Quote: Baumski @ June 10 2008, 10:49 AM BSTit does rather beg the question as to whom the biggest showbiz personality you've ever urinated next to was.
Define "biggest" for these purposes.
How funny was The Comic Strip Presents? Page 3
Quote: Baumski @ June 10 2008, 10:49 AM BST. The second reason was having a slash beside Micky Dolenze from the Monkees. Ok, so the second reason ain’t so earth-shattering but it does rather beg the question as to whom the biggest showbiz personality you've ever urinated next to was.
The Vicar out of Emmerdale and Mark Bannerman. Neither of them was bigger than me.
Quote: Tim Walker @ May 18 2008, 10:16 AM BSTMr Jolly Lives Next Door was fantastic. Worth watching alone for the fact it's got Peter Cook in it, plus the Nicholas Parsons scenes. Plus it was directed by Stephen Frears of all people.
Totally agree - Mr Jolly is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The scene where Rik and Ade are discussing Nicholas Parsons is genius! 
Quote: Timbo @ May 27 2008, 3:47 PM BSTI cannot bring myself to watch "Les Dogs" just in case it is not the surreal masterpiece I remember.
I steeled myself to watch it, and it was as good as I remembered: stylish direction from Richardson, a fantastic score, some great performances, and Kate Bush looking absolutely stunning.
It was interesting that there were a number of apparent 'substitutions' in the cast: Alexei Sayle for Robbie Coltrane, Miranda Richardson for Jennifer Sunders, Tim McInerry for Nigel Planer, Julie T. Wallace for Dawn French, and I suspect Steve O'Donnell for Rik Mayall; much as in the Carry On films you would see Harry H. Corbett in a role intended for Sid James, or Lance Percival in a role intended for Charles Hawtry.
Which got me thinking, were the Comic Strip the Carry On team for the eighties?
If they were, then 80s culture was even worse than I had ever imagined.
Each was of its time. The Comic Strip is one of my fonder memories of the eighties.
Absoflippinlutely
Best episode, blah, blah, blah, 5 Go Mad, blah, blah, blah, best Comic Strip episode ever, blah, blah, blah.
Quote: Baumski @ June 10 2008, 10:49 AM BSTIt does rather beg the question as to whom the biggest showbiz personality you've ever urinated next to was.
Does urinating ON one count?
IMO Comic Strip - like the Young Ones - survives better in the memory than in the reliving through DVD. I watched them all in a fortnight and found 3 or 4 gems, the rest ranged from not bad to dreadful.
Mr Jolly is way above the pack, and clearly a forerunner to Bottom. Also 4 Men in a Car is superb. These were the only two that made me laugh out loud. When the stories avoided parody, they could be very good but the parodies often fell flat.
For example, Bad News was a repetition of the "Turn the camera off now" gag.
There were also so many inconsistencies that hindered the episodes rather than enhanced. In Fistfull of Traveller's Cheques, Richardson played a schizophrenic character. First he played an excellent giggling insane Lee Van Cleef sidekick and then he suddenly transformed into his buddy's dire antagonist for no apparent reason. Story threads seemed to die on their arse or vanish from the script. In Sunseekers there was a girl who's only role (it seems) was to end up being watched voyeuristically as she did turns with locals in a tent. Although Kathy Burke did play her part well in that 'un, that was where the story left them, in an emotional and narrative dead-end. This happened regularly in several episodes.
Another example is the Bronze Age experiment. In that episode, a woman finds her hubby dead and they all conspire to burn him late at night. As the flames lick around him he opens his eyes. In the morning his wife is then seen walking around calling his name despite the fact that she knew he was dead and had been burned. To me, that's an amateur failing.
But saying that, there were some excellent moments - not necessarily all comedic; for example, Les Dogs is a brilliant and clever piece of writing but it isn't particularly funny, it's more Tales of the Unexpected. Although the Comic Strip had some great attitudes and ideas towards making TV, I suspect the real genius and funny moments occurred off-camera during what was the formative years of many successful careers.
I jsut watched Mr Jolly, I was wrong, it's fab.
Funnily enough I remembered Mr Jolly as a real crap one, despite SlagB raving on about it. When I rewatched it, it was a pleasant surprise.
Totally hit and miss for me, got the boxest without ever seeing an episode of it. Some i love (the stupid Five Go Mad ones were great) and some i just found plainly awful.
Well I wasn't around to watch The Comic Strip Presents when it first came around, becuase I wasn't born or was either too young to watch it. But a few months back in History we were forced to watch 'The Crying Game' and to put it bluntly it was absolutely awful. Not funny in the slightest and an hour of my life I'll never get back. Maybe it just hasn't aged well I don't know but all I do know is that the episode I watched was dreadful. Saying that I would still give it another chance if that just happened to be a really crap episode.
I watched the Crying Game a few months ago and thought it was okay. Not one of the best, but okay.
Mind you I doubt anything that didn't contain knob gags would get many laughs if force fed to teenagers watching it with their mates...
And why was a spoof about football being shown in a History class?
It was on because we were studying the role the media have in society, especially people like Murdoch etc. And in that particular episode the footballer was made a star by the media but then very quickly brought back down to Earth again when they found out he was gay. Or that was supposed to be the reason, I just think the teacher was a fan of the show and faniced watching it.