Can It!!!

It really makes sense, ‘cause that’s the name of my new campaign to try and get rid of canned laughter. [Laughter] You get it?? [Ado stares cheekily at the camera and pauses] [Laughter].

You see how annoying that was?? You do, don’t you?? Well if not, stop reading now and put one of your Everyone Loves Raymond DVDs on, cause this certainly isn’t the place you ought to be.

Ever since I started to develop my own taste in all things comedic, I’ve had this ever increasing pain in my head whenever I hear laughter over a TV show. Honestly, by this point it’s so raw I almost cringe when I hear it, especially over a lame line or something that’s just not a joke at all. Honestly, it’s like someone plunging a fork into my happy sack (not an innuendo), it drains all the joy out of me and I just want to turn off the TV.

I feel both insulted and enraged that the producer doesn’t assume I have the intelligence to laugh at the correct point in their show. Even shows that employ the “Live Studio Audience” device get on my nerves too… I mean has no-one heard of the Fourth Wall?? Is comedy somehow exempt?? Ok, in stand-up or panel shows I can accept this are forums that involve an audience’s presence, but not in a sitcom as it destorys the situation that I am led to believe the comedy is taking place in. Argh!!!

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule and this rule is no exception…

I still watch the likes of Alan Partridge, Blackadder, Red Dwarf and How I Met Your Mother (that’s in descending order :o) and love them to bits. I think this is because these are so exceptionally good that they completely overshadow the pain, like having a headache and then being shot in the knees, your attention is drawn away. However, I can’t help thinking how much better these shows would be without said humour response prompt. Much, much, much better I’d wager.

Realistically speaking (damn it) laughter tracks are needed, as some shows/actors are not funny and some people are idiotic enough that they need to be told when to laugh, therefore my proposal is thus:

I would like to be given the option to turn off the laughter track on, at the very least, any DVDs but, ideally, the actual broadcasts too.

DVD-wise, I feel this is perfectly possible with today’s technology and would be of minimal extra cost to any producer. The laugher track is added onto the soundtrack of a show in post production, so it could easily be treated like a commentary on a DVD.

Broadcast-wise, this may be a little more complicated, but would still entail very little cost at all. I have watched sports events where I was invited to press a button and change the commentary from regular TV, to Radio, to the ambient stadium sound, so why not this??

Is anyone with me on this, or am I out there on my own?? I really would like to know and, if this is something we’re interested in, I’ll start the angry mob process presently.

Tags: campaign, comedy, DVD, happy sack, laughter, rant, tv

George Formby Grill

C’mon, it’s been in your brain since they came out too, right?

Tags: george formby, grilling, music, video

Trailer Trash

Firstly, congratulations to Barack Obama, you carry not just the hopes of your own nation, but those of the entire free world.  Good luck sir.  Now, back to geekery.

I’ve long since learned to get over the fact that as a video-game fan Hollywood hates me and everything I hold in esteem.  If not then why would they continue to give Paul WS Anderson and Uwe Boll money?

Not only does the film industry apparently hate video games, turns out they’re also pretty antsey about anime as well.  After months of letting myself get over excited this weekend I finally saw the trailer for the Hollywood remake of Dragonball.

In case you’ve been living on Namek for the last twenty-five years or so Dragonball is a manga series written and drawn by living legend Akira Toriyama.  It followed the adventures of alien martial-artist Goku and his friends and was inspired in part by the Chinese folk tale Journey to the West.  The narrative covers a period of around thirty years, a total of 519 chapters over 42 volumes.  Toei animation translated Toriyama’s works into two successful anime series.  Dragonball and Dragonball Z originally broadcast on Fuji television from 1986 to 1996.  A third series Dragonball GT continued Goku’s adventures, but was not based on the original manga, and ran for only 64 episodes.

The Hollywood rework of Dragonball doesn’t seem all that bad on paper.  Kung-fu Hustle’s Stephen Chow is producing, director James Wong is best known for his work on the Final Destination movies, so a strange choice to direct what is essentially a children’s movie, but I am a fan of FD so I’m willing to give benefit of the doubt.  The cast includes one of my favourite TV actors James Marsters as the film’s antagonist Lord Piccolo, and Chow Yun Fat as Sensei Roshi.  The rest of the cast is less inspiring though with Justin Chatwin (Tom Cruise’s whiney runt son in Speilberg’s Car-crash remake of War of the Worlds) in the lead as Goku.

After watching the trailer, I’m starting to worry just a little that this isn’t going to be the movie that the franchise deserves, the trailer involves scenes set if not in, then at least outside an American high school, this seems a little out of sync with the world in which the series is based.  The trailer involves scenes featuring Piccolo in which I can’t help but notice that he isn’t green, despite claims that the character would look similar to how he appeared in the anime, in a similar pallette error Emmy Rossum’s portrayal of Bulma Briefs is sorely lacking the original’s blue hair.

Finally and this is where i earn the “Rant” tag, WHERE THE FUCK IS KRILLIN?  I read somewhere that some of the more cartoon-esque characters wouldn’t appear in the movie, that’s fine, I can understand why an anthropomorphic pig, or a talking cat might get the chop but Krillin is Goku’s best friend in both the manga and the Anime.  Former bandit-king Yamcha is the only one of the Z-fighters set to make an appearance in the movie.  The film adds further characters to Goku’s circle of friends which didn’t appear in the manga, and I find it hard to accept that one of these characters couldn’t be Krillin, this is a reimagining of Dragonball, so Krillin doesn’t have to be a short, bald, buddhist monk, but a character portraying several of Krillin’s character traits would have been a kindness to fans of the series.

Tags: anime, geeks, movies, rant

Stuporcollider meets JoCo and Paul & Storm

This Friday my compatriots and I shuffled down to Nottingham to visit Game City 3 for several varied yet interesting reasons.
Firstly I would like to announce that Ado and I are now official World Record holders! (Well, maybe not but we were part of the 1227 zombies in Nottingham city centre). Pictured are the zombies who were not constrained by crippling bouts of self awareness and actually got together to do the Thriller dance.

Later on, after receiving several strange looks from our fellow ale enthusiasts at The Olde Trip, still bedecked as the undead we marched on the Britannia Hotel, an Overlook-esq nightmare of seventies decor. Despite my well documented love of city center hoteliers we had the ulterior motive of attending Game City’s hallow’een party, featuring the wonderful Jonathan Coulton and the hilarious Paul & Storm.

Walking into the event, I was a little apprehensive. Tables and chairs do not normally a concert make. However after six or so pints of Caste Rock brewery’s guest ale, Fine Ale Fantasy, things began to seem much rosier. After meeting Mr. Coulton and Mr. Paul guiding their merch proles in the fine art of stealing all my money we sojourned to the main room to see the acts.

I don’t think I can impress upon you how truly fabulous I thought this gig was. Paul & Storm were fantastic, and we apparently dance like we’re at a Dropkick Murphy’s gig. Jonathan Coulton apparently was suffering from cold. I didn’t notice but I was down the best part of 10 pints by this point, and you’ll be pleased to know that your fearless editor Ado managed to hold up Mr. Storm from appearing in one of his songs by chatting US politics. I can only assume they were discussing Mrs. Palin’s lovely wardrobe (lie.)

Afterwards I managed to get to say hi to the artists, and I keep the British end up by being really quite drunk, huge, short haired, hoody wearing zombie lumbering around making comments that I just can’t remember. Ado has a picture of me actually touching Mr. Coulton and not slobbering like a fool but he is keeping it ransom until I can pay him the fee of 150 vintage 80′s metal tour t-shirts.

WIN!

Tags: beer, geeks, music, nerdgasm, superfan, world record, zombies