Be Excellent To Each Other

I don't know who he is. Is he a Brand-a-like, or actually funny? If he's funny, I'll allow him to live.

He's a stand-up comedian that has built an entire career on pushing the boundaries of offensiveness. So much so that when he goes to the mic on Mock the Week, the audience groans in anticipation.

I find him very funny, but he's an acquired taste. I don't think he would be as funny if he didn't have the Scottish accent though, I'm weird like that.

The show they are complaing about is a repaet, it has been on DAVE too.

Indeed, I chortled about it on Dave too. I blame Russell Brand for all this. I hope a bit of his heroin drink goes down the wrong pipe and he has that panicked coughing thing that you sometimes get.

*groans* This week's b3ta newsletter title: "Brand and Ross placed on Sachs offenders register"

And the utterly wonderful

The daily mail's readership probably don't have a high computer competancy rate. Give it a week to figure out how to watch the clip on youtube, then another couple of days to type out the letter, print it and stick it in the post.


Also, it's not actually that many. To show the point, Chris Moyles got 30,000 or so to text in to his program a few days ago.

FTFY.

FWIW, today's Revert to Saved is, inevitably, about the Ross/Brand/goth thing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/fivelivebreakfast/

Paul Gambaccini with the best interview you will hear about the subject.

Listen between the lines as to what he is saying. And note that Gambo is one of the nicest people in broadcasting and is very well thought of by radio people at the BBC and commercial stations. It's very unusual to hear him being so forthright and critical of a "colleague".

Listening between the lines I'm hearing a bit or resentment and jealously too.

Crikey, with the coverage this is getting, you'd think they'd insulted Mohammed!

They need to back that up somehow, perhaps by supporting the presenters and the controller of the channel.



That's not the point. If you force one guy out because you don't like him, there's no comeback when someone you DO like gets censored either.

There is so much good comedy, and indeed broadcasting in general that's come about because people have pushed boundaries. Here, they failed, no question but you can't let that be a deterrent to future risks.

I certainly didn't find any of that show funny, but I defend it because I knew where this goes, straight to shows like Mock the week where I giggled helplessly at 2 of the 3 clips up there.

Oh he didn't shag Sachs' granddaughter too did he?

Not until she was 9. Man he waited 3 years, There is nothing funny about it.

No, not from Gambo. Seriously. He's got no ambitions other than carrying on his little show. He's been there and done it all years ago.

If you are sensing anything you are detecting the feelings of a trained radio professional (and the other pros at Radio 2) who feel they are being edged out in favour of TV personalities who have no training or feeling for radio. He will be close to the production staff at the station and will be representing their feelings. It's now clear than Brand has got through lots of staff because he either sacks them or they walk out and this has been tolerated by the management. So he ends up surrounded with yes men and inexperienced staff who let this happen because they are frightened to stand up to him. Gambo is furious the production staff were trampled over and then the whole station has been bought into disrepute by this very fact.

And he's got a point, and that does come back to big management's fault for hiring someone dangerous and then being surprised when he's dangerous.

Brand was fired from another station for turning up dressed as Bin Laden on 12/9/01. THAT'S what you've bought into, expect the results. You don't buy Nascar 09 and then complain about the high proportion of left hand corners.

That was MTV. He was sacked from XFM for reading porn stories out on-air. But there was also rumours of inviting tramps back to the studios as well.

He's just so outrageous!!

That and she agreed to remove all the layers of protection. He forced Radio 2 into letting his own company produce the show and totally bypassed all the content controllers at Radio 2. Douglas should have told him to stick it, but he was her baby so she let him get away with it. So there were no checks in place and the responsibility was therefore hers.

Also, reality check - it's not that outrageous, is it?

I think the bigger crime is what has been going on behind the scenes. A strong producer who is respected by the "talent" is vital. It's disgusting that Brand has been allowed the bypass the production process and also shit all over his production staff. That's what Gambo is referring to about "hair standing on end". I expect anyone who said "no" was fired.

The producer is the unseen unheard force behind a show. OK so Wogan's producer (now dead) and Ross's producer appear on-air but many don't. John Peel had a great producer, as did Steve Wright. It's little known that one of the reasons Wright walked from Radio 1 breakfast in the mid 90's was because they had fired his producer and Wright was very unhappy about that.

When DLT was washed up after he finished Radio 1 breakfast it was a young producer by the name of Trevor Dann who reinvented him and enabled him to squeeze another 10+ years out of his Radio 1 career. Ironically it was Dann who sacked Steve Wrights producer many years later.

On a big national show, a producer is very very important. Some radio presenters are difficult wierd beasts at the best of times (and I've worked with some right weirdoes) but cross into the territory of national radio and celebrities and I can't imagine how difficult it must be.

Further to the amusing side topic, "That Littlejohn, he's a cunt isn't he?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1390395.stm

Hahahhaha!

Now what's he up to?

Malc

According to Wogan, there's a slight possibility that Ross may simply jack it all in.


And even then The Sun and the DM's combined readership won't be satisfied. I mean they continue to hunt down convicts who've finished their sentences, so why stop there?

Word is that his people were hawking him around competitors to see what else was out there. The answer is not a lot. Unless he fancies a primetime chatshow on Dave.

Brand got through six separate producers apparently. All experienced people, but each one was either sacked or walked. Madness. If that didn't set alarm bells ringing no wonder we ended up where we are now.

Frankly, I'm pissed off I can't watch Film 2008 until it gets renamed, that Ross was replaced by the vacant Keanu Reeves last night, and I'll miss Brand's occasional banter with the Gallaghers.

This made me laugh though (from http://www.notnews.today.com)

"National outrage was sparked by a moment's idiocy on the part of Jonathan Woss and Wussell Bwand a few weeks ago when the newspapers ran out of stories about Big Brother contestants, skateboarding ducks and what your breasts mean to fill the spaces between pronouncements of economic doom.

The incident occurred when, in a terrible lapse of judgement, a radio producer let Mr Ross and Mr Brand behave on-air in the manner they had been hired to. It is understood that Brand made the slanderous suggestion that he had in fact managed to get it up at least once whilst going out with Georgina Baillie.

"I am mortified," said Ms Baillie, "at the number of half-page photos of my smile and cleavage in the papers and the many impending offers of work. Just mortified."

The BBC has suspended the two presenters for embarrassing director general Mark Thompson.

"In these dark, Maddie-free days," thundered all papers, "this sort of obscenity against a member of the Satanic Sluts cannot be countenanced. Suspension is hardly sufficient. The British sense of justice and fair play will not be satisfied until they are castrated by a baying crowd, pursued through the street on horseback with dogs, hanged by the neck outside White City until dead and their foul corpses left there to fester for at least a month. We pay our licence fees!""

Yes, that about covers it.

Fantastically done

WHO THE FUCK CARES?!S

Seriously.

Andrew Sachs.

As much as I loathe the Daily Mail, their targeting of shit 'comedians' is admirable. First Ross (amusing friends does not a comedian make) and now Boyle.

I hope someone hips them to Al Murray pretty soon.

Oh, get back to your comfort zone of Ben Elton going on about Thatcher and willies, then.

This is the thing, though. As someone else has already pointed out, they aren't targeting them because they are shite. They are targeting them because they are comedians (who incidentally, among other things have made jokes about the tabloids/Daily Mail). It'll be something good, next. The BBC won't be able to put good stuff on anymore.

LTIA

They came for Russel Brand, but I don't find him funny so I said nothing....

etc etc.

The Daily Mail targetting an act who spouts ill-informed, just this side of racist, Little Englander bollocks? You're in for a long wait, mate.

Al Murray is brillian, you silly buggers.

He's great

Thanks, you two - you've just reinforced my opinion that he is comedy for cretins.

He's variable but can be excellent. Though according to Richard Herring he is endlessly depressed that he attracts that simplistic tdaily mail reader who believes he isn't taking the piss out of them. Poor guy.

Poor Grim...fancy being labelled in the same category as me
I'm proud to be a cretin (I love that word)

Yeah, I guess the irony is just lost on too many people for him to be considered ironic.

Grinzor

Mod abuse! Mod abuse! Mod a...

...oh, wait.

I'm like a loose cannon now.

That's hardly his fault.