Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By Justin on Mon Oct 16 19:17:42 BST 2000:

[Insert name of celebrity or public figure] has been [lift story from newspaper to pad out first sentence]. Apparently, he/she/they [reference to some quirk that will make the audience piss themselves even though the joke will make no sense. Or say fuck.]

Subject: Topol's next posting
Posted By 'Jon' on Tue Oct 17 08:30:30 BST 2000:

[To save him the bother of writing it, here is Topol's next posting to this forum:]

As at least 20 saddoes read this forum all the time, and they are so desperate for a life, I suggest this thread should be used to help them out.

Add your hilarious quips, jokes, and funnies about the 11OCS below. Maybe we could actually improve things. Or they could fuck off.

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'Jon' on Tue Oct 17 08:45:30 BST 2000:

From what I've seen, the new 11OCS is OK compared to the old one. Not brilliant, but I wouldn't mind watching (like NMTB, HIGNFY) if I had nothing else to do, which I wouldn't with the old one.

The trouble with all topical shows is that there have to suitable and interesting stories in the news. Weekending and Spitting Image had rough patches because they were lacking.

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'Stuart O' on Tue Oct 17 10:22:08 BST 2000:

The way to make a topical show funny is not to be topical. Its a lot easier to make jokes about something that happened moths or years ago than something which happened this week, as there is much more subject matter on which to hang a joke. HIGNFY makes a habit of this: look at the continued references to Archer, Goldsmith, Fayed, Aitken, Maxwell etc. even though none of them are hardly ever in the news these days and two of them are dead. (Spot which two and you win a prize, or something.)

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'Stuart O' on Tue Oct 17 15:38:22 BST 2000:

>something that happened moths or years ago

For those of you not au fait with the new Eurotime legislation, a moth is a period of between 28 to 31 consecutive days used as a measurement of topical comedy shows.

Move along now, nothing to see...

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'p-olpoT' on Tue Oct 17 18:43:35 BST 2000:

GET A LIFE!!! Then tell me about it in a witty manner while I take notes. Type slowly now.

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'Al' on Tue Oct 17 19:35:27 BST 2000:

>GET A LIFE!!! Then tell me about it in a witty manner while I take notes. Type slowly now.

FACT: people who use the phrase GET A LIFE are the least qualified to give this advice.

Slow enough for you?

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'Chris Lyons' on Tue Oct 17 19:52:58 BST 2000:

As the great Jonathan Nash said:

"Get a life? Take my life, more like."

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By Justin on Tue Oct 17 20:42:29 BST 2000:

>GET A LIFE!!! Then tell me about it in a witty manner while I take notes. Type slowly now.

You still here? Well, there's been a horrible and serious train crash today. How many jokes did you do about it on tonight's show?

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'A Bit of the 11 O'Clock Show' on Tue Oct 17 23:42:40 BST 2000:

If you'll watch it you'll find the answer is none. Tragedy is not a fit subject for comedy, at least not immediately. As I think Woody Allen said, comedy=tragedy+time.

I have been collecting your comments on the 11OCS for some time and was going to post a thorough, and perhaps incisive, response to them on this forum, but since many of you seem to be coming round to the idea that the show has at least become basically inoffensive (the closest we'll ever get to satisfying you with this show, I imagine -- change the title, the set and presenters, who knows, you might have looked a little more kindly on it, but we didn't so fair enough) I don't see that it will help to give you more ammunition (sensibly reasoned or otherwise) to whip yourselves up into a frenzy about. Not having the show completely and utterly despised by this forum's contributors is almost something of a compliment.

Anyway, to get to the point, some of your posts along the way have included the odd phrase along the lines of 'anyone here could do better', so here is your chance to indulge in some direct action, a little experiment that may enlighten you in the process of writing a topical show three days a week:

The 11OCS accepts unsolicited material (notice the odd 'additional material' credit speeding by at the end of the show). If anyone here feels inspired by the day's news to come up with something pithy or witty or downright hilarious then send it to me. I shall pitch the joke to the class as if it were my own (I do hope you feel you can rely on me to be fair. After all, my posts to this forum have been a lot more reasoned and sensible than some, and deep down I am a reasonable person.) and -- listen, here's the important bit -- if it goes down well, IT WILL GO IN THE SCRIPT and YOU WILL BE PAID. MONEY.

What I'm saying here is, if you think you can do better then try and if you succeed you will be rewarded. This is not an opportunity for you to write 'humourous' versions of your idea of an 11OCS joke. Nor is it an opportunity for you to try and get the worst jokes you can on the show. And, despite inevitable gainsaying on this point, I am not trying to get you to do our job for us. We'll still be there day after day trying to make an at least un-despisable topical comedy show for you and the rest of the viewing public. This is just a chance for you to have a go if you'd like, perhaps to prove to yourselves what you've always believed: that you can do it better than we can.

So, send me material (and please, please, don't waste my time, I'm trying to do something constructive and interesting here) to elevenoclockshow@hotmail.com

I wish you good fortune, despite what you may wish me.

Incidentally, I am very pleased to see the number of personal, offensive and mysoginistic posts about Sarah Alexander on this forum has dwindled to zero. And most of those from a woman. As someone said earlier, you're just falling into what you believe to be our trap.

Finally, one, and only one, response to a previous post:

>Bent Halo: As for the Bushell sequence, dear 11OCS writer, we don't have that short term a memory! I remember routinely homophobic jokes on the show. Add that to the racist, sexist and downright dumb attempts at irony in the series' past and you have one of the central reasons why so many cast/crew members jumped ship. I know this to be true. It stops you sleeping at night. So why the volte-face last night? Why the peace treaty to homosexuals - giving them a voice and some kerrazy camera angles that make them seem only slightly freakish? Come on. Tell us what the real motivation behind that feature was.

Homophobia, sexism, racism, these are all effectively banned from this new series and any attempt to connect that with the rife nature of these elements in previous series is misguided. We are a completely new team, and our goal has always been to correct some of the gross errors we saw in the past. At least give us the chance to do that without criticism. Your right to criticise the quality of the actual jokes included in such items, however, I will defend incessantly.

Yours, as ever,

A Bit of the 11 O'Clock Show

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Tue Oct 17 23:47:20 BST 2000:

>>GET A LIFE!!! Then tell me about it in a witty manner while I take notes. Type slowly now.
>
>You still here? Well, there's been a horrible and serious train crash today. How many jokes did you do about it on tonight's show?

Oh dear. That WASN'T Topol (or anyone connected with 11oCS). In fact, I thought it was a fairly obvious piss-take. It's quite diseartening to see respectable forum regulars fall into the old fake Jim Yoakum trap again.

PLEEEEEEEEEEASE be more careful, people!

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'boki' on Tue Oct 17 23:56:48 BST 2000:

>Oh dear. That WASN'T Topol (or anyone connected with 11oCS). In fact, I thought it was a fairly obvious piss-take. It's quite diseartening to see respectable forum regulars fall into the old fake Jim Yoakum trap again.

Oops! That makes it look like it was the fake JY. 'twasn't. was someone substantially more boring - me.

Again, apologies if anyone was led astray but I really didn't feel the need to explain the 'joke'!

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'A Bit of the 11 O'Clock Show' on Tue Oct 17 23:57:42 BST 2000:

(I have posted my above message on a new strand -- 11OCS: A Response -- so if you'd like to discuss it perhaps you would go there and leave this nice people to continue their own conversation.)

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By Justin on Wed Oct 18 00:01:29 BST 2000:

>
>>Oh dear. That WASN'T Topol (or anyone connected with 11oCS). In fact, I thought it was a fairly obvious piss-take. It's quite diseartening to see respectable forum regulars fall into the old fake Jim Yoakum trap again.
>
>Oops! That makes it look like it was the fake JY. 'twasn't. was someone substantially more boring - me.
>
>Again, apologies if anyone was led astray but I really didn't feel the need to explain the 'joke'!

Oh dear. I was confused, by the look of it. I have no sense of humour, clearly. Sorry, boki - got a bit carried away.

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By Justin on Wed Oct 18 00:05:05 BST 2000:

I didn't think it was JY, though. Seriously, I didn't.

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By Justin on Wed Oct 18 00:16:43 BST 2000:

The only reason I wrote that posting about the train crash anyway was to try and point out that there is only so much news around anyway, and most of it is either horrifying or funny in itself and not worth trying to better. I wish you luck, A Bit, in trying to fill that 25 minutes a day. No, it can't be easy. But I still find myself not being particularly inspired by what turns up on 11ocs (or, to be fair, most "topical" comedy of recent years - Not The Nine, Spitting Image and so on were at their best when being resolutely untopical). I think the format's incredibly difficult when you have 30 writers or however many - you have all these little vignettes of topical jokes,a nd the effect is one of general ennui. For this viewer, anyway.

I have tried to watch you a few times this series. I really don't think Holmes and Alexander are that bad (certainly not as dismal as their predecessors), and I did laugh at one joke the last time I watched, but strangely enough, I find the filmed inserts the weakest, really tired and outdated parodies of Day Today-type material. Yes, it is an improvement on the previous four series, but I don't know what else to say. Believe me, I get no pleasure from not enjoying it. (That may surprise a lot of people on this forum.:0))

Thanks for the offer, A Bit. I have to decline, purely because I know I couldn't do better. Unfortunately, that does not mean I have to pretend I like something when I don't, particularly.

But good luck with it. I hope it does improve. Otherwise, I'll be off to bed early, or dusting down Larry Sanders vids.

Subject: Re: 11OCS direct action here
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Wed Oct 18 01:19:36 BST 2000:

On a different tack, I'm still not convinced that the fake Jim Yoakum actually was fake.