He is a fat, useless cunt...

And about as funny as an arse full of ants... Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Tue Aug 14 13:21:44 BST 2001:

He didn't update TVGoHome last week. Which is sad. Anyone know why? Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Tue Aug 14 13:31:09 BST 2001:

>He didn't update TVGoHome last week. Which is sad. Anyone know why?

He's been on holiday. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'CONAN DOYLES ARSE FALSE' on Tue Aug 14 13:43:12 BST 2001:

He was too busying shiting and wanking to the sound of chris morris playing bridge with a pack of dwarfs Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Tue Aug 14 14:01:09 BST 2001:

>He was too busying shiting and wanking to the sound of chris morris playing bridge with a pack of dwarfs

Hilarious. Comedy Gold.

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'hemidemisemiderm' on Tue Aug 14 14:33:13 BST 2001:

His weekly "Screen Burn" column in the Grauniad Guide was written by someone else this week (who was even less funny then Brooker). Bring back Jim Shelley, I say...

Presumably someone must know something in order to start the thread - Anonymous, are you holding something back from us? (Apart from your identity). Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'CONAN DOYLES HAIRDRESSER' on Tue Aug 14 15:18:47 BST 2001:

>
>
He's a fat farming, fat face, flatulant fraud, and about as funny as half a cock. I always thought tv go home was a sack of slobbo. Also heard rumours that brooker is doing tv go home for telly and this involves chris morris. I can see the lack of ideas ebbiing across the gizards towards me...

lots of love Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Stocky' on Tue Aug 14 16:26:44 BST 2001:

>His weekly "Screen Burn" column in the Grauniad Guide was written by someone else this week (who was even less funny then Brooker). Bring back Jim Shelley, I say...
>
written by Polly Vernon, and yes it is shite. but I don't think Jim shelley should be brought back. Someone who watches all the TV soaps, defected to the daily Mail, and sent people e-mails asking for title suggestions for a book he's writing, presumably because he is used to getting his creative opinions and ideas from the press releases, isn't better than Brooker.


and Brooker's probably hiding somewhere after being named and shamed by the News of the world. The dirty paedo. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'CONAN DOYLES HAIRDRESSER' on Tue Aug 14 16:35:00 BST 2001:

>
>and Brooker's probably hiding somewhere after being named and shamed by the News of the world. The dirty paedo.

I don't know a single child that would mind brooker bearing down on them... Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By Steve Berry on Tue Aug 14 18:26:03 BST 2001:

I understand he's had his legs broke.

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Martin Cropper' on Tue Aug 14 20:17:11 BST 2001:

>His weekly "Screen Burn" column in the Grauniad Guide was written by someone else this week (who was even less funny then Brooker).

Less funny maybe (*maybe*), but better as a TV crit (which is what it's meant to be I'm assuming). At least Vernon actually tackled programmes beyond the easy slag targets Brooker sticks to (BB2, Survivor, some crap about a dog's innards on Channel Five). I blame Clive James for first combining TV criticism with humour, making half-bollocks ever since assume you can use a TV column as a means of airing your cruddy observational gags that wouldn't be given the time of day were they presented as 'proper' comedy. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Bob Honey' on Tue Aug 14 20:58:59 BST 2001:

> Bring back Jim Shelley, I say...

Jim Shelley's got Charlie Catchpole's old job at the Mirror now, and his first column was not funny in the slightest. I'll give him a chance, due to Screen Burn and excellent Soap Heads, but it's not looking good. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By Radiator Head Child on Tue Aug 14 21:20:13 BST 2001:

He eats live artichokes. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Rob Jones' on Wed Aug 15 00:35:27 BST 2001:

I was perpetually looking forward to 'Tapehead - The Website' but it never arrived, then Shelley stopped writing the column. I'm warming to Charlie Brooker though - his analysis of BB2 was spot-on (and it wasn't sneery condescension either). Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'ollie' on Wed Aug 15 00:45:54 BST 2001:

the best tv crit column is the one in private eye.

charlie brooker deserves any critism conan doyles hairdresser cares to throw at him. Subject: Re: cock taxidermist
Posted By 'CONAN DOYLES HAIRDRESSER' on Wed Aug 15 08:53:29 BST 2001:

>the best tv crit column is the one in private eye.
>
>charlie brooker deserves any critism conan doyles hairdresser cares to throw at him.

He's a fat lazy cunt, riding on the coat tails of a zeitgeist he neither recognises or understands, he is a pompous arse whose flatulence is the stuff causing tumours in playgrounds and wank burns that happened 'too early, i'd only just started...

TV GO HOME? No! Fuck off and die in a pit of shit.. You maggot, cock taxidermist
Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Beelzebub' on Wed Aug 15 21:56:58 BST 2001:

>He's a fat lazy cunt, riding on the coat tails of a zeitgeist he neither recognises or understands, he is a pompous arse whose flatulence is the stuff causing tumours in playgrounds and wank burns that happened 'too early, i'd only just started...
>
>TV GO HOME? No! Fuck off and die in a pit of shit.. You maggot, cock taxidermist
>

Just the sort of person who uses words like 'zeitgeist', you mean?

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'This is not the zeitgeist' on Wed Aug 15 22:11:41 BST 2001:

>
>Just the sort of person who uses words like 'zeitgeist', you mean?
>
Anyone remember a culture programme called zeitgeist? Yes it was wank. Zeitgeist's a great word rhymes with shitegeist. Easily pleased me.
Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Beelzebub' on Wed Aug 15 22:15:16 BST 2001:

>
>>
>>Just the sort of person who uses words like 'zeitgeist', you mean?
>>
>Anyone remember a culture programme called zeitgeist? Yes it was wank. Zeitgeist's a great word rhymes with shitegeist. Easily pleased me.
>

Was it presented by Muriel Gray, the strange, Scottish koala-woman hybrid?

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'This is not the zeitgeist' on Wed Aug 15 22:23:24 BST 2001:

>Was it presented by Muriel Gray, the strange, Scottish koala-woman hybrid?
>
>
May well have been, I think it was on C4 and was a 4 part thing, that sort of "We can explain all this "hard" culture stuff in a week of specials".
It had a load of twatty media types, who were smug that they knew what zeitgeist meant. It was on a few years ago.

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Accelorata Jengold' on Thu Aug 16 00:17:51 BST 2001:

OK look. I truly want to know. Can SOMEONE explain why they hate Charlie Brooker so much, once and for all, properly, without resorting to insults straightaway. Feel free to write 'grade A cunt of the first water, fucks foxes, eats pisscakes' etc after it, but truly, can SOMEONE explain in words of English why you all hate him so much in nice words?

Thanks. No really.
Subject: Re: I HATE CHARLIE BROOKER BECAUSE
Posted By 'CONAN DOYLES HAIRDRESSER' on Thu Aug 16 09:57:53 BST 2001:

>OK look. I truly want to know. Can SOMEONE explain why they hate Charlie Brooker so much, once and for all, properly, without resorting to insults straightaway. >
>>

i hate charlie brooker because - he's a little on the flabby side and looks like a mu mother cunt... Oh fuck! Sorry back on track... I hate charlie brooker because - i think his work is predictable and a little bit too, 'oh, i am a chris morris clone'.. this is no reason to hate him I admit, i however find hating him quite arousing, a lot more arousing than, for example, liking him... I think his name was a stain on the Brass Eye Special - a symptom of a wider malaise, a metaphysical fracture in the skein of meaning so neatly thought bubbled by morris and now repeated ad nauseam by Brooker and his heaving gut belly...

I also hate him, because unlike me, whose job in advertising sales is very satisfying, he works in the media and once described my jokes as being ' as thin as frozen piss on a young lasses inner thigh..

thats why i hate brooker Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Stuart O' on Thu Aug 16 10:55:49 BST 2001:

>once described my jokes as being ' as thin as frozen piss on a young lasses inner thigh..

You're right, that's a terrible thing to say. I wouldn't describe your postings as 'jokes' at all. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By Dr. Hackenbush on Thu Aug 16 13:36:55 BST 2001:

>
>I also hate him, because unlike me, whose job in advertising sales is very satisfying,

Ah, so you're a cunt. Why didn't you say so?


Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'CONAN DOYLES HAIRDRESSER' on Thu Aug 16 14:16:24 BST 2001:

>>
>>I also hate him, because unlike me, whose job in advertising sales is very satisfying,
>
> Ah, so you're a cunt. Why didn't you say so?
>

I thought, given your fucking intelligence, that you would have guessed. I was wrong, you are as submomg as Brooker and probably more bent than he. But yes, i am a cunt..


>
>

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'ollie' on Thu Aug 16 19:26:25 BST 2001:

>OK look. I truly want to know. Can SOMEONE explain why they hate Charlie Brooker so much, once and for all, properly, without resorting to insults straightaway. Feel free to write 'grade A cunt of the first water, fucks foxes, eats pisscakes' etc after it, but truly, can SOMEONE explain in words of English why you all hate him so much in nice words?

what i want to is how did someone who writes a mildly amusing but ultimately unimaginative web site to writing guardian columns and working with chris morris, or did tvgohome come about afterward? Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Accelorata Jengold' on Thu Aug 16 20:14:17 BST 2001:

>what i want to is how did someone who writes a mildly amusing but ultimately unimaginative web site to writing guardian columns and working with chris morris, or did tvgohome come about afterward?

I did wonder too actually...and thanks COnan, it all seems so clear now. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Fri Aug 17 17:22:14 BST 2001:

>
>>what i want to is how did someone who writes a mildly amusing but ultimately unimaginative web site to writing guardian columns and working with chris morris, or did tvgohome come about afterward?
>
>I did wonder too actually...and thanks COnan, it all seems so clear now.

Oh what's the big fucking deal. TVGoHome is sometimes very funny. Nathan Barley's a great creation. Chris Morris thinks he's funny. Just how original do you have to be to be to be a Guardian journalist, anyway?

If you poured your carefully worked out invective into your own comedy website, like Brooker did, rather than wasting it on pastings to this board, perhaps you'd get discovered too.
Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By Joe4SOTCAA on Fri Aug 17 18:44:14 BST 2001:

>If you poured your carefully worked out invective into your own comedy website, like Brooker did, rather than wasting it on pastings to this board, perhaps you'd get discovered too.

You're assuming that 'being discovered' is all people care about. You're suggesting that opinions on the media and its people are a waste of time. You're implying that, once safely embraced by the media, people no longer feel the need for opinions or invective. You are ripe for parody.

>what i want to is how did someone who writes a mildly amusing but ultimately unimaginative web site to writing guardian columns and working with chris morris, or did tvgohome come about afterward?


For what it's worth...

The media enjoy TV Go Home because it represents something which few people in the profession have access to at the moment - ie the opportunity to do something 'creative' without people breathing down your back and asking you to change things for no good reason. As such, its presence - as a kind of twee anarchic little stab at the media - becomes a lot more exciting than it actually is.

The gap between doing something on the net and doing the same sort of thing 'professionally' is surely massive, and fraught with all manner of creative dangers even before you've written a single comedy line. Will those same netfans who cackled at TVGH do the same once it's transfered to 'officialdom'? Once it loses its allure and 'yeah, it's one of *us* having a go' mystique? Or is there a 'point of no return' which can be passed, leaving one's reputation intact?

The best comparison I can think of is Adam and Joe who became famous for doing something which looked - superficially at least - like a home-made TV show which they'd knocked together from scratch (an up-market recreation of their Takeover TV stuff which was genuinely home-made). They're always presented as being slightly amateurish, anarchic and rough around the edges, despite the fact that the shows are tightly edited, meticulously scripted and swarming with runners bringing them coffee.

Adam and Joe are generally great - but the 'two-blokes-just-sort-of-doing-stuff' set-up gives them a nice get-out clause for those occasions when they turn out something a bit crap. Brooker's stock excuse whenever people criticise TVGH is 'Well, it's a free website for anyone who fancies reading it'. He won't be able to use that comeback for much longer. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By Steve Berry on Fri Aug 17 19:16:59 BST 2001:

>Brooker's stock excuse whenever people criticise TVGH is 'Well, it's a free website for anyone who fancies reading it'. He won't be able to use that comeback for much longer.

True. It'll be "Well, it was an expensive book, but you bought it and there's no refund. Thanks for the cash! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha!"

Still, it's a living.
Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Fri Aug 17 19:37:49 BST 2001:

>You're assuming that 'being discovered' is all people care about.

I'm assuming that some (not all) of the relentless criticism of Brooker on this site is driven by jealousy. It certainly reads that way.

>You're suggesting that opinions on the media and its people are a waste of time. You're implying that etc etc

No. I'm not.

>For what it's worth...
>
>The media enjoy TV Go Home because it represents something which few people in the profession have access to at the moment - ie the opportunity to do something 'creative' without people breathing down your back and asking you to change things for no good reason.

No they don't. "The media" like it cos it's funny. Yeah, there's an element of "i liked it first" about it all, but if it was shit, no one would recommend it to anyone else. It's hardly scurrilous enough for its independence from outside interference to be a recommendation. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By Joe4SOTCAA on Fri Aug 17 21:40:43 BST 2001:

>I'm assuming that some (not all) of the relentless criticism of Brooker on this site is driven by jealousy. It certainly reads that way.

Ah. That never occured to me, to be honest. I just assumed it was a 'bring your own swear-word Abuse-A-Thon' with no real hidden agendas. But I've never accepted the 'just bitter' excuse for any criticism. It's usually just a lazy means to avoid considering dangerous opinions.

>No they don't. "The media" like it cos it's funny. Yeah, there's an element of "i liked it first" about it all, but if it was shit, no one would recommend it to anyone else. It's hardly scurrilous enough for its independence from outside interference to be a recommendation.

Neither, I would argue, is it funny or inventive enough as a piece of comedy to merit the coverage it gets. Its internet position is an important factor in its success. Had TVGH been published as part of some other project (say, as part of a bi-weekly comedy magazine using paper and ink, yet distributed to the same amount of people and using exactly the same words) it surely wouldn't be regarded in the same over-protective terms. There's something 'exciting' about net-based comedy which tends to gloss over its imperfections. There's a whole different set of rules.

I'm not saying Brooker's stuff is rubbish (he'll tell you himself how Mike and I giggled at some proof-pages from the book in the Yorkshire Grey) but net-squawkers and media-nobs have always been far too defensive of the 'brilliance' of TVGH and the allure of Brooker's 'discovery' method (even before vitriolic comedy attacks like those above). I remember - months back - someone on here stating that this method was surely the future of entering the comedy writing business. Maybe it is. I just hope that, if so, something comes along soon to raise the stakes a bit.

>True. It'll be "Well, it was an expensive book, but you bought it and there's no refund. Thanks for the cash! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha!"

There'll be free review-copies for critics though. :) Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Beelzebub' on Fri Aug 17 21:46:33 BST 2001:

I couldn't give a toss, as long as he desists from using the word 'tsunami'. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Rob Jones' on Sat Aug 18 00:40:37 BST 2001:

Judged purely on its own terms, I think TVGH is largely excellent. I didn't even know of particular defensive 'attitudes' towards it until I read this forum. Maybe he wouldn't have ended up writing for Chris Morris and the Grauniad if TVGH had just appeared in a magazine, but he's a talented guy and I don't object to the fact that he has 'made it'. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Spacehopper Rapist Syndrome' on Sat Aug 18 14:59:10 BST 2001:

What I want to know is when is he bringing back Regurgitating Robbie? Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Matt CNUK' on Sat Aug 18 16:10:44 BST 2001:

>What I want to know is when is he bringing back Regurgitating Robbie?

Superkaylo.com wasn't too bad, neither was TVGH at first, but it's all become a bit washed out and I fear he'll go the way of just being another cunt with a book/tv deal. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By '8Ace' on Sat Aug 18 18:43:18 BST 2001:

Yeah, godforbid he should make money from his creations, the fascist. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By velvet on Sat Aug 18 21:42:31 BST 2001:

regardless of how Mr Brooker appears in some of his posts here, TVGH is pretty damn good. There is no real denying of that. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'ollie' on Sun Aug 19 06:25:28 BST 2001:

>regardless of how Mr Brooker appears in some of his posts here, TVGH is pretty damn good. There is no real denying of that.

but we can read it for free, why buy a book. i feel the same about the onion books, £10? fuck off! Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Anonymous' on Sun Aug 19 09:10:35 BST 2001:

> but we can read it for free, why buy a book. i feel the same about the onion books, £10? fuck off!

Apparently most of the stuff in the book is new. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'hemidemisemiderm' on Sun Aug 19 19:55:12 BST 2001:

> but we can read it for free, why buy a book. i feel the same about the onion books, £10? fuck off!


The Onion's Dumb Century is worth every single penny - "Fisticuffsmanship"... ahh, happy days. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Rob Jones' on Sun Aug 19 22:58:52 BST 2001:

>The Onion's Dumb Century is worth every single penny - "Fisticuffsmanship"... ahh, happy days.

...and you can't read it for free either, it's all original material (so to speak) and only one or two pages were reproduced on the web.

I read Our Dumb Century daily. It's my bible, almost.

"Outer Space falls to Communists". Great.

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Eilot Ness' on Mon Aug 20 09:21:57 BST 2001:

>>The Onion's Dumb Century is worth every single penny - "Fisticuffsmanship"... ahh, happy days.
>

>
Chin Music>

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'tim_e' on Mon Aug 20 11:12:22 BST 2001:

>I read Our Dumb Century daily. It's my bible, almost.
>
>"Outer Space falls to Communists". Great.

"Man walks on the fucking moon!" Subject: Re: I WANNA BE THE NEXT BROOKER
Posted By 'CONAN DOYLES HAIRDRESSER' on Mon Aug 20 12:31:28 BST 2001:

You are right. I am going to be 'discovered' i am going to set up a website and then you'll think i am funny and not a 'cunt' as seems to be the consensus here..... It is a shame that the fact that you all think this has driven me to seek wider attentions that i have been. What can i say? Almost thankyou..

Is charlie brooker really a fat bastard?

I wonder... Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Stuart O' on Mon Aug 20 14:05:31 BST 2001:

>>I read Our Dumb Century daily. It's my bible, almost.
>>
>>"Outer Space falls to Communists". Great.
>
>"Man walks on the fucking moon!"

"ELVIS DEAD: Is Elvis Alive?"
Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Meredith Baxter Birney' on Mon Aug 20 15:16:02 BST 2001:

"CONAN DOYLES HAIRDRESSER:Has He Got Any Freinds?" Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'CONAN DOYLES HAIRDRESSER' on Mon Aug 20 15:49:18 BST 2001:

>"CONAN DOYLES HAIRDRESSER:Has He Got Any Freinds?"

Have to admit that i don't have any 'Freinds' - whatever they are...

I am bored by my public now - they all hate me, i am going into retirement Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Stuart O' on Mon Aug 20 17:56:29 BST 2001:

You'll let us know what your new freindly pseudonym is when you come back, won't you? Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Harumph' on Mon Aug 20 19:29:19 BST 2001:

Strangest thing of all, his idiom is very Dan-L like.... Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Stocky' on Tue Aug 21 13:19:13 BST 2001:

Yet the TVGoHome column is/was printed in Loaded, and so the arguments about it only being on the web, not making money from it and being able to get away with no censorship is wrong. (He has to write C**T. In fact in the only copy of Loaded I've got, the one with Morris' pub guide in it, SOTCAA is actually mentioned in the TVGOHome section, so SOTCAA have been mentioned in Loaded. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'IMP' on Tue Aug 21 13:25:15 BST 2001:

>Strangest thing of all, his idiom is very Dan-L like....

Who is Dab-L?

Cheers

IMP

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Stuart O' on Tue Aug 21 15:13:24 BST 2001:

I'm pretty sure Dab-L plotted to destroy the universe in Babylon-5. Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By 'Peter Tuddenham' on Tue Aug 21 20:21:37 BST 2001:

>I'm pretty sure Dab-L plotted to destroy the universe in Babylon-5.

Dab-L is JLB8's mentor, as Dre was to Eminem.

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By Steve Berry on Wed Aug 22 11:49:52 BST 2001:

>>I'm pretty sure Dab-L plotted to destroy the universe in Babylon-5.
>
>Dab-L is JLB8's mentor, as Dre was to Eminem.

Confirmed.

Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By Steve Berry on Wed Aug 22 12:28:35 BST 2001:

I agree with most of Joe's comments above. There was certainly something in the "tee-hee, look at what we've found"-ness of TVGH when it started out. And it did seem to speak to a lot of people "in the media" who were fed up of running on Jim Davidson's Generation Game or sub-editing listings in the RT. The 'Net-level of it made it seem subversive (even once you found out it was Charlie). However, I'm not sure what this means:

>the allure of Brooker's 'discovery' method (even before vitriolic comedy attacks like those above). I remember - months back - someone on here stating that this method was surely the future of entering the comedy writing business. Maybe it is. I just hope that, if so, something comes along soon to raise the stakes a bit.

Do you mean that Charlie was essentially "discovered" (by the meeja, Chris Morris, Loaded and so on) because of TVGH?

If that's what you mean, I certainly *do* hope a few more people decide to take this path. Frankly, when you've got the likes of Simon Munnery complaining 'cos he only gets 20-odd people at his Edinburgh show then it seems obvious that more people should be taking their comedy online. Of course I've got a hidden agenda here, 'cos there aren't enough people out there for me to rope into E4.COM but if the ossified Edinburgh "commissioning editor shoots fish in barrel" path to comedy success isn't working any more, then why aren't more people trying different ways to be noticed? Especially when, as this site proves, it's very easy to build up a big audience if you've got a USP and something to say.

>There'll be free review-copies for critics though. :)

Oh, God, am I going to have to ask him to sign one!? Actually, we (E4) should be giving them away, shouldn't we?

Cheerio

Steve Subject: Re: Post Your Charlie Brooker gossip here
Posted By Unruly Butler on Wed Aug 22 13:17:33 BST 2001:

Latecomer.

Joe's observations on TVGH's initial appeal are spot on.

It's the same process as the ridiculous media word-of-mouth that sprang up around overextended drama-school canteen skit, "Absolutely Fabulous".

Because it was about people that media types met every day, AbFab was hailed as the funniest thing on earth. If all magazines were run by milkmen, Bottle Boys would have received the same frenzied approbation.

The farcical silliness of the show carried it over to a larger, non-media fanbase eventually, but the initial enthusiasm that ensured everyone in the country knew of its existence was down to its insular subject matter.

TVGH is about media wankers, therefore media wankers love it. Therefore we all hear about it endlessly. Therefore (as is the pattern on this site) it garners resentment from sitegoers aggrieved that their own favourite comedy isn't getting equal attention.

For my two penn'orth, I think in transfering TVGH to any other medium, it is going to fall on its arse. I read some of Zeppotron's attempts to transfer Nathan Barley to a sitcom style format, and the concision and venom that works so well in a listings parody felt lame and overextended elsewhere.

Charlie's a journalist (he didn't just get the Guardian job because of TVGH, he's been working in computer journalism for years) and a good writer. But it takes a lot of experience to change from that discipline to that of a TV writer. At least Linehan and Matthews didn't have the weight of expectation on their shoulders when they did it, allowing them to fail a few times before enyone asked what on earth they thought they were doing in TV comedy.