Quote: Jonny M @ September 3 2012, 12:28 PM BST7 December 2012: Jo Brand, Andrew Rosindell, MP Ross Noble
Bloody hell!
HIGNFY - Series 44 Page 2
MP? Manic prick?
Christ on a rubber cross, this was f**king dire.
The sanctimonious way in which they dealt with the Jimmy Savile scandal made me want to blow chunks through my nose. And once you create a puritanical atmosphere where laughter is frowned upon, you are going nowhere fast.
Poor old Claire Balding, she tried to do a couple of off colour gags and the audience turned on her, but luckily the panellists came to her rescue - oh wait, they hid behind their hypocritical masks of respectability and let her suffer on her own.
God, how I wish Frankie Boyle had been hosting tonight. There ya go anti-Boyle campaigners, you've just seen the future of BBC comedy. I hope you enjoyed it.
Well I thought it was superb. I was worried they wouldn't deal with it and thought it was excellent they did, as well having a go at the Daily Mail.
However I don't think it helped that they had a couple of near the line jokes. It would have been better if they'd got it back to being light hearted. The 9/11 joke was just rubbish.
Was a bit worried that the.....actually, no. This was just total shite.
The BBC defensive stuff did seem a bit contrived, even if it wasn't.
But Balding did a pretty good job as host.
The show itself has not been "must see" telly for far too long unfortunately.
Quote: Jonny M @ October 12 2012, 11:09 PM BSTHowever I don't think it helped that they had a couple of near the line jokes. It would have been better if they'd got it back to being light hearted. The 9/11 joke was just rubbish.
Yeah, this. I didn't mind the Jimmy Savile round, I thought they got as many jokes out of it they reasonably could (not that a round about a subject like that is really about the jokes). The only alternative would be to avoid it altogether, which would have been far weirder.
But then they followed it with a round about Abu Hamza, and a pretty poor taste joke, and the rounds that followed weren't really funny enough to recover.
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ October 12 2012, 9:29 PM BSTPoor old Claire Balding, she tried to do a couple of off colour gags and the audience turned on her, but luckily the panellists came to her rescue - oh wait, they hid behind their hypocritical masks of respectability and let her suffer on her own.
Well the only thing to do after a joke's failed as spectacularly as that is to quickly move on, Merton and Hislop know this full well.
I did like Ken's comment that the £9billion Olympic spending was worth it to see George Osborne get booed.
Curious that the joke was not left in the editing suite; does the producer hate Claire Balding?
Quote: Raymond Terrific @ October 13 2012, 11:12 AM BSTYeah, this. I didn't mind the Jimmy Savile round, I thought they got as many jokes out of it they reasonably could (not that a round about a subject like that is really about the jokes).
I couldn't disagree with you more, but as public figures, if they did crack some hilariously funny jokes about Jimmy Savile, the ignorant British public - no doubt fuelled by the press - would make pariahs out of them and send them death threats on Twitter.
Last night was a gutless display of crowd appeasement and Lineham's line about melting down the badges and running a stake through Savile's grave is an affirmation that mob justice rules.
Utterly pathetic.
So you're convinced they were just appeasing the crowd and not reacting genuinely? Why?
Quote: Raymond Terrific @ October 13 2012, 12:54 PM BSTSo you're convinced they were just appeasing the crowd and not reacting genuinely? Why?
You do know that they are people 'off da telly'? And that soon as the show ended, they were in the Green Room reeling off a dozen Jimmy Savile gags that would make Jimmy Carr blush.
And if you can get 12 weeks in jail for making a bad taste joke on your Facebook page and the British public approves of the sentence, then you have no chance of getting away with it under the new BBC climate of no controversy ever.
I have never seen them react in the same way to any other news story previously and I can only summise that the warm up comedian tried a couple of gags, gauged the mood of the mob audience and the guests played it super safe.
Cowardly and gutless.
The thing is I agree with you that there IS a problem with freedom of speech right now, and if any of them had cracked a bad taste joke about Savile then they absolutely shouldn't get punished for it. That guy getting 12 weeks is terrible. We all should have a right to be tasteless and offensive if we want.
But I don't know why you think any one of Paul Merton, Ian Hislop, Clare Balding, Graham Linehan or Ken Livingstone would WANT to make a joke about a horrific story of a paedophile whose victims are only just finding the courage to come out. It doesn't really seem like their cup of tea.
Quote: Raymond Terrific @ October 13 2012, 1:11 PM BSTBut I don't know why you think any one of Paul Merton, Ian Hislop, Clare Balding, Graham Linehan or Ken Livingstone would WANT to make a joke about a horrific story of a paedophile whose victims are only just finding the courage to come out. It doesn't really seem like their cup of tea.
Probably because they have cracked jokes in the past about Gary Glitter, Michael Jackson, Myra Hindley, etc. When people starting booing a joke about a terrorist who preached hate and violence and lost his arms building a bomb to kill innocents, then you know you're onto a loser.
The collusion between the craven panellists and the ignorant British public was a pact made in comedy hell. And whereas Hislop and Merton have been critical of the BBC in the past, you could tell that one joke too far and they'd lose their ultra cushy jobs.
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ October 13 2012, 1:17 PM BSTProbably because they have cracked jokes in the past about Gary Glitter, Michael Jackson, Myra Hindley, etc. When people starting booing a joke about a terrorist who preached hate and violence and lost his arms building a bomb to kill innocents, then you know you're onto a loser.
The collusion between the craven panellists and the ignorant British public was a pact made in comedy hell. And whereas Hislop and Merton have been critical of the BBC in the past, you could tell that one joke too far and they'd lose their ultra cushy jobs.
You're deluded if you think they were going to do tasteless gags about Jimmy Saville. It's not cowardly, it was fairly sensible. They actually talked about it seriously and maturely, more than anyone else has and HIGNFY is hardly the place to go and be offensive for pretty much no reason. I thought they handled it really well.