Hi team,

Attached is a sketchette. I like the idea but not sure if my version works. Maybe I should lose one of Steven's examples..? You know, trim the bastard!

Any thoughtettes?

(A FUNERAL. STEVEN GETS UP TO DELIVER A EULOGY.)

Steven
We are here today to pay our last respects to Monty MacMinty Manty Moony Bottom (formally Paul Fosh). Whether you worked with Monty, socialised with him or have known him since childhood. You will at some point have been exposed to his sense of humour. A great lover of practical jokes and other humourous endeavours, Monty changed his name from Paul Fosh at the age of 19.

I shared an office with him for the last 6 months of his life and have noted a few of the special moments he made me share with him.

I remember on my first day in the office Monty put a bucket of stale sick above the door, as I walked through the doorway I heard a noise and looked up as the sick fell on my face. It went in my hair and my mouth.

Every month we'd always have 'Slap Monday'. Monty would administer an open handed slap every time he saw me. I would try and hide but he'd find me. He'd always find me...

He would put itching powder on the toilet roll in the office. I managed to get some lodged right up my sphincter on several occasions. It was like having ants living inside you.

He once smeared excrement all over my chair. I had a bad head cold and couldn't smell it. I sat there in that soiled chair for 4 hours before someone told me. My suit was ruined.

Finally, we move on to his passing. He was leaning out of the window trying to throw a balloon filled with rotting fish heads on my head. He lost his balance and fell 8 floors down. He was killed instantly, exploding on the pavement. The paramedics scooped him up and here he now lies, slopping around in that casket there.

I've spent the last few weeks in Ratigan's Centre for Nervous Disorders and I'm just here today to check that the bastard's actually dead.

This is really unpleasant. Shame on you.

Don't really see how an invented persons death is unpleasant, but thanks for the feedback.

What's more, being able to hear your delivery as you read it makes it all the funnier. Film it.

I dunno it feels a bit... 'listy'.

I think it's influenced by those Rowan Atkinson sketches where he's talking straight to the audience in character. Only not anywhere near as good, of course.

Quote: greensville @ June 1 2010, 4:06 PM BST

I dunno it feels a bit... 'listy'.

I think it's influenced by those Rowan Atkinson sketches where he's talking straight to the audience in character. Only not anywhere near as good, of course.

View original

I think it works though, listing all these horrible things he did. Made me laugh anyway. Perhaps you could try to make more of a story of it, to break up the list if you like; say the man confronted the dead bloke to try and reason with him, which obviously makes things worse. Something like that.

Quote: greensville @ June 1 2010, 3:58 PM BST

Don't really see how an invented persons death is unpleasant, but thanks for the feedback.

View original

I wasn't especially referring to the death of the tormentor, rather the references to 'stale sick' and excrement etc. A lot to put the reader through for no laughs.

Quote: Godot Taxis @ June 1 2010, 4:14 PM BST

I wasn't especially referring to the death of the tormentor, rather the references to 'stale sick' and excrement etc. A lot to put the reader through for no laughs.

View original

Ah my bad. I think I can get away with that as we don't actually see the sick or any of the other things.

More/ some laughs though? I'll take another look at it.

Hi,

all is not lost and that guy who said it had no laughs, well he doesn't do constructive criticism he just slates. I like it, yes it is in that slightly posh / silly Smith and Jones, Fry and Laurie etc sort of humour that I think has way passed it's laugh by date but I can imagine it still getting a laugh. If you had the guy standing standing at the lecturn (is that what they're called in church) with the coffin to one side and in sight.

I've spent the last few weeks in Ratigan's Centre for Nervous Disorders and I'm just here today to check that he's actually dead so that I can complete my therapy and return to work..... ( steps down from the lecturn, opens the coffin lid toward the camera so that the body cannot be seen, the man looks down, suddenly he get slapped accross the face and a big cup of sick thrown at him from inside the coffin, then a man in a suit jumps out of the coffin, standing, pointing and laughing at him as the eulogy reader just shakes his head in terror and walks off leaving the laughing mocking man pointing and in hysterics.

Just a note.

Please try and stop using the phrase 'My bad', it's a terrible phrase that unless you're an American probably sounds false and forced and is probably doing you as much good as saying 'I need go poo poo'. We have a beautiful language of our own full of colour and clever expressions we don't need to borrow kids phrases from Fox. Sorry to be a twat but I find it quite embarrassing to hear Brits using American phrases.

Quote: karlosthegreat1 @ June 2 2010, 3:35 AM BST

Hi,

all is not lost and that guy who said it had no laughs, well he doesn't do constructive criticism he just slates. I like it, yes it is in that slightly posh / silly Smith and Jones, Fry and Laurie etc sort of humour that I think has way passed it's laugh by date but I can imagine it still getting a laugh. If you had the guy standing standing at the lecturn (is that what they're called in church) with the coffin to one side and in sight.

I've spent the last few weeks in Ratigan's Centre for Nervous Disorders and I'm just here today to check that he's actually dead so that I can complete my therapy and return to work..... ( steps down from the lecturn, opens the coffin lid toward the camera so that the body cannot be seen, the man looks down, suddenly he get slapped accross the face and a big cup of sick thrown at him from inside the coffin, then a man in a suit jumps out of the coffin, standing, pointing and laughing at him as the eulogy reader just shakes his head in terror and walks off leaving the laughing mocking man pointing and in hysterics.

Just a note.

Please try and stop using the phrase 'My bad', it's a terrible phrase that unless you're an American probably sounds false and forced and is probably doing you as much good as saying 'I need go poo poo'. We have a beautiful language of our own full of colour and clever expressions we don't need to borrow kids phrases from Fox. Sorry to be a twat but I find it quite embarrassing to hear Brits using American phrases.

View original

Thanks mate. I was hoping that while had it's roots in old school sketch, it was a bit more vicious.

Like your new ending!

Think I'll sit on it for a while anyway. Maybe look at it again in a few months or just abandon it.

I love using American phrases with my English accent! Other favourites are 'much obliged', 'I reckon so' and 'I reckon not'. Though to be honest, those are mostly from one Clint Eastwood film.

Quote: greensville @ June 1 2010, 3:15 PM BST

Hi team,

Attached is a sketchette. I like the idea but not sure if my version works. Maybe I should lose one of Steven's examples..? You know, trim the bastard!

Any thoughtettes?

(A FUNERAL. STEVEN GETS UP TO DELIVER A EULOGY.)

Steven
We are here today to pay our last respects to Monty MacMinty Manty Moony Bottom (formally Paul Fosh). Whether you worked with Monty, socialised with him or have known him since childhood. You will at some point have been exposed to his sense of humour. A great lover of practical jokes and other humourous endeavours, Monty changed his name from Paul Fosh at the age of 19.

I shared an office with him for the last 6 months of his life and have noted a few of the special moments he made me share with him.

I remember on my first day in the office Monty put a bucket of stale sick above the door, as I walked through the doorway I heard a noise and looked up as the sick fell on my face. It went in my hair and my mouth.

Every month we'd always have 'Slap Monday'. Monty would administer an open handed slap every time he saw me. I would try and hide but he'd find me. He'd always find me...

He would put itching powder on the toilet roll in the office. I managed to get some lodged right up my sphincter on several occasions. It was like having ants living inside you.

He once smeared excrement all over my chair. I had a bad head cold and couldn't smell it. I sat there in that soiled chair for 4 hours before someone told me. My suit was ruined.

Finally, we move on to his passing. He was leaning out of the window trying to throw a balloon filled with rotting fish heads on my head. He lost his balance and fell 8 floors down. He was killed instantly, exploding on the pavement. The paramedics scooped him up and here he now lies, slopping around in that casket there.

I've spent the last few weeks in Ratigan's Centre for Nervous Disorders and I'm just here today to check that the bastard's actually dead.

View original

You only really need to describe one practical joke. Anything other than that is repeating the joke.

Quote: chipolata @ June 3 2010, 3:56 PM BST

You only really need to describe one practical joke. Anything other than that is repeating the joke.

View original

Isn't the funny in the fact that he relates so many horrible things, rather than just saying one horrible thing? Horror after horror? It's the extending that makes the joke.

Quote: Matthew Stott @ June 3 2010, 4:32 PM BST

Isn't the funny in the fact that he relates so many horrible things, rather than just saying one horrible thing? Horror after horror? It's the extending that makes the joke.

View original

Not for me, but I take your point.

I personally think it would have been more interesting if it could have been hinted at that the man giving the eulogy had actually murdered the practical joker. Just given it a little twist at the end.

I like, and I think it needs the reinforcement of the repetition.

I would keep any twist ending simple. Maybe after reading the eulogy he sits down on a whoopee cushion.

Quote: Timbo @ June 3 2010, 6:31 PM BST

I like, and I think it needs the reinforcement of the repetition.

View original

Fair enough. But I think if you're going down the repetition route, it has to escalate, to give it momentum. Othwerwise it's just a list of horrible practical jokes. IMO they should build towards the most horrific, possibly into areas in which the practical joker has really hurt or distressed people. Not just the eulogist.