Comedy double

Published on June 15, 2007

Sorry it’s a bit late today, I got engrossed in clips. I watch too many Youtube clips, and sometimes it’s hard to find a theme to hang them all on. This morning’s (or should I say afternoon’s, now) are about as niche as comedy gets. They’re either animations or puppets doing reworkings of old favourites.

To break us in gently, here’s a remix of one of Nick Parks’s Creature Comforts claymation shorts, with new, political, dialogue:

That fly works scarily well.

Spoofing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is something that’s been done numerous times, with and without puppets, but the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre’s is the best, bar none. It had me totally helpless with laughter; I suspect you’ll either love it to bits or go “WTF was that?”

See also their version of Reservoir Dogs, if you think you can stand it.

Any post about comedy and puppets wouldn’t be complete without a clip from Spitting Image, would it? Here’s Mrs T and the Don’t Care Bears:

Aah for the old days, when the bastards were still easily recognisable…

And one more from Spitting Image, this time for the cloggies amongst us – a Heineken ad in a puppet stylee:

There’s a surprisingly large number homemade animation on YouTube. Proof that the devil does indeed make work for idle hands, here’s I Love Lucy, done with stop-motion sex toys.

Do I really need to say that this is NSFW?

Now for the bonus clips: first an oasis of comparative calm and sensibleness but still funny, an animated consumer information film on how to get rid of pesky aliens:

The last clip of all isn’t a spoof of anything at all. I just like it because I like earworming people.It’s Joel Veitch and he’s looking for his leopard:

Lalalalalala, looking for my leopard… Seems cats like this clip too.

Comedy Double

Published on June 8, 2007

Oy, do we need some light relief today, what with the world turning to shit before our very eyes.

But is it?

It’s so easy to get swept up in the drama of world events and miss the good stuff that”s happening under your nose. For instance, I finally got a new cameraphone yesterday and now I can post silly pictures of cats and interesting bits of Amsterdam. My tomatoes are doing well. My health is not actively declining. The sun is shining. there’s food on the table. My kids are fine, and it’s Friday. Life’s not that bad at all , if you can ignore the news.

Let’s ignore the news some more. Let’s be footloose, fancy free and generally irresponsible.with no particular theme, just a mixed bag of clips I’ve come across and found funny. First, Australian comedian Adam Hills puts things straight about America and Irn-Bru:

‘Take Your Mother To Work Day’ goes a bit wonky:

Or maybe Mom would like a white wine …. Al Murray The Pub Landlord, on British thinking:

While we’e on the subject of national differences, here’s an oldie but goodie – Bill Bailey, on continental police sirens:

Looks like Bill may have some competition in the beardie-weirdie comedy muso department – this is up and coming Australian Tim Minchin on sex dolls and the environment:

While we’e on the subject of inflatable yous (see what I did there?) here’s “Are you worried by climate change? I’m Welsh, bring it on” comic Rhod Morgan, who I suspect we may see more of:

Here’s parts II and III

But I saved the best till last – here’s a clip from my favourite comedian in the whole world (at least for the moment), the indescribable Milton Jones.

Now that’s quality comedy. I feel better already.

Oooh, Matron: Comedy Double, Bumper Sex Ed Edition

Published on June 1, 2007

Today’s comedy double is all about sex education The first group is a collection of public service safe sex and condom ads from all over the world, and because they’re ads they’re pretty much worksafe, depending on how tightassed your boss is – or you are, if you’re working from home. But then if you’re such a tightass, what on earth are you doing here?

The bonus clips are longer and much more graphic, though equally funny. Probably not safe for any workplace though. The cats had to go and hide in the bathroom at one point, poor sensitive loves.

On with the motley then.

I love condom ads; unwritten boundaries of sexual taste and decency vary so widely from country to country, testing the transgressive creativity of ad-makers to the benefit of us viewers. So to soften you up for the condomfest to come here’s a sex-ed ad from Canada and oh god, we’ve all been at this school event or something very like it:

An ad like this next one, also from Canada, might prove more effective in its aim. Works for me.

First the stick, then the carrot, hur hur; from South Africa comes a condom ad that does it with subtlety, style, humour and ooh, eyecandy:

Then there’s the typically idiosyncratic Dutch approach. I’ve never seen them do this on KLM, though I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they did:
.

But some people really do need the message hammered home, if you see what I mean and I think you do.

If you’re male and at all sensitive about the family jewels, I’d suggest you don’t watch this next one, or maybe you could watch it from safely behind your chair. How not to test a condom:

Right, now that we’ve got our condoms and know how to use them, it might be wise to use them responsibly. This one’s from France on the side-effects of easily available contraception:

It’s funny, but I’m not sure exactly what they’re saying there – that contraception makes women bad mothers?

Now for the bonus clips: they’re quite long, so you might want to save them for your lunch break or at home. First, Family Guy on abstinence ed:

Abstinence, schmabstinence. You might as well ask a cat not to lick its itching nads as to ask a teenager to be sexually abstinent. But they tried, and still do: here’s a mashup of American ’50s sex-ed films:

I dunno though, sometimes understanding parents can be worse. Much worse….

That is one of the most cringe-worthy things I’ve seen in a very long time.

Far from hymning abstinence or trumpeting fake understanding, this next ad takes humourous acceptance of sexual diversity to whole new levels. I don’t think they’ll be seeing this one in Kansas, do you? What a great ad though:

The last bonus clip is an animated short which I think may be Czech: it’s pretty sexually graphic so definitely not safe for work, but what an excellent safe sex video, funny and touching with great animation.

Now my work here is done, mwahahaha. I’m off to sit in the garden in the sun for a while, at least until disturbed by local cat politics in action.

Comedy Double

Published on May 25, 20072 Comments

Today’s comedy double is all about Holland and the Dutch – it’s about time I did my tiny bit towards cross-cultural ~~understanding~~ ~~confusion~~ ~~ah fuck it~~ muddling along as usual, and as I’m often asked, “what’s life actually like in Holland?”, here it is – life in Holland, via the magic of comedy.

This clip from cable ‘yoof’ channel BNN shows the sorts of things we see in the streets every day:

If you watched that and you’re still going “wtf?”, here, from Amsterdam’s very own US expat comedy theatre Boom Chicago is a quick primer on the difference between European and American senses of humour:

Anyone whose ever been to NL will give a shudder at the mention of Dutch supermarkets. Let’s face it, they’re just weird. The Albert Hein chain of stores, for instance, combines all the glamour of Kwiksave with the aspirations to gentility of Waitrose, but with a complete and utter bonkersness that’s all its own. Recently all the Dutch AH customers went mad for the Wuppie, a little furry doodad given away free with groceries. The key word here is ‘free’ – the Dutch bow to no-one in their ability to grab anything free that’s going, no matter how useless or ugly it might be. “But it’s free! ”

This is how excited the Dutch can get over a cheap supermarket giveaway:

It’s not just me thinks Dutch supermarkets are weird – here’s a vintage clip (you can tell it’s vintage cause he mentions guilders) of British comic John Fearley attempting to explain Albert Hein, in English, to the Dutch:

You see what I have to put up with? As much as I loathe Tesco’s attempts at world domination, every day I cross my fingers and wish for a local, wuppie-free and most of all reliable Tesco. Or even a Somerfield. Whatever, just somewhere where the assistants don’t alternately scowl and snarl at you and the veg don’t rot the minute you get them home and there’s milk and bread after lunchtime… and they open after 6.

But leaving Dutch supermarkets aside, because it makes me depressed, no visit to NL or Amsterdam would be complete without the obligatory nod to history.

We’re surrounded by history and people gawping at history and this time of year it gets particularly difficult. If only we could make historical tourism more user friendly….

So it’s back to Boom Chicago (who have) for the first bonus clip and -Anne Frank is Lonely Girl 1944:

Ooh, that’s mean, and very, very Dutch. Boom Chicago may be expats, but like me they’re being assimilated despite themselves.

Comedy Double

Published on May 18, 2007

Although I can’t stand Gordon Brown I wish Tony ‘legacy’ Blair would either just sod off now or be arrested, preferably the latter.

This first clip, “Go Now!” from the much-loved and lamented Spitting Image, refers to a previous, equally-loathed (discuss) PM, Maggie Thatcher, but it serves equally well for Mr.Tony.

Sums up Blair’s whole premiership, really, doesn’t it?

This next is also from Spitting Image and isn’t political, though you could argue that it puts people off holidays abroad and helps fight climate change….

Naaah. That would be silly.

I included it mainly because I’m evil and I like earworming people. Yup, it’s The Chicken Song… “throw a chicken in the air, stick a deckchair up your nose…” See, you’re already singing it and if you’re not, you will.

Or maybe I’m wrong; maybe the force is strong in you. But I have a secet weapon mwahahahah. If the Chicken Song didn’t get you, this will. Here’s Mitch Benn‘s ode to IKEA, from The Now Show, set to an oddly appropriate video of World of Warcraft dwarves. IKEA!!!!

For the bonus clips I’m staying with the WoW theme: here’s a preview of Make Love Not Warcraft, South Park in a WoW stylee:

Parts two and three can be found in this general vicinity.

Once I started looking at WoW comedy videos, I quickly realised just how wide a vein of fanart I’d struck. Here’s Weird Al Yankovich‘s Amish Warcraft Paradise:

WoW people are seriouslly obsessed – that machinima animation must take hours to do. In between that, and playing the game, and talking about the game on IRC or IM or whatever, I don’t suppose there’s a lot of actual time left. Now we know where all those cheeto-eating chiickenhawks went.*

Speaking of chickenhawks – it’s back to Spitting Image again for the final clip. They had as little mercy for US politicians as they did for British: here’s the utterly addled Ronald Reagan’s morning routine. Hmm, an idiot Republican president. I’m sensing a pattern here.

[*Asscovering disclaimer: Yes I am aware of the geographic, political and ethnic diversity of Warcraft players. I also know there’re lots of players. A community that large can accommodate a lot of wingnuts. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing – I for one am thankful for it. Let them fight their wars virtually. It keeps the buggers out of RL politics.]