Meme!
Fact: The more I replay The Hangover in my head, the more I fall in love with the movie. I think I need to see it again and re-evaluate my original judgment of the film.
Anyway, 7 interests meme! Again! Because I am insane. And I feel sluggish from lady pains, so naturally a meme is the only course of action here. Instead of, you know, going walking/jogging or something. Because I have lady pains. IT'S A VALID REASON FOR BEING LAZY, OKAY?
Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.
_kataomoi_ gave me:
1. ade edmondson
2. quarterlife
3. kandy
4. rik mayall
5. sam seaborn
6. the comic strip presents
7. the young ones, tony/pepper
Okay, not sure if you meant to put Tony/Pepper on that last one there, but I'll talk about them anyway and just combine The Young Ones with Rik and Ade.
1. Ade Edmondson
aka the husband of Jennifer Saunders:
He's best known for his comedy projects that he did with Rik Mayall, namely his role as Vyvyan Basterd in The Young Ones:
And Eddie Elizabeth Hitler in Bottom:
Ade also often appeared in many episodes of The Comic Strip Presents, and it's probably this show that made me appreciate Ade and realize how truly brilliant he is, particularly Gregory: Diary of a Nutcase, which was a spoof of Silence of the Lambs (Keith Allen played the Hannibal character). Seriously dudes, watch that episode, you will not regret it. It was wonderful.
He's also written a book called The Gobbler which I absolutely adored, but probably only because I was mad obsessed with Rik and Ade at the time and I was convinced that the main character was a parody of Rik. But it actually was a pretty good book. His comedy books are pretty good too, but The Gobbler is an actual work of fiction, and I adored his style of writing.
Sadly, after the last Bottom Live tour, Ade pretty much broke off his working relationship with Rik Mayall because he wanted to pursue other things, which... has mostly resulted in celebrity reality shows. Pfft. Ade. Silly man. He did have a recurring role on Holby for awhile, but... yeah. It was mostly celeb reality stuff for a few years, which gave us the epicness of Ade on Fame Academy:
Bwahahahaha. Greatest performance of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" EVER! I think they were doing that for Comic Relief? I think. I can't remember, but I know it was a charity thing, and I was glued to my computer waiting for my British online friends to provide me with his performances, because he was just downright awesome and freaking hilarious.
Since then he's done a little directing, producing, and writing. And, now he's pretty much abandoned TV and has started a band called The Bad Shepherds. It's... different. Not bad different, just different.
2. Rik Mayall and The Young Ones
Best known to American audiences as Drop Dead Fred:
Yes, my friends, I discovered this fellow through a ridiculous, mediocre movie about imaginary friends that had a targeted audience of adults, not children. Nevertheless, I saw it as a child and the film stuck with me because I kind of had a thing for Fred. Then I saw it again when I was 18 or so and had a mini obsession with Rik where I searched him out on the net and gazed lovingly at all of his pics and downloaded a few video clips of his past work, which, back then, didn't appeal to me, so he stayed a mini-obsession that I pretty much forgot about a few weeks later. Then in 2005 I saw an ep of The Young Ones on BBC America and I was like, "Oh! The dude from Drop Dead Fred is in this! MUST WATCH!" And once I got used to the style of comedy, I really enjoyed it. Then I watched Drop Dead Fred again and my obsession came back full force and lasted for a good two years. I joined Blockbuster Online and rented all three series of Bottom, fell in mad, mad love with that show, and then I rented The Young Ones and enjoyed it a whole lot more than I had previous to watching Bottom. So, while most people prefer The Young Ones, I actually think Bottom is better. The Young Ones was groundbreaking and it was a great satire on the frivolity of 80s youth, but Bottom was just plain hilarious. And kind of pointless. Rik played Richard "Richie" Richard, a middle-aged virgin whose main goal in life was simply to get laid. Preferably by a woman, but he really wasn't that picky. Richie and Eddie were basically a modern day super-hyper version of Laurel and Hardy:
I love them. So much. But Rik is better known for his role as the wannabe anarchist Rick Pratt on The Young Ones:
The Young Ones was the first BBC show to bring alternative comedy from the Comic Strip comedy club to the TV viewing audience not only in the UK, but also various countries throughout the world, including the USA (it used to air on MTV). It was groundbreaking for that alone. It's basically a mockery of college-aged kids from that time frame, each character representing all the basic cliques that existed back then. The Cool Kid (Mike), the Anarchist (Rick), the Punk (Vyvyan), and the Hippie (Neil). None of these characters had any redeeming qualities. At all. And yet, you can't help but love them and somehow relate to them, even though you don't really want to see yourself in them. But you do, and it allows you to laugh at your own ridiculousness, really. And, come on, who wouldn't want to see Rick and Vyvyan beating up a hippie? Oh, Neil. Poor Neil. The interesting thing with this show was that it had the same basic formula as any family focused sitcom. Mike was the barely involved father, Neil was the put upon mother, Rick was the prissy/drama queen daughter (complete with pigtails), and Vyv was the rambunctious son causing all kinds of trouble.
Even this early on in their career you could tell that all the magic was between Rik and Ade, especially with scenes like this:
This essay is a really great look at the relationship between Rick and Vyv, and the fact that such a ridiculous show can spawn that much analysis illustrates that The Young Ones was so much more than just shouting and violence. There was actually depth hiding behind all that low-brow humor. But don't get me wrong, I totally love it for the low-brow stuff. I love my slapstick humor, I'm not afraid to admit that. But The Young Ones is also full of really great verbal comedy that's actually quite intelligent in its own way.
So anyway, yeah, The Young Ones is what shot both Rik and Ade to fame. But before there was The Young Ones, they used to make appearances on a show called Saturday Night (this show also had a young Fry and Laurie, by the way, and Ben Elton, and French and Saunders). Anyway, their most popular bit was a skit called The Dangerous Brothers, and they are pretty much the basic formula for all Rik and Ade characters (when they team up with each other), only with this one Rik has all the power while Ade is the punching bag:
They used to do this routine quite often at the Comic Strip, too.
Now, a character that Rik created without Ade, and a character that I dearly, dearly love, is Kevin Turvey, investigative reporter:
GAAAAAAH, HE WAS SO ADORABLE! SO, SO ADORABLE! I so want a Kevin Turvey of my own.
Anyway, the other big Rik character was Alan B'Stard from The New Statesman, the only successful Rik series that he did without Ade. It was about a womanizing, corrupt politician who had this catty relationship with his wife. It was brilliant and surprisingly touching at moments, and I don't even know a damn thing about the British government. But I dug this show. A lot. And Rik was super gorgeous. *dreamy sigh*
3. The Comic Strip Presents...
This was an absolutely brilliant series of satirical films. They had a few feature films, but I actually prefer their half hour films to their feature length ones. This was a series created by the comedians who created the Comic Strip (Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall (known back then as 20th Century Coyote), Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders (known as French and Saunders), and Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson (known as The Outer Limits)). When they had set up their own venue at a strip club (which they named The Comic Strip), Peter Richardson convinced them all to sign a contract binding them together as a group, and the TV series was basically born out of this. Peter Richardson was actually supposed to play Mike in The Young Ones, but then he ended up fighting with the producer and he got fired, which led to him creating his own series in which he used all the comedians/actors from the club, including Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane, Daniel Peacock and Alexei Sayle. The first film was "Five Go Mad in Dorset", which was a parody of The Famous Five, one of their most popular episodes. It actually caused a big hubub because it was vulgar and viciously satirizing a children's story and almost got canceled, but... it was one of their all time greatest episodes.
Another popular episode is "The Bullshitters", which was a parody of The Professionals, in which the two leads spend most of the episode running around in thongs and leather jackets, and then... end up making out with each other. It was hilarious.
And then of course there's "Bad News" and "More Bad News", which were spoofs of Spinal Tap, which is already a satire, so... it was insanity, but hilarious nonetheless.
My personal favorite episodes (that I can remember, there are so freaking many) are:
Red Nose of Courage - My #1 favorite. This one is so very underrated. I adore it like crazy.
Gregory: Diary of a Nutcase
The 5 Go Mad ones that I mentioned earlier
Bad News/More Bad News
Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door
Dirty Movie
Four Men in a Car
Four Men in a Plane
Consuela
A Fistful of Traveler's Cheques
The Strike
I think all of these except for Red Nose of Courage are on YouTube. WHAT IS UP WITH THE NON-LOVE FOR MY FAVORITEST COMIC STRIP? Psh.
4. Quarterlife
http://www.quarterlife.com/theshow/view
Oh goodness, Quarterlife! I was so, so sucked into this web show way back when it was being made. Jeez, I think it's been a year already, maybe more. But anyway, once it failed miserably on NBC, it seemed to have disappeared. Or I got distracted with something else and never went back to it. But anyway, it was a webshow about 20-somethings who were struggling to find what their career goals were and where they wanted their life to go, so NATURALLY I was drawn to it. And of course there was oodles of romantic woes going on, and I even had a ship and last time I watched it was actually going to happen, but then... I lost track and never went back to it. :/ I think the website's goal was to be sort of like a combination of YouTube and MySpace, but... blerg. I didn't care about that. I just wanted the show. And the show is made by the same people who wrote My So-called Life (an absolutely brilliant show that everyone should see at least once in their lives).
5. Kandy
Oh yeah. Kelly/Andy from The Office, dubbed "Kandy" by the fandom (namely dollsome), because they are super sweet and enthusiastic and perky and they both would dig having their names smooshed together like that, because they are both still high schoolers at heart (well, perhaps Andy is stuck in college rather than high school, but they're both pretty dramatic). They are just so perfect for each other in every way, and up until Cafe Disco, they barely had any interaction at all. This was basically a fanon ship that happened in the summer of 2007, someone (I forget who, maybe mozart_fic?) wrote an angsty Andy/Kelly fic and it was wonderful, but the ship didn't catch my attention until I read Accidental Harmony by dollsome and it was hilarious and completely in character and the single greatest thing that I have ever read in my life. It rocked my world, and it gave me an OTP that could plausibly become canon, because DEAR GOD, THEY ARE SOULMATES! SOULMATES!!! Dollsome basically started a Kandy revolution, and I was so on board. But unfortunately, it ended up just being a fad, which is sad, because those fics were rad. Quite a large chunk of fandom had ended up trying their hand at Kandy because they are just so darn fun to write, and a good number of us had rallied the jammers into supporting Kandy, but then season 4 came along and threw us for a loop with the whole Andy/Angela thing and we all gave up on Kandy, because they shared a total of ZERO scenes in the entire season. *sigh* And then season 5 brought us Oscar/Andy subtext and numerous hints that Andy is actually gay and just doesn't realize it, so... yeah, this ship has been abandoned by many. *sniff* I am so very torn between Kelly/Andy and Oscar/Andy, but at this point I am so convinced that Andy is gay that all I can really see happening between him and Kelly is that they'll become BFFs and Kelly will finally have a gay best friend that she will treasure like he's a Hello Kitty handbag.
6. Sam Seaborn
SAM!!! My favorite character from The West Wing. He was adorably obtuse, yet incredibly intelligent and passionate about issues that mattered to him and the people that he loved. He was just ridiculously lovable. I can't imagine anyone not loving him. And he always wanted to believe the best in people, which made him a little too trusting sometimes. And I adored his relationship with Toby. OH MAN. I really need to get back to watching The West Wing. I never got past the first few eps of season 5.
7. Tony/Pepper
Ironman. Yeah, I fell for the romance in an action film. Seriously, I did. That NEVER happens to me, but Tony and Pepper are just the right amount of subtle and "OMG, WE BELONG TOGETHER BUT WE CAN'T BE TOGETHER BECAUSE WE ARE BOTH INEPT AT THIS THING CALLED LOVE!" And I dig boss/assistant ships. And this one was full of longing looks and two-sided unrequitedness because neither one realizes that they dig each other and yet they do sort of realize it but neither one will let themselves believe it and just... GUH. I love it. It's my kind of movie ship. Can't wait for the sequel. Hopefully there is more Tony/Pepper angst.
Whew! That's all, folks.
Anyway, 7 interests meme! Again! Because I am insane. And I feel sluggish from lady pains, so naturally a meme is the only course of action here. Instead of, you know, going walking/jogging or something. Because I have lady pains. IT'S A VALID REASON FOR BEING LAZY, OKAY?
Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.
_kataomoi_ gave me:
1. ade edmondson
2. quarterlife
3. kandy
4. rik mayall
5. sam seaborn
6. the comic strip presents
7. the young ones, tony/pepper
Okay, not sure if you meant to put Tony/Pepper on that last one there, but I'll talk about them anyway and just combine The Young Ones with Rik and Ade.
1. Ade Edmondson
aka the husband of Jennifer Saunders:
He's best known for his comedy projects that he did with Rik Mayall, namely his role as Vyvyan Basterd in The Young Ones:
Click to viewAnd Eddie Elizabeth Hitler in Bottom:
Ade also often appeared in many episodes of The Comic Strip Presents, and it's probably this show that made me appreciate Ade and realize how truly brilliant he is, particularly Gregory: Diary of a Nutcase, which was a spoof of Silence of the Lambs (Keith Allen played the Hannibal character). Seriously dudes, watch that episode, you will not regret it. It was wonderful.
He's also written a book called The Gobbler which I absolutely adored, but probably only because I was mad obsessed with Rik and Ade at the time and I was convinced that the main character was a parody of Rik. But it actually was a pretty good book. His comedy books are pretty good too, but The Gobbler is an actual work of fiction, and I adored his style of writing.
Sadly, after the last Bottom Live tour, Ade pretty much broke off his working relationship with Rik Mayall because he wanted to pursue other things, which... has mostly resulted in celebrity reality shows. Pfft. Ade. Silly man. He did have a recurring role on Holby for awhile, but... yeah. It was mostly celeb reality stuff for a few years, which gave us the epicness of Ade on Fame Academy:
Bwahahahaha. Greatest performance of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" EVER! I think they were doing that for Comic Relief? I think. I can't remember, but I know it was a charity thing, and I was glued to my computer waiting for my British online friends to provide me with his performances, because he was just downright awesome and freaking hilarious.
Since then he's done a little directing, producing, and writing. And, now he's pretty much abandoned TV and has started a band called The Bad Shepherds. It's... different. Not bad different, just different.
2. Rik Mayall and The Young Ones
Best known to American audiences as Drop Dead Fred:
Yes, my friends, I discovered this fellow through a ridiculous, mediocre movie about imaginary friends that had a targeted audience of adults, not children. Nevertheless, I saw it as a child and the film stuck with me because I kind of had a thing for Fred. Then I saw it again when I was 18 or so and had a mini obsession with Rik where I searched him out on the net and gazed lovingly at all of his pics and downloaded a few video clips of his past work, which, back then, didn't appeal to me, so he stayed a mini-obsession that I pretty much forgot about a few weeks later. Then in 2005 I saw an ep of The Young Ones on BBC America and I was like, "Oh! The dude from Drop Dead Fred is in this! MUST WATCH!" And once I got used to the style of comedy, I really enjoyed it. Then I watched Drop Dead Fred again and my obsession came back full force and lasted for a good two years. I joined Blockbuster Online and rented all three series of Bottom, fell in mad, mad love with that show, and then I rented The Young Ones and enjoyed it a whole lot more than I had previous to watching Bottom. So, while most people prefer The Young Ones, I actually think Bottom is better. The Young Ones was groundbreaking and it was a great satire on the frivolity of 80s youth, but Bottom was just plain hilarious. And kind of pointless. Rik played Richard "Richie" Richard, a middle-aged virgin whose main goal in life was simply to get laid. Preferably by a woman, but he really wasn't that picky. Richie and Eddie were basically a modern day super-hyper version of Laurel and Hardy:
I love them. So much. But Rik is better known for his role as the wannabe anarchist Rick Pratt on The Young Ones:
The Young Ones was the first BBC show to bring alternative comedy from the Comic Strip comedy club to the TV viewing audience not only in the UK, but also various countries throughout the world, including the USA (it used to air on MTV). It was groundbreaking for that alone. It's basically a mockery of college-aged kids from that time frame, each character representing all the basic cliques that existed back then. The Cool Kid (Mike), the Anarchist (Rick), the Punk (Vyvyan), and the Hippie (Neil). None of these characters had any redeeming qualities. At all. And yet, you can't help but love them and somehow relate to them, even though you don't really want to see yourself in them. But you do, and it allows you to laugh at your own ridiculousness, really. And, come on, who wouldn't want to see Rick and Vyvyan beating up a hippie? Oh, Neil. Poor Neil. The interesting thing with this show was that it had the same basic formula as any family focused sitcom. Mike was the barely involved father, Neil was the put upon mother, Rick was the prissy/drama queen daughter (complete with pigtails), and Vyv was the rambunctious son causing all kinds of trouble.
Even this early on in their career you could tell that all the magic was between Rik and Ade, especially with scenes like this:
This essay is a really great look at the relationship between Rick and Vyv, and the fact that such a ridiculous show can spawn that much analysis illustrates that The Young Ones was so much more than just shouting and violence. There was actually depth hiding behind all that low-brow humor. But don't get me wrong, I totally love it for the low-brow stuff. I love my slapstick humor, I'm not afraid to admit that. But The Young Ones is also full of really great verbal comedy that's actually quite intelligent in its own way.
So anyway, yeah, The Young Ones is what shot both Rik and Ade to fame. But before there was The Young Ones, they used to make appearances on a show called Saturday Night (this show also had a young Fry and Laurie, by the way, and Ben Elton, and French and Saunders). Anyway, their most popular bit was a skit called The Dangerous Brothers, and they are pretty much the basic formula for all Rik and Ade characters (when they team up with each other), only with this one Rik has all the power while Ade is the punching bag:
They used to do this routine quite often at the Comic Strip, too.
Now, a character that Rik created without Ade, and a character that I dearly, dearly love, is Kevin Turvey, investigative reporter:
GAAAAAAH, HE WAS SO ADORABLE! SO, SO ADORABLE! I so want a Kevin Turvey of my own.
Anyway, the other big Rik character was Alan B'Stard from The New Statesman, the only successful Rik series that he did without Ade. It was about a womanizing, corrupt politician who had this catty relationship with his wife. It was brilliant and surprisingly touching at moments, and I don't even know a damn thing about the British government. But I dug this show. A lot. And Rik was super gorgeous. *dreamy sigh*
3. The Comic Strip Presents...
This was an absolutely brilliant series of satirical films. They had a few feature films, but I actually prefer their half hour films to their feature length ones. This was a series created by the comedians who created the Comic Strip (Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall (known back then as 20th Century Coyote), Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders (known as French and Saunders), and Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson (known as The Outer Limits)). When they had set up their own venue at a strip club (which they named The Comic Strip), Peter Richardson convinced them all to sign a contract binding them together as a group, and the TV series was basically born out of this. Peter Richardson was actually supposed to play Mike in The Young Ones, but then he ended up fighting with the producer and he got fired, which led to him creating his own series in which he used all the comedians/actors from the club, including Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane, Daniel Peacock and Alexei Sayle. The first film was "Five Go Mad in Dorset", which was a parody of The Famous Five, one of their most popular episodes. It actually caused a big hubub because it was vulgar and viciously satirizing a children's story and almost got canceled, but... it was one of their all time greatest episodes.
Another popular episode is "The Bullshitters", which was a parody of The Professionals, in which the two leads spend most of the episode running around in thongs and leather jackets, and then... end up making out with each other. It was hilarious.
And then of course there's "Bad News" and "More Bad News", which were spoofs of Spinal Tap, which is already a satire, so... it was insanity, but hilarious nonetheless.
My personal favorite episodes (that I can remember, there are so freaking many) are:
Red Nose of Courage - My #1 favorite. This one is so very underrated. I adore it like crazy.
Gregory: Diary of a Nutcase
The 5 Go Mad ones that I mentioned earlier
Bad News/More Bad News
Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door
Dirty Movie
Four Men in a Car
Four Men in a Plane
Consuela
A Fistful of Traveler's Cheques
The Strike
I think all of these except for Red Nose of Courage are on YouTube. WHAT IS UP WITH THE NON-LOVE FOR MY FAVORITEST COMIC STRIP? Psh.
4. Quarterlife
http://www.quarterlife.com/theshow/view
Oh goodness, Quarterlife! I was so, so sucked into this web show way back when it was being made. Jeez, I think it's been a year already, maybe more. But anyway, once it failed miserably on NBC, it seemed to have disappeared. Or I got distracted with something else and never went back to it. But anyway, it was a webshow about 20-somethings who were struggling to find what their career goals were and where they wanted their life to go, so NATURALLY I was drawn to it. And of course there was oodles of romantic woes going on, and I even had a ship and last time I watched it was actually going to happen, but then... I lost track and never went back to it. :/ I think the website's goal was to be sort of like a combination of YouTube and MySpace, but... blerg. I didn't care about that. I just wanted the show. And the show is made by the same people who wrote My So-called Life (an absolutely brilliant show that everyone should see at least once in their lives).
5. Kandy
Oh yeah. Kelly/Andy from The Office, dubbed "Kandy" by the fandom (namely dollsome), because they are super sweet and enthusiastic and perky and they both would dig having their names smooshed together like that, because they are both still high schoolers at heart (well, perhaps Andy is stuck in college rather than high school, but they're both pretty dramatic). They are just so perfect for each other in every way, and up until Cafe Disco, they barely had any interaction at all. This was basically a fanon ship that happened in the summer of 2007, someone (I forget who, maybe mozart_fic?) wrote an angsty Andy/Kelly fic and it was wonderful, but the ship didn't catch my attention until I read Accidental Harmony by dollsome and it was hilarious and completely in character and the single greatest thing that I have ever read in my life. It rocked my world, and it gave me an OTP that could plausibly become canon, because DEAR GOD, THEY ARE SOULMATES! SOULMATES!!! Dollsome basically started a Kandy revolution, and I was so on board. But unfortunately, it ended up just being a fad, which is sad, because those fics were rad. Quite a large chunk of fandom had ended up trying their hand at Kandy because they are just so darn fun to write, and a good number of us had rallied the jammers into supporting Kandy, but then season 4 came along and threw us for a loop with the whole Andy/Angela thing and we all gave up on Kandy, because they shared a total of ZERO scenes in the entire season. *sigh* And then season 5 brought us Oscar/Andy subtext and numerous hints that Andy is actually gay and just doesn't realize it, so... yeah, this ship has been abandoned by many. *sniff* I am so very torn between Kelly/Andy and Oscar/Andy, but at this point I am so convinced that Andy is gay that all I can really see happening between him and Kelly is that they'll become BFFs and Kelly will finally have a gay best friend that she will treasure like he's a Hello Kitty handbag.
6. Sam Seaborn
SAM!!! My favorite character from The West Wing. He was adorably obtuse, yet incredibly intelligent and passionate about issues that mattered to him and the people that he loved. He was just ridiculously lovable. I can't imagine anyone not loving him. And he always wanted to believe the best in people, which made him a little too trusting sometimes. And I adored his relationship with Toby. OH MAN. I really need to get back to watching The West Wing. I never got past the first few eps of season 5.
7. Tony/Pepper
Ironman. Yeah, I fell for the romance in an action film. Seriously, I did. That NEVER happens to me, but Tony and Pepper are just the right amount of subtle and "OMG, WE BELONG TOGETHER BUT WE CAN'T BE TOGETHER BECAUSE WE ARE BOTH INEPT AT THIS THING CALLED LOVE!" And I dig boss/assistant ships. And this one was full of longing looks and two-sided unrequitedness because neither one realizes that they dig each other and yet they do sort of realize it but neither one will let themselves believe it and just... GUH. I love it. It's my kind of movie ship. Can't wait for the sequel. Hopefully there is more Tony/Pepper angst.
Whew! That's all, folks.