>>464262
Actually in that vein, when you went to Blockbuster or Choices to rent a SNES game, were they in generic boxes or did they have the box art on the plastic clamshell style box? My memory is of a generic box, but then how would I pick a game without being able to see box art?

>>464263
The original boxes were on the shelves, empty. You took them to the desk and they gave you the cartridge in a generic box.

>>464263

At Blockbuster, the shelves were full of proper boxes with the original art, but they were just for display. Behind those were generic boxes that you'd take to the counter and get your rental in. The generic boxes acted as a stockkeeping system - if there weren't any generic boxes, then they had rented out all their copies and you'd need to choose something else or ask to go on the waiting list.

>>464262
I don't think pop culture ephemera holds to the same alure for me. Actually maybe "ephemera" is the wrong word because this shit looks like it's never going away. Anyway, let me know if you find a heterosexual woman with strong opinions on Field Marshall Montgomery's war record.

>>464264
>>464265
Thank you, that makes more sense. I was trying to work out why we picked Illusion of Time which had fairly generic cover art anyway, but if the actual boxes were out I'd be able to see the back, which having checked the screenshots on the back makes it look like ALttP which would have been appealing.

I think basically the worst thing you could possibly imagine has happened to a neighbour of mine. I'm rather playing connect the dots based on seeing a single police car outside the house yesterday and some media reports today, but I'm very much hoping to be proven wrong at some point.

>>464268
There was a police car outside a neighbour's house for a few hours a while back. It didn't take long for the kiddie fiddling rumours to start.

>>464269
👍

>>464268
Well, now you’ve got me imagining. I guess you won’t want to post a local news link or we will both find out what street you live on and go round and mix up your recycling, but do please keep us updated so I can know how close my guess was. My guess is not paedo-related; I assume a family member killed themselves .

>>464271
They'll say it's suicide but really they asked too many questions of the pre-bin men.

ROSIE FUCKING JONES.

>>464273

If you don't like her personality, you can take solace in her tremendous rack.

>>464274
I can't see her being on Taskmaster as anything other than a car crash.

>>464275

As we all know, the point of Taskmaster is to be really good at the tasks.

>>464273

I feel bad for getting impatient whenever I hear her talk on TV.

>>464277

Relax, try to adjust to the different tempo, and use the extra mental bandwidth to imagine her lezzing up with someone. Sue Perkins, perhaps, or Sarah Kendall. Maybe a blue-haired Gen Z woman with a degree in Oppression Studies who is 100% straight, but will lick a fanny to prove that she isn't ableist. Maybe Gillian Anderson doing an X-rated Make-a-Wish.

>>464277

I think this the general accepted consensus. She is unbearable to watch. No one wants to be cruel to her but she does reduce the pleasure of millions of people by being fustrating hard work in our light entertainment shows.

It becomes a utility thought experiment, does one person's dreams of being famous out weigh the minor inconvenience of an entire society?

I wonder if there is a ratings dip when she is on tv. It is always hard to know if this is a universal feeling or if we are the arseholes but this isn't the first time I've come across this sentiment in the wild.

I don't know how someone even gets on TV in the first place if most people find her as fustrating as I do. People being politely supportive and disability hores should only get you so far. Maybe this is an emporers new clothes situation where no one wants to speak up.

>>464279

I'd like to change that to disability hires but disability (w)hores might be more accurate in television, certainly in this lads mind>>464278

I was making some scotch pancakes and while flipping one splashed a big blob of oil on my thumb. It hurts like fuck and I fear it's going to make the skin on my thumb look like a Tom Savini special effect.

>>464279

In a way it gets very philosophical, because I'd love to be a famous telly comedian too, but I'm not because in reality I'm funny on occasion and probably just more of an irritating arsehole the rest of the time. Functionally, that's exactly the same situation, she just gets a free pass for it because by an accident of birth she's also a bit of a spaz. Equality gone mad n that, it's like when they have the mongs reading the inbetween program bits and you're like "... Whjat?"

Anyway.

But then that gets me to thinking- Yeah, but you can say the same about Jack Whitehall or that guy with the massive teeth, or that fucking ginger one who turned out to be older than me when I thought he was about 24. They're all sort of just irritating arseholes. Maybe we are misinterpreting it that she has been given immunity because she's a spaz, when in reality she has just ridden up the same way as all the other shit comedians.

>>464282

Jack Whitehall is the definition of a nepobaby. His daddy is a talent agent/producer, so you can proudly proclaim you are righteous in thinking he is shit as he only got to where he is out of what isn't unreasonable to call corruption.

The others I don't know who you mean so can't offer explanations for.

I remember seeing Dara O'brien before he broke into TV in stand up and the natural talent was obvious. But I would say that because I like him, but I could see him work his way up the cursus honorum. I assume from a cynical producer perspective there must be 3 tracks 1 for people who were entertaining anyway that you feel can safely bring in crowds. 2 some sort of representation philosophical hire that you might be able to pitch on a business case level of bringing in a wider audience even if they water down the quality of the actual product. 3 the person the boss tells you you have to hire.

It could be much simpler of course. Maybe the reason we see these people on TV is that they are much cheaper to hire than better talent.

>>464283

>The others I don't know who you mean so can't offer explanations for.

I don't think their individual names are important, they're just the shit new ones who came along sort of like. You know when you used to watch QI and Mock the Week and I don't know... 8 Out Of Ten Cats? The original one, not the Countdown one.

You'd have all the Bill Baileys and Frankie Boyles and the Rich Halls and the Rob Brydons and the Ed Byrnes and whatever. Bloody hell that's a random collection but you get the point. Comedians who were probably in Black Books, The IT Crowd or Mighty Boosh and all that because it was them days.

I just mean all the new ones what come along since. They're all bollocks. Maybe Russel Howard acted as a sort of bridge between the two.

Everyone was posting that scene recently from Yes, Minister and I noticed that when Sir Humphrey sits down he pulls up the material on the thighs of his legs as he does it.

https://youtu.be/ahgjEjJkZks?feature=shared
(at 0:26)

Is this some sort of forgotten trick? Does it stop the trousers getting stretched on the leg?

>>464279

>No one wants to be cruel to her but she does reduce the pleasure of millions of people by being fustrating hard work in our light entertainment shows.

The thing is, at what point are you then doing nobody a favour. Neither audiences nor her. It's great that we are inclusive nowadays and give people with impairments or disabilities a chance at becoming whatever they want to be. Don't get me wrong. But imagine sitting through her entire 60- or 90-minute set at a comedy club. She'll barely get through half the material that somebody like Ellie Taylor or Andi Osho will do in that time, and getting to each punchline will be like pulling teeth.

Again, follow your dreams, and don't let cerebral palsy hold you back. But there are probably limits to that concept.

Imagine ROsie Jones doing a lesbian sex and she's flicking her tongue up and down on the lady's fanny but in a mongy way, and they're scissoring but she's all convulsive and retarded about it because she's incapable of speaking or moving like a real human being. Just a fun thought experiment. I like Rosie Jones I think she's funny but only if you watch her on 1.5X-2X speed. I'd like a Rosie Jones girlfriend but I think I'd find the slow talk kind of grating.

>>464284

I've done this rant before, so I'll try to keep it brief:

Most of the people mentioned in this discussion have the same management agency, Off The Kerb. That agency has a sister company, Open Mike, that produces shows like Live At The Apollo, The Last Leg, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow.

If you recognise a comedian off the telly and they aren't represented by OTK, they're probably managed by Avalon. This agency also has a production company that happens to make Taskmaster.

These agencies exert cartel-like control over the booking of comedy TV programmes in the UK. If you're an independent production company, the implicit understanding is that OTK or Avalon artists come as a package deal - if you want the big names, you'll have to book some of the up-and-coming artists that they want to promote.

Where it suits both sides to tick some diversity boxes, they've got you covered - OTK happen to represent Rosie Jones, Judi Love and Fatiha El-Ghorri.

https://www.offthekerb.com/

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?companies=co0103755

https://avalonuk.com/management/

>>464283
>Maybe the reason we see these people on TV is that they are much cheaper to hire than better talent.
I reminds me of the BBC comedy Awards where they host a ranked comedy competition for new and (mostly shit) comedy acts. The winner get's to feel like they've achieved something and the BBC get a (i presume) exlusive contract on condition of winning. They're basically factory farming comedy.

>>464285
>Is this some sort of forgotten trick? Does it stop the trousers getting stretched on the leg?
I do this, though presumed it was because of my ill fitting, oversized trousers. Pulling up the slack allows for more movement around the hips, without which your waistlinecan be pulled down.
I believe most modern trousers are cut with a low(er) waist, which may or may not normalise the sensation of falling trousers thus render adjustments irrelevant.

>>464288
This is interesting to learn, thanks. You must be that dude who was giving takes on various comedians, some time back - would love to hear more opinions some time.

>>464284
>I just mean all the new ones what come along since
The funny thing is I know which comedians you're complaining about but Josh Widdicome and friends are all 40ish and have been around for ~10 years at this point, they just keep being treated like they're young because TV comedy has lost a generation of potential talent to youtube/tiktok/whatever so it's difficult to replace them.

>>464290

Yeah, I think that's what's so annoying about them. They're these perpetual uni student lads, but now they are part of the furniture, and it hammers home the fact you're actually ageing too and things move on and change and you have to find new things, but that's hard and scary. So fuck 'em.

>>464290
Is that why we don't get new sketch shows these days? People are uploading skits online instead.

>>464292

Boring industry answer: The Office killed the sketch show.

The Office made an absolutely insane amount of money because they got several bites of the cherry - it did well on TV, it sold a load of DVDs, it sold abroad and the format got sold to a load of other production companies. Every time the Turkish equivalent of ITV4 airs a dubbed repeat of the American Office, Ricky Gervais gets a little bit of money.

Before The Office, commissioners thought almost in terms of domestic viewing figures and VHS/DVD sales. After The Office, commissioners increasingly thought in terms of international licensing, with the UK audience being only a small part of the overall calculation.

Single-camera sitcoms are expensive, but they can travel well if the characters are reasonably universal and there's a chance that the format will become a huge hit for a US broadcaster. Panel shows are cheap and reliable - there's a big enough audience in the US that you're basically guaranteed to make your money back. A sketch show costs about as much as a sitcom, it's much less likely to do well internationally and it basically has zero chance of being remade in America. Unless the commissioner has a clear remit to do something for a specific local audience (Burnistoun, Famalam etc) the financials are always going to push them towards a sitcom or some kind of panel show.

The final nail in the coffin was how badly Little Britain aged - it was a big hit in the early 2000s, but now it's a huge embarrassment. When you're trying to establish a character within a few seconds, there's a huge risk that you'll rely on stereotypes that rapidly become unacceptable. A sketch show just has more things in it that could become objectionable, so by the time all the rough edges have been sanded off you end up with something that offends no-one but pleases no-one. It's really hard to make a sketch show where all of the characters are likeable everypeople with no real distinguishing features.

This is going to sound like the position of a Philistine. But how many sketch comedies were actually funny? Like consistency so. Even Michael Palin said in retrospect that there was only a handful of python sketches he actually liked. I like what I remember of the two Ronnie's I've forgotten the crap.

Little Britain I never found funny it was just a hammering of the same phrase/meme again and again repeatedly. And a lot of sketch shows were like that 90-00s, they basically had enough material for 1 episode and would repeat the sketch with slight alterations once a week.

I'm not sure I am actually complaining about the format of the sketch comedy so much as I am complaining about the lack of care regularly on display by the format. I've definitely seen ones where they had a good pilot and that was it they ran out of material by episode 2

I know Michelle and Webb did a metasketch conversation where it was about how people only like half their material and they basically wished they knew which half before it aired so they could cut out the other bits.


I will weirdly however defend the outdated insensitive stereotypes. Comedy, the best comedy i believe believe is inherently mean, satirical if you will. Its purpose is to attack the things we can't attack otherwise, it regularly serves the important purpose in our society of pointing out that it's okay if you think the emporer has no clothes, we think they have no clothes too or some other form of anxiety about the world around us we need to vent. The insensitivity is the entire point in the first place, even if society has changed in a way where whatever reason they were the target in the first place has been lost to time.

The characters in comedy are regularly representative of something greater beyond themselves. And the ability to attack ideas is important. Comedy is inherently conservative in the non party sense of the word it is a confirmation of what we can't really say but all believe or at least what we have doubts about. And therefore looking back at it is reguarly a better time capsule as to the zeitgeist than anything else.

>>464309
>But how many sketch comedies were actually funny? Like consistency so.
How many pieces of any media are consistently on point for everyone?

>>464309
I remember them being funny in the 90s, e.g. Harry Enfield, The Fast Show, Goodness Gracious Me, but that might be because I was a child then.

Does League of Gentlemen count as a sketch show?

>>464310

90% of everything is crap as they say and it is a fair counterpoint point, but usually they don't mean within the same episode of the same show.

>>464311

I think that's nostalgia and mentally filtering out the junk from your memory. The are all very much victims of the repeating the same sketch but changing it slightly. Maybe I'm being unfair and watching 1 episode a week without an expectation that you would rewatch it, was enough to mentally keep it fresh.

Humour is regularly derived from surprise, being a child would mean what is obvious to the experienced is ever fresh to you and that can only be good and part of what makes childhood magical. The issue i have with the running gag regularly is that it is funny first time but it becomes tiresome and obvious like your mate who just repeats internet memes endlessly that starts to make you wonder if they have some deep rooted need for validation.

League if Gentlemen absolutely was a sketch show but that used cental themes to make it form a more coherent whole.

>>464309

Sketch shows are like comedy mixtapes, really, you're meant to remember the good bits and forget the rubbish. There were very few all killer no filler sketch shows, the last one I remember being near that level was Limmy's Show, but even that did have its naff bits. I do miss the format but really it's better served on the internet anyway.

The very best sketches are really the precursors of today's memes. Or, what memes were, before they were just pure brainrot. They identify a cliche or stereotype we're all just about familiar with, and push it to absurdity. The really great ones have you still quoting them ten years later when you've completely forgotten where it even came from, like me going "Quiches Lorraine" every time I see a quiche. Everybody's got a few of those, I reckon.

>>464316
>I do miss the format but really it's better served on the internet anyway.

I think what I miss about it all going online is that it's not really something you'd be able to talk about in real life with other people. If I brought up Are Grace with someone outside of .gs they'd most likely think I was a massive sex pest.

>>464318

I find you can actually talk about any old Internet shite with normal people nowadays, you just have to feign the detachment of not remembering their name and calling it "that youtube one who does the [thing]" and then describing it. Everyone is secretly just as much of a sadact themselves and don't want to show it, so they play along.

Remembering Limmy’s show made me go on a little bit of an online dig about him and I feel rather confused, on Wikipedia it states that he was pro Scottish independence citing a link to an article of him talking about it. (The article is behind a paywall I can't bypass but you get the gist from the visible intro).
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/limmy-i-think-self-destructive-scots-will-vote-no-vzpbvfkzm

There is a clip more recently of him talking about it saying he voted leave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obQq-pKUT3A


But at the time I remember him making a pro remain video for weekly wipe. All be it one where he says he changes his position from leave to remain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dPfskOrsWg
I don't get it? What is going on? If it was just for comedy it seems like a pretty big platform to use to say the opposite of what you actually believe. Even if I didn't believe that was his real argument I certainly came away at the time thinking he was pro remain.

>>464323

I think he may have told a few fibs in his years regarding some things. His real life persona (or yknow, the persona of a real life persona he's putting on for the internet and that) edges closer to just deadpan trolling a lot of the time.

I was meaning to pick up his book, because I get the impression he's actually being frank and sincere for most of that, which he absolutely isn't most of the rest of the time, but I still haven't got round to it and probably never will unless by pure coincidence one of you happens to post a PDF of it here.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe that Sunday is a weekday.

>>464323
I'm not sure why you'd take the Weekly Wipe video seriously, he's clearly just joking.

>>464327

Why wouldn't I? Political jokes being 'just jokes' and not pushing of a world view is the exception not the rule the in a satirical commentary format.

>>464324
His book isn't that interesting because he's not lead an interesting life. It's mostly his experiences of being a teenage Glaswegian ned with chapters like 'My First Wank'.

>>464353
Yeah, except he's very deliberately playing a daft character. You can tell this from the way the character portrays none of Limmy's actual beliefs.

Why are all the functioning autistic young men that I meet overweight and have a neckbeard? It's like the autist uniform. No eye contact, halting speech... and fat neckbeard. They all look like Jonty Bravery.

>>464358

Is it possibly because you associate a level of lack of self care with autism?

Not deliberately, but much like you only notice a bad toupee there are people with autism you don't notice. Conversely do you think if you meet a overwight neck beard you would assume they were an undiagnosed autistic if they said they weren't autistic?

>>464358
Why you gotta cut me like that

>>464358
Are you the self loathing autist lad?
Where are you meeting them all, work?

>>464344