Anyone watching?
Bit of a different set up from the usual and the way they brought Micky and Mark on was a bit like an X Factor entrance.
The Mad Bad Ad Show
This is shit. Who the f**k decided to put Jonathan King back on the tele?
It's certainly a curious beast. Nice to see a variation on the standard, and frankly rather tedious and overly milked, panel show format, but I'm not yet convinced that this really works.
And Mark Dolan seems rather peculiar.
Quote: Aaron @ February 17 2012, 10:34 PM GMTIt's certainly a curious beast. Nice to see a variation on the standard, and frankly rather tedious and overly milked, panel show format, but I'm not yet convinced that this really works.
And Mark Dolan seems rather peculiar.
Definitely agree regarding him, on Balls of Steel, he's put in as the straight man, but insists on cracking awkward jokes all the way through.
Personally, I pretty much dozed through the whole episode, not that impressed.
Channel 4 should have just bought the rights to The Gruen Transfer from the Aussies. The Mad Bad Ad Show took TGT (which also has two teams whose fake commercials compete) dumbed it down and stretched it out. TGT has a bit of a gravitas like The Daily Show... TMBAS has Mickey Flanagan.
That said I did laugh a couple of times.
I liked it.
Not sure the format has much longevity though.
It couldn't seem to decide whether it was a comedy take on ads or a gameshow about ads with comedians. I thought Mark Watson's contraception sweet ad was quite funny, but in general, not many laughs. Micky Flanagan's Borat-style ad just made me depressed that he thought that was original.
I've never liked that Mark Dobson..
"It's just one more of those panel shows you'll tend to watch if you're in on a Friday night and there's nothing much else on."
That'd be difficult, given that C4 have decided to pull the show mid-run (it must have bombed really badly).
Quote: cwickham @ March 3 2012, 7:11 PM GMT"It's just one more of those panel shows you'll tend to watch if you're in on a Friday night and there's nothing much else on."
That'd be difficult, given that C4 have decided to pull the show mid-run (it must have bombed really badly).
Have the really pulled it? How badly does a show have to do for it to be pulled mid-run these days?
Last night's episode was half the length of the first two. Next week the Secret Policeman's Ball pre-empts it, and the week after is a repeat of Rude Tube. Episode 2 had ratings of under half a million, which is an absymal rating for any time, let alone 10pm on Friday.
Quote: cwickham @ March 3 2012, 7:11 PM GMTThat'd be difficult, given that C4 have decided to pull the show mid-run (it must have bombed really badly).
They haven't pulled it, it's just on a break for a couple of weeks to make way for the long-form broadcasts of Secret Policeman's Ball next Friday and then Rude Tube 2012 the week after (which is new, not a repeat).
It should be back on the 23rd... not that anyone particularly cases, given the reception and general ratings.
Quote: Harridan @ March 3 2012, 7:17 PM GMTHave the really pulled it? How badly does a show have to do for it to be pulled mid-run these days?
The examples I can think of off the top of my head are E4 panel show Dirty Digest last year (officially due to 'creative differences' though), and before that, in 2007, Tough Gig which bombed in ITV's prime-time schedule, so they yanked it (the episodes were eventually shown over the following two years though).
There are more examples of shows being moved to 'graveyard' slots though. e.g. The Persuasionists moving from 10pm to gone 11pm.
More often than not though, the station will just sit it out, yes (e.g. most recently The Royal Bodyguard and Life's Too Short). Painful for both the viewers and themselves!
I tried watching an episode.
Gave up half way through. I quite literally had no idea what I was watching.
Quote: Mark @ March 4 2012, 4:33 PM GMTThe examples I can think of off the top of my head are E4 panel show Dirty Digest last year
That programme was SO BAD.
The Mad Bad Ad show is Shakespeare compared to that.
I actually don't have anything against TMBAS. It's maybe just a bit too long.
Quote: Harridan @ March 3 2012, 7:17 PM GMTHave the really pulled it? How badly does a show have to do for it to be pulled mid-run these days?
As Mark intimated, it's so rare in this country that there is no reliable answer for this. There are a few examples, of which I'll add Channel 5's atrocious panel show The What In The World? Quiz, which was pulled after 3 episodes and eventually resurfaced, very quietly, a whole year later, but the pattern is indeed just that - sooner later the rest of the series is aired.
Dirty Digest's an interesting one, as whilst it wasn't the Celebrity Juice-esque hit they were going for, for an E4 programme I don't believe it was actually doing too badly either. I certainly was aware of positive commentary of the show.
So the only 'simple' answer to your question is that in order to be pulled, a series has to grossly, grossly underperform on the channel's expectations. And even then it might still make it to the end of the run, particularly if it's pre-recorded rather than topical.
As for The Mad Bad Ad Show, the cut down running time this week was very curious - although the Thursday repeat is the full 50 minutes - but it almost doubled its audience from 0.49 to 0.82 million, so that will have given Channel 4 some grain of hope.