It seems CBBC is better than BBC3.

Is there any reason why a CBBC sketch show called I'm Sorry, I've Got No Head is smarter, cleverer and made me laugh more times than a BBC3 sketch show called Scallywagga.

This is YouTube's first clip if you search for I'm Sorry I've Got No Head:



That's pretty funny, albeit the punchline has been given away by the preview picture. But go on YouTube and search for more sketches from the show. Most of them are really good, with collaberations from great comedians such as Marcus Brigstocke and Mel from Mel and Sue.

Here is the top rated clip for Scallywagga:



Oh. I. I see. I understand why this is meant to be funny... they're making fun of sketch shows with pointless catchphrases within a sketch. But they're sort of repeating that Colin Hunt sketch. But they've turned the fake catchphrases into a catchphrase.

It's all very confusing and odd.

Channel Flip Presents: The First Five Minutes of Scallywagga

A man in a red shirt jogs through the forest. He is portly and in need of exercise. He turns his head over his shoulder. He sees bikes coming towards him. Aloud, and to himself, he says one word. “Bike”.

Two people on a park bench. They are comparing phones, and showing off the technology that their phones contain. One of them stops time and pours water onto the other person’s lap. He looks like he has wet himself. A comical fart noise appears in the middle of this sketch.

A fly on an S.

A boy with long hair and black clothes claims he drinks blood. His mates say that he drinks Tizer.

Jeff from Peep Show and Sally Lindsay try and kill their son, unsuccessfully.

A boy with long hair and black clothes claims he once wore a wig. His friends disagree.

A woman straightens her hair. She sneezes. Her hair is no longer straight.

Let He Who Is Without Singing Cast the First Stone

As a formulaic process, you can't really argue with it. Holiday Showdown did it, Wife Swap did it, and both always got the same hilarious results. What formula am I on about? Get two groups of people from different backgrounds and get them to live with each other with astonishing consequences as they attempt to get along with clashing beliefs via the handy method of shouting loudly.

BBC3 have a lovely new show which follows this formula accurately. Singing With the Enemy was an interesting watch. It didn't, as I assumed, give people the chance to Sing with The Enemy. Instead, it gave the chance for two bands with different views to live with each other for a week and then write, record and perform a song. This week showed the adventures of punk band Paparazzi Whore (which claimed to be 'ironic', but I found it to be quite fitting what with them jumping at the chance to appear on BBC3) and Christian rock band Dweeb. Now, I understand why the BBC want to film a week of Punks and Christians sharing a house: for filmed tense content and guaranteed arguments. However, what actually occured during the show was far from this.

The first thing the bands need to do is perform for each other. Firstly, Paparazzi Whore play. Dweeb like them. Then, Dweeb play. Paparazzi Whore like them. This clearly is not what the BBC are wanting. When they filmed a goth band and a boy band together, they started ripping the piss out of each other left right and centre.

So, when the expected conflict you wanted in your BBC show isn't occurring what do you do? You could take the typical BBC approach and fake it. But why not try and make it happen!

For no reason whatsoever, they ask the punk band to play again for the Christians to watch. Only this time, they've brought strippers on the stage! Strippers! With breasts! The punk lead female singer then confesses that not only is she married to her husband, but she's also sleeping with the female back-up singing of the band! Such controversy!

I was wondering if they were going to go the whole hog and just start poking the Christian band with sharp sticks. Sadly, this is television and emotional teasing is just so much better than physical teasing. Hilariously, the Christian band don't really raise an eyebrow. Some may say that this was dull television, but I was loving every failed moment that the producers of the show attempted to add controversy into their otherwise sub-par show.

So what do they do? Cause controversy within the punk band itself!

Over the course of the week spent together, the female back-up singer decided to look back on the punk life she had loved for 20-odd years and starts to lead a spiritual quest to find her true meaning on this planet. Obviously the punks are upset, and begin to blame the Christians for warping the back-up singer's mind.

But, despite all the differences, they were able to record a decent song. Well, half decent. The only decent part of it was when Dweeb were singing. Paparazzi Whore's lead singer couldn't hit a damn note.

Not only was this a very odd hour of television, but it contained one of my favourite snippets of dialogue between the two lead singers:

"I don't know why you can't accept that we are followers of Christ"
"Well, that's where you're wrong. I'm not a follower. I'm a leader. In fact, I'm the leader"
"Heh.. I don't think you're The Leader"
"Well I 'ave to be. If I'm not a follower, I'm The Leader."

You can't argue with odd punk ideology.

The Unreal Hustle

A very odd thing happened to me on the way to a lecture this morning. As I got on the bus, I noticed a large film crew sitting on the back seat. It's something you don't miss. I paid for my ticket and sat down. Two stops later, the fat guy from The Real Hustle" wearing a suit. This was odd.

Fat Guy announced that he was from the council and was asked to check everybody's tickets/bus passes, etc... Whilst he was checking them, he kept stealing bags and purses of the bus passengers, only to give them back twenty seconds later.

My stop arrived. In the process of me leaving the bus, one of the BBC cameramen urged me to sit back down as they needed to film some reaction shots.

"And why can't I leave exactly?" I wondered aloud
"Well, if we cut to a different camera and you keep appearing and disappearing from the bus, people are going to think it's faked"
"So, to make it look like it isn't faked.. you're faking it?"

It was truly an odd morning.

Oh, Grow Up

One of the most upsetting moments of my life occurred this week after I sat through an episode of Grown-ups. During the end credits, I realised that more than one person worked on the show. It was actually written, produced and directed by different people. How come not a single one of the seventy-or-so cast and crew members realised that the show they were working on was pure concentrated awful? It's times like these I wonder why I don't have my own show.

The Bad Kind Of Countdown

Two nights in a row. Two. Nights. Two nights the BBC have decided to not bother making proper programmes for BBC Three and have just let the newest un-paid intern at the office go crazy at lunchtime with a top 100 list of their choosing. You just know they thought this was their big break, they had to do an original countdown show! "100 Greatest Plants!" they'd think. "Top 50 Scandals in the North of England!" they'd counter. And, suddenly, whilst making the 48th cup of tea that morning; they had a masterstroke. "POP MUSIC!"

Billed as "an affectionate, light hearted countdown", "Most Annoying Pop Moments" (parts 1 & 2, apparently) on BBC Three is your cookie-cutter countdown show; with just about every part of the show being as generic as possible. The slightly-popular and rather annoying TV presenter is your host for the evening,Richard Bacon and his annoyingly smug voice taking control for the night. You've got commenter's a-plenty, but, as it's a BBC show, not only have you got your usual comedians so unfamous that even their mothers don't know why they are and journalists desperate to get on telly; but the range is just immense! Only the BBC could rake in so many people for one show they decide to give up finding people related for each entry and just get a musicologist (a what?) and a comedian that was once on Mock The Week to talk about how annoying G4 are; who, for those who are interested, are just missing the Top 20 at number 22, but I'm sure they'll be happier to know they're more annoying than Fergie's tits. The highlight of these "celebrities" has got to be 'Celebrity Stylist' Philip Bloch who, aside from being a stylist (obviously), a celebrity (more obviously) and randomly appearing on TV saying how annoying pop stars are on planes, seems to make a bit of extra cash starring in kids TV series Lazytown as Sportacus 10.

The most confusing part about the whole thing is, they seemed to have ran out of annoying things in pop by the time I started watching, just putting in random things that have happened in the world at some point that are pop related in some form. Another adjective and this whole thing wouldn't have become the head-baffling train wreck it ended up being. It really did just become "Most... Something To Do With Pop Moments" about halfway through. For example, in at number 25... Phil Spector Murders An Actress! I'm just struggling to comprehend how the BBC found so many people who upon reading the news that Spector had killed Lana Clarkson thought to themselves "Darn, well isn't that just annoying?" that they managed to get it to number 25. And worst still, the commenter's gave their thoughts and witty remarks with the compassion and sympathy of a wet sandwich. "And you know what the most tragic part of the whole case?" The needless death of a young woman? "His ker-azy wigs!" Oh. "He came into court once with a giant afro!" He also, y'know, killed a woman. "Maybe he put the murder weapon in his giant afro!" LOL! Who cares about the life of the dead woman, let's not bother commenting on her, "the reason he needs to go to prison? Those wigs..." Wow, how did this Entertainment Journalist not get a career as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with logic like that? Light hearted subject indeed...

Other shining example of annoyance in pop. "Take That Re-Unite", yeah! Damn them for coming back and making one of the most popular pop albums of 2006! "The Sugababes never dying!", "Top of the Pops ending!", "Sexy Girls in Dance Videos!" featuring a comedian moaning how it's sexist and objectifying women. Woah woah woah! So you can get serious about girls in bikinis dancing about, but murder? That's a hilarious subject to joke about!

Then it got to Number 15, R Kelly's 'Trapped In The Closet' series. Stop right there! This isn't annoying, anyone who watches these will agree that this 'Hip-Hopera' is without a doubt the funniest thing on this planet. Is unintentional comedy all of a sudden an annoyance?

It was at this point I turned off, giving up on this pathetic excuse for filler. Not only was it rubbish, it wasn't even entertaining rubbish. I gave a sigh of relief, thinking I'd forever banished this crap from my TV... until the next day... oh look, it's on again! So for 2 and a half hours on a Sunday night, they had nothing to put on BBC Three so did a quick repeat of something that had last been on 24 hours ago. Maybe we should all band together and give the BBC some money so they can make TV shows for us or something...

If they have to repeat, Monkey Dust hasn't been on for more than a year, people might like to see repeats of that, it was funny. However, chances are, people aren't going to flip over to BBC Three and think "Oooh, this was good when I watched it yesterday, but since it's still so fresh in my memory... I'll watch it again!"

And so, watching again, wondering what the hell the Top 10 could be, it slowly became apparent that even the poor intern themselves had given up on his idea to make a fun, pop-based countdown and just started listing things they pointed at blindly in the Daily Mirror. The Top 10 was as follows...

In at 10... David Cameron! (Including, rather brilliantly, a man over 40 on a pop culture show saying "Men over 40 should not have any interest in pop culture")

Number 9... Lily Allen's career! That's right, her whole career!

Reaching number 8... Paul McCartney's hair!

Peaches Geldof annoys at number 7! Look! She's got a famous dad! How annoying!

Number 6... Various facets of Bono's life!

Reaching the Top 5... Pete Doherty... and his hat.

Reaching the Top 4... Britney Spears... and her vagina.

In at number 3... Joss Stone at the Brits, I never noticed what exactly happened there. Rather brilliantly, 3 of them talking about it fully said it wasn't annoying, they've started rebelling against the system!

Just missing the top spot... Robbie Williams gets help for addiction! So annoying when people try to get help!

And at the top spot... Alcoholic Amy Winehouse!

Stopped caring at around number 6 or so? Yeah, so did I, and I was watching the damn thing.

Is It Because I Eat Rubbish And Never Exercise?

You know what I’ve realised spending a few days living alone? TV is great.

Earlier today I watched Honey I’m Killing The Kids, which used Science to prove that a family’s son would grow a beard. The equivalent picture of the daughter was described by the parents as “gobby”. One of the rules was the family was allowed only two hours of TV a night. Here’s some genuine dialogue of the mother trying to convince the daughter not to get pregnant...

“...an it in’t all that, in’t sex.”
“Well, for you, wi’ Gary...”
“Really. I can think o’far more interesting things to do... with my time. Read a book, watch a bit of telly... But no more than two hours, obviously...”

It’s terribly entertaining, as is BBC’s ingenious new show Kitchen Criminals, which is, if I’m honest, nothing more than The X-Factor with food. Both shows suffer from the BBC’s apparent ignorance that they don't show adverts: every few minutes there’s a musical sting and the logo appears, and then the announcer will recap what's going on for people who tuned in during the imaginary commercial break. Possibly this is done for the benefit of UKTV.

Right now I’m watching BBC Three’s brilliant Is It Because I Is Black?, where Adil, a Muslim DJ, Karl, an Average White Guy (the “control”), and a wheelchair-bound comedian who Adil just referred to as “Disabled Dave” compete to get preferential treatment from companies and members of the public. For the record, the Muslim fared worse than the control, and the wheelchair user did much, much better. I love it. It’s delightfully anti-PC. So far, possibly on purpose, David has been described as a “stand-up” who is “walking” the challenges. (“So off we trot,” says Adil, “well, except Dave, obviously.”) Also well done to it for being an hour-long programme without using the phrase “political correctness gone mad” even once, which puts it about a million points ahead of Richard & Judy.

I think I might have to get myself a wheelchair. They’re fantastic. They make people lovely.

Hustle and Bustle

Occasionally, we get spin-offs. Sometimes, these can be watchable (such as Frasier, Torchwood and Ashes to Ashes. I don't care if the last one hasn't aired yet, it's going to be brilliant). Sometimes, they aren't so watchable (such as Joey, Celebrity Big Brother or Swiss Toni). However, sometimes we get some things which are worse than a spin-off. I don't know if this particular genre even has a name, but I'm on about the programs which discuss the show that's just been aired. I'm talking about rubbish such as "Pure 24", "Wife Swap: The Aftermath" and "Russell Brand Talks About His Genitals After Big Brother Has Aired".

The rubbish episodes of The Real Hustle always follow the same plotline, kind of like My Family.

However, one of these particular shows is half enjoyable. I'm on about BBC3's "The Real Hustle". It isn't technically a discussion show, it's an original show in it's own right. But the fact is they couldn't have just called it "Conmen" or "Attractive People Rob Pedestrians". No, they had to try and leech in the Hustle fans. The show is utterly hilarious though. Sometimes, the cons are good. Othertimes, they are a bit rubbish. The rubbish episodes of The Real Hustle always follow the same plotline, kind of like My Family. It's always like this:

NARRATOR:
"Sometimes, people can try and sell you stuff which is actually cheaper than what they say it is, we call this hustle "The Selling Things for More Expensive Than They Actually Are Scam".

[GIANT TITLE ON SCREEN: "The Selling Things for More Expensive Than They Actually Are Scam."]

NARRATOR:
"Alex has walked in to this unsuspecting building with a bottle of champagne/box of televisions/eight billion pounds. He then convinces somebody to take it for a cheap price"

ALEX:
"Would you like this expensive item for a cheap price?"

UNSUSPECTING PERSON:
"Yes."

NARRATOR:
"What the unsuspecting person doesn't know is that what they've just paid for the item is actually MORE than what the item cost. Hahaha. What an idiot!"

*Flashback*

ALEX:
"You see, what I did was replace the expensive looking item for a cheap imitation"

NARRATOR:
"But how did he do it?"

ALEX
"I replaced it with an imitation product.""

NARRATOR:
"Let's see that from ANOTHER angle"

...etc, etc...

UNSUSPECTING PERSON:
(Talking to camera) "I don't know what happened. He came in and said that it was expensive and was selling it for cheap. What a fool I feel."

[CUT TO: Alex in the studio]

ALEX:
"Always remember that before somebody sells you something, make sure you check I.D and don't be a fucking idiot."

Brilliant. In every episode, there is always at least one scam which follows this exact structure.