Saturday, October 02, 2010

Epic fail

This must be all over the blogs - I haven't dared look. I suppose the politically correct thing might be to ignore it - and I'm certainly not going to embed it, it's too crass for that.

I actually thought at first it had to be some sort of spoof or black ops by a denialist organisation. But it seems entirely legitimate. Just totally, horribly, astoundingly ill-judged.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah. Astoundingly poor judgment.

The only thing I can say in its defense is that in a culture steeped in Monty Python, people exploding in gory showers might not be as shocking as it seems to be for the rest of us. But the difference in context/purpose between an environmental advocacy ad and a comedy show is kind of key for where the appropriate boundary lines are.

-M

David B. Benson said...

Your last comment was far too kind.

Hank Roberts said...

Yup. Movies are different.

http://www.plognark.com/?q=node/1129

James Annan said...

But there's nothing Pythonesque about it. Incidentally, I am amused by the extent to which USAians in particular still seem to use Python as a benchmark for British humo(u)r. It was reasonably amusing for its time, but its time was a long time ago! Fortunately, things have moved on...

Hank Roberts said...

> things have moved on...
Fry and Laurie?
Gaiman and Pratchett?
You can't mean Monckton.

James Annan said...

Getting warmer perhaps, but you still seem a bit stuck in the 80s. Try Ricky Gervais (The Office - but not the dumbed-down USA version, or Extras), Little Britain...

skanky said...

The League Of Gentlemen, The Mighty Boosh, Coupling (UK), Mitchell & Webb, Armstrong & Miller (fairly straight sketch shows, there).

There's renewed emphasis on stand-up atm too: Mock the Week - and other "panel shows" that basically just get stand-ups to joke around together, comedy road shows, etc.

Incidentally, JA may be interested to know that Milton Jones is a regular on Mock The Week, now.

It's also interesting how many started off on radio - Little Britain, M&W, A&M, HIGNFY and most of the panel shows for example.

Of all of those, only The Legue Of Gentleman could possibly be compared to Monty Python, but it was much darker and had much tighter writing and a number of interwoven plots.

Sure I'm forgetting a few though.

James Annan said...

Ah, how could I forget Milton Jones and Peep Show? Anyway, I think the case rests...