What do you prefer to Red Dwarf?

[John Hoare]

Of course – it’s one of my favourite music videos. But that doesn’t stop a nice pastiche – as I would call it – being a lot of fun too.

The kind of reference I have a problem with is overquoted stuff in some shows/films – the amount of time I’ve heard riffs on “You damn dirty ape” is ridiculous, and beyond tedious by now. I think that’s incredibly lazy. But a lovingly created pastiche of something beautiful like that, which hasn’t been endlessly done? I’m all for it.

[Anonymous]

> For me, a spoof should take something that?s relatively serious and take the piss. It shouldn?t involve lifting an entire comedic sequence wholesale and then add a weak gag at the end.

Yeah…you can’t really parody comedy. Which is why stuff like “Scary Movie” is a big bag of shite. Scream was a genre pastiche already.

And there is indeed a weakness when references are consigned to simply imitating the original. Sticking with the scary movie theme, “Epic Movie” simply trotted out someone dressed as Captain Jack or Paris Hilton and expected the audience to laugh and clap their hands purely because they recognised who it was supposed to be.

The A-Ha bit in Family Guy is superbly done but ultimately, what’s the point of it?

[Pete Part Three]

I assume Epic Movie is on a similar par to Date Movie which is, quite probably, the worst film I have ever seen.

>The A-Ha bit in Family Guy is superbly done but ultimately, what?s the point of it?

It’s all leading up to that amazing punchine:

Lois : Chris, where have you been?
Chris : I don’t know!

LOL!

[Jonathan Capps]

> LOL!

Yes, exactly.

[Pete Part Three]

“In case you didn’t know, I was being sarcastic!”
“Well, duh”.

The Simpsons – Flaming Moe

(You see, when I rip off The Simpsons, I at least acknowledge it).

[Andrew]

> The A-Ha bit in Family Guy is superbly done but ultimately, what?s the point of it?

As I say, it’s unfair to define ‘reference’ and ‘spoof’ as the same thing.

If you don’t like what the show does, fair enough, but I’m still very taken with the ‘hey, remember this?’ recreations. That’s ‘the point’; it makes me smile, makes me feel included.

[Jonathan Capps]

“Was that sarcasm?”
“I don’t even know anymore!”

[Seb Patrick]

>the amount of time I?ve heard riffs on ?You damn dirty ape? is ridiculous, and beyond tedious by now.

Of course, The Simpsons has done the two best Planet Of The Apes references ever, in “Deep Space Homer” and “A Fish Called Selma”…

Anyway, this is the best movie reference in the history of television. And I’m not even a Star Wars fan. But it’s just… perfection. And doing a shot-for-shot reference is so much more impressive in live action than in animation – and even more so when it’s so well-integrated into the framework of the show itself, rather than snapping you right out of it.

[John Hoare]

> LOL!

Yes, exactly.

Same for me. The pastiche/parody/reference/whatever you want to call it makes me smile… but that last line really does make me do a genuine LOL.

I do agree with Andrew that references can make you smile and feel included – but if a show was *just* that, then it’d get boring pretty quickly. But Family Guy isn’t just about that – or, at least, the episodes I’ve seen before the recommissioning weren’t. (I must admit, I’d not seen the Ah-ha video one – is that from an episode before or after?)

[Pete Part Three]

>Anyway, this is the best movie reference in the history of television. And I?m not even a Star Wars fan. But it?s just? perfection.

That’s more like it. Awesome and PART OF THE STORY.

[Anonymous]

> And doing a shot-for-shot reference is so much more impressive in live action than in animation – and even more so when it?s so well-integrated into the framework of the show itself, rather than snapping you right out of it.

Absobloodyexactly. And it’s funny because we know that Tim is a Star Wars fan and it’s equating their small domestic problem with a galaxy-spanning epic tragedy, which is brilliant.

[Seb Patrick]

Incidentally, speaking of Family Guy and Star Wars references… has anyone seen Blue Harvest? I haven’t, but it strikes me as just about the most pointless thing ever. I can’t believe the amount of hype and publicity the DVD release got.

[Anonymous]

Yeah…I was rather disappointed by it. When Spaceballs came out they said it was 10 years too late…so be all accounts this is 30 years late.

It is quite funny in places but most of it is parody that’s been done elsewhere a long time ago (in a galaxy far far away).

And Family Guy is now swamped with self-references where call-backs to earlier episodes involve repeating the exact same joke. It’s in danger of forming a big self-referential circle and eating its own arse.

[Anonymous]

Don’t want people to think I’m just slinging bile at FG for the sake of it. I must say that I thought Series 2 and 3 were largely brilliant.

[Seb Patrick]

Yeah, I loved FG seasons two and three – although I’ve found that they don’t stand up to re-watching nowadays as much as I thought they would.

I thought season four started out pretty strongly, but rapidly deteriorated. The point at which I stopped watching altogether was the episode with the tribe that Chris joined, where Meg was “killed” at the end. I just got sick of the endlessly piled-on Meg hatred, that simply wasn’t funny any more (plus, I know that it’s only a cartoon, but even in a sitcom I think *some* degree of, at the very least, episode-to-episode continuity is necessary). It also felt like the show thought it was being so much smarter and funnier than it actually was. It feels like it’s disappeared up its own arse, which has been borne out by the bits and bobs I’ve seen since then. One-off characters that were extremely funny the first time (such as the greased-up naked guy and the creepy old paedophile) have been endlessly re-used and run into the ground (The Simpsons was guilty of this too – take Disco Stu, for example). And the parody thing really has become ludicrous. Compare “Black to the Future” – which takes dialogue from BTTF and fits it around a joke – with the “Somewhere That’s Green” sequence from one of the more recent series. Yes, it’s a note-perfect parody. Yes, it’s kind of amusing that Herbert’s singing it. But it goes on for the FULL duration of the song, and there is absolutely no joke beyond the fact that they’re re-doing a movie scene. Self-indulgent, and a really cheap and easy way of padding out running time.

[Seb Patrick]

>call-backs to earlier episodes involve repeating the exact same joke.

Such as Peter bashing his knee and going “Tssssssss…. AAAAAAHHHH!” It went on too long THE FIRST TIME, never mind the countless times it’s been repeated since then.

[Anonymous]

Aye, it’s all rather self-congratulatory and smug.

[Seb Patrick]

>I assume Epic Movie is on a similar par to Date Movie which is, quite probably, the worst film I have ever seen.

I saw about the first ten minutes of Date Movie on one of the movie channels over Christmas. It might actually have been the most vile and abhorrent thing I’ve ever watched. Alyson Hannigan, WHY, WHY, WHY?

The “spoof movie” train shows no signs of abating, though. “Superhero Movie” is next, which seems strange as from what I’ve gathered superhero movies have already been spoofed in most of the others anyway. But it’s an absolutely appalling and relentless stream of utter shit – no actual jokes, just recreations of existing scenes played out by gurning morons. The fact that all the publicity keeps comparing them to Airplane! and The Naked Gun – genuinely funny films that actually put ORIGINAL JOKES amid their spoof concepts – is all the more galling.

(incidentally, Craig Bierko plays “Wolverine” in Superhero Movie. Yay.)

[Pete Part Three]

>I saw about the first ten minutes of Date Movie on one of the movie channels over Christmas. It might actually have been the most vile and abhorrent thing I?ve ever watched. Alyson Hannigan, WHY, WHY, WHY?

Ditto. I hate the way spoofs are going because the genre DOES have merit occasionally. But for it to work, it needs to be spoofing something that deserves to be spoofed. Publicity for Epic Movie (and no, I haven’t watched it) includes a Napoleon Dynamite lookalike wearing a T-shirt that says “Don’t Vote For Pedro”. Hilarious.

The focusing on fads, crazes and movies that will be completely forgotten in ten years time is killing the genre and making the resultant movies completely disposable.

Naked Gun, Airplane and (to a lesser extent) Hot Shots are proper films with plots, not a bunch of sketches riffing on scenes from movies. Scary Movie 4 (or was it 3?) shoe-horned in the entire plot of War of the Worlds AND The Village. it didn’t seem to matter that the film made zero sense as a consequence.

And it wouldn’t, if it was funny.

Which it wasn’t.

[Jonathan Capps]

> Incidentally, speaking of Family Guy and Star Wars references? has anyone seen Blue Harvest? I haven?t, but it strikes me as just about the most pointless thing ever. I can?t believe the amount of hype and publicity the DVD release got.

I haven’t seen it yet, but I HATE it!

[Andrew]

Blue Harvest disappointed me a lot. Which, given that I love the show – still – was pretty crushing.

There’s a difference, I think, between the recreation of forgotten or rarely-seen stuff (I liked the Somewhere That’s Green sequence that Seb mentioned), and recreating something that EVERYBODY has seen. I like that half the Family Guy refs go over people’s heads, and that can never happen with Star Wars.

[Baz]

It all depends what I want to watch. I have a number of different “comfort food” DVDs and which ones I pick depends on my mood. For comedy I will go for Eddie Izzard, Bill Bailey (either in stand-up mode or Black Books) or Monty Python. For a sitcom it’s Blackadder or Red Dwarf. For a documentary it’s Attenborough, Dinosaurs or The Planets/Cosmos/Universe. For Sci-fi it’s Next Gen, DS9 or Battlestar. Sometimes it’s Studio Ghibli. Sometimes it’s Quatermass and the Pit. Or if I can’t be arsed it’s Dave. It doesn’t mean any are preferred as such over RD, it’s what I want to watch at the time. Sometimes only a Dwarf will do.

Still, I have the Moomins now (Birthday present), so we shall see.

[Dave]

Blue Harvest is better than A New Hope

[Anonymous]

Fudge is better than toffee.

[Pete Part Three]

Ear cataracts?!

[Anonymous]

Ear……CATARACTS?!

[Ben Paddon]

I loved Blue Harvest. It’s the funniest the show has been since it was un-cancelled.

[Seph]

I’m a fan of Family Giuy but i’m not keen on Spaced, i’ve only seen the first series tho so i’m not sure if it’s different in the second.

I like Family Guy/s referances because they’re thrown in there, you either get them or you don’t, ‘Somewhere That’s Green’ only makes sense as a referance if you’ve seen Little Shop of Horrors, and even then it’s hardly the most memorable song.
I also don’t feel the randomness or cut-away sections take me out of the story, although that’s possible more to do with being a fan of anime, even at it’s wierdest Family Guy is nowhere near as confusing or insane as stuff like PowerPuff Girls Z.

Spaced always felt, for a show who’s appeal i’ve always heard described as “omg it’s geeks like us!” that they were trying too hard to go “look, this is a referance!” like the episode where he spends the first half playing Residant Evil and then, omg he’s quoting Residant evil at the end! LOL!!1111

That said i’m not that keen on Family Guy when it’s jokes revolve around “look a peadophile!” “look Meg is unpopular!”

[Seb Patrick]

[John Hoare]

Now *that*’s funny.

[Tanya Jones]

When I feel upset, I watch my Charley Says DVDs. It’s like curling up on the sofa with a blanket.

[Seb Patrick]

>Now *that*?s funny.

I’m not sure if it’s something he’s done for a laugh (it was posted on his LJ), or if it’s actually a panel from issue #4. If the latter, then he’s gone up even further in my estimation than he was already. Sneaking a Harry Hill reference into a mainstream American-published comic book. McKelvie = win.

[Seb Patrick]

Spaced always felt, for a show who?s appeal i?ve always heard described as ?omg it?s geeks like us!? that they were trying too hard to go ?look, this is a referance!? like the episode where he spends the first half playing Residant Evil and then, omg he?s quoting Residant evil at the end! LOL!!1111

Hard as it may be to believe (given how much it gets talked about), the references are really only an additional point, rather than the main focus, of Spaced‘s appeal.

Spaced is great because it’s superbly-written, devastatingly funny, completely original, beautifully shot, infused with a tangible feeling of love and care in every fibre of its making, and – most importantly – filled with a deeply memorable and appealing set of characters whose relationships develop and grow over the course of its two short series.

It helps if you’re within the age group and cultural bracket that it centres around, it’s true; so if you’re not a twentysomething pop culture junkie with creative aspirations, I can imagine that it might be more difficult to engage with. And yes, the references are (for the most part) very specifically targeted at a certain type of movie geek (although I really don’t think they intrude into the show too much, with the possible exception of the weak One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest parody). But there’s just so much more to it in terms of the way it’s written and made, that I can’t understand how people wouldn’t appreciate it as one of the finest sitcoms of the last couple of decades.

[Seph]

” so if you?re not a twentysomething pop culture junkie with creative aspirations, I can imagine that it might be more difficult to engage with”

I suppose, but I can engage with Red Dwarf and i’m not working for the Jupiter Mining Corporation.

It was the same with Shaun of the Dead really, it felt more like they were going “look at all the zombie movies we’ve seen!” then actually trying to make a movie (although admittedly seeing the Battle Royale poster make me squee with joy)

[John Hoare]

I don’t get a lot of the film references in Spaced, as I don’t know much about films. (Although one of my favourites is the Jurassic Park reference: “Clever boys..”) However, most of the time, I don’t even notice there’s a reference there. It’s integrated superbly well, and not jarring if you don’t get it. Which is why I’ve never understood the criticisms of the references in the show.

That’s not to say that Family Guy‘s ridiculously obvious references don’t have their own joy too, of course. But Spaced is obviously the better show – as if that needed saying.

(Anyway, agreed that the references aren’t the main joy of Spaced anyway – it’s exactly what Seb says. And you know Spaced is good when a non-audience sitcom wins me round. It has to be REALLY good for that, as I’m a lot less tolerant of them. Same goes for Peep Show.)

[Anonymous]

I like Spaced.
Spaced is good.
Not as much as I used to.
But it is still very good.

Yes.

It has a good heart. And sometimes I wonder if I’m no longer keen on Family Guy because it’s so incessantly callous and cynical. Hard to engage with something like that in the long-term. Always gonna be distant.

It’s not uncool to be nice, daddy-oh.

[Andrew]

I suspect there’s something to be said for the fact that Spaced caught me a time when joyful geek optimism was just what I needed. And now, as I’m getting older, I find myself more in need of the hash cynicism of Family Guy – I actually FIND it engaging.

[Seb Patrick]

>it felt more like they were going ?look at all the zombie movies we?ve seen!? then actually trying to make a movie

See, again – Shaun is the ONLY zombie movie I’ve ever seen. I don’t like zombie movies. I don’t like horror. But I LOVE Shaun (though I’m in the very rare category of people who actually preferred Hot Fuzz), because again – it’s quite astonishingly well-made, very funny, and genuinely moving.

[Anonymous]

I done preferred Hot Fuzz too, by quite a wide margin.

[ChrisM]

Space related, have you seen this?

It’s a blog entry from Simon Pegg. Apparently Spaced may well get the American treatment, but it seems he and Jessica got left out of the loop somewhat.

[pfm]

This is when South Park ripped off Family Guy in the Cartoon Wars episode –

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XccwSiCg69k

FG is OK to an extent, then it does my head in. It’s too up its own arse.

A couple of clips to consider –

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MHNq0gbwwgA

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8mvrFHcgsc

[Ben Paddon]

Actually, it occurs to me that there are one or two webcomics that have filled the Red Dwarf shaped hole in my life. Both Starslip Crisis and Good Ship Chronicles have certain Dwarfesque elements which work rather well.

[Pete Part Three]

On a similar note to this thread, Empire are doing a poll to find the greatest TV show of all time. Kryten and Rimmer can be seen in their wall of images.

http://www.empireonline.com/features/greatesttv/

[pfm]

I’ve just spent the last 5 minutes sitting here doing nothing, wondering whether I would place ST:TNG in my top 5 TV shows of all-time. I thought I had a life. Evidently not.

Red Dwarf, Lost and Doctor Who (and its spinoffs!!) would definitely be in there. How season 4 of Lost is shaping up MAYBE cements it as my favourite show ever. Though there’s still a chance it could all go wrong, so perhaps that’s a little hasty.

Other contenders might be, amongst various others, The X-Files, Galactica, 24, Father Ted, The Office, Seinfeld, The League Of Gentlemen, Chip ‘N’ Dale Rescue Rangers…I mean COME ON!!!

[Andrew]

> Chip ?N? Dale Rescue Rangers?I mean COME ON!!!

THANK YOU!

For actual years now I’ve been trying to remember the ‘other’ Sunday morning Disney TV theme. I has Duck Tales, Gummi Bears and Talespin…but I knew there was another one.

I may be a Warner boy when it comes to running characters and shorts, but Disney always nailed the songs.

[Andrew]

> I may be a Warner boy when it comes to running characters and shorts, but Disney always nailed the songs.

Though I should really invoke the catchiness of Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs here…

[pfm]

How about this little beauty then –

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WbSLV1-j1E4

Let’s get dangerous…

[Arlene Rimmer BSc SSc]

>Though I should really invoke the catchiness of Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs here?

And Freakazoid!, if you’ve seen it. It wasn’t on long, but it was absogoddamnedlutely brilliant, along with its theme tune. (Does the Earthworm Jim cartoon theme count here?)

[Seb Patrick]

Voted for the Dwarf in first place out of loyalty. Rest of the five : Who, Simpsons, Spaced, Ted.

[John Hoare]

I really don’t think I can get my favourites down to 5 shows. I just like too much stuff.

[Author]

Posts