Am I the only one who thinks Ricky G, has turned into a fat George Michael lookalike, since he has been in America.
Those teeth are ridiculously white. What a shame Ricky. I DID love you sooooooo.
An Idiot Abroad Page 2
There was always something that didn't sit well with me about the Gervais podcasts, it all seemed a bit too much like bullying/exploitation (if indeed Pilkington is for real and not a character).
However just watched the preview and this looks like the funniest UK shows for a long time, so I have put my concerns to one side (but will be outraged once the series is over of course).
Quote: Charley @ September 5 2010, 11:47 PM BSTAm I the only one who thinks Ricky G, has turned into a fat George Michael lookalike, since he has been in America.
Those teeth are ridiculously white. What a shame Ricky. I DID love you sooooooo.
George Micheal's fatter. Gervais has lost a ton of weight. Did you see him on Chatty Man? He looked great.
Yeah he's deffo had his teeth done but f**k it, so would I with his dough.
Quote: Lee Henman @ September 10 2010, 8:40 PM BSTGeorge Micheal's fatter. Gervais has lost a ton of weight. Did you see him on Chatty Man? He looked great.
Yeah he's deffo had his teeth done but f**k it, so would I with his dough.
I did not see him. So now he looks like any famous American man then.
Really enjoyed the XFM shows. Gervais best stuff by a long way.
Looking forward to this too, like seeing the head-like-a-fu*king-orange man getting wound up 
I caught a little bit of the preview show last night. I've got say, it looks great. The clip of Karl describing the Great Wall of China cracked me up. Very much looking forward to it now.
I will be watching this. Have been a fan of Karl since the old XFM shows. The XFM shows are so much better than what followed, although you cannot blame them for making a few quid out of it. The podcasts bought Karl two houses apparently.
An Idiot Abroad looks fantastic, Karl comes out with such drivel at times, but can also make perfect sense.
Quote: Charley @ September 5 2010, 11:47 PM BSTAm I the only one who thinks Ricky G, has turned into a fat George Michael lookalike, since he has been in America.
Those teeth are ridiculously white. What a shame Ricky. I DID love you sooooooo.
Didn't RG just lose like 2 stone or something?! I thought he'd been looking fairly good lately. His teeth do look whiter though.
I watched this last night, and I have to admit to not enjoying Karl's relationship with Ricky, it smacks of croney-ism and bullying. However I did actually enjoy this. Maybe it's because I've been to Beijing, and related to Karl's confusion, but there were bits of it that made me wince in a 'oooh that's a bit racist' way. I know it wasn't meant, but some of the comments were a bit narrow-minded.
Karl is a bit ignorant. But in an innocent way, so it's ok!
I really enjoyed it.
I thought it was great.
Especially in China when he said something like this is the loneliest he's ever felt, and that it was even worse than Wales.
One of the funniest things I've seen in a while.
Of course it's a set up, of course he knows exactly what he's doing - but it's still bloody funny.
Could do without the voicemail prescence of Gervais & Merchant, though.
It's almost as if they couldn't bear not being in it.
Good stuff. 
Damn, it's on Sky. No luck for us VPN'ers across the Atlantic I suppose.
Quote: Lazzard @ September 24 2010, 11:59 PM BSTOne of the funniest things I've seen in a while.
Of course it's a set up, of course he knows exactly what he's doing - but it's still bloody funny.
Could do without the voicemail prescence of Gervais & Merchant, though.
It's almost as if they couldn't bear not being in it.
Ha, they only last for 10 seconds! Surely you can put up with it.
Haven't watched this yet, but I grew tired of the whole Karl-the-manchild-idiot-savant schtick some time ago. It was a genuinely fresh and original conceit during the xfm shows, but it then became increasingly contrived and repetitive as the podcasts kept banging out the same ideas - indeed, often repeated the same material and presented it as original. Karl P was a gifted and relatively successful producer before Gervais got hold of him. Whilst not implying anything is scripted, Karl seems mightily aware of the role he's expected to play.
On a separate (if related) point, Ricky Gervais has become increasingly tiresome. The Office was true genius, but he has done nothing since to remotely approach those heights (I include Extras in this analysis). This would be completely understandable and hardly a hanging offence, of course, were it not for his continued pontification and general arrogance regarding his own abilities - his tendency to portray himself as an expert on what is funny and what isn't. His comments regarding others' achievements (or lack of them, in his view) are just wrong and a deeply unattractive trait.
The defence of "it's only an act", that he just pretends to be arrogant and obnoxious, has a fatal flaw - why would he behave this way - to actively nurture this image - if he really was this genial, modest and self-aware person? It's hard to fathom how the man who created David Brent is so blind to the ridiculous pomposity of his public persona - the only way to explain it, in my view, is that Brent was tapping into a far more significant part of his own character than previously thought.
David Brent showed how ridiculously deluded and egotistical he was when he used the line "There's a weight of intellect behind my comedy". It's fascinating to see how Ricky Gervais now promotes effectively the same opinion as regards his place in the comedy world, without any sense of irony.
Not that I always agree with AA Gill, but he made a very perceptive comment on Ricky's famously annoying laugh, namely that it a laugh which is all about Gervais - it's not a laugh which aims to make others feel appreciated, nor a laugh of shared bonhomie. Gervais' laugh is all about him - the fact he finds something or someone is funny to him is the only thing that matters - it's a laugh which excludes others. Without getting too Freudian, it's the laugh of narcissism - neither noticing nor caring whether or not anyone else is joining in. (This laugh, in a sense, is directly responsibly for the The Invention Of Lying.) Ahem, anyway...
The thing is, like David Brent, I don't really think RG actually does have a genius-level sense of what is funny and what isn't - whereas Steve Merchant has a far greater intellect when it comes to comedy. The greatest comedians have a genuine sense of compassion lurking behind the cynicism and cruelty - I don't see that in Gervais, on or off-screen. He will continue to made TV shows and unsatisfying movies, he will continue to be lauded and well-paid, but I think that The Office is the only work of his which will last the test of time. No shame in that, of course, but I think Ricky should realise that his greatest triumph was, in part, due to his greatest failure - i.e. his blind spot for identifying one's own defects of character.
I look forward to a piece of comedy which is solely from the pen of Merchant. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long.