The Young Ones was an awesome, and really absurd, British comedy, based around 4 guys living in the same house while in college.  Each represents a different subset of early 1980’s pop culture – there’s a hippe, a punk, a new wave guy, and a preppy guy.   Good times.

Back in the late 1990s and very early 2000s there was a cable network called Trio.  Granted, trio was mainly infomercials.  But they did this awesome series every year based on great, but cancelled, tv shows from the 1950s on.  My favorite of that series was Action, a comedy that originally aired on FOX and which lasted just 8 episodes back in 1999.  It starred Jay Mohr, Illeana Douglas, Buddy Hackett, Jarrad Paul,  and Jack Plotnick (and there must be mention of Fab Filippo, who portrayed an amazing “It Boy” actor named Holden Van Dorn).  The show was about a producer named Peter Dragon who had a movie flop in the first episodes, and spent subsequent episodes trying to get the studio to let him make a new movie called Beverly Hills Gun Club.  He has to find a lead actor and drag him out of rehab.  The actor then steals morphine from the head writer’s dying grandfather.  Illeana Douglas’s character, Wendy, started the show as a high-price prostitute and by the end of the first episode was the head development (I think) at Peter’s production company.  So maybe I’m not doing a great job of describing it, but I haven’t watched it in a while.  Good news is, it’s out on dvd in its entirety.  And it features some pretty fun cameos from Keanu Reeves, Salma Hayek, Sandra Bullock, and Scott Wolf (because he was still popular then).

The other great thing about Trio was that it brought to American tv some really cool Australian shows, such as Kath & Kim. Yes, that one that’s currently being remade by NBC starring Molly Shannon and Selma Blair.  I was fairly young when I saw the original version, and didn’t totally get it, but it was really funny.  And I seem to recall that one of the women had this short, frumpy, somewhat masculine female friend who was always hanging around and making really odd observations and stuff.  Then there was the Kath & Kim catchphrase, which went something like, “Look at moy, look at moy” and was used whenever Kath was trying to get Kim’s attention.

And then there was The Secret Life of Us.  I won’t pretend to know exactly what it’s about.  I think it’s about some 20-somethings living in the same apartment building or something.  But the style it was shot in was, I thought, fantastic.  I only managed to catch an episode or two back when I was in college.  I’d even forgotten the name, though I knew it ended with “Us.”  But, ah, Goole, my old friend, you helped me solve the mystery.  And youtube will allow me to indulge it.

So people have been buzzing about this all week.  I finally had a chance to check it out and it’s hysterical.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

I love celebrity gossip, though I will admit that the recent run of Britney/Nicole/Paris/Lindsay/OMG-Heidi-and-Spencer (I honestly have no idea who they are or why they’re famous, and I don’t care enough to Google them) has worn a little thin. I don’t care about TMZ’s recent scoop on Britney’s acne. Or about Hulk Hogan’s daughter’s manager not paying his child support. Or Hayley Duff’s boyfriend moving into her house. Should I care? No. Why does anyone else? I don’t know. It’s always the same gossip from the same sources over and over and over again. And it’s always the same people.

Now, on a side note that will eventually circle back around . . . when I was in high school (around 1997, when my school district first got the internet) I spent a few months obsessed with NME’s website. And then I stopped, with the exception of the odd look every year or so. But I decided, in a moment of absolute boredom last week, to check the site again. And I fell in love with their Daily Gossip section (see, it all circled back). It’s full of bits pulled from various sources, but the utter mundaneness of the oh-so-important celebrity gossip sucked me in. My favorite from today’s Daily Gossip is:

Kanye West enjoyed a portion of large fries at McDonald’s in New Jersey (Daily Mirror).

Today’s Daily Gossip:

http://www.nme.com/news/daily-gossip/37246

Now, wasn’t that fascinating? No need to go on and on about so-and-so’s drinking problem or so-and-so flashing her vagina while getting out of a car or so-and-so’s tabloid-dubbed “Scientolotot.” It’s all about Kanye eating fries at a McDonald’s in New Jersey.

Maybe tomorrow Justin Timberlake will buy a roll of Scotch tape. Woo hoo!

It’s been a little while since my last post, so I come with some Bill Bailey goodness. I first became aware of Bill Bailey when I was in college and stumbled across the first episode of Black Books on Comedy Central. This episode is genius, as his character, Manny, swallows The Little Book of Calm and then proceeds to walk around, Jesus-like, and offer calming advice to any person, or car alarm, in need of calming down. The series is out on dvd – and in Region 1 format – and is worth checking out.

It should also be noted that Bill Bailey is one of the team captains on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and is absolutely hysterical. I recommend checking out the one with Noel Fielding and Donny Tourette. It’s genius.

First up, a pub joke in the style of Geoffrey Chaucer:

And then a lovely little Kraftwerk spoof:

Here’s a little gem I stumbled across a few minutes ago – and it fits in with my ongoing Mighty Boosh obsession, as it stars both Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt. It’s called Sweet. Enjoy . . . especially the dance.

I finally get it, and am now totally obsessed.

So, for those who haven’t seen The Mighty Boosh, I really can’t describe it.  Seriously.  It’s impossible.  It’s far too bizarre to describe and, honestly, it’s not for everyone.  I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, even after having watched the entire first season.  But then I spent a bored Sunday sifting through youtube and stumbled across a documentary about how they met and started performing together, and it kind of all started to make sense.  Now I’m totally in love with all things Boosh . . . even Bollo (who’s a gorilla) who I wasn’t too sure of in the beginning.

As bizarre and colorful and fantastical as The Mighty Boosh is, it’s the back-and-forth between Howard Moon and Vince Noir (played by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding) that is, in my opinion, the best part of the show.  Well, that and Vince’s fashion sense – not all men can pull off a silver sequin jumpsuit with knee-high white boots.  Or a seaweed wig and pink tutu.

Here are some clips:

And from their television show:

I was thinking earlier today about my college literature courses and how astonishing it was that none of my British Lit courses included any authors of Indian or Pakistani descent.  Given that I graduated from college in 2003, it’s quite pathetic.  No Salman Rushdie or Hanif Kureishi, even though they were both included in our required anthologies.  It’s changing there now as the faculty becomes younger and more diverse in both backgrounds and interests, but it’s a shame that it’s taken so long to get to that point even a little bit.

Anyway, because I was thinking of this, I was reminded of The Buddha of Suburbia, which was a book I read in 1999 after seeing the mini-series on BBC America.  The mini-series came out in 1993 and starred Roshan Seth, Brenda Blethyn, Naveen Andrews (he was 24 at the time), and Steven Mackintosh.

Here’s a clip of Hanif Kureishi talking about his book, the movie, and how it all relates to the modern world.  There are also clips from the movie in there.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall was not my first exposure to the bizarre genius that is Russell Brand. I stumbled across him a few months ago via a brief obsession with Noel Fielding that resulted in much Youtube video viewing; and some of these videos featured Russell Brand. And, I’ll admit it, I was initially intrigued by the hair. Who does that to their hair? And what man would think to do it? The back-combing, the peacock-like display at the top of his head . . . but for all its strangeness, when combined with his skinny pants, half-open shirts, necklaces, bracelets, and eyeliner, the hair sort of fits right in.

But this got me to thinking about comedians who look and act like rock stars. In all honesty, I can’t think of a single American comedian who can even compare to the likes of Russell Brand, Noel Fielding, and Eddie Izzard. American comedians generally have no sense of glamour – we’re lucky to see an American comedian in a suit from time to time, rather than the usual flannel over a Hanes tee shirt, or non-descript band tee shirt.

Given that I know very little about Russell Brand, I’m looking forward to reading his autobiography, fantastically entitled My Booky Wook.

Here’s a clip of Russell talking about Woody Harrelson:

I’ve always been fascinated by ordinary people. I honestly don’t care if someone’s done anything “extraordinary” or whatever – I just want to know the ins and outs of the average person’s life because, if you really think about it, ordinary life is funny, sad, touching, disturbing, bizarre, and so on and so forth. Ordinary life is packed with fascinating stories, most of which are never told because people don’t want to tell them, don’t think to tell them, or because people don’t seem to want to hear them.

One such story is that of Sean Farrell, who first came to attention in the late 1960’s when, as a 4-year-old, he was the subject of a short documentary about his life in Haight-Ashbury. Following Sean picks up on his and his family’s lives 30 years later.