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Thread: Screen Time

  1. #46
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    Oh these are so good!
    Father Ted is superb! I've seen bits, but never a whole episode, I think. But your poem is hilarious in itself.
    I have seen Inbetweeners, but as you say, that is not necessary to enjoy the cringe inducing hi-jinx they fall prey to. Love the 5 words contributed to the English language line
    Schitts Creek is mighty clever, nimble and a verbal delight... looks like I need to watch that!

    Beavis and Butthead aired in my teen years... I love how you tie he current US president into their moronic glee.

    The Office is excellent. I love stanza 5. 'If I work for you, I am working for myself.' Hilarious, but also a bit true
    Theoretically Mystical

  2. #47
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    Mind Your Language
    This isn’t the Punjab! It’s England, a civilized country. People just don’t go around slicing each other up.” (Mr Brown)

    Class of 1976, English as a Foreign Language, racial stereotypes section:
    sexy French seductress, brainwashed Chinese apostle of Maoist rhetoric,
    Indian and Pakistani at fisticuffs, German fraulein ramping up the rules,
    blonde Swedish nymphomaniac, hot-blooded Italian chasing the skirts,
    Japanese bowing bloke whose catchphrase was “Ah So!”, Greek guy blind-
    sided by idioms, Gladys the friendly tea lady, who used the word ‘darkie’
    because that’s the way of working class folk, compared to middle class
    liberal TV producers, and Mr Brown – white teacher, and babysitter for
    this unruly gaggle of immigrants, keeping control no matter what rough
    winds blew from the colonies, or how often cultural critics observed that
    "Blacks, Asians or 'race' were usually the butt of the joke", which "tended
    to hit a racist note, but always in a well-meaning, benevolent tone".

    The 1970s. Back when everyone wasn’t so easily offended. We all laughed
    regardless of background. Before Islamophobia, racism and snowflakes.
    A comedy that should be shown at school. To show children how much
    fun-loving nations can be. I miss shows like this, everyone being mocked
    equally. When racism wasn't a thing. When violence didn't exist. When we
    can make jokes without fear of being politically wrong. In the good old days
    when life was a better place. I was watching this only for improve my English:

    all YouTube comments from the last few months. A thick slice of civilisation,
    south from where I watched it weekly as a child in Glasgow, including
    the episode with a Scottish chauffeur whose accent no one could fathom,
    not even anyone in Scotland, but we all had to laugh, what with everyone
    being mocked equally and, as he was also racist, violent and no doubt
    alcoholic, we knew he was one of us and only wanted to be understood.


    *

    The quotation in the poem’s opening stanza is from Sarita Mailk’s Representing Black Britain (2002)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzzRIafIp00 - excerpt from the episode mentioned in my poem's third stanza. I don't suppose it will a surprise to be warned that it contains racist content.

  3. #48
    Dunc is offline but say it is my humour
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    Rob

    Beavis and Butthead and of course in such a timely way, TP. A touchstone for successful and unremitting grossness, exhaustingly funny at times.

    The Office and having spent many years in various offices, I enjoyed this when I came on it, but I never really found the wavelength. Or maybe I did and it was too uncomfortable ...

    Mind Your Language ─ don't know that one, but from the title I was remembering Denis Norden and Frank Muir, or at least David Crystal. No such luck, eh?

    Onwards!

    Regards / Dunc

  4. #49
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    Rob, this is a wickedly entertaining thread. Great idea to go through shows like this, taking us to a room of familiar images, and rearranging them into witty, pertinent, acerbic narratives. Family Guy stands out for comedy, but Schitt’s Creek is a continual tongue twister of joy. I watched the link and now plan the box set, so thanks for that...
    The transition in Bewitched worked fine for me, super wistful end. Gutted Pavement are weak, but like to think they might have been twitter blocked for unflattering comments or reportage. Trumps oafishness well compared here.
    The Office, is more contemplative. Loved: your human foibles are spreading... like a Russian bot. End reminds me of when Grayson Perry said ‘Men think they are the lead role in a movie about their life’.
    Mr Brown feels like an important meditation on our changing attitudes to race and others. I got what you were doing with S2 but that they were actual quotes was shocking. We have lost ground on this argument. I hear more casual racism now than 15 years ago. Enjoyed these today, great to read your work, thanks, Ben

  5. #50
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    Hi Rob,

    Great thread with a strong does of nostalgia. Great idea for a thread, too. Reading this I was reminded of an anthology called Double Bill, which, when I looked for on my shelves I've had to add to list of things I lost when I moved house. Googling, I think you may have been it?

    I've never watched Family Guy, loved this: "I spend half my life sleeping and a quarter holding /
    my breath like a satchel full of bones" and also, "my memory floats intact / like any giant hamster’s".

    Yes to the Fonz as "
    Cliff Richard’s teddy brother, makeshift Messiah", and appropriate that you go to him for advice in love, since he knows about these things.

    Bewitched. I vaguely remember this. Enough to know what you're talking about regarding Elizabeth Montgomery. Killer last stanza.

    I'm a big fan of Father Ted. Love the theological turn this takes, "
    Was God small or far away?"

    The Inbetweeners.
    You're right. I'd never seen it, and this poem does seem to explain it. Really enjoyed the poem. I'm also motivated to check it the series, but I kind of suspect the poem may be better.

    Beavis & Butthead - "It is presidential / how they glory in limitation without / seeing it" is excellent and made me smile. I almost wonder, though, if you need the second stanza though. I think that line is maybe enough. I'd already made all the connections by the end of S1.

    Mind your language --
    I vaguely remembered this show.Great stanza break between the the 2nd and 3rd stanza. I was pretty much taken in by the second stanza, before the poem took a sarcastic turn at the close.

    Looking forward to reading more. Are you taking requests?

    -Matt
    moderator

  6. #51
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    Hi Rob,

    I've been reading these with interest, but only came back when there were enough of the shows I've watched (I have watched Father Ted and the Inbetweeners as an adult, Happy Days and Bewitched as an entranced small child) to balance those I either know vicariously (The Office, Beavis and Butthead) or don't at all (Mind your Language).

    It's interesting how the narrator's perspective is portrayed in Mind Your Language. It takes the poem into an edgy, uncomfortable territory of its own, as N presents a counter-argument, arguing 'for' cthe stereotypes. In doing this it makes us, the reader, engage with the wider questions on a personal level. What racial stereotypes are. What 'culture' is. What that kind of all-pervading cultural depiction of a nation does to the people/families within it (it's a killer end that shows how these media depictions matter, in ways we don't realise - the subtle, deeply unpleasant impact of racism).

    The whole series asks me to think about what 'comedy' is. Without letting us fall back in to well-worn patterns of thought. So, not easy. Which I enjoyed. Instead, it looks at patterns of thought drawn from the various times and contexts of some of the show, at their best each poem asks questions.

    I enjoyed The Office one, most - I've not seen the show but now I want to. And so much of the rest is spot-on in terms of how it's considering the content of these - are they archetypal? - presentations of our time - like new myths. The Inbetweeners is also good, again challenging, in my reading, this 'hip/funny/cool' show that actually might not be.

    Read together I find these pack more of a punch than individually. And also require less specific knowledge about each show. It's a great idea for a thread, though I was a bit bewildered at first.

    Sarah

  7. #52
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    Dunc, Bench, Matt and Sarah - thanks for your comments, which go beyond the call of duty for NaPo, but will be really useful for me to consider afterwards.
    Dunc - the Denis Norden. Frank Muir show you're thinking of is, I think, 'Call My Bluff'.
    Bench, you will not regret it if you watch the Schitt's Creek boxset - it's really great.
    Matt, the Inbetweeners is groundbreaking and hilarious. The 'problematic' side is whether you recognise the satire - that the protagonists are full of bravado but also hopeless - or you actually think their attitudes are something to aim for! Often the problem with edgy comedy.
    Sarah - yes, my idea is that readers shouldn't require to have seen any of the shows to get what I'm doing or to 'understand' the poems. I guess people who have seen them will recognise allusions that won't be otherwise evident.
    And now today's poem:

    The IT Crowd


    Moss and Roy know everything
    about computers and nothing
    about anything else, other than
    dungeons and dragons, despite
    the episode when they learn
    about football so they can chat
    to real men in pubs, but end up
    as accessories to armed robbery;
    they also try to chat to women –
    the one whose parents died in
    a fire inside the sea-lion arena
    at the local waterpark, the ex-
    model with her face rolled up
    in bandages like a dead Pharaoh;
    Moss almost gives up his body
    as dinner for a German cannibal;
    a friendly masseur kisses Roy
    on the backside; Moss invents
    the world’s most comfortable bra
    and wears women’s slacks to boost
    his confidence; Roy is traumatized
    by a tiny barista who froths him
    a bad cappuccino. Their boss, Jen,
    cites “experience with computers”
    but doesn’t know how to turn on
    a PC, and loses it when someone
    asks her what IT stands for.
    Still, the director on the 7th floor
    who suffers from what may be
    narcissistic personality disorder
    is turned on when she translates
    for Italian businessmen, although
    she knows no Italian; or when
    she takes a bunch of pseudo-
    alpha male clients with boundary
    issues to a community theatre
    showing The Vagina Monologues,
    which they thought a dead cert
    strip club; or when she realises
    the Internet is not kept inside
    the office paperweight; or when
    she discovers a goth has been
    living in the dark server room
    for several years, a former vice-
    chairman, whose demise came
    from listening to Cradle of Filth.
    Moss knows everything about IT,
    but can’t transfer his knowledge
    in comprehensible words, whereas
    Roy’s answer to any question is
    Switch it off. Switch it on again.
    He worries he might be mistaken
    for a window-cleaner. Jen drops
    the Internet during a fist fight
    and when it shatters in slowmo,
    panic spreads through the world.

  8. #53
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    Fleabag

    Those moments when you follow your life
    through a third eye and what you feel feels
    like it’s happening to someone else at the wrong
    end of a camera lens; you are an onlooker,
    not a participant, although you host the illusion
    of flesh and blood; the people you fuck leave you
    hollow and friendless; the people you love
    are dead; everyone says you have inherited
    the fun gene, and it’s true
    you get drunk and smash glass and steal
    notes from a wallet, wine from a cornershop,
    artworks from your future stepmother; you watch
    yourself feeling fun, guilt, incomprehensible rage; you discover
    you possess an admirable right-hook; you try
    cutting grass with nail scissors, you try
    yoga, silence, religion, champagne, anal sex;
    you stand at a Quaker meeting and say, “I often wonder,
    would I be a feminist if my tits weren’t so small?”; you make
    a Catholic priest laugh, and then fall in love with you; you turn
    towards the camera, turn
    away again, for the first time without
    a knowing side-glance; you feel that love
    is sometimes selfish, sometimes suffering and sometimes
    makes mistakes; you let someone in,
    really in; you love; you step away, crying,
    which feels, really feels, like hope; this might sound tragic,
    but it’s comedy that walks you into the darkness,
    waving to the camera one last time.

    *

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmxz-NyvLBc&t=15s
    Last edited by romac1; 04-12-2020 at 06:37 PM.

  9. #54
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    The Addams Family

    You rang? I rang. I wish to express profound
    dismay at your report, which cancelled us
    after two measly series, sixty-four episodes,
    because we failed grievously to represent
    the American Dream to projected 21st century
    families in lockdown, for which we propose
    thanks and praise to the one God: Farter, Sin
    and Helly Ghost. Here, we know the meaning
    of morality, but that’s plainly not true of you.
    You expect us to believe trains should reach
    their destinations before exploding in remote
    clockwork north of the Verkhoyansk circle;
    that poor Wednesday should study division
    at school and join the Brownies, casting aside
    her pet tarantula and thoughtfully child-size
    dynamite rods, as if limited education creates
    a balanced adult; that Lurch should transition
    from plus-size monster to where you imagine
    human boundaries lie; that Cleopatra the plant
    should drink only water and shake cold turkey
    her diet of flesh; that interest should be taken
    in Uncle Fester’s sexuality and the use Pugsley
    may have made of the Thing; that I should stop
    speaking French to drive my husband’s tongue
    up my arm, with off-camera action driven into
    your bilious imaginations. The day is coming
    when a screen kiss will last longer than three
    seconds and burn your pompous suburban
    house of boredom down. I rang because I am
    Morticia, mother of Carolyn Jones, Siouxsie
    Sioux, and Tim Burton: tadpole-eye-pie baking
    traditionalists. Your ways are truly grotesque.

  10. #55
    Dunc is offline but say it is my humour
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    Rob

    The IT Crowd and a beautifully funny narration that reflects careful stidy.

    Fleabag I've heard of that, but never seen it. I'm not aware that it's been shown on fta here. But it has a reputation, and your guided tour is informative as ever.

    The Addams Family ─ Was capable of being very funny, though like all sitcoms it had a much-used kit of joke set-ups. It got its power from the way the two principals could actually act. Yeah!

    Well, thank you again for the shows!

    Regards / Dunc

  11. #56
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    Thanks, Dunc!
    In today's poem, "brew" = tea and "roasties" = roast potatoes.

    The Royle Family

    The TV flickers. That’s all that’s going on.
    They eat chops for dinner and then tinned fruit.
    Still, I can’t help laughing at the screen.
    Nothing goes wrong; it’s just a default state.

    Having chops for dinner and then tinned fruit
    is comedy gold if burned or dropped, but here,
    nothing goes wrong. It’s just a default state:
    the beer, the arguments, the brew like tar –

    all comedy gold if cold or dropped, but here,
    just drunk. Although the roasties are like stones,
    the beer, the arguments, the brew like tar
    grind time through consequential afternoons.

    They drink, although the roasties might be stones,
    the baby stinks, nana’s fingernails need cut,
    and time grinds through consecutive afternoons.
    The critics puff that it’s close to Samuel Beckett:

    the baby still stinks and nana’s toenails need cut,
    there’s no solution. “It’s working-class drama!”
    the critics sniff, “Is it closer to Samuel Beckett
    or social documentary like Panorama?”

    There’s no resolution in working-class drama,
    everyone loses the plot. There is no plot
    in social documentaries like Panorama,
    but most sitcoms use narrative to investigate

    why everyone’s lost the plot. Here is no plot,
    the characters don’t seem quite all there.
    This sitcom offers no narrative to ruminate
    or make the middle-classes feel they care

    for characters who generally aren’t all there.
    The TV flickers. That’s all that’s going on.
    The middle-classes feel they ought to care,
    but I can’t help laughing at the screen.

    *

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hawI12KB40M

  12. #57
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    30 Rock
    New York, third-wave feminist, college educated, single and pretending to be happy about it, overscheduled, undersexed, you buy any magazine that says ‘healthy body image’ on the cover, and every two years you take up knitting for… a week?” – Jack Donaghy to Liz Lemon

    1.
    The moral heart: when some grumpy bloke tries to jump the hotdog queue, buy all the hotdogs and hand them out free to everyone else.

    2.
    Earn enough money for that moment. T-shirts and tweets don’t make you a successful rebel.

    3.
    There is no single establishment; just competition for influence.

    4.
    Refuse to be part of the system, knowing the minute you say that, you enter its modus operandi.

    5.
    “Can I share with you my worldview? I pretty much just do whatever Oprah tells me to.”

    6.
    Then, turn up at jury vetting dressed as Princess Leia.

    7.
    Always lie about the number of doughnuts you eat from a tray.

    8.
    Keep a stray piece of lettuce in your hair.

    9.
    Manage your divas; the ones inside and the ones who’d have you invent a fake award for them, ceremony and all, just so they know you’ve got their back.

    10.
    “It doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived in New York. It’s still fun to pretend all the buildings are giant severed robot penises.”

    11.
    Cheese puffs will do by day.

    12.
    Don’t have superior taste to other people. Just don’t. Except when it comes to ventriloquists and dummies.

    13.
    Gain a self-styled “beeper king” boyfriend who nicknames you “dummy”, and drag out to the max a way of losing him.

    14.
    Invent the imaginary NBC programme MILF Island, and not only refuse to watch it, but criticise bikini-wave feminism.

    15.
    Acerbic asides must be like the cyclone in Brooklyn, which “destroyed two vintage T-shirt shops and a banjo.”

    16.
    Remember – apple faced Republicans often give an impression of immortality. The ones who love television have a side-parting in charm. They come bearing the best sandwiches in town.

    17.
    Mutual respect comes from a mature ability for passionate disagreement over what you have in common.

    18.
    Better, as a white liberal, to be thought of by some as a “bit racist” than champion the opinions of black people who agree with you.

    19.
    Better not actually date a dwarf because you feel guilt at mistaking him for a child.

    20.
    But do hire the guy who announced himself as a “stabbing robot” on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and then rebook him for the same show.

    21.
    Become so good at something that no one on either political extreme can tell your satire from the real Sarah Palin. Offend everyone equally.

    22.
    The sooner you learn there’s no point in carrying the guilt of an entire people on your shoulders, the better. But you have to keep up appearances.

    23.
    Scrabble like a crab to leave a room without being seen and, when you’re caught, shout, “This would have worked on Ugly Betty.

    24.
    A fridge must be full of working night cheese.

    25.
    Especially on Valentine’s Day.

    26.
    Stay true to your core values, that television comedy is one of four authentic American art forms, with “jazz, musical theatre and morbid obesity”.

    27.
    “Realizations are the worst.”

    28.
    Realize that you can never give up without a fight. Preferably one where your boss’s ex-wife punches you in the face.

    29.
    “I wish this were an episode of Night Court, because then there’d be some big joke right now.”

    30.
    Thirty rocks. But so does forty and fifty. Probably sixty and beyond. In fact, any time you start to identify with the old films. Like Meet the Parents.

    *

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMKrAR6YBDI

  13. #58
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    Hey Romac,

    Really touched by Fleabag. I loved the show and you do a great job of unpacking and illuminating it.
    Addams Family packs a punch. I love 'failing grievously to represent the American dream' And your critique of American culture via Morticia is extremely witty and lands solidly.

    I like the way you play with form in Royale Family and 30 Rock. It reflects and enhances your subjects. I love 'everyone loses the plot. There is not plot' but the whole poem is fantastic.

    Really loving your work!
    Theoretically Mystical

  14. #59
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    Hahahahha Rob these are terrific. Looking forward to seeing what else you will do with such a fun theme. Really enjoying the playing around with language and references here. Addams family one was one of my favourites.

    We are half way!

    Mari.

  15. #60
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    These are excellent. I love Fleabag, and knew as you started you needed to tear down the fourth wall, very pleasing how you’ve done that. I watched both series recently then series 1 of Killing Eve, different but just as good.
    I like the idea Morticia was the patient zero of goths. Never occurred to me... revelations are the worst. Especially in bibles.
    The Royale Family pantoum is superb, deftly structured and a really good choice of form for a show with fuck all happening. Aherne was a genius. And I’m yet to dive in to 30 Rock. At least now I know what the title means now. Charming list poem. Great work so far this month, really looking forward to your next choices...

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