Trouble buying book Page 3

Quote: garyd @ February 8, 2008, 11:05 PM

What I find doubly amazing is that other people who I have the highest regard for and whose opinion I usually respect have praised this.

Oh boy!

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The basic premise behind this is of the absurd. Its a parody of a pretty old but well known advert, about a very obscure book. The Juxta is that a woman who is now richer than the queen from the sales of a book is trying to obtain a copy. The fact she is old is to keep the parody comparison. And yes the punchline is her confirming her name being a bit like JR Hartley, but its hardly a reveal as it's so obvious if you know the advert and the book she's on about.

Is it a great joke, well tbh it's not, but like most absurd, you take from it whatever you want. Certainly there have been TV series like this that have left me cold, but I'd never respond by saying that I'd lost respect for anyone that found something in them.

Quote: Rob B @ February 8, 2008, 11:51 PM

Certainly there have been TV series like this that have left me cold, but I'd never respond by saying that I'd lost respect for anyone that found something in them.

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Rob, I never said I had either.
I merely expressed surprise at at what I believed to be over-praise of the piece. It was almost Writersdock-like!

See, I look at comedy as basically something that can generate a laugh through either visual or aural means. This strikes me as doing neither.
If something needs to be explained why it is 'funny' then to my simplistic view it suggests that it might well not be.

Sorry if my comments appear to denegrate your obvious writing abilities. Purely my take of this piece.

Quote: garyd @ February 9, 2008, 12:31 AM

Sorry if my comments appear to denegrate your obvious writing abilities. Purely my take of this piece.

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I never did! In fact I was more meaning that you seemed to indicate that you had lost trust in some of the people that said they liked it, which given the nature of a meaningfully absurd gag seemed a weird thing to say.

Anyway perhaps we can leave this here, as this thread is already overlong given the source. Plus I can't be bothered to try and justify what i'll freely admit isn't a great piece of writing.

Quote: Chimes of Freedom @ February 9, 2008, 8:41 AM

In fact, as far as I can see, there is only one member of this forum whose work is invariably praised out of all proportion to its merits.

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Oh thanks for that. I'll just f**k off and die.

Quote: garyd @ February 8, 2008, 11:05 PM

The original JR Hartley ad was rather poignant as it obviously referred to a rarity written in his 'day' however JKR's books have sold in their multi-millions and for whatever their literary worth will be in the public subconscious (at least) for many a day to come.
Therefore the piece lacks both humour AND poignancy so has no point.

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I agree pretty much 100% with what Gary said.

I think one of the other main problems is that the advert is 15+ years old. I acknowledge that everyone remembers it. I don't think I know anyone who wouldn't remember it. Ideally this sketch would have been at the time the advert was out - as it is it isn't and lacks punch.

Here's a Fry and Laurie sketch that they did in 1991/92 at the same time as the advert:

http://www.geocities.com/mmemym/bits2/fal0103.htm

It's not riproaringly funny, but does subvert the advert pretty well in my opinion.

However, it seems that a lot of people do like the original sketch way back at the start of the thread. Popularity is a pretty important thing when it comes to entertaining the masses, so maybe I'm just expecting too much.