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JMO

Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Location: Daegu
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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 8:28 am Post subject: |
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Ah that may have come accross wrong but I was actually responding to this..
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| I don't have a mom, I have a mam |
I wasn't talking about the miners strike.
I understand that it is subjective and it solely my opinion that neither Ben Elton or Ken Goodwin are funny.(at least as standups..eltn's sitcom work is pretty good).
My point was that the reason I don't think they are funny isn't because of aging, me not understanding the context, not being born or any other reason than the fact that I don't think they are any good. That's it.
Just because a comedian was plying his trade before you were born doesn't mean I don't understand the context. I also think its a bit patronising to have the attitude of 'oh he doesn't understand'.
It's funny you should bring up the potato famine. Read 'a modest proposal' by Swift. Now this was published long before the famine of 45-49 but in 120 years or so around it there had been many other famines of lesser magnitudes. A modest proposal was written against the backdrop of one of these in 1729. It was written 250 yrs before I was born. It be funny. Funny stays funny. But funny is also a subjective thing. Just don't tell someone the reason they don't like something is because they don't understand the context.
Last edited by JMO on Sat Aug 25, 2007 5:21 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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bejarano-korea

Joined: 13 Dec 2006
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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 8:45 am Post subject: |
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Fair dos JMO, I think you are very fortunante because you can look at Ben Elton with hindsight (I wish I could have had that during the time) and see his current standing as an establishment *beep*. At the time for us who didn't have anyone who spouted against the establihment, Elton was a lifeline.
The UK, (and defientely the Irish Republic) has changed so much in the past 20 years and especially in the focus of the media. The printed media was in the UK was mostly controlled by Thatcherite Rupert Murdoch and champagne socialist Robert Maxwell, 4 TV channels with 2 of them being goverment owned, no access to worldwide media apart from what we were given, unlike today. Thus the people were more easily controlled and exploited. I still wonder about what we can access from the world today.
So to look at Ben Elton you need to have been around the time of when he was telling these jokes, I'm not being patronising when I say this but at 23 would you really understand a society that was institutionally racist,
blinded and lied to by the media and I'll prove right now, Band Aid and Live Aid came about through the BBC. Before that, no-one gave a monkeys about Africa and the many famines that took place till the BBC reported it with a sympathetic slant and the people rose and took action.
Nowadays, people can access whats going on in the world and disasters such as the tsuanmi touch the people an they act... there are a million and one media outlets and when the goverement gave a pathetic half a million pounds to the clean up effort in SE Asia, they were made to dig deeper in their pockets as people could see from the internet the disaster it was and gav from their own pockets. |
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JMO

Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Location: Daegu
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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 8:52 am Post subject: |
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Yea that's cool. I could probably do with putting myself in other people's shoes a bit. Alot has changed in 20 years. I think I only realise that when I look at the old pictures of my older brothers and sisters from the 70s(my oldest bro is 35...im the baby) how much ireland has changed. It's easy to take for granted how it is now.
I'll fire up the You Tube and give Ben Elton another shot, although I'll probably end up putting on Blackadder again though..one of my fave shows. |
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bejarano-korea

Joined: 13 Dec 2006
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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 8:59 am Post subject: |
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| JMO wrote: |
Yea that's cool. I could probably do with putting myself in other people's shoes a bit. Alot has changed in 20 years. I think I only realise that when I look at the old pictures of my older brothers and sisters from the 70s(my oldest bro is 35...im the baby) how much ireland has changed. It's easy to take for granted how it is now.
I'll fire up the You Tube and give Ben Elton another shot, although I'll probably end up putting on Blackadder again though..one of my fave shows. |
Oh no, bottom line JMO you are right. Ben Elton isn't funny. He just filled a vacuum that was in desperate need of filling at that time.
When the alternatives are Jim 'Nick Nick' Davidson and Bobby Davro, a firing squad would have been a good alternative.
Tell you what JMO. Here is a guy we will both like... Tommy Tiernan!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5NfHbBZELtc |
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JMO

Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Location: Daegu
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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 9:26 am Post subject: |
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"We applied for planning permission in the old testament" Ha!!
I actually saw Tommy in the town where he was born(Carndonagh, donegal) in probably the smallest show he did in a long long time. He was excellent.
My favorite Irish comedian at the moment is Dylan Moran who I love from Black Books but is also a pretty good stand up.
edit: change vids.
This part 1 and 2 from his amnesty gig in Dublin and it really is a tour de force, especially part 2..so watch it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-FJmnyhBT0
and part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4l6adI3quk |
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Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 1:28 am Post subject: |
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| JMO wrote: |
| Yea that's cool. I could probably do with putting myself in other people's shoes a bit. Alot has changed in 20 years. I think I only realise that when I look at the old pictures of my older brothers and sisters from the 70s(my oldest bro is 35...im the baby) how much ireland has changed. It's easy to take for granted how it is now. |
It doesn't seem that long since I was 23, but I found myself shaking my head and saying 'young uns t'day, the' dun't know the' born!'
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| I'll fire up the You Tube and give Ben Elton another shot, |
You might find this one amusing (it's not stand up though). I presume you're familiar with Benny Hill? If you're not, I don't think this will work for you...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a4TVzk_kuaY&mode=related&search=
I rather liked the book titled Dull Feminist Theory, by an American woman. Nice touch.
I still disagree that Ben Elton wasn't funny as a stand up. He may not have been the funniest, but at the time he was coming out with stuff that people hadn't had before (at least not on the telly). After the sexist shyte of Jasper Carrot and Jim Davidson, the stuff Elton came out with was great. He took the piss out of that kind of attitude. I think things changed a hell of a lot in just a few years, and you would have been a small child during this transition. I was only just old enough to be aware myself, and only grasped the full significance of it much later. I suspect it's hard for you to appreciate the novelty of some of his routines, as today it wouldn't be that big a deal.
PS: Thank you to both you and BK for the Tiernan and the Moran. Went down a treat - cheers!  |
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JMO

Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Location: Daegu
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Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 2:35 am Post subject: |
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Yea Moran is gas..
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| rescued you from every doorway which was a waiting set of jaws, every half closed window, a pirate's eye. I took you in and rescued you from your own stupidity. If you had a shred of moral decency you would chain yourself to the radiator and devote the rest of your life to acts of sexual abasement" |
fantastic...he can really go off on one..
I do know Benny Hill but only in retrospect. He's really popular in the states i heard. I thought the flamethrower was a nice touch..
thx for the help with urls..ill try to get my head around it. |
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