We all do it. Don’t try and pretend differently, you know that you do. That point where the skin is all solid and crusted over and you know you should leave it but you just can’t help yourself. And then you realise that you’ve gone too soon but now the scab's half off and you know that it’s going to hurt and probably bleed a bit but you’re committed now, you can't back out with this flap of crusty healing stuff hanging half off so you’ve got to go on…
All of which is to say that there are plenty of things that we know that we shouldn’t do but just can't seem to help ourselves. They’re not actually harmful per se but you still would be better off if you left well alone. Here’s a couple of mine.
Reading The Comments Under News Stories
It’s got to be one of the pointless activities out there. As the old saying goes, opinions are like arseholes; everyone’s got one (and most of them stink*). All you are ever going to do is nod smugly at the people who agree with you and get disproportionately angry with those who don’t… and let’s face it, it’s bound to be weighted more in favour of those who don’t the correlation between those with objectionable opinions and those with a burning desire to air that opinion via comments boxes is directly proportional.**
Of course, I’ve added an extra dimension to the pointlessness of my comments reading as the ones that I am predominantly drawn to are the comments on sci fi news sites. So not only are there people with a frankly ludicrous level of anger to be found, it’s rendered even more baffling by the fact that their opinions literally don’t matter. I say “their” but let’s face it, I’m lumping myself in there too. This whole blog is nothing but my opinions on pop culture in general but guess what? It doesn’t really matter. It’s not something that’s worth the level of anger on display in these comments that could be a contributing factor to brain embolism. Don’t like something? Stop watching, reading, listening, playing, whatever. I learned that lesson with The Walking Dead.
And yet, I cannot stop myself. And yet, I find myself getting annoyed at people whose opinions are “wrong”. Why don’t I just stop? Well, that was the point of the whole scab analogy thing right at the start there. I can't help myself even though I know it’s not gonna help anything. Speaking of which…
Picking Scabs
As if it wasn’t obvious from the rather detailed description at the beginning there. (“Given that the title of this post is “Like Picking A Scab”, can you really say that picking a scab is like picking a scab when it is in fact that very thing so not “like” it at all?” Oh shut up.)
I know you should just leave it alone. So why do I do it? It’s for that brief tiny moment of satisfaction when you pick off a scab to discover the brand new skin beneath, like I’ve beaten my body’s system somehow by getting rid of the scab early (and, of course, if you get it off in one unbroken piece, double the satisfaction).
Anyway, that’s a couple of examples to start you off there. How about you?
(Yeah, ran out of steam at the end there, didn't it? That happens around these parts sometimes, don’t worry about it…)
* OK, I may have extended it a bit at the end there.
** Says the man who is regularly venting his own ill-informed opinions on this here blog. Yes, I’m fully aware of the irony, I just choose to ignore it.
Alright, we’re coming out of it now. We’ll soon be back into the land of actual Disney films with one story and songs and all that. We’ve just got one more anthology style film to go, though, and mch lie Fun And Fancy Free, it’s two stories bolted together.
The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr Toad (1949)
Directors:- The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr Toad
Based Upon:- The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame and The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
The One Where
We take a trip to Toad Hall to deal with a motor car obsession and some repossessing weasels before visiting Sleepy Hollow for a tale of a headless horseman.
General Viewing Notes
- There’s some needless accent work going on in Wind In The Willows - Badger has been deliberately made Scottish for no readily apparent reason even though the accent is pretty atrocious. Also, Pat O’Malley’s cockney accent is pretty excruciating (even though he’s English).
- The character design in Willows is lovely and Mr Toad is the highlight - properly manic and all over the place. There’s also a selection of good gags - one involving newspaper headlines and a whole slapstick chase scene in Toad Hall.
- The character work in Sleepy Hollow is top notch too - Ichabod Crane is all knees, elbows and Adam’s apple. It’s also quite nice that his unusual appearance does stop him being a bit of a ladies man.
- Bing Crosby makes for a nicely soothing narrator for Sleepy Hollow.
Disney Tropes
- Terror Forest - an extended sequence this time during Sleepy Hollow; unsurprising really given that it’s the climax of the film.
Things You Notice As An Adult
- Sleepy Hollow’s ending feels odd from a Disney point of view - the bullying character scares off Ichabod and gets the girl so they add in an epilogue about him just settling down somewhere. It’s refreshing in that it doesn’t adhere to the trad Disney formula.
Classic Songs - Are They?
Bing singing is always a winner and “Ichabod Crane” is definitely a catchy number but I wouldn't say that we’re in the realm of the classics here.
Any Good Then?
It certainly has enough charm in each part to sustain and keeping each story short definitely works in its favour. We’re on an upswing now for sure…
Next One Of These
It’s an actual full-length single storyline based upon a classic fairy tale! We’ve done it, we’re through to the other side...
It’s at this point, ten films in and slogging my way through a patch that cannot be described as overly enjoyable, that I am beginning to question the wisdom of watching all of the Disney Classics in order. I am, however, nothing if not a stubborn and mildly obsessive man so let’s crack on. There's a light at the end of tunnel. We’re nearly through...
Melody Time (1948)
Directors:- Jack Kinney; Clyde Geronimi; Hamilton Luske; Wilfred Jackson
Based Upon:- All manner of stuff
The One Where
We’re in a deja vu situation as we’ve hit a similar format to Make Mine Music but with arguably a lower level of enjoyment. A selection of different pieces of animation of varying lengths with music as the theme (pretty broad, yeah, I know).
General Viewing Notes
- This one has not aged at all well and is very US-centric in its content. The two longest segments, Johnny Appleseed and Pecos Bill, feature characters and celebrities that mean very little to a non-US audience, especially one 70 years down the line. They’re also just not that interesting for the length of time that’s devoted to them.
- There’s more mixing of live action and animation in this one - for no readily apparent reason in Blame It On The Samba and presumably for contractual reasons in pecos Bill so that Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger can feature onscreen.
Disney Tropes
- Terror Forest - a brief bit of frightening foliage in Johnny Appleseed
- Fake Death - Little Toot pulls out the old “main character’s dead; ah, no, not really!” gag again
Things You Notice As An Adult
- Not necessarily as an adult, more 70- years down the line, but the mythologising of Johnny Appleseed with his mass ecological destruction by planting apple trees absolutely bloody everywhere does not really sit well as a positive message today, alongside the ludicrous images of the settlers and Native Americans laughing and joking around together.
Classic Songs - Are They?
Nope, nothing in this one - a lot of songs but not one classic in there.
Any Good Then?
Another 75 minutes that positively drags by. A few fun flashes here and there but it’s too little to sustain any sort of interest throughout. The good news? This is the last full-on anthology film. We’ve just got one two-hander (much like Fun And Fancy Free) to go
Next One Of These
The beginning of the upswing out of the doldrums of the package films
Well, having made a call to stick with it at the end of the last of these, I promptly didn't because I wasn’t looking forward to this run of post-ar money-saving exercises. I have, however, committed to watching them in order and I am nothing if not mildly obsessive so here we go with a run that I am affectionately thinking of as “a right old slog”.
Fun And Fancy Free (1947)
Directors:- Jack Kinney; Bill Roberts; Hamilton Luske; William Morgan
Based Upon:- Little Bear Bongo by Sinclair Lewis and Jack And The Beanstalk
The One Where
Still in the post-war doldrums, we get two slightly longer tales this time rather than a grab bag of different shorts - Bongo, the tale of a circus bear who escapes to the wild and Mickey And The Beanstalk, which does exactly what it says on the tin.
General Viewing Notes
- A rare reappearance for a previous film character as Jiminy Cricket poops up to introduce both tales (alongside what appears to be the fish from Pinocchio in the opening segment - why not reuse the character designs?)
- Bongo comes close to having some moments of lunacy that seem to get close to Warner Brothers style lunacy before being undercut by a standard level of Disney cuteness.
- Mickey And The Beanstalk is framed by a live-action piece with American ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (along with his puppets Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd). I say “ventriloquist” - Bergen started out in vaudeville and on the radio (yes, a radio ventriloquist - we had our own over here, Archie Andrews) where obviously no one could see your mouth. His ventriloquism is awful, truly dreadful. He may have got away with it in the ‘40s but it doesn’t hold up now.
- There's a unnecessarily long discussion during one of the live-action links about killing Mickey's cow. It feels weirdly gruesome for a Disney film.
Disney Tropes
- Terror Forest - this one seems to crop up in a few (and def should have been called out as a trope in Snow White and Bambi):- a trip through a forest is filled with looming terrors, usually at night.
It’s That Voice Again
Cliff Edwards, as mentioned, back as Jiminy Cricket.
Things You Notice As An Adult
- The bears courtship ritual of showing affection by slapping each other round the face is probably not something that Disney would be comfortable with nowadays; shades of trivialising domestic violence.
Classic Songs - Are They?
No, not really - they're thin on the ground in this one and those that are there are pretty instantly forgettable.
Any Good Then?
Not really sadly - there are some moments of enjoyment to be had in Bongo but Edgar Bergen’s tedious schtick in Mickey And The Beanstalk along with the overall blandess of the whole thing means that it’s a fight to get through to the end (and it’s only 73 minutes long).
Next One Of These
Oh, what’s that? Another anthology film, you say? Whoopee...
Of the shows that formed part of the NextUp Comedy Festival, the one that felt most ideally suited to the format was Stuart Goldsmith’s Infinite Sofa, a Zoom-based chat and stand-up show. The reason for this? It’s something that’s been running for several months throughout lockdown over on Twitch.
Twitch? Isn’t That The Gaming Place?
Probably up until lockdown began, predominantly yes, it was a site for people to live stream themselves while playing games (and largely still is), with the most high profile comedian on there being Limmy. However, with the usual avenues for comedians to interact and get their material out to the public drying up completely, there’s been an upswing of people using it for more than just gaming-based chat. Richard Herring has started doing his Leicester Square Theatre Podcast on there (as well as other interviews, playing himself at snooker and stone clearing - the latter two only probably making sense if you’re a fan of Richard Herring), Aussie comedian John Robertson has being doing his live action show based on 1980s text-based computer games The Dark Room and, to my (admittedly biased) mind the best of the bunch, Stuart Goldsmith has been running The Infinite Sofa, a chat and stand-up show which features a randomly selected Zoom-based audience randomly pulled from people who donate to the show during that week.
Not A Cult
So I started donating and have now been lucky enough to be randomly selected take part in the show several times. It’s a fun community to start to become part of - the show goes out on a Monday evening and, on a Monday morning, Stu hosts a “writer’s room” on Twitch in which you can help him draft the script for the show coming up that evening. As a massive comedy nerd type and (admittedly intermittent) listener to his podcast The Comedian’s Comedian in which he interviews comedians on their craft / process, this is to right up my street. (Especially as there’s the possibility that something you suggest might make the cut.) It makes the show feel properly collaborative especially when combined with the possibility of being in the show alongside the fact that comments in the live chat stream also end up being included / referenced.
Another bonus is the community themselves - if you’re lucky enough to get on the show, you’re part of a Zoom call that forms the show (yes, you can see me in some past episodes on both Twitch and YouTube) and that call is then opened up to the viewers at the end of the broadcast. At which point, you will find yourself inducted into the wonderful world of weird in-jokes and self-made merchandise that is the SoFam (Sofa Family - it took me a lot longer than it should have to work that out after the first NextUp show…). In the current times when going out and socialising is not really an option, it’s good to find a welcoming community of like-minded comedy nerds who are happy to sit around talking nonsense for many hours (way past my bedtime usually…). Plus I got to play No More Jockeys with Alex Horne when he was on the show. Which was nice.
Other Comedy Is Available
This isn’t the only online comedy, of course. Many others are taking to online channels to spread a bit of comedic fun and, if you have the capability to, I’d urge you to support some of these avenues. Who knows, you may get to personally interact with someone whose work you enjoy? (I’ll pop a few links at the end to some of the options.)
So online comedy. I don’t think it will replace “real life” comedy when things start to settle into something more stable but it’s proving to be another viable outlet in an increasingly online world.
Links
The Infinite Sofa & Chops - https://www.twitch.tv/stugoldsmith
Gigless - https://www.catherinebohart.com/gigless
Comedy At The Covid Arms - https://www.comedyatthecovid.co.uk/
NextUp Comedy - https://nextupcomedy.com/
The Alternative Comedy Memorial Society - https://noblefailure.org/
Shedinburgh Fringe Festival - http://shedinburgh.com/
No More Jockeys - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS8aP7SiA_eTfvT_Gruxzsw
The arts as a whole has, as we all know, been massively affected by the pandemic. Theatres, music venues and comedy clubs have all shut their doors and are yet to reopen in any meaningful way. While some venues are beginning to put on outdoor comedy clubs (and the utterly bizarre sounding drive-in comedy clubs in which laughter is replaced by people honking their horns), the main outlet for comedians has been to try and convert their shows into something that works online. It has led to some interesting stuff and I have found myself becoming more and more immersed in it…
Daniel Kitson - Live Show With Intro / Q&A
This has been the model for a number of comedians - using a live show with an audience as a streaming event wrapped around with an intro or Q&A from them. It works well as a model; I previously wrote about Daniel Kitson’s show here but he’s not the only one doing it. GoFasterStripe, who release live shows for largely up-and-coming or overlooked comedians, have been doing something similar and are worth checking out. They have a club / subscription model which, for £5 a month, gives you a downloadable copy of every show that they produce throughout the year, as well as tickets to their live events (online now rather than in-person).
NextUp Comedy Festival - Zoom-Based Comedy Shows
The next model that I’ve discovered is the "live comedy gig done over video chat" format - and, yes, it is done like a regular video call in that, should you so wish, the performer can see and hear you as well as you being able to see and hear them. NextUp is a comedy streaming channel which, in a similar way GoFasterStripe (and with some small overlap of shows), champions more of the comedians who don’t necessarily get as much mainstream publicity as others. Throughout the month of July, they ran a daily festival (so 31 shows in total) with a selection of different comedians - some well known, others relatively new.
I wasn’t sure if it would work at first and it was a little odd to begin with but the audience interaction can really work in these shows. I’m not normally a fan of a lot of audience work and certainly wouldn't have participated if I was at a “real life” live show but I have, over the course of the festival, found myself turning on my camera and allowing myself to be seen. It can get a little derailed sometimes if the performer allows themselves to go down a rabbit hole with a member of the public who seems to think that they're just having a personal private chat with them or, as can often happen in real life, seems to think of themselves as a comedian but most the pros were adept at handling this. If anything, it seemed to be a more pleasant experience for the comedians as they were getting people who are genuine comedy fans and not pissed up groups of stag and hen dos.
The selection of acts was pretty strong as well. Of the acts that I’ve seen before, the ones that stood out were Mark Watson, Josie Long and Tim Key with Key in particular leaning into the Zoom nature and producing something that would only work as an online gig. Overall, though, the highlight has been discovering some new acts that I hadn’t seen before - Jessica Fostekew, Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Anna Mann, Jordan Brookes (who also used the format to do something that would only work on Zoom) and Maisie Adams are all now firmly on the list of acts to follow.
One of the shows, however, has led me down a whole new avenue of internet comedy…
To Be Continued
We’re still slightly in a grace period where a number of programmes that started production before everything went, to use a technical term, tits up are still on the way. That period is rapidly coming to a close, however, so how are TV companies going to fill the gaps on the schedules that are barrelling towards us?
Name And Shame
Full screen pictures of people who’ve broken the latest guidelines while the presenters tut and shake their heads in the lower corner of the screen. Features a lengthy retractions section for all those who’ve no longer broken the rules now that the rules have changed yet again.*
Do You Remember…?
Talking heads show in which minor celebrities list the things they remember from the pre-pandemic world (going to the theatre, the Tube, not giving a shit about washing their hands, genuine human contact) while sighing wistfully.
Zoomers
Sci-fi series shot entirely on video chat and utilising only the inbuilt virtual background greenscreen for special effects. Surprising hit with those nostalgic for Blake’s 7.
Supermarket Queue
A reboot of Supermarket Sweep except that everyone has to calmly wait in line and maintain appropriate safe distance throughout. It’s sedate nature (and view of territory that once was theirs but is now a forbidden delight) makes it a surprise hit with the over-70s.
Next Doors
Soap opera shot entirely in gardens involving families shouting at each other over fences. Doesn’t run during the winter months when it’s too cold and rainy.
GoggleGogglebox
The family watch past episodes featuring themselves and comment on their own commentary. Television implodes.
I’m beginning to think that I could genuinely pitch some of these...
*Satire.
We’re drawing closer to the fabled Podcast Event Horizon where no one will have any time to listen to all the podcasts anymore as we’ll all be too busy either making or guesting on them. Here’s a brief glimpse at some of the podcasty gems likely to be heading your way soon.
Judge My Shelves
Each week, the hosts hold a Zoom call with an unwilling participant and then spend the remainder of the podcast bitching about the hideous decor that they could see in the background.
Verdict:- Shamefully satisfying.
What’s That Stench?
Each week, the hosts try to describe a selection of excruciating unpleasant smells that they are experiencing in the hope of provoking an actual sense reaction in the listener.
Verdict:- Less than useless.
Podcasts For Dummies
Show aimed at telling people who don’t know how to listen to podcasts how to listen to podcasts. Ended after one episode due to audience not knowing how to listen to podcasts.
Verdict:- Tragically pointless.
Mimecast
Following a spoken introduction, each week is a forty five minute demonstration of the art of mime, followed by a fifteen review (also in mime).
Verdict:- Curiously relaxing.
Podcast Commentary
Famous podcasters listen to podcasts by other famous podcasters and record a live running audio commentary over the top of that podcast.
Verdict:- Utterly unlistenable.
Just a few of the aural treats soon to be coming your way. (Unless they already depressingly have…)
Yeah, everyone loves the phrase “the new normal”, don’t they? Well, tough, I’m sticking with it for this short strand because it’s my blog and I make the rules (and then frequently break the rules when I forget what the rules were in the first place). In this ever changing world in which we live in*, there can be no doubt that, once they get back up and running again, the popular culture that we enjoy will undoubtedly be impacted. With that in mind, here are some of the films that I imagine we’ll start to see over the coming months and years.
Hidden Love
Two strangers - Jinty Plelm and Allevia Henchback - meet on a daily basis in the local supermarket. Faces hidden by masks, their love blossoms via the eye contact they share. Love turns to horror when, on their first real date, Jinty discovers that Allevia has, instead of a mouth, a portal that leads straight to Hell.
Genre:- Romantic horror.
You’re On Mute
A home worker, Corbin Forbin, finds himself unable to speak when he leaves the house until someone says the phrase, “You’re on mute.” He meets and falls in love with a woman who can only be seen when someone tells her to switch her video on.
Genre:- Horrific romance.
Zoom Room
Humptphrey Flenk finds himself trapped within the frame of the Zoom window he is in. escape is only possible when he generates a virtual background with a door in it.
Genre:- Charlie Kaufman-esque existential whimsy.
Dash
An action-packed real time thriller set on the last day before lockdown. Mefelda Clume must dash from shop to shop trying to find the last pack of loo rolls before she shits herself.
Genre:- Intestinal action.
So there you go, just a few of the possible options likely to be making their way to one of the 73 available streaming services currently clogging up your smart TV....
*That’s catchy, someone should use that in a song lyric; maybe as the theme tune for an instalment of a long running spy-based film series
