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8 out of 10 Cats Prefer 8 out of 10 Cats
This week I’m going to introduce my fellow American’s to a new British panel or comedy show everyday.
Jimmy Carr hosts 8 out of 10 Cats, which features some of his offensive shock-based humor that you either like or find appalling. The show’s name comes from the Whiskas cat food slogan “8 out of 10 Cats prefer Whiskas” and its premise revolves around opinion polls.
8 out of 10 Cats has two teams of six. Each team features a permanent panelist and two celebrity guests, who have to guess various statistics. Sean Lock, who you may recognize as the host of TV Heaven, Telly Hell, is the only permanent panelist who has been with the show from the beginning.
The following episode is the last one from series (season) 11. It is a “Best of” clip show, so ignore the random people and clothing changes. Just enjoy the show.
Who’s Getting Sent to Room 101?
This week I’m going to introduce my fellow American’s to a new British panel or comedy show everyday.
Room 101, another show that originated on radio, lets celebrities send people and things to “a fate worse than death.” Since that is the premise of the show, celebrities pick things they don’t like or things they think would make for a funny exchange and good television.
Not every object mentions goes into Room 101 because the host has to be persuaded that the object deserves to go into Room 101, which is named for the room in George Orwell’s 1984. Some things that celebrities have chosen to send to Room 101 are American Football, The Beatles, and even the show itself.
There have been three hosts of Room 101: Nick Hancock, Paul Merton, and Frank Skinner. The following clip is from the last show ever with Paul Merton and has Ian Hislop trying to send Piers Morgan into Room 101. However, it doesn’t quite work the way as planned.
TV Heaven, Telly Hell
This week I’m going to introduce my fellow American’s to a new British panel or comedy show everyday.
Channel 4’s TV Heaven, Telly Hell has a celebrity tell host Sean Lock about what shows, people, etc. belong in “TV Heaven” or “Telly Hell.” As you can probably infer, tings that the celebrity likes go to “TV Heaven” and those that they don’t go to “Telly Hell”. It’s one of those shows that would be fun to play a version of with your friends. Of course, you don’t agree with the celebrity’s choices all the time, but that is the fun in watching.
This episode features comedian Jimmy Carr, who sends Jeremy Clarkson and Flavor of Love to “TV Heaven” and Derek Acorah and Babestation to “Telly Hell.” Why Carr admitted to watching Flavor of Love, I’ll never know, but the results are very funny. Derek Acorah is a English Medium. Babestation is a TV channel whose title is self-explanatory.
Have fun watching Jimmy Carr on TV Heaven, Telly Hell.
The last three parts of the episode are after the jump. The show is a half hour.
I’ve Never Seen Star Wars
This week I’m going to introduce my fellow American’s to a new British panel or comedy show everyday.
I’ve Never Seen Stars Wars, which is based on the BBC Radio 4 series of the same name, is not one of the more popular panel shows. It only ran on BBC Four and BBC Two for 8 episodes in 2008 on and had 1 special in 2011. The original host was Marcus Brigstocke, who I have honestly never heard of before, but has an awesome name. Jo Brand hosted the 2011 special. Both Brigstocke and Brand are good hosts, but I prefer Jo Brand. However, I am extremely biased toward anything with Stephen Fry, who is the guest in that episode, so don’t let my opinion sway you.
Many of the celebrities are not well-known to Americans with the exception of maybe Stephen Fry and Clive Anderson, who was the host of the British version of Whose Line is it Anyway?. Despite not knowing the guest celebrities well, the show is still very funny.
The following clips are from Marcus Brigstocke’s run as host and features Clive Anderson as a guest.
Click the link below to see the second and third part of the episode.
Previewing FOX’s Fall Season-Part 1
FOX is notorious for shows with incredibly short tenures. Whether it was reality shows with absurd premises or just really bad sitcoms, a lot of its shows over the past decade lasted less than a season. In some ways, I almost anticipate most of their shows getting cancelled, even if I tend to like them. I know what’s done well and I know what’s not. I just don’t always like what’s done well. The fact is, network television is a rare and coveted entity.
New television excites me, though. It’s a new opportunity for a critical eye, whether my sentiment is “I like this,”, “I hate this,” or “I love to hate this.” The variables of FOX will most likely make this season very enjoyable.
The Mindy Project
I like Mindy Kaling and I don’t really have a concrete reason why. Her character type seems somewhat simple. She said in behind the scenes segments of The Office to basically be an exaggerated version of herself. The character of Kelly Kapoor is a caricature. She’s very over dramatic, immature, and lacking emotional development. Despite all this, she’s still charming to watch. Kelly went from an auxiliary background character to one worthy of an episode’s focus. She made me laugh, especially concerning her relationship “drama” over the course of the show. When I heard about The Mindy Project, I knew that I would have to give it a chance.
Kaling stars as Mindy Lahiri, an OB-GYN, who while a very competent doctor, has a lot of trouble with friendships and dating. The trailer was interesting and made me laugh, but I couldn’t tell much about the show’s premise. Lahiri seems to have a lot of the same mannerisms as Kapoor, especially concerning her fixation on men. The trailer also detailed her being charged with public intoxication. Her complaints about men and her struggle with alcohol could get old, but it might not matter so much if the episodes are funny.
Regardless, the show’s premise isn’t very much established in the trailer and self-contained shows do not impress me as much as shows with recurring arcs. Either way, I’m not sure what kind of show this is going to be. If The Mindy Project becomes a show about various neuroses Lahiri has to endure with her “guy of the week,” I don’t know if it can sustain itself. If it becomes a show about the delicate balances between her career and the discoveries of what (and whom) she really needs out of life, that seems a bit more promising. I just couldn’t tell. However, out of loyalty to Kaling, I would have checked this out regardless of what the trailer told me and I will watch at least a few episodes. I just hope it shows Kaling’s potential, even though I will miss her on The Office.
Jay Leno Celebrates 20 Years with NBC
Lately, NBC has been advertising Jay Leno celebrating 20 years at NBC, which is not entirely accurate. He has been with NBC for more than 20 years, the first few were spent as permanent guest host of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. NBC should be saying Leno has been hosting The Tonight Show for 20 years. Wait, that’s not right either, even though NBC wants to be able to insist otherwise. In reality, Leno has been regularly hosting a nightly talk show for 20 years: 19 years as host of The Tonight Show, 5 months as host of The Jay Leno Show.
Let’s be honest. It is impressive that Leno has been on the air for 20 years, but there is a huge segment of the population that holds a grudge against him. They are the ones who will always remember that Conan O’Brien hosted The Tonight Show for 7 months, which NBC would rather forget. They are the very reason Team Coco exists and Conan is now happy on TBS.
Reviewing TBS’s Men at Work
TBS is one of my favorite channels, but it’s one of the last places I would think of to have a quality first-run show. I’ll watch endless reruns of Friends or Seinfeld, but that’s what TBS is best at: reruns. Though, when I saw so many ads for Men at Work during multiple two hour marathons of Friends, I wanted to give it a chance. I have been a fan of Breckin Meyer ever since I saw him star in Rat Race in 2001, so I was curious about how well he would do as a showrunner. I’ve also been a fan of Danny Masterson for a while. I knew this new role wouldn’t be as enjoyable as when he was Hyde in That 70s Show, but I still wanted him to succeed.
The style of the show wasn’t going to suit me, since I have an aversion to multi-camera shows with a laugh track. While there are a few notable exceptions, the overwhelmingly deliberate delivery of punchline and prompting for the viewer to laugh turns me off. Also, the camera set up seems to compromise individual character focus. The premise of this show was respectable, but not very unique. Four men living, working and dating in New York. The series opened with two episodes on Thursday night, and while I chuckled a few times during both of them, I wasn’t impressed.
Previewing NBC’s Fall 2012 Season- Part 2
Every year, countless writers work sleepless nights, most likely putting themselves virtually under house arrest for several months, just for the outside chance of getting their pilot produced for television. Even six shows greenlit for NBC seems like a lot for the upcoming fall season. As discussed in Part 1, considering the network’s limited success producing long-running shows in recent years, the very deliberate effort to introduce new shows concerns me a bit. New shows do tend to interest me, though. I’m relatively young, and there have not been many chances for me to say I was a regular viewer of a really quality, long running television series from start to finish. This year could be my shot.
Animal Practice
Animal Practice revolves around Dr. George Coleman, a veterinarian at Crane Animal Hospital in New York City. The premise is relatively simple: he’s a prestigious veterinarian because of his kindness and care toward animals, but just doesn’t have the same kindness toward people. With that brief description, one might be inclined to chuckle in somewhat of a forced way. “He would be so likable if he cared about people that much, but he doesn’t! How amusing!” Upon watching the trailer, however, it becomes clear that this sentiment is nothing more than a misguided hope in the minds of the show’s creators. Dr. Coleman’s lack of sympathy and utter disinterest for anything human dominates the trailer. From the get-go, after Coleman, with no emotion, explains to a customer that he thinks her cat tried to commit suicide. At that moment, I knew the rest was not going to be promising. As it progresses, his boss calls him a lousy director so he says, “My system may not be perfect, but I help a lot of animals and I meet a lot of girls.” After a beat, he says excitedly, “My system is perfect!” The unsympathetic comedy protagonist has proven successful in past shows, but those kind of characters should be at least somewhat enjoyable. Most importantly, the characters and their surrounding situations should be funny and the attempt at humor seems very forced. Basically, I really don’t see Animal Practice lasting.
Weekly TV Update: May 21
Each week we bring you stories from around the Internet that you might have missed.
The Wall Street Journal reports that network “TV Embraces Its Dark Side” with new shows inspired by the success of The Walking Dead and Dexter.
For more news on the upcoming Fall season, check out Philly.com.
Less than a week since Dan Harmon was fired, Community has new showrunners.
Kristen Wiig leaves Saturday Night Live.
The series finale of House is tonight. The Tampa Bay Times has some observations about the show.
Wait! What's A Dial? 