But actually, the reason I came over to the TV thread was to vent my anger. When I got in this evening Family Guy was on and there is something so fucking irritating about it that it drives me mental.
There is loads of comedy that I don't like - most of it, in fact, obviously - but with Family Guy I get this really strong sensation that the people who make it, who write the jokes, just don't know what humour is or what funny means.
It's not that they are trying to be funny and failing, it just seems that they don't understand the concept of something being funny and you feel that someone behind the characters is just desperately saying stuff and hoping it somehow lands on funny. It reminds me of someone trying to guess an answer to a multiple choice maths question that they simply don't understand and they have no idea if their guess is correct or not - you can almost hear them talking to each other behind the animation asking each other if they're getting to understand it yet or if they know why people seemed to like the last one. There is no comedy happening, no end goal that they can aim at so there is plan or strategy towards that goal, they don't know why people laugh at things.
I guess that's not a crime in itself but it seems insane that this anti-comedy is on telly. Not just on telly, it's on all the fucking time. There is one channel here that seems to have nothing but that on, all day from 9am until 6pm or something.
The only other time I've felt that is with that guy... Noel Fielding is that what he's called? The guy from The Mighty Boosh anyway. Now I'm not a huge fan of that programme but I suppose it was ok, it had some moments that were funny enough, some of it was annoying, whatever. It has I think a kind of cult following, people loyal to its "wacky brand of off the wall humour" etc I suppose.
But then after that there is some stuff that NF did on his own, and it's really fucking tragic. Whatever he had before he has fucking lost it. Or else it was the other guy doing it, I dunno. But you see him on his show (I forget what it's called) but it is a bit like what I said above about Family Guy, but in a sense it's kinda really sad, it's like seeing someone who used to have magic powers and they've lost them and they know they've lost them and they are desperately trying and failing to do the things they used to be able to do with ease, in front of an audience who loves them and is willing them so hard to succeed (and it's often been remarked that one of the most uncomfortable sights is an audience that feels sorry for whoever it's watching)... but each time they disappoint them. It's cruel, even masochistic cos he can't stop... you can totally why the crying clown can be such a powerful character, but of course the idea there is that the clown is funny and then off stage he is sad, here the sadness is just exposed on stage in front of everyone and the attempted shield of humour just wilts away leaving him unprotected and broken and confused.
So yeah, two funny programmes, one at the never-ending peak of its game, the other way past that, sliding down and further down into the bottomless abyss of failure. Both utterly unacquainted with FUNNY. Though luckily for Noel Fielding he went to be on the Great British Bake Off I think and people say he's pretty good - an unexpected happy ending.
