter.com/redimine/status/1131206313390805000 Vidding doesn’t have the accessibility of fan art or the group mentality of fan fic. Vidding asks a lot from it’s participants and, honestly? Unless someone already gravitates towards fan vids it can be incredibly hard to draw other’s interest.

Meta: "Vidding history is fascinating https://twitter.com/redimine/status/1131216530501451776 Vidding history is fascinating; in the begging my foremothers ran collectives because you'd need up to four or more VCRs and who could afford that?! Best to drag your fellow club members into learning how to trick technology into doing what you want.

Meta: vidders who see & hear music as movement & color https://twitter.com/Bonibaru/status/1132780458494910464 Reading it made me think of @Lumi_nation and other fellow vidders who see & hear music as movement & color, hear color as music, and so on. There are many of us. We don’t often talk about it outside of con suites and panels, but we exist in our special little universes

Meta: my youtube is almost to 500 subscribers... https://legalizesupercorp.tumblr.com/post/184993271630/my-youtube-is-almost-to-500-subscri… my youtube is almost to 500 subscribers....I’ve been making videos for like 11-12 years even though I took a break for like 4 years, but I’ve been working really hard, and even though I know that’s not a lot compared to the thousands other people have, but I’m really proud of myself for getting close to the milestone.

Meta: what is the ettiquette...… for making fanvids with fanart? https://skulkingwriter.tumblr.com/post/184443576987/dnd-and-other-mostly-audio-fandoms-wha… what is the ettiquette...… for making fanvids with fanart? What do you do, do you seek out and ask permission from each the artist to use their art in the vid? Is that a thing we do? Or do we assume if it’s online it’s OK and credit at the end? Asking permission seems like the polite thing to do. It also seems… very labour intensive.

Meta: making money from fanvidding is unethical.   https://vimesbootstheory.tumblr.com/post/184950631342/hi-hello-making-money-from-fanviddin… #vidding #if I see another commissions post I swom to jon #it's not your goddamn footage

Meta: Vidder Feelings https://redscullyrevival.tumblr.com/post/185061507310/vidder-feelings I’ve got a lot of feelings about fan vids, as I am to have after finishing a project, and how it’s one of the

Meta: vid_bingo | Vidding Chatter                                                                     https://vid-bingo.dreamwidth.org/3441.html                                                             Recently a lot of my DW and twitter feed have been discussing the Plotters vs. Pantsers approach to writing and it made me think about how I approach vidding. Sometimes I plan things out and sometimes I fly by the seat of my pants.

Meta: fail_fandomanon | FFA DW Post 1084 - Explain a canon from a vid/AMV   https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/368136.html?thread=2150748168#cmt2150748168 I think we haven't played this game for a while.  1. Someone posts a vid or AMV whether it be accurate ore misleading regarding canon content  2. People who haven't seen the canon watch the video and try to explain what the canon is about

Meta: fail_fandomanon | FFA DW Post 1086 - Explain a canon from a vid/AMV   https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/368886.html?thread=2153807862#cmt2153807862 Explain a canon from a vid/AMV  Link a vid and others will explain the canon

Meta: Vidding Talk at Wiscon 2019 https://morgandawn.dreamwidth.org/1657257.html There’s nothing stopping fanvids, say, from being nominated for the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form at the Hugos.  — SamHainPress reporting from Wiscon 2019

Meta: The appeal of fanvids (post from 2007)                 https://emily-shore.livejournal.com/119154.html?format=light Working on my list of ten desert island vids got me thinking about what it is that I love about vids. For me, an important part of the appeal is the chance that they offer me to see through other people's eyes.

Meta: Humble Opinions on Good Vidding (post from 2007) https://vidding.livejournal.com/1032639.html?format=light In my opinion, to understand how you make a good video, you have to take a step back and not look so much at what people have done but why.

Meta:Understanding Both Halves of Your Audience (post from 2008) https://morgandawn.dreamwidth.org/792472.html   I have this idea for a panel...Vidders: Understanding Both Halves of Your Audience. And it would be a vastly over-simplified panel dividing the vidding audience into two "vastly oversimplified and somewhat random but let's just play along" groups: Kinetic Viewers and Narrative Viewers.

Meta: I’m frustrated with a vid project so I’m gonna https://redscullyrevival.tumblr.com/post/184509182140/im-frustrated-with-a-vid-project-so-… I’m frustrated with a vid project so I’m gonna blab to myself even though I’ve got my outline and concept written - maybe I’ll find some vein I’ve yet to tap this time around, I dunno. .....I’m making a ToS Star Trek vid with the concept being three layers of how the women of Star Trek are often times “bad”

Missing — I know this is a really long shot, but did you... https://mollyamory-again.tumblr.com/post/184790779123/i-know-this-is-a-really-long-shot-bu… did you ever happen to see a Pirates of the Caribbean fanvid set to "Walk the Walk" by Poe? I loved it

Technical: Best editing codec working in Lightworks & Windows? https://vidding.dreamwidth.org/390754.html For vidders who work in Windows and use Lightworks to edit, what codec works best for your editing? And what software do you use to convert your various kinds of source files into that desired codec?

Technical: Keeping Track Of Your Source                 https://teamhousestark.tumblr.com/post/185083799421/fanvideo-makers @ fanvideo makers Especially if your fandom has a shitton of source material (say, eight seasons, lol) how do you remember what episode different things happened in? Have you watched it a ton of times, do you keep a wiki open when making videos, or what?

Technical: The Ultimate Guide to Get Started As A Vidder (from 2016)   https://thedailyfandom.com/vidding-ultimate-guide/  We have done plenty of research and added our own experience as vidders to create this super guide to get you started in this wonderful fan activity. This tutorial will help both beginners with no notions of vidding and pro vidders who are looking for some complementary tips and resources.

[enbouton]

Better Call Saul Rewatch, Part 1/30: They Called Him Slippin’ Jimmy

Late last month, I decided to rewatch all of BCS and post about it, one episode at a time, every day during the 30 days leading up to the premiere. The elements of this plan that proved problematic were “post” and “one episode at a time”, but we’ve still got three weeks, so let’s do this. I’m not much of a critic; this is going to be mostly just a bundle of thoughts and observations. There will also be a key to references in the dialogue, notes on locations and the timeline, and probably a lot of gushing over beautiful frames, because there are many (see above! look at that! look at it!!!). The tag will be #bcs rewatch, for your following/blocking needs.

Uno (Season 1, Episode 1)

Written by Vince Gilligan & Peter Gould / Directed by Vince Gilligan

If the Cinnabon sequence constitutes fanservice, I don’t care, because it’s brilliant. 

BCS uses a lot of intense chiaroscuro, and it starts in the scene at Gene’s apartment. Details— the ice in the glass, the white label on the bottle of Scotch— are highlighted, the rest of the picture is subdued. There’s also a gorgeous softness to the black-and-white images. Overheard on the TV as Gene pours: a woman cheerily saying “Well, from time to time, people make mistakes, that’s okay!”

There’s a bit of Breaking Bad-style handheld camera here, which stands out because it’s mostly absent from the rest of the show. In Gene’s living room we have the first appearance of glass block windows, about which blogger Marc Valdez wrote an excellent piece (Streamline Moderne and Jimmy McGill).

“No charge is too big for me!” says Saul, on the tape that Gene is watching in hiding with his blinds closed. :(

(In this episode, Jimmy’s personae are introduced in reverse chronological order: first Gene, then Saul Goodman, then James M. McGill Esquire, then Slippin’ Jimmy.)

It’s May 13, 2002, and the courtroom scene— beautifully paced, by the way— is one of the most distinctly Vince Gilligan scenes that ever Vince Gilliganed. The stenographer loudly slurping on her Big Gulp, the attorney using her legal pad to draw a shirtless man on a unicorn, the prosecutor silently wheeling in the TV in response to Jimmy’s argument, and most of all, the horrifying punchline.

When we first encounter Jimmy— as opposed to Gene or Saul— he’s pacing in the men’s room, muttering about how people shouldn’t be punished for whatever stupid things they did when they were young. Hmm. The three defendants sit there, chastened and nervous in ill-fitting ties, as Jimmy does an excellent job of talking around what it is they actually did. No one got hurt! It wasn’t trespassing, the business was open day and night! “I don’t think they deserve to have their bright futures ruined by a momentary, minute, never-to-be-repeated lapse in judgment,” he tells the jury.

I’m jumping ahead here, but where do you think Jimmy would have ended up if the whole Chicago sunroof incident never happened? I mean, he wouldn’t have gone to Albuquerque, he wouldn’t have become a lawyer… do you think he was happy just running small-time cons and smoking weed at age c. 30?

Anyway, as soon as we see the boys in the mortuary, let alone hear the sawing, we know the case is unwinnable. Jimmy collects his meagre paycheck and stalks out to his car. The show teases us a bit by putting a white pearlescent Cadillac front and centre in the frame before panning across to a battered 1998 Suzuki Esteem (aside: that car is awfully beat up for being only four years old). I love the car, by the way. The colour and the mismatched door are perfect.

The Kettlemans, who could have stepped straight out of an episode of Fargo (as Julie Ann Emery in fact did!), introduce the theme of denial of reality. They’re the innocent victims of a misunderstanding, you see. Craig’s business practices are “beyond reproach”. The missing money is a “discrepancy”. While Craig is amenable to hiring Jimmy, Betsy won’t have it; needing a lawyer would imply guilt, after all. Bob Odenkirk plays Jimmy’s barely-hidden desperation very well. He looks literally and figuratively hungry as Craig prepares to sign.

I want to take a moment to comment on Dave Porter’s score, which helps set Better Call Saul apart from Breaking Bad. The two scores are similar enough to provide continuity, but where Breaking Bad’s music is full of mechanical sounds, drones, saws and reverberations, the music of Better Call Saul has a much warmer timbre, more traditional instrumentation and a more naturalistic sound. (The best side-by-side comparison I can think of is “Dead Freight” versus “Border Crossing”— similar themes, similar rhythm and tempo, completely different feels.) The use of flute and harp stands out in particular— you’d never hear those instruments used in the same way in an episode of Breaking Bad.

One of this episode’s most effective individual beats is Cal coming out of nowhere and hitting Jimmy’s windshield, which manages to be startling even when you know it’s coming. It’s the distraction factor: preoccupy the audience with new information (Jimmy’s card was declined) and then fling a skateboarder into the frame. Jimmy, his windshield broken (can we call that a Breaking Bad reference?), limps home.

The lighting in Jimmy’s office is just gorgeous. This show unreasonably romanticises broke lawyers living in salon backrooms. We learn that Jimmy has a host of “past due” bills— wireless, Visa, library, Diner’s Club, phone— and then get a brilliant hook in the form of a check for $26,000 (dated May 9, 2002, for those of us tracking this stuff) that he promptly rips up, scowling.

Everything about the offices of Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill is so composed, right down to the five-note elevator chime. Blue and wood panelling predominate. I’ll have more to say about colours later on.

The boardroom scene is a beautiful piece of exposition, establishing characters and relationships bit by bit without spelling anything out. Chuck is someone close to Jimmy, and Hamlin, a senior partner at HHM, is giving Chuck money. He’s paying it into Jimmy’s account because Chuck isn’t capable of going to the bank, for some reason. Chuck helped build the firm, but he doesn’t work there any more and Jimmy thinks he never will again. Hamlin, on the other hand, believes Chuck can overcome his situation, and Jimmy dodges the question when asked whether Chuck really wants to be cashed out. The words “brother” and “illness” aren’t even used.

“If Chuck can call this an extended sabbatical, so can we”, Hamlin says— it’s not just Betsy Kettleman who’s engaging in a degree of denial (though the whole situation with Hamlin and Chuck’s illness becomes much more shaded and more complicated later on).

Let’s take another look at this incredible frame:

Kim and Jimmy share a cigarette. Seven words are spoken. Thus, their relationship is sketched out. See above re: exposition. We also see Kim literally clearing up after Jimmy after he takes his frustration out on the trash can, illustrating how they respectively deal with unfairness; he lashes out, she sets things straight.

Again in darkness, Jimmy arrives at Chuck’s house, stashes his phone and keys in the mailbox, and grounds himself on a piece of metal. (The air in Albuquerque is so dry that it’s very easy to build up a static charge. I was constantly getting zapped by door handles.) Chuck, noticing Jimmy’s discontent, instinctively asks him if he’s “in trouble”, which must sting.

Good Lord the lighting is beautiful.

Chuck does have a point about what would happen if he were to cash out of HHM. Jimmy doesn’t seem to see past the initial payout. What they’re really arguing about, beyond money, is whether or not Chuck is ever going to recover from his unspecified illness. The way his voice breaks on “I’m going to get better!” is rough. 

“Your friend Kim— a promising career, over and done with.” Not to read too much into this phrasing, but it sounds almost like Chuck thinks that if Kim lost her job at HHM it would be the end of her entire career. As if the firm is only keeping her there out of charity.

“But Jimmy, wouldn’t you rather build your own identity?” Oh, Chuck, if you only knew.

The next scene plunges us into sunlight. Jimmy has tracked down the skateboarders and we get a foundational piece of his backstory: he used to make money running slip-and-fall scams on the icy sidewalks of his hometown, and now he wants the boys to take a hit from Betsy Kettleman so that he can parachute into her good graces. Jimmy, apparently, has been observing Betsy closely enough that he knows where her kids go to school, what time she leaves to pick them up, and what route she takes. I mean, okay.

The hit-and-run happens at 7th Street and Tijeras Avenue, very close to the school where Jimmy & crew film the flag in season 2, and a short distance west of the courthouse district and the Civic Plaza. This whole sequence is such a glorious comedy of errors, and it showcases perfectly Jimmy’s ability to think on his feet. I mean, it’s also true that if he’d aborted the plan when “Betsy Kettleman” had driven off, he never would have ended up hog-tied in the desert pleading for his life, but those are unknown unknowns, I suppose.

“You felonied my brother!" is possibly one of my favourite lines of the season.

Who among us saw Tuco coming? None. None of us. I gasped. It was very considerate of the show to release the next episode immediately.

Miscellaneous

While most of the addresses shown on screen in BCS are fictionalised, the address shown on Jimmy’s mail—160 Juan Tabo Boulevard NE— is the actual IRL location of the nail salon.

Items in Gene’s shoebox: the videotape, an old Band-Aid container, various photos including one of a man standing in front of a 1940s-style car, and a photo packet from a film lab in Portland, Maine

Broken windshields: 2

New Mexico Statutes violated: 3— § 30-28-2, conspiracy to commit felony fraud (Jimmy, Cal and Lars); § 66-7-202, failing to stop after an accident causing damage to a vehicle (Mrs. Salamanca); § 30-3-2, aggravated assault (Tuco)

Timeframe: May 13 to May 25, 2002 (see next post)

Music

“Address Unknown” by the Ink Spots (1939), during the Cinnabon sequence

“Milestones” by Shook (2014), as the twins attempt to scam Betsy

References

Network: a 1976 film about a news anchor who begins ranting about the state of the world during a broadcast. The character whom Jimmy quotes (”You have meddled with the primal forces of nature...!”) is a man who berates the protagonist for speaking out against his network’s corporate owners. Bryan Cranston starred in the 2017 stage adaptation.

Peter Minuit: a Dutch trader who purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape people for a sum equalling about $1,000 in today’s money

“Ergo, a falsis principiis proficisci”: “therefore, you proceed from false principles"

Trichinosis: a parasitic disease most often spread via undercooked pork

Starlight Express: an Andrew Lloyd Webber rock musical performed on rollerskates 

> NEXT EPISODE: MIJO

[tdrcycle10]

Calling all amateur drag queens!

If you are interested in competing for the title of Tumblr’s Next Drag Superstar, it's your time to audition for your lives! Tumblr’s Drag Race is an online drag competition consisting of between twelve and fifteen competitors. Each week, the queens will compete in a Mini Challenge and a Main Challenge in a format similar to RuPaul’s Drag Race. One by one, queens will be eliminated from the competition until the final three are standing and a winner is chosen. Our goal is to give amateur drag queens a platform to practice their art, get exposure, receive constructive criticism from a panel of judges, and most importantly, have fun! This competition requires contestants to get into full drag at least once per week, sometimes more! Rules and regulations regarding contestant’s commitments can be found on the “Rules and Regulations” post on this blog. Your commitment is important, because winning surely does have its benefits. If you think you’re ready to snatch the crown, show us what you’ve got!

Audition Guidelines and Requirements:

o   No professional drag queens (meaning consistently receiving regular, paid bookings for over a year)

o   You must be at least 13 years of age (in compliance with the rules of Tumblr)

o   This competition is open to all drag queens. Regardless of if you are an AFAB queen, camp queen, glamour queen, or an alien mannequin brought to life to destroy Christmas for everyone in the UK, all are welcome to show the judges what you’ve got!

In your audition, you will be required to:

1.     State both your regular name and your drag name

2.     State your current Tumblr URL

3.     State your current age

4.     Tell us where you live

5.     Describe your personality with three interesting facts about yourself

6.     Define your drag style in three words

7.     Tell us what you hope to gain from TDR

8.     Tell us why you should be chosen

9.     Tell us what it would mean for you to win Tumblr’s Drag Race

~ Audition Requirements 1 through 9 should be cumulatively no longer than FOUR minutes. ~

10. Include a full, single-shot lipsync performance to a song of your choice

11.  Include a 15 second runway walk

12.  Show off your acting ability in 4-5 lines or from your favorite short monologue (think “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” from “Designing Women”). Make it funny, serious, sad, whatever! Show us your acting chops!

13.  Submit a face photo and full head-to-toe body photo to the blog alongside your audition tape. These photos will be used for the banner and cast photos if you are chosen. Upload these photos to a private album on Imgur.

Once you have finished making your video, you need to upload your audition to your personal YouTube account. In the privacy settings on your video, please make sure that the video is marked Unlisted. This ensures that nobody can see your audition tape unless a link is provided to them. Submit your YouTube and Imgur links to the Cycle 10 blog.

13. IN A SEPARATE VIDEO, tape yourself walking into the TDR "Workroom" (á la RuPaul’s Drag Race Episode 1). Pose, say your tagline, scream, whatever! Just like the show, you can voice over your entrance saying who you are, where you’re from, what your aesthetic is, etc.

Example: *Jasmine Masters walks into work room* I’M HERE! WE MADE IT BITCHES! *voiceover* My name is Jasmine Masters and I am 37 years old. DING! Jasmine is *forty snaps* it!

PLEASE EMAIL YOUR TDR WORKROOM ENTRANCE TO tumblrsdragrace@gmail.com

14.  IN ANOTHER SEPARATE VIDEO, film yourself answering the following Meet The Queens questions:

How did you come up with your drag name?

What do you think is your very best feature or characteristic?

Who are your drag inspirations?

If you could identify with any one fashion collection from any designer and any year which one would it be?

If you could be any animal which one would you prefer to be and why?

Whats your favourite colour?

How long have you been doing drag?

Do you have any hidden talents?

What are your short term and long term goals in drag?

What was your favorite challenge from a past cycle of TDR?

What sort of challenges are you excited for? Which are you nervous for?

What do you have that the other girls won’t?

If you could combine three people together to make up your drag character, who would they be?

A catchy tag line.  

PLEASE EMAIL YOUR MEET THE QUEENS VIDEO TO tumblrsdragrace@gmail.com

Lastly, please do not upload your audition video to your own blog. We want it to be a surprise to the Tumblr’s Drag Race community and don’t want it to be leaked early. Don’t spill the tea early, hunty!

ALL AUDITION TAPES AND PICTURES ARE DUE TO THIS BLOG (AND YOUR WORKROOM ENTRANCE DUE TO tumblrsdragrace@gmail.com) BY SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14 at 9:00 pm EST.

Final Audition Checklist:

~ Audition video uploaded to your personal YouTube marked as UNLISTED account sending the link to tdrcycle10.tumblr.com

~ Your TDR Workroom Entrance EMAILED to tumblrsdragrace@gmail.com

~Your Meet The Queens video EMAILED to tumblrsdragrace@gmail.com

~ A photo of your face and a full head-to-toe body photo uploaded on PRIVATE to Imgur, submitted alongside your audition video link to tdrcycle10.tumblr.com

Good luck, potential Cycle 10 stars, and for the first (but certainly not the last) time, DON’T FUCK IT UP!

[yuu-nat]

Tagged by: @eijuhn​ Thanks Nez! <3

Nickname: Daya  Zodiac sign: Cancer Height: 165cm Gender: Female Time right now: 7:24pm Last thing i googled: Lyrics for a song Favourite music artists: Uh I don’t really have favorite ones Song stuck in my head: All the Love Live songs ahaha I play the game daily so it just can’t be helped tbh Last movie i watched: Kiki’s delivery service What are you wearing right now: Pajama pants, and a hoodie Last tv show you watched: Some crime investigation show What do you post: Anime, personal stuff Hogwarts house: - Pokemon team: - Why did you choose your url: It’s just the name of one of the first animes I watched and that stuck with me because I cried in almost every episode  When did you create this blog: 2016 Do you get asks regularly: Nope Do you have any other blogs: Yep, I have a snk sideblog and also the fydaiyanoaceblog where I am an admin at, as well as others with saved urls ahh Fanfic blog: I don’t have one, but I’m harucchis on ao3 Art blog: - Religious or spiritual: - Favourite colour: This always depends on my mood, but um I don’t really like bright colors Average hours of sleep: 5-6 hours I think Lucky number: I have no idea Favourite characters: Eijun and Haruichi (Daiya) / Annie and Eren (snk) / Chise (Ancient Magus bride) / Gintoki and Hijikata (Gintama) / Honoka (Love live!)... all the girls from Love Live actually ashdghas Following: 106 How many blankets do you sleep with: Four Dream job: Writer

The five questions tag

♡ Who are your top 3 faves?

Eijun, Haruichi and Annie 

♡ What’s your favorite dessert?

Anything involving ice cream, I think, but I’m okay w/ almost everything when it comes to food in general

♡ How do you spend your free time?

Writing or making edits on photoshop, also cuddling w/ my cats

♡ If you could have one ship become canon, which would you choose?

Oh my god, I would say harusawa although I have no idea what is considered becoming canon in the daiya universe? haha maybe them just being together all the way until they graduate? I just... really love their dynamic and I would love for their relationship to be more explored by Terajima, because it has been SO long since the last time they had a long, wholesome conversation beyond those small panels that are shown from time to time, but I know how Haruichi tends to be neglected all the time so I simply... don’t care anymore lmao

I barely ship anything else in my other fandoms, but in relife I really want Arata and Chizuru to end up together because damn they deserve it, and also because they love each other and I’m cry everytime it’s hinted that they could end up separated just no thank you satan

♡ Do you enjoy warmer weather or colder weather?

Definitely colder weather lately, I prefer it over being sweaty all day and feeling like I’m melting at every minute 

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Since the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, I have been doing basically nothing with my hours that are not occupied by work (thankfully a job I can do from home) besides watch British comedy. So far there are four panel shows of which I’ve watched every single episode since March 2020: Taskmaster, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Catsdown, and WILTY.

I have decided I want to do posts about my favourite episode of all four of those shows, now that I have seen all of them and can have an informed opinion. Here’s the first one.

8 Out of 10 Cats

Season/episode number: s13e09

Date it originally aired: June 22, 2012

Lineup: Sarah Millican and Georgie Thompson on Sean Lock’s team, Micky Flanagan and Louie Spence on Jon Richardson’s team, Jimmy Carr hosting

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzBOoZ2ccU&t=150s

Why it’s my favourite: Honestly, this is one of the most intense episodes of television I’ve ever seen. When it was over, I immediately put on an episode of Peep Show and felt a weight lift off my shoulders because it was so tense and awkward that watching Peep Show felt relaxing by comparison. It was painful to watch.

It’s the infamous tax episode, filmed just after Jimmy Carr was caught avoiding taxes. People have said it was brave and everything of Jimmy to host a show that day instead of copping out by having someone replace him, and those people have a point. But also, I don’t think he had much of a choice. I think he knew that going out there to do damage control was the only way he could keep his job.

The reason it’s so intense is that it was really happening. This is why some people like reality TV so much, I think. I’ve obviously watched plenty of movies and TV shows where something more dramatic happens than a person failing to pay their fair share of taxes. But normally, the person to whom it happens is a fictional character. Peep Show is painful to watch sometimes, but while I’m cringing in second-hand embarrassment at Mark Corrigan’s situation, I know that David Mitchell is fine (I mean, possibly not fine, but not getting bullied by twelve-year-olds).

In that episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats, it happened to real people. Jimmy Carr really did screw over low-income people who rely on tax dollars to access effective and efficient healthcare and education, and he did it so he could have more money while he lived in his mansion that he paid for with the career he made off making fun of the “elites” while pretending not to be one of them. With panel shows where people appear “as him/herself”, it can sometimes be interesting to try to work out how close someone’s public persona is to their real personality. Trying to guess at that is a particularly interesting game to play with Jimmy Carr, just because there are so many weird things about him (I could make a whole other very long post about my guesses as to what the fuck is going on with that laugh that may or may not be real). But really, the only thing we know for sure was done by “the real Jimmy Carr” as opposed to “the Jimmy Carr that he wants the public to see” is avoid paying taxes.

Jimmy did all the right things in that episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats. He apologized. He never once tried to defend himself. When other panelists tried to defend him, he told them he didn’t deserve that. When other panelists criticized him, he told them they were right. I do envy the naivety of people who think that means he’s a good person rather than meaning he had good PR advisors who told him that he only way to get through this with his job intact was to apologize completely and not try to defend it. But I certainly don’t think he was faking how upset he looked throughout that episode. I don’t think that was a “real Jimmy Carr” who felt fine and was pretending to look guilty for the cameras. I think that was a “real Jimmy Carr” who wanted to go home and cry because he was in big trouble, and managed to hold it together for the cameras. At first I wondered if they’d intentionally gone easier on his makeup to make him look more sympathetic, because his face looked far from its usual mannequin smooth. But it’s just as likely that they tried to get his usual look and couldn’t because he hadn’t slept in several days.

The best situation for Jimmy Carr was to do that episode and have people criticize him, but not too much. He needed people to tell him he’d done something wrong, so he could agree with them and look properly apologetic and sympathetic. But he needed them to do it in a joking around way, so the viewers would see it as an embarrassing scandal that would blow over, and not as something that actually fucked over a lot of marginalized people.

He needed people to criticize him just enough for the public to say, “He went out there and faced the consequences, good for him, now we can move on.” When in reality, I would argue that getting roasted on a panel show is what he gets paid to do as a job, and therefore should not count as an appropriate consequence for tax avoidance.

In a lot of ways, Jimmy got exactly what he needed from that episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats. Sean Lock looked like he was having the time of his life out there, finally having an episode where he could lay into Jimmy as much as he wanted and Jimmy wasn’t allowed to have a single comeback. Sean Lock had shown up for the roast of Jimmy Carr, and honestly, I don’t blame him. The roast of Jimmy Carr had funny jokes in it. The roast of Jimmy Carr made for good entertainment. Unfortunately, the roast of Jimmy Carr did gloss over the fact that this was not actually a victimless crime (I use the word “crime” figuratively – yes, everyone on YouTube, I know it was legal).

The rest of the panel also enjoyed roasting Jimmy, which was fine because what do you expect comedians to do when you give them a host who’s not allowed to fight back for an episode? Sarah Millican made a joke about him being sexy when he’s vulnerable, which was a bit messed up because playing up the vulnerable thing is exactly how a lot of powerful people get away with shitty things, but it was also a funny comment for her to make. Micky Flanagan made some good jokes and clearly did not actually give one fuck about what had happened, while Louie Spence obviously did not understand what had happened.

And then we have Jon Richardson, and this is why it was my favourite episode. I don’t expect comedians in this situation to take the high ground. I don’t hold it against the other panelists that they made jokes about the scandal instead of acknowledging that it’s genuinely hurt marginalized people; they get paid to make jokes and that’s what they did. They had a job to do, and they did it well that episode. That’s fine.

But Jon chose not to, and that brings me back to the game of trying to figure out what is done by “the real person” in an “as him/herself” appearance, and what is done by “the public persona”. If Jon had  been completely in character as his public persona, he should have been making jokes in that episode, because he’s a comedian and that’s his job. But he wasn’t, and I think that’s because “the real Jon Richardson” genuinely cared that Jimmy had fucked over marginalized people and he couldn’t bring himself to do something that would suggest the whole thing was just a funny mistake.

Jon wasn’t laughing that episode. He didn’t talk much. When he did make comments, it was to point out that this was actually something really bad. It was to chide other comedians for excusing it. He had the only quote of the night that actually acknowledged the effects of Jimmy’s actions: “David Cameron got involved because he is in charge of the economy, and he gets shit in the papers every day for having to fire nurses and doctors, and one of the reasons he has to do that is because there isn’t enough money in the pot. And one of the reasons there isn’t enough money in the pot is not everybody pays their tax.”

Part of why Jon got to me in that episode is that I have been there. In my real life, I am a woman who spends a lot of my time in a community that’s very male-dominated and very dominated by a lot of men who get away with a lot of bad stuff (sometimes the bad stuff is sexism and harassment and assault, and sometimes it’s financial corruption). I recently spent a rough year on the board for an organization that oversees that community, and I went to a lot of board meetings where I sat with people who had done shitty things and had to smile and nod and get along and pretend those things were not a big deal. In the end I resigned from the board in protest because I realized I wasn’t going to change anything.

When I watch Jon Richardson in that episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats, I feel his frustration in my bones. I feel what it’s like to sit in a room with someone who has done something I know is wrong, and have to just live with it, to have to pretend it’s kind of bad but not a big deal, have to be okay with it. When I watch him sit there seething and refusing to even pretend to laugh at other comedians’ roasts of Jimmy Carr, I’m pretty damn sure that’s “the real Jon Richardson” feeling that way.

I also know what it’s like to feel betrayed, to find out that someone who you’ve worked with has done something so fucked up. Jon had an outburst at one point that really got to me: “We were here a week ago, having a good old laugh, and now you’ve lost the moral high ground to News International and David Cameron … I don’t understand. Tell me it’s all a lie.” I have sat in board meetings wanting to shout that at men (and women, there are some corrupt women in my community too, but it’s mostly men) who I’ve known for years, who I’d once assumed had the same basic values that I do. It messes me up when I realize that having the same basic values as I do is not something I can safely assume about people I know.

…So I’m realizing that “favourite” may not be quite the right word to describe this episode. Most memorable, for sure. Episode that cemented Jon Richardson as one of my favourite famous people, at least until the day when it turns out he’s doing something just as bad and his indignation during that episode was all faked for the cameras (please, please, please, Jon, please be paying your fucking taxes, people don’t let me down on this). I supposed it is weird to say, “My favourite episode of this light entertainment show is one that almost made me cry. No, not tears of laughter. It’s just that the drama was so intense.” I mean, there were some good jokes in the episode too. The situation was ripe for comedy, if you can get past all the reasons why it’s fucked up.

Honestly this one’s just very personal for me. I’ve had a rough couple of years with trying to play the necessary politics to make a difference in the community where I spend almost all my time in real life (the one that got taken away from me by the pandemic so I decided to spend all my time watching British comedy instead), trying to do something about predatory behaviour and clean up financial corruption for the good of the people who are supposed to benefit from our community (which is mostly marginalized teenagers and kids), and having far more failures than successes. Something incredibly relatable hit me about watching Jon sit through that episode and bite his tongue the way I have done in board meetings. And something incredibly vicariously cathartic hit me every time Jon did lash out at Jimmy the way I want to do so often.

Okay. So. I am going to make other posts about my favourite episodes of other panel shows, and those will be much happier. My favourite episode of most comedy shows is not, in fact, the most painful and depressing episode they’ve ever done.

I’d thought I might do runners up and honorable mentions for these, but after writing all this I’m having trouble thinking of any options besides that one where Jimmy almost got eaten by a tiger. That one where they brought out all the animals really was a good episode though. Though any time I watch it I have to make sure to close my eyes at the right time to avoid seeing the snake and having nightmares about it for weeks.

I did learn from that episode that I share my fear of snakes with Sean Lock, which I enjoyed. I’m not sure if I’ve made it clear enough on this blog how much I love Sean Lock. I actually named my blog after one of his quotes from another really good episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats that could deserve an honourable mention - he talked about how when you go to the zoo you see the meerkats running around constantly for no reason, and, “Someone needs to tell the meerkats that everything’s fine.” That has become one of my favourite quotes, and “Tell the meerkats it’s fine” is now something I say to myself when my thoughts start chasing each other around my head like meerkats chase each other around a cage, in a way that often precipitates a panic attack. Good man, Sean Lock. I hope he’s paying his taxes too.

Okay, I’ve thought about it slightly more and I would also like to give honourable mentions to their Christmas specials, which tend to be quite good. Particularly the original carrot in a box (obviously), and the time Sean Lock got drunk and they took away his whiskey. 

Edit: I’m currently in the middle of watching all the episodes of Mock the Week and Big Fat Quizzes in chronological order, and the night after I originally wrote and posted this, I got to the 2011 Big Fat Quiz. In the 2010 one that I watched a few days ago, Richard Ayoade made a joke about tax dodging to Jimmy a year and a half before that scandal came out. Tonight, I have discovered that Eddie Izzard made a joke about tax dodging to Jimmy six months before that scandal came out. In both cases, they made their jokes when people were not already talking about taxes; they just found a fairly flimsy excuse to shoehorn in an irrelevant reference to tax dodging. In the 2011 video, Eddie Izzard was facing away from Jimmy and talking to David Walliams when he made his joke, and then made a point of turning to look at Jimmy after mentioning taxes. That is the behaviour of people who know their co-worker is dodging taxes but they can’t say it directly because it’s not public (and yes, I realize I’m naive if I assume that plenty of other co-workers of Ayoade and Izzard, and possibly Ayoade and Izzard themselves, weren’t doing similar things and those things just haven’t happened to become public knowledge).

Because I have been having trouble sleeping lately and my brain does a better job of shutting down if it actually does something with my thoughts, I took the time to download both videos and cut out those clips and put them together in a new video and here it is:

Basically, what I take from this is that it was silly for me to think most people who actually know Jimmy were surprised by this news. They all fucking knew. That’s how life works. Everyone in a community knows someone else in it is doing something messed up, and it’s kind of an open secret, and then one day it comes out and the people outside the community are shocked and the people inside the community just laugh and say, “Yeah we’ve been making jokes about that in private for years”. Yes, I am back to talking about my own experiences in my own fucked up community.

In my own experiences, though, there are sometimes cases where people in the community are genuinely ignorant. Most of the time when people in my community get outed for doing something messed up, I say, “Yeah, no shit, everyone’s known that for years.” But occasionally a case will slip through the cracks and become public knowledge before I hear about it in rumour form. In that case, all my friends are laughing and saying, “Oh look, that thing we’ve known forever is public now”, and I’m saying, “I didn’t know about that thing! I thought that person was cool!” And I’m feeling betrayed and upset while my friends are just laughing because they came to terms with it ages ago.

I like to imagine that’s what happened in that episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats. Jon Richardson’s whole thing, certainly in 2012, was that he was reclusive. He could easily have missed a rumour that other showbiz people knew. I hope he really did find out about Jimmy’s tax thing with the rest of the public, and I’m right to think the sense of surprise and betrayal he showed in that episode was genuine. But yeah, lots of people probably already knew. That’s how the world works.

Anyway, how did I get here on a post about my favourite episode of a comedy show? I need to get more sleep.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Since the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, I have been doing basically nothing with my hours that are not occupied by work (thankfully a job I can do from home) besides watch British comedy. So far there are four panel shows of which I’ve watched every single episode since March 2020: Taskmaster, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Catsdown, and WILTY.

I have decided I want to do a post about my favourite episode of all four of those shows, now that I have seen all of them and can have an informed opinion. Here’s the fourth one.

WILTY

Season/episode number: s07e04

Date it originally aired: May 24, 2013

Lineup: Mel Giedroyc and Dermot O'Leary on David Mitchell’s team, Matt Dawson and Josh Widdicombe on Lee Mack’s team, with Rob Brydon hosting

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4er8rBrelyw&t=751s

Why it’s my favourite: First of all, strong lineup. I confess that I didn’t know who two of the four guests were before this episode (and I still don’t really, although I’ve worked out that the guy who made out with Mel is involved in some way with one of the singing and/or dancing reality shows), but Mel and Josh are both so lovely that if you put them together on any show it’s going to be great. Taskmaster was the first panel show I watched back when I began all this in March, and WILTY was the next one. So at that point I hadn’t seen any of the other panel shows and didn’t recognize a lot of the guests who showed up on WILTY; seeing Josh and Mel, two of my favourite Taskmaster contestants, on the lineup made me excited for that episode. And that episode did not disappoint.

This episode was Josh’s first time on WILTY, and one of his first times on television. The Last Leg had just barely started at the time. He’d done a few Mock the Week episodes. I actually just checked his IMDB page to see how right I am to think he was quite new to television in May 2013 (the episode aired in May 2013 – it was presumably filmed a while before that), and he had done a bunch of one-off appearances on random other shows. But nothing recurring or establishing.

That’s relevant here because I thought that context made the episode more fun. For one thing, Josh was clearly having the absolute time of his life out there and it was just adorable to watch him be so excited to be there. But also, I think he’d been a non-television person recently enough so he was unusually relatable for an audience member who has not been on television. He seemed slightly star struck with everyone on the stage. Especially because being up there with Mel Giedroyc so clearly meant he was getting to work with his teenage crush. And, for some reason, give her his favourite underwear.

When they were trying to figure out who Mel made out with in the past, Josh immediately guessed David because he knew Mel and David were both Cambridge alumni. Then when Mel said it happened on a show where she worked in the ‘90s, Josh immediately knew she meant Late Lunch. Which is what I mean when I say it felt like watching an audience member who’d recently been promoted to panelist. The panelists don’t all know things like this about each other because no one memorizes their coworkers’ Wikipedia pages. That’s something you do if you’re a fan, especially if you grow up as a comedy fan who’s so into comedy that you want a career in it yourself so you learn all about your favourite comedians.

He also had one little comment that I loved in the “This is my” round. David claimed (falsely, of course) that the woman who went up there had once convinced him to let go when he was hanging from a diving board. The other panelists were giving arguments as to why they thought David would not have ended up in that situation. Josh was the one who said, “If David Mitchell had been hanging off a diving board, someone would have taken a photo and tweeted that.” That’s something I think all the time during people’s stories on WILTY! I often think someone should bring up the argument that, “Hang on, you’re a damn celebrity, you’re claiming that this weird thing happened to you in public, but your story involves people responding to you like normal and not like you’re a celebrity.”

Watching Josh do this show as stand-in for all the viewers who see those panelists as celebrities and not just as coworkers was a detail that made it delightful and memorable, and that made all the great jokes and great personalities on this episode even more fun to watch.

This episode had so many good elements. Mel. God, Mel just makes everything she does good. She’s so earnest and lovely and sweet. And effortlessly funny. I realize good comedy is less effortless than it looks (really, I guess any impressive talent is less effortless than it looks), so I guess I should say she’s apparently effortlessly funny. At one point a shot that showed us behind the desk revealed that she was barefoot, which is the only part of this episode that’s more adorable than Josh’s crush on her.

The three regulars (Lee/David/Rob), who are always great individually and great in their chemistry with each other, were at the top of their games that episode. Dermott, who I’m pretty sure is a reality TV person and not a comedian, fit in much better than a lot of non-comedians do on that show. He could banter with the best of them.

The stories were strong. Lee’s story about consoling the school snake was funny enough for me to enjoy it despite the fact that it gave me anxiety because I have such a bad phobia of snakes that I get freaked out just from hearing someone describe one. But he told that lie so well. David’s “This is my” story about the diving board had me lose my breath with laughter, as did Mel’s story about cutting her friend’s hair during a sleepover. Obviously, Josh’s underwear and Mel’s story of making out with someone in the ‘90s were fantastic.

Overall, in this episode, everyone seemed to be happy to be there and to be having a great time. I think the few weak episodes that happen in WILTY are ones where it feels like the people there (guests, captains, or host) are sort of going through the motions and their hearts aren’t completely in it. And it makes sense that some episodes will be like that; my heart sure as hell hasn’t been in every shift of work I’ve ever done. But this episode was the opposite of that.

I’ve mentioned before that that thing where Josh Widdicombe hears something funny and reacts to it by putting his hands together and having his eyes shine like an excited child - that is a nice thing. Such a nice thing. Anyway I just re-watched that episode and got as screenshot of that thing so I shall include it here.

Runner up: This is tough, but I think I’ll go with s05e02, because seeing Robert Webb on there with David was so much fun.

Honorable mentions: This is tough, but I am going to try to actually challenge myself slightly here and limit myself to three. S06e06 was a hell of an episode – Greg Davies, Richard Osman, and Bob Mortimer all together. All of Rhod Gilbert’s appearances on it have been absolute gold (Bob Mortimer and James Acaster rightly get talked about as WILTY guest royalty, but I think Rhod gets overlooked as someone with a life that’s clearly been tailor-made for that show), but s07e01 stands out as my favourite with him. Finally I think I have to go with s13e02, the one where Victoria Coren-Mitchell and David were on a team together. That’s leaving out a lot of good stuff, though. I at least feel the need to mention that Claudia Winkleman has also had fantastic stories as well as fantastic performances every time she’s been on. There are so many good episodes.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Since the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, I have been doing basically nothing with my hours that are not occupied for work (thankfully a job I can do from home) besides watch British comedy. So far there are four panels shows of which I’ve watched every single episode since March 2020: Taskmaster, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Catsdown, and WILTY.

I have decided I want to do a post about my favourite episode of all four of those shows, now that I have seen all of them and can have an informed opinion. Here’s the third one.

Catsdown

Season/episode number: s12e07

Date it originally aired: April 24, 2017

Lineup: James Acaster on Jon Richardson’s team, Lee Mack standing in for Sean Lock and Sarah Millican on his team, John Cooper Clarke with Susie Dent in Dictionary Corner, with Rachel Riley on numbers and Jimmy Carr hosting

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSK-2jUGLYg

Why it’s my favourite: I feel a bit bad calling an episode without Sean Lock my favourite episode of Catsdown, because Sean is such a big part of what makes that show great. And most of my favourite episodes do have Sean in them. But this particular episode just had such a perfect lineup, and all its people worked so well together, and I can’t think of a better episode.

Before I started this episode, I actually made a point of tempering my expectations. Lee Mack, Jon Richardson, Sarah Millican, and James Acaster are four of my very favourite comedians, so I was excited to get to this episode. I told myself not to expect it to be the best thing I’ve ever seen just because it had such a great lineup, because I didn’t want to be disappointed if it turned out to be just pretty good. Then it turned out to exceed my expectations by so much that by the time I finished it, I was a bit disappointed because I was pretty sure no other episode would be able to top that.

Part of it is that these are good individual comedians, but a lot of their interactions with each other are good enough to make them more than the sum of their parts. I love any episode of anything that puts Lee and Jon together (all the episodes of WILTY or Catsdown with the two of them are among my favourites, partly because I love them both individually but also because I love their interactions with each other). I think Sarah Millican and Jon Richardson play off each other really well. I thought Sarah Millican and Lee Mack worked really well together. I enjoy the way Lee banters with John Cooper Clarke. It’s just so many good combinations.

I actually named this blog after a line from quite early in the episode. Jon, Lee, and Sarah are talking about where they’re from (Lancaster, Southport, and South Shields, respectively), and the various names given to people from their towns (coming from Jimmy making a joke about Geordies, because Sarah Millican). After the three of them talk with each other for a bit, Lee says, “James, where are you from, and what do they call you lot?”

This was James Acaster’s first time on Catsdown; he’d been around the panel show circuit for a few years by then but wasn’t as established as any of the other comedians on the panel (especially given that Jon and Lee had both spent a bunch of years by then as regular captains on well-known panel shows). Most comedians, when it’s their first time on a well-known panel show, will be a little bit nervous and hesitant. But when Lee asked him that question, James replied, without missing a beat, “I’m from Kettering and they call us legends.” It was just so unexpected to see a panelist who was new to the show say something that was 1. quite attention grabbing (a joke that revolved around calling himself a legend), and 2. funnier than anything anyone else had said in that episode so far.

It set the tone for the whole rest of the show. All four panelists worked together brilliantly. Another reason I like seeing Lee on Catsdown is because of how brutally he’ll go after Jimmy, and because of the fact that when Lee is on the show and taking every opportunity to roast Jimmy, other panelists tend to follow his lead and do the same thing.

All the mascots were great; I have to make special mention of Jon’s smugness light and Sarah’s well-thought-out time off toolbelt. I loved watching Sarah describe a mascot that was both very funny and very in character for her comedy persona, and then somehow an explanation involving biscuits and a TV remote turned into jerking off jokes, which we just don’t see enough of from women.

This is the episode that contained the often-quoted James Acaster line about how he’s a pretty cool guy in his circles, though, “If I venture outside of those borders, opinions vary.” Jon renaming himself Rico to avoid confusion and then James doing the same to add more confusion. Jon describing “Turn it down”, which sounds like my favourite party game in the world. John Cooper Clarke’s poetry is always fantastic, and this episode was no exception. John Cooper Clarke being there means we also get to hear the panelists’ poetry, which is always awesome, and this episode was no exception.

Everyone’s fantastic reactions to the guy stripping during one of the intervals (especially Sarah Millican’s, because again, I am always in favour of more jokes by women that are, you know, sexually liberated). Lee breaking Jon’s light over it was 1. a very good joke, and 2. so very adorable when he realized he’d messed up Jon’s plans and mouthed an apology at him. It is a pity that we don’t get to find out what Jon was actually planning to do with that feature of the light. But the mistake Lee made with it ended up being one of my favourite parts of the episode.

I think that episode had everything that makes Catsdown a great show, which pretty much boils down to comedians who were great individually and even better because of their interactions with each other (I guess that’s pretty much what makes every good panel show a good panel show, but Catsdown does it really well). It makes me happy.

Runner up – This God damn masterpiece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_0WjIJn7cU&t=1110s. Anything with Sarah Pascoe in it is going to be good, and anything with Josh Widdicombe in it is also going to be good. Sean Lock had a few particularly good Sean Lock-isms, like the stuff about homeopathy. Josh bringing in Alex Brooker as his mascot. Alex Horne has killed it every time he’s done Dictionary Corner, but he outdid himself in that episode with the Zumba dance. The stuff about Jon and Josh auditioning for Lord of the Rings.

Honourable mentions – honestly, there have been way too many great episodes to narrow it down to a list that will be remotely comprehensive. Here are just a few of the best ones I can think of off the top of my head, but there are so many more great ones than these.

-The one where Claudia Winkleman stood in for Rachel Riley and stole the entire show.

-The one where Russell Howard showed up as Jon’s teammate and it was the cutest shit I’d ever seen.

-Basically all the poetry ones have been great, but special mentions go to Johnny Vegas’ poem about alcoholism and Joe Wilkinson’s poem about naming people’s penises at a train station.

-The one where Noel Fielding showed up, seemed to have not had the rules explained to him before he got there, and decided to ignore the game in favour of just charming everyone on the stage (and in the audience).

-Basically every episode with Lee was great (he’s great individually, and I also really like the way he interacts with Jon and the way he interacts with Sean, so I enjoyed that no matter which of them he replaced), but I have to make special mention of the two episodes for which he was on with Victoria Coren Mitchell. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned yet that I am still confused as why, when God created Victoria Coren Mitchell, he’d forgotten that his usual MO was to not make any people perfect.

-The Countdown Kid.

-The time Michelle Wolf showed up on a panel with Johnny Vegas, Jon Richardson, and Jonathan Ross; and asked if any British people have names besides John. She was great in all her appearances.

-Honestly, s01e01 was a hell of an episode. Fucking Steadings. I’ll never get over Steadings. That episode also had a great combination of panelists with Lee Mack, Rhod Gilbert, Jon Richardson, and Rob Beckett. Two cases of ADHD, one case of OCD, and whatever’s wrong with Rob Beckett (Cockney with an overbite?). It started the series off on a fantastic note. The second episode almost equaled it just because Jimmy Carr wrangling kittens might be the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.