Black Books: the funniest show on TV?

Meanwhile ep 1 of Teachers last night - that was lovely. i just wanted to hug everyone in it.

Black books though = great!

Actually no. I'd say BB is slowly turning into a different show. Note SHOCKING Moran-Greig love tension made explicit in the last episode. Eh? If Father Ted guy was there they'd have been drowned in a hail of marmosets before that could have happened.

Apologeez if that had been mentioned ages ago, I'm new roind these parts.

only poststewdoze who think KOOL is scrannin garlic bread in comedy cafes think bill bailey is any cop.

yuzzza ahhhl wnkd !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sorry, I've just come.

Manny: I ate all yr bees!
Bernard: You...... fucker.

i love you trasheee

Cripes, we did the subs last August. VCI release schedules can drift but this seems a bit ridic. I don't remember any extras, but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

With Playback, Carlton and VCI - our major English-only clients - typically 2-3 months. jam was done in early March last year and in the shops at the end of April. Either side of Xmas we've been working on Keeping Up Appearances, Allo Allo, Hi-De-Hi (series 3&4 of each) and Filthy, Rich and Catflap (er, the only series of that) and, according to Amazon, they're all out late Feb/early Mar. The translation projects are a totally diff kett of fi.

But you're welcome to it if you want.

Plus, I'm inevitably well-disposed to anything the missus loves and she lurves this.

Dylan Moran came off very well in last week's IoS 'how we met' feature. I do love him.

[Anne Bancroft mode on] I used to know a Tamsin. Whatever happened to her? [Anne Bancroft mode off]

N. - perhaps you'd have enjoyed the previous week's Pegg-flavoured show more.

and simon pegg was funnier in 'band of brothers' than he was in the first 8)

i also used to know a tamsin. perhaps it was the same one.

andy

Anyone know when ABC Aust will start airing this new series? I'm afeared it wont be as good. I hope it is though.

We have tix to see BILL BAILEY in 2 weeks... wooooooooooo! Been waiting forever for this, I cant wait.

Also, I just rented the Bill Bailey live DVD and I'll be watching it tonight!

Also, mmmm, Dylan Moran. Go and ogle.

(xpost to Ally)

I would be quite happy to ogle Dylan Moran in the marvellous How Do You Want Me, if they'd ever show it again. Maybe they are sensitive about the whole Charlotte Coleman thing.

I suppose I am not easily amused.

Here is a picture of Dylan Moran to cheer myself up:

http://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/gx/shaunofthedead01.jpg

http://www.stephendee.com/images/car13.jpg

I need to get this on DVD and binge on it.

Fran: Well, where is he? How can I find him?
Bernard: Well, you could become a terrible event and happen to him.

I am about to stop playing Who Shall I Kill First in my head and just go for what feels natural! I think I'll start with me- then it's you.

I've probably seen the "Moo-ma & Moo-pa" episode a half-dozen times, but I still roffle when Bernard & Fran duck under the restaurant table, find a bar, and order drinks without missing a beat.

WINE! WINE! EXPENSIVE WINE! WINE FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE LIST!

"I got you crème de menthe."

I love Peter Serafinowicz's turn as Howell Granger.

"Frrrannnnnnnn? Is that youuuu? FRAN? Are you ok! I'll COME Fran!"

my favourite TV quote of all time

"So what's it like then, fags and booze?"

"Well to be honest, after absolutely years of smoking and drinking, you do sometimes look at yourself and think-"

"Yep."

"You know, just sometimes, in between the first cigarette with coffee in the morning to that 400th glass of cornershop piss at 3am, you do sometimes look at yourself and think.."

"Yep."

"This is fantastic. I'm in heaven."

Hahha yesss. Words to live by, that.

I was just introduced to the concept of this show. Potentially intriguing set-up. :-)

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, March 13, 2002 5:00 PM (9 years ago)

Haha and so ALMOST A FRICKIN' DECADE LATER...

Basically upon noticing Spaced had made it to Netflix Instant I realized "Wait, Black Books is on there as well, I need to finally see this" and now my girlfriend and I are happily addicted. We've made it about midway through the second season so far.

"Which one, of you bitches, wants to dance?"

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, March 11, 2005 3:47 PM (6 years ago)

This was the first of many points where my sweets had to pause the stream and get over convulsive laughter before continuing.

brilliant show

i'm in the 'hate' camp, which suprises me tbh. It's never given me a single laugh, tho no doubt i'll give it another try sometime

Some of the visual humor rather than the verbal has been the funniest to me. Even something as simple as in the pilot episode where there's the quick jumpcut to Black failing to find a way to drive a nail through his hand.

Love it.

The piano lessons one is the greatest thing imo.

The "Grapes of Wrath" episode might be our overall favorite so far.

"I am a giant ear...waiting for your songs of niceness."

And the whole setup for the "I have returned" bit.

could never rly f/w the non-Linehan eps of this

Milwall, Milwall, you're all really dreadful

sic otm, tho. It was noticeably less good when he stopped writing for the show (was that just in S2?)

"is it real leather?"
"it's real Dickens"

(whispers) "DIRTY!"

also "luxury pie" makes me lololol every time

^^^

drizzle it!!!

lol

"you know what you are? you're a beard with an idiot hanging off it."

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

Luxury pie, food of kings!!

http://youtu.be/ilJto4VBjRc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilJto4VBjRc

This video contains content from Channel 4, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

I remember watching this in school and having a sort of "is that all there is" reaction to it

Only just discovered this last night, for some odd reason I'd never heard of it. Totally classic.

"And you do know you've got mollusks on your pipes?"

"What of it?"

"Well, it's just that.....traditionally, they live in the sea."

I like you a lot Gerald. Samantha.

whatever happened to the guy who made this show, anyway?

FUCK. I had no idea :(

I'm sorry. Fuck Linehan

HE DIED

Died after the show ended iirc very sad indeed.

he will not be missed

Rest in pieces

He only script-edited the first season, he didn’t “make” the show, if that salves anyone’s conscience

haha no worries honestly imo graham linehan's whole life is absolutely the best sort of cringe comedy, i wish all transphobes were as utterly pathetic and laughable as glinner is. i also thought black books was pretty fucking funny when i watched it back in 2011, it probably still is but i'm probably not gonna rewatch it anytime soon.

dylan moran & bill bailey still two of the funniest humans imo

Watched an episode of this recently to see if it held up. It did not.

liar it does too

Dylan Moran sound on trans rights iirc. Or maybe just sound on thinking Linehan is a cunt.

Sadly, I've heard from a few people who've seen Moran do stand-up recently that he does not seem to be in a good place. His divorce seems to have hit him hard

Moran is pretty blunt about Linehan yeah.

Re him seeming troubled, he mentioned in this same article from last year that he was drinking, he had been sober for years. That is hopefully not related to that but you worry.

Also this

I saw dylan moran live last night and he had jokes about trans and non-binary people that were funny at the expense of ignorant people and I wanted to cry but I was too busy laughing and I just want it on the record for everyone who complains that it's ~too hard~ - it's not

— they/them causing jayhem (@jaythenerdkid) November 23, 2019

Re him seeming troubled, he mentioned in this same article from last year that he was drinking, he had been sober for years. That is hopefully not related to that but you worry.

I'm afraid it is. Apparently he's been drinking through all his recent shows

I did not know there was an entire Moran sitcom on iPlayer - Stuck - that I had never even heard of! Like discovering a £50 note in the pocket of an old coat.

Argh - the Linehan thing had completely gone past me until I saw this thread revival. Such a shame! I've always loved Ted, Black Books & the IT Crowd and have even pointed at the latter show properly and respectfully 'laughing with the geeks' as opposed to the Big Bang Theory (which I dislike) 'laughing at the geeks'.

I had never given much thought to that IT Crowd episode with the trans woman before, as I just took it as Douglas being dense. Matt Berry always makes Douglas' scenes work for me with his over-the-top MattBerryness. It is interesting (and good) that he distanced himself from that episode.

Have to say that I never really cared for the bit in the (otherwise really good) episode of Black Books where Fran goes on a date and has to be the one to deduce, through a series of very stereotypical signs, that the guy is gay - a joke which was somewhat repeated in the IT Crowd as well. I wonder if there's more Linehan shallowness at the basis there too.

I'm not willing to cancel his past work but the guy does sound completely irrational now.

Have to say that I never really cared for the bit in the (otherwise really good) episode of Black Books where Fran goes on a date and has to be the one to deduce, through a series of very stereotypical signs, that the guy is gay

I had the first series of Black Books on dvd, with commentary from Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Greig, and Moran is notably sarcastic about this subplot ("very proud of this one", after a gag where the gay guy says 'fabulous' "YOU SEE, BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THEY TALK"), I don't remember if there was any indication about whether this bit was mainly his work or Linehan's though. The episode is from 2000, and it feels like the social acceptability of lol gay jokes in the media is something that shifted quite quickly around that time, to the point where it maybe felt like something from another era even a few years later when they were recoding the commentary?

imo the first series of Big Train was the best thing Linehan ever did, which he also directed along with the first series of Black Books, the IT Crowd and that Count Arthur Strong tv series - I think he had a particular style as a director that was a big part of what made those series work.

thing with the trans character in the IT crowd was that it wasn't the full-on transphobia he's constantly doing these days, just some lazy (and untrue) old fashioned stereotypes used for a generally sympathetic character. but then someone told glinner that it was wrong, and that turned out to be his kryptonite, he cannot say "sorry, I was wrong about that" but has to upend his entire world instead.

I suspect the gay subplot in that episode of black books was just his work, because almost the entire thing is recycled in an episode of the IT crowd.

a classic terf origin story

someone on the talking simpsons podcast noted a clear spike in transphobic content (in that show and in US comedy generally) at some point in the 00s that coincides with a lot of the more questionable gay stuff being phased out and a similar trend could probably be observed in UK comedy from around the same time

imo the first series of Big Train was the best thing Linehan ever did

Oh yeah! I forgot that he was also involved in Big Train, which indeed had a lot of great stuff in it as well.
My favourite bit from what I've seen of his work - one of my all-time favourite comedy scenes - is in a late IT Crowd episode where Roy and Moss try to entertain a group of career-driven businessmen with a game of Dungeons & Dragons and while all signs to the viewer point to a complete disaster(*), the businessmen get completely drawn into the story and one of them ends up crying because he finds it so beautiful.

So obviously fuck Linehan nowadays and fuck some beliefs and ideas which were likely always his, but he did some great stuff nonetheless.

(Granted: I watched the commentary and the original intent was that the D&D game wouldn't work at all, but it was rewritten to align more with the end of the episode.)

This is actually not entirely accurate re his origin:

This is such an insane origin story pic.twitter.com/cb560iCHJ8

— Rob Palk (@robpalkwriter) March 17, 2023

i really dislike the narrative that this is glinner's origin story. it's not true and distracts from the real reason he started down this path: the frequent commissioning of anti-trans writers by liberal/centrist outlets like The Guardian & New Statesman in the early to mid 2010s https://t.co/EjJiD1tBOK

— sinéad 🏳️‍🌈♀️ (@sineadnaoimh) March 19, 2023

dude's a twitter addict, that was as true 10 years ago as it is now. of course he followed them on here, and that means he has had this drip drip drip of poison for a lot longer than people realise

— sinéad 🏳️‍🌈♀️ (@sineadnaoimh) March 19, 2023

the limmy livestream clip was very telling about glinner but can't find it now, think it's still there but unlisted.

This one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-LZr4-4vI8

that's it! must bookmark this time.

The original account I link here says in the replies that he did get defensive over the show but that the context also matters. I think this aspect of his personality gets missed out as well.

Awful people.

tbc that ep of it crowd ends with Berry and the trans woman in a punch up, I don't remember the exact details and there seems to be no detailed breakdown online but it def registered to me as more akin to a comedic version of what you'd see in a Spillane book or 70's film than "average" 00's transphobia

Only read the first few bits of that piece gyac links to but it reminded me of David Quantick. When I first joined twitter he seemed ok but anyone he disagreed with got some very harsh words via a quote tweet.

Then Corbyn happened and it went downhill very fast.

Quantick absolutely up there with worst pricks on the site, I have always found him annoying and unfunny, so never followed him, but had to block him on all three of my accounts now as friends keep retweeting his stupid unfunny tweets and I don't want to be disappointed in them.

Glinner used to post some good music playlists on twitter and he wrote the comedy section in the back of Select, so was more of a disappointment to see him turn into Worst Person In The World, but you can see that the signs were always there.

Without really having much interest in Black Books and the dreaded Lineham I still really enjoyed that Limmy anecdote about him and assorted other wankers!

Disappointed Limmy didn't call Linehan a clipe.

imo the first series of Big Train was the best thing Linehan ever did,

im aghast at this statement tbh but maybe linehan now no longer had anything to do with fr ted is that the line here

Indeed it is! The other guy wrote it *looks at other guy's politics*

Created and written by Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy I believe.

xp I think the fact that he basically turned into the Golden Cleric scene should go against this argument being made

https://i.postimg.cc/FsR5twFf/89-FA8-CF0-708-D-42-BD-A11-B-11-B9-D0-C64-EAA.jpg

thing with the trans character in the IT crowd was that it wasn't the full-on transphobia he's constantly doing these days, just some lazy (and untrue) old fashioned stereotypes used for a generally sympathetic character. but then someone told glinner that it was wrong, and that turned out to be his kryptonite, he cannot say "sorry, I was wrong about that" but has to upend his entire world instead.

― Camaraderie at Arms Length

so with the caveat that i haven't seen the episode in question and... have no immediate plans to do so, that's very much my understanding - that by the standard of the times it _wasn't_ really exceptionally transphobic. if i'd seen at the time it came out, it probably wouldn't have made much overt impression on me one way or another. and that's pretty fucked up, portrayals like that being normal. it was probably the biggest factor in me learning to hate myself - most of my exposure to overt transphobia was through bigoted and incorrect media portrayals of trans people.

the main takeaway, though, is that linehan's portrayal wasn't, to my understanding, really a significant offender in the canon of pop culture transphobia, and regardless of his subsequent rantings it was _unlikely_ to get him "cancelled". i'd compare him to someone like, say, jon stewart in the states. the daily show back in the day had some pretty transphobic jokes, and again, i was a regular watcher of the show in those days (part of my shameful liberal past) and i don't remember any of them. they didn't really make an impression on me. not only that, stewart was defending dave chappelle and his transphobia until extremely recently. the man is not widely beloved among trans people, to be sure, but honestly outside of the erstwhile trans twitter i never ran across anybody who had much to say about the man's stance on trans people one way or the other. he said some stupid shit, he stood by an old colleague when he really shouldn't have, he took _way_ too long to recognize and apologize for the shitty jokes he made about trans people. trans people aren't monolithic, some trans people _will_ hate him forever for his actions and fair enough, but my attitude is basically you know what, cool, apology accepted, i honestly wasn't paying enough attention to you over the past couple years to realize you said transphobic shit.

linehan, though? some people point out to him that hey the way he portrayed trans people was kind of shitty and inaccurate and the man just went the fuck _off_. like whoa. whoa. dude. what the fuck is wrong with you? just giving you some constructive criticism, like maybe in your future work you could do a little bit better when it comes to portraying trans people. like, people have some pretty common misconceptions about us and that sucks and maybe we can just, like... move beyond that.

i mean most people? honestly, most people don't give a shit about our gender one way or another. i mean, why would they? why the fuck does it make a difference to them whether i'm a man or a woman or non-binary or something else entirely? some people, though, some people just get _weird_ about it. not many, but some. and it's not really correlated with anything in particular. not in cases like linehan's at least, with rowling you can trace it back to social contagion from mumsnet, but even there, ultimately you get back to someone who's just being fucking _weird_ about trans people for no discernable reason. that pathetic whinge from his on the other thread, i mean, i'm sure in most respects he _is_ genuinely progressive. he's, just, honestly incapable of understanding that the whole thing he has about trans people, that's pretty much just a him thing, this isn't some universal understanding all people just innately have.

i mean i can kind of relate in a weird way? like, when i was younger, i just kind of assumed all guys secretly wanted to be girls. i mean it just seemed, like, logical to me. who wouldn't, you know? but then when i'd talk about it people would like. act like i was weird for feeling that way. ok well i guessed most people just weren't ready to talk about those feelings so i stopped talking about them.

eventually i figured out that wanting to be a girl was kind of a me thing. it took me way longer than a reasonable person would have taken to figure it out, though, and my lack of insight really fucked up my life in the meantime. i mean, i'm not saying i'm _sympathetic_ at all to him, fuck him and his stupid, pointless bigotry, but i understand how someone can totally destroy their life by refusing to recognize the obvious.

anyway i do think linehan was genuinely funny. the scene of chairman mao on his deathbed suddenly getting up to sing "virginia plain" is one of my all-time comedy moments. my disinterest in his work is just as much a matter of comedy's tendency to age like milk as it is a matter of his, like. hating people like me for no discernable reason.

it probably wasn't worth my time to spend so much time thinking about graham linehan, but fuck it, i did anyway.

idk, i guess there's just something... impressively stupid about a funny, talented, popular celebrity destroying his career, his family, and his life trying to convince the world that i'm a man. like, i'm sorry, have we met? it's not that i'm not flattered, but really, you needn't go to all that trouble just for my sake.

Follow up: lol

supposedly this pic.twitter.com/2NZIpYTOnd

— Nathan Bernhardt (@jonbernhardt) April 15, 2023

His second suspension in three days — the previous was for asking ppl to doxx someone for him so he could try to get them fired.

Correction: third.