Rowan Atkinson: Visual Comedy (1992) [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
https://m.youtube.com/user/pingu/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=l...
But the best thing is that they subtitled it.
https://subsaga.com/bbc/childrens/timmy-time/series-1/6-timm...
The made up language was Rendoosian. In the beginning we tried to improvise gibberish but realised that it just didn't sound right so we wrote everything down.
Loved re-listening to Rendoosian again - wonderful language that has enough of a hint of actual English that you understand what was being said or implied. Also loved the intro Rendoosian glyph fonts.
Thank you for bringing such a wonderful and different cartoon to the world!
EDIT (Translation): Binti Boo mit ur magnificibifici Cartoon grandi-max
A big YAHZAA to you too! :)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4x9938
The web shorts were good but the TV series was perfect. Animation gold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simlish
https://www.polygon.com/22891664/the-sims-similish-maxis-stu...
The optimist in me says these are growing pains, one day humans will get used to the internet and we will live in a world where people understand how to think critically about new information. The pessimist in me says a sucker is born every day, we will always have unrest caused by confusion of propaganda, and we will inevitably see our society and internet destroyed.
I don't know what the solution is.
It is not a general lecture about free speech. It’s more about the right to offense someone.
Governments and their corporate media partners have done this for a long time. They lied and pumped out false information to go to war in Iraq, for example.
Let's wait until the people have the ability to censor and shut down dangerous government misinformation before worrying about giving those governments more power to censor the people.
Of course not, no one in the media would ever dream of doing such a thing. Did you know that the US only lost war in Afghanistan because Putin paid a head bounty to the Taliban for every US soldier killed?
> Anonymous conspiracy mongers are incapable of suffering reputational damage and can lie with impunity.
I can well remember how former luminaries like Tom "Give War A Chance" Friedman, Bill "The war in Iraq was right and necessary, and we won it" Kristol and David "Axis-of-evil" Frum or Stephen "The Connection" Hayes lost their lucrative careers over advocating catastrophic policies that cost the US tax payer trillions of dollars and resulted in the loss of hundred of thousands of lives. They are now all relegated to such fringe outlets as the New York Times or NBC, which admittedly is nothing compared to what happened to Clapper for perjuring himself in front of congress -- he now partly has to make a living as CNN's national security analyst.
Not something the media claimed. This is a claim pushed by anonymous conspiracy theorist patrec, which supports my point. The media said that Trump was briefed about possible bounties (true), the intelligence agencies had low to moderate confidence that Russia was paying bounties (also true) and made no assertions about how much this affected the outcome of the war.
> I can well remember how former luminaries like Tom "Give War A Chance" Friedman, Bill "The war in Iraq was right and necessary, and we won it" Kristol and David "Axis-of-evil" Frum or Stephen "The Connection" Hayes lost their lucrative careers over advocating catastrophic policies
These are news commentators, not reporters, and their articles are clearly marked as such. Their reputations _are_ poor among people who are not partisans, once again supporting my point. You could post more conspiracy theories in other social media accounts, and nobody will be the wiser.
As far as Clapper, he clarified his statement soon after being informed that it wasn't about what the previous questions about collecting dossiers on Americans was about and went as far as declassifying documents about the phone metadata collection program in question: https://www.lawfareblog.com/ic-record-response-times-editori...
That doesn't look like deliberately lying to me.
Of course they are very careful to try to maintain the veneer of plausible deniability, so while they do get caught out in some big lies, often they can say "well ACTUALLY we didn't really lie we just published something as fact and added a 'sources say' at the end". But the net resulting damage to society is no less than if they had left out the weasel words.
So again, until we have a mechanism to censor and punish the worst offenders (governments and their media corporations), let's not hand them any more power to censor us. They've shown time and again (recently with covid) that they'll even use these censorship powers against the truth, or scientific questions if they decide it.
Here's an example I remember that made me laugh, a good example - it's all about facial expressions and reactions rather than words -
Another interesting thing about pranks is how quickly the brain resets from excited state back to normal as soon as some one says 'there's the camera'. It should probably be used more to stop wars and stuff.
It also explains why people have different tastes. Some people don't like British comedy because their absurdity may be different than an American's. For example a lot I watched in the 90s was a man dressed as a woman or some such, which may not be absurd to us today.
https://mobile.twitter.com/nickfthilton/status/1544992559692...
Benny Hill helped popularize it but it was there earlier, and itself inspired by Yakety Yak (which is a name of Ubuntu release 16.10 - now we're full circle :))
Almost all of his stuff is wordless. Apparently it was just easier that way.
Then suddenly the Japanese discovered him. Now he's got this giant new audience.
The power of no words.
Also, I've noticed, words can be too precise. Pictures and pantomime can let you talk with greater accuracy.
His comics are amazingly good.
The fifth episode is also on Youtube [2]. Does anyone have links for the others, I haven't been able to find any...
Edit, found the fourth [3] and sixth [4]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funny_Business_(TV_series)
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bICuqEHWS8Q
[1] Rowan Atkinson Live - Star of Mr.Bean - Funny invisible drum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_kloG2Z7tU
I like some of Atkinson's work a lot but interesting to see where he built on his key influencer and particularly the Monsieur Hulot character.
Hulot is pure innocence, to make him exist solely for the visual sketches and actually unnecessary as demonstrated in playtime.
Tati really was there for the bliss he brought to audience, comedy was merely a way to achieve that.
The social commentary is also pretty strong, but not forced, only merely there for the ones the wishes to see it.
Atkinson touched this times to times, though.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and is in the same visual style as his earlier work.
Probably quite a smart pandemic project - few actors, almost all in one inside location. Watch it in one hit (like we did) or an episode a night with young kids, or break part-way through if young children are due to go to bed.
I keep expecting something silly to happen any moment.
I got all of this sketches memorised. There's some kind of deep social intelligence behind his comedy, that's apparent when he's not in character, i.e. during an interview, where it's impossible not to be charmed by his eloquence and demeanour.
I recommend: the "beatings" and the Shakespearean actor sketches.
In every instance where I know of people who watched 1 first, they are almost always put off by the silliness and don't continue.
I think BA2 will always be my absolute favourite of all as it was the first one I watched, and it also endeared me to the delightful characters that Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry and Tony Robinson brought to the show. Only Hugh Lawrie in BA3 came close.
"Hand me the mail darling."
You'll see a few familiar faces. Stephen Fry, Miranda Richardson, and Hugh Laurie were regulars.
Blackadder 4 in particular added in a darkness to the humour that was really compelling - that last scene in the last episode (when they charge out of the trenches into no mans land) was absolutely haunting and moving. As were the final lines given by the secondary characters (especially Capt. Darling)
EDIT: For those who want to see what I am talking about, here is the final scene (4 minute footage), though I'd highly recommend watching the whole series to really understand the interplay between the characters (especially the pathos of Cpt. Darling vs Cpt. Blackadder) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgyB6lwE8E0
I’m still moved by just how wonderfully subversive it is. There was no need for that show to have anything close to the quality of writing it had over it’s run, especially when you watch the first couple of episodes. It could easily have run for years as a simple, meandering medieval sitcom that went nowhere. I’m so glad it ultimately went to so many places, across so many time periods, without it being an excuse for reusing the same old stories.
His sneezing in church, visiting his former school at open day and making a sandwich on a park bench are other priceless additions to the visual comedy hall of fame.
He also blocks on the letter 'B' which makes him slightly halt when pronouncing words like "Baldrick", "Blackadder", "Bean", "Bob" which he uses to this comedic advantage.[1]
[0] https://www.stutteringhelp.org/content/rowan-atkinson [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Atkinson#Comic_style
Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry also play roles in Blackadder.
Some of my favorite episodes:
- Captain Cook: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5t4g20
- Ink & Incapability: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x82h2qr
- Dish & Dishonesty: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7zr7d7
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He does both physical and verbal. If you ever watch Mr. Bean, it's entirely physical, and, in Blackadder, he almost never shuts up (but there's still plenty of physical humor).
I really like the idea that he's just sitting on stage saying rude words - it's quit a silly concept, but elevated by the execution.
The next up for me was this - his interview with Elton John.
So good.
Not too shabby.
Tom Lehrer used to teach mathematics at MIT. I think he went back to that, after his musical career.
There are quite a few famous comedians with an Oxbridge connection, leading to the following throwaway gag in the Burkiss Way:
"In today’s profile on comedy we visit the new one night show at Her Majesty’s Theatre by Siberian salt mine workers in aid of people all over the world who are, for one reason or another, Oxbridge comedy geniuses. Also, later on in the show, Wither Rowan Atkinson. A blast furnace manufacturer shows how it’s possible."
And in today's lesson, we learn that I still have a ways to go in project estimation...
Makes me sad that he apparently supports a NFT grift.
At least the memory of his best roles (Blackadder!) kinda lingers.
There is something special and innately human about visual and physical comedy transcending language. Strongly recommended.