Lead Balloon - Series 4 Page 8

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ June 17 2011, 12:32 PM BST

I couldn't even manage to get through ten minutes of the last one. Someone has to tell Dee, that whatever he is, he is NOT a sitcom comedian or actor, he should stick to all his other stuff (there's a lot of it). He is sullying the sitcom genre with his dire attempts to be some sort of modern day Hancock. Hancock he is most definitely not! He just doesn't have the expressive range to be an interesting character and when he does try and animate himself he just looks like another blatant Ricky Gervais copy.

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It might be a bad idea, given his depressed state. It's finishing soon anyway.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ June 17 2011, 12:32 PM BST

How did this win an award? Anyone know? Not only is it so difficult to watch for its flatness but both the content and style are so blaringly unoriginal and derivative, it's embarrassing. snip...

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Are you only watching this so that you can come on here and bitch and moan about how bad it is? Based on your previous post, I'm bewildered why you even watched another minute of it.

Quote: Andicus @ June 17 2011, 4:36 PM BST

Are you only watching this so that you can come on here and bitch and moan about how bad it is? Based on your previous post, I'm bewildered why you even watched another minute of it.

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Yes, it's my hobby, to be brief. I like sitcoms to be funny. I like them to be genuine. I like them to at least try to be original. If the TV bods are going to give an established comedian from another comedy genre a good run on primetime TV in a specialised genre then he aught, in my book, to tick those boxes. I cannot see that Dee is even trying to, here! How much more of a beano does he want?! And he's got an award for it - I just don't see how he or it merited one. Tune in next week for my next bitch, do.

Quote: Andicus @ June 17 2011, 4:36 PM BST

Are you only watching this so that you can come on here and bitch and moan about how bad it is?

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You say that as if you think it's somehow wrong!

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ June 17 2011, 4:49 PM BST

Yes, it's my hobby, to be brief. I like sitcoms to be funny. I like them to be genuine. I like them to at least try to be original. If the TV bods are going to give an established comedian from another comedy genre a good run on primetime TV in a specialised genre then he ought, in my book, to tick those boxes. I cannot see that Dee is even trying to, here! How much more of a Beano does he want?! And he's got an award for it - I just don't see how he or it merited one. Tune in next week for my next bitch, do.

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I suspect the award you're hammering on about was for a previous series, which were mostly pretty good. And Dee is a limited performer, yes, hence writing and starring in a sitcom about a comedian. It's called playing to your strengths.

I'd call it playing an old tune on a good fiddle, personally. If he's limited right down to that single role, then why flipping bother? is my main grumble. I mean, it's not as though we don't have extremely similar shows to choose from for our viewing. It's jobs for the boys again, simply that.

Quote: chipolata @ June 17 2011, 4:58 PM BST

Dee is a limited performer, yes, hence writing and starring in a sitcom about a comedian. It's called playing to your strengths.

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Think you'll find it's called Lead Balloon.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ June 17 2011, 5:06 PM BST

I'd call it playing an old tune on a good fiddle, personally. If he's limited right down to that single role, then why flipping bother? is my main grumble. I mean, it's not as though we don't have extremely similar shows to choose from for our viewing. It's jobs for the boys again, simply that.

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You really seem stupified by this idea that people who have proved themselves get given further opportunities, above those who have not.

Yes I am, because it's based on a sound theory, Matthew. If you stick too rigidly to the tried and tested then you'll never find your Churchills and Nelsons when the hour calls for them. You have to give some unknowns, or talented outsiders a go, at some point. Or risk going stale!

And Dee and the others I've criticised in this way, ie. Amstell, Mack etc are proven in a very different specialism or genre. Proof of being good at stand-up and panel shows is not proof of being good at sitcom! The proof is in the pud and I don't like these new puds, on the whole. They are half baked to say the least.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ June 17 2011, 7:38 PM BST

Yes I am, because it's based on a sound theory, Matthew. If you stick too rigidly to the tried and tested then you'll never find your Churchills and Nelsons when the hour calls for them. You have to give some unknowns, or talented outsiders a go, at some point. Or risk going stale!

And Dee and the others I've criticised in this way, ie. Amstell, Mack etc are proven in a very different specialism or genre. Proof of being good at stand-up and panel shows is not proof of being good at sitcom! The proof is in the pud and I don't like these new puds, on the whole. They are half baked to say the least.

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I agree with you about Simon Amstell, basically a presenter becoming an actor, but Jack is a writer comedian. It may be difficult getting an unknown to headline such a show, getting the interest and it wouldn't necessarily be any good. The public don't necessarily see a show as a vehicle for a particular performer - who remembers nowadays that The Good Life was a vehicle for Richard Briers? Perhaps sometimes writers see too much...

Quote: Tim Azure @ June 17 2011, 10:22 PM BST

I agree with you about Simon Amstell, basically a presenter becoming an actor,

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Amstell wasn't just a TV presenter, he's a stand up.

And a TV writer.

Jack Dee is an actor, and this is a perfectly good sitcom imo.

"Only the truth is funny", someone said, and I think that's spot on -- which is why I can watch this over and above quite a few other, inexpicably to me, currently popular Britcoms.

The potshots at shopping channels over the last couple of weeks have been excellent, right on the money.

Dee and Pete Sinclair evidently, so far as I can see, spend a good deal of time writing Lead Balloon - like Cleese and Booth, and David Renwick before them, and it shows.

Probably this is the last series, because for one thing it never does seem to have caught on in a big way, and maybe that's for the best if it hasn't moved on - but I'll treasure what we've got.

Quote: Dene Kernohan @ June 18 2011, 12:07 PM BST

"Only the truth is funny", someone said, and I think that's spot on

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Yet logically, if that is true, it should itself, by definition, be funny; but it isn't funny, hence the statement is false.

Quote: Nogget @ June 18 2011, 4:08 PM BST

Yet logically, if that is true, it should itself, by definition, be funny; but it isn't funny, hence the statement is false.

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You've got your logic backwards... "Only the truth is funny" would imply that if something is funny, it must be the truth. It doesn't imply that if something is true, it must be funny.