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Post by theroadtodeep13 on Jan 1, 2012 13:18:14 GMT -5
What was your most cringe-worthy moment from the show? For me, it would have to be Servo's "Delta Knights" choir, especially when they showed the Servo with unmentionables. It was funny, yet I had trouble falling asleep for a few nights after I saw it.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Jan 1, 2012 13:25:46 GMT -5
Cringe-worthy as in disturbing? Or cringe-worthy as in embarrassed for the Brains?
If it's the former, it's gotta be dawormface for me.
If it's the latter, I always thought the "Owner of a Lonely Heart" host segment was a dumb idea.
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Post by mrsphyllistorgo on Jan 1, 2012 13:43:00 GMT -5
Disturbing cringe-worthy: The "date" Kay and Nick go on in "What to do on a Date."
Disturbing Embarrassed: Bobo's Sandwich. It just keeps going.
Yay! Our luggage is here!
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Post by brandonakaxerxes on Jan 2, 2012 10:23:24 GMT -5
Joey the Lemur. Because of how unraveled the segment obviously was.
Not sure I can think of any other moments.
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Post by pablum on Jan 3, 2012 0:55:15 GMT -5
San Francisco International.
Hey Brains. One Urkel segment is enough. Two is embarrassing. Three hurts.
All that for one Torgo joke payoff? For shame, Brains.
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hipsterthor
Nanite
Doesn't Get These Jokes
God of Taste
Posts: 42
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Post by hipsterthor on Jan 3, 2012 7:25:16 GMT -5
The Hobgoblins support hotline sketch. The stuff with Bobo is just terrible.
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Post by msmystie3000 on Jan 3, 2012 8:34:52 GMT -5
The Hobgoblins support hotline sketch. The stuff with Bobo is just terrible. I liked that sketch...as I do Joey The Lemur. The later is so unhinged & stupid but it's so cute & Joel's smile & goofy lemur voice makes he squee. *ahem* Anyway, I agree about the "Bobo Brain Sandwich"....though I do like his "Mayo-NAAASSE!"....It did provide an explanation for Observer's "downgrade" from the mysterious, aloof, "Welcome...and try to comprehend us" to the more "human"-yet-somewhat-buffoonish, backwards ball caps, chili dogs, Jerry Springer, Sliders, Hendrix impersonations & hot dates with "Leathermen". I admit, however, he was also was smarter & somewhat the "Only Sane Man" of the "Later Mads" & being more "human" could be seen as sort of an "upgrade"....better than being a weird alien quasi-Borg/Q-like collective of snobby superbeings (though not really). |
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Post by TheNewMads on Jan 3, 2012 8:35:28 GMT -5
"Owner of a lonely hearts" scetch and "Hobgoblin support line," yeah, both sucked. A lot of the roman era sketches are weak. I cut them some slack because i know they were just trying to placate the sci-fi channel vis-a-vis storylines, but still, we don't need to run around in a circle shaking pants around and singing praises to them. it just makes me feel achey and kind-of sad.
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Post by BJ on Jan 3, 2012 13:25:50 GMT -5
I like most of these sketches, especially Joey the Lemur. I just watched SFO, and loved the Urkel stuff. I guess I just like callbacks. I'm a firm believer in the John Di Maggio theory that if something's not funny 9 times in a row, it'll be funny the tenth time, and then again for the 20th time. It's a close relative to anti-humor, which I also get a perverse enjoyment out of. When everyone turns on Mike after laughing for so long, I love it. It's a perfect reflection of what actually happens to one-note characters on TV when they get overexposed.
Even the bad sketches are so relatively short that I just tend to forget them. I'm not a big fan of the Bobo/Brain guy era, but most of the memories I can recall off hand is funny stuff.
Oh, wait a minute. There's the episode where Pearl is sick and keeps yelling "Clayton" over and over. I want to kill myself during those segments.
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Post by TheNewMads on Jan 3, 2012 13:45:49 GMT -5
I like most of these sketches, especially Joey the Lemur. I just watched SFO, and loved the Urkel stuff. I guess I just like callbacks. I'm a firm believer in the John Di Maggio theory that if something's not funny 9 times in a row, it'll be funny the tenth time, and then again for the 20th time. It's a close relative to anti-humor, which I also get a perverse enjoyment out of. When everyone turns on Mike after laughing for so long, I love it. It's a perfect reflection of what actually happens to one-note characters on TV when they get overexposed. that's funny about "anti-humor," i'm not familiar with that concept but i just watched "the men who stare at goats," which i enjoyed quite a lot more than i thought i would. the whole premise behind the movie is that every single joke in it is a shaggy dog joke, based on the premise that george clooney thinks he has the supernatural jedi powers but he actually doesn't, so every time he gets in trouble he tries to do something "jedi" and.... nothing happens. and yet it's quite funny. i also am pro-joey the lumur, didn't mind urkel, and bobo's sandwich. the difference is that, yeah, they're sorta anti-humor, whereas owner of a lonely heart and praises-of-pants are just non-humor. i wind up not buying their core premise and go all curmudgeonly for the whole rest of it. i mean, why would ancient romans go ga-ga for pants? is it supposed to be a pants party instead of a toga party? but the whole point of a toga party is, you don't have to wear pants! it's very freeing and more casual and so on. so when they start dancing around carrying pants, i just... don't even know what they're doing or why they're doing it. ditto "owner of a lonely heart." i think it's quite clear why the owner of a lonely heart would be in a unique situation not comparable to, say, the owner of a reasonably priced set of encyclopedias or the owner of a pie, or whatever those random examples tom came up with are. so they're running with their sketch and meanwhile i'm thinking, wait, the original song is drawing a rather clear line of comparison between owners of lonely vs. owners of broken hearts, and when you substitute randomly selected words with no dialectical or epistemological relationship to "lonely hearts," you've altered the sense of the song so as to make it meaningless. also, why is everyone constantly startled every time the synth hits sound? it seems like after the third time or so they'd piece together that it was happening every time someone said "owner of a lonely heart" and they'd start seeing it coming. but no, apparently, to paraphrase crow, they have no reasoning or deductive skills at all and no short-term memory and so life, even when repetitious, continues to appear novel and frightening to them. so i'm lost in all these over-literal objections to the sketch's premise and the next thing i know, it's over, and i'm frowning with my arms sullenly crossed. it's not like joey the lemur, which is funny expressly because it isn't funny. it had no real concept, it's just joel riffing on doing that comedian's voice and rubbing puppets with other puppets. not ambitious, but it does what it sets out to do. the pants and lonely hearts sketches aren't funny, and continue to be unfunny by virtue of their previous unfunniness. |
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Post by BJ on Jan 3, 2012 14:30:58 GMT -5
I'm not saying those are good sketches, but that's a lot of in depth analysis for a simple concept. Someone had the thought of "If modern people get excited about toga parties for no real reason, what would Romans (who already wear togas) get excited about?" Pants. On a side note, I just watched that sketch, and it's worth it just for Crow getting trashed and longing for Betty.
It's similar for Owner of a Lonely Heart. "What else is better than the owner of a lonely heart?" Just like the Pina Colada song, the bots get too into the literal meaning of a song, and go overboard with it. They're very simple writing ideas that the Brains explored, for better or for worse.
I watched the Men who Stared at Goats a few months ago, and also really enjoyed it. It's basically all about male bonding within the realm of a wacky new age war story, like a hippie version of Fight Club. I also loved how the one actor who had played a Jedi Master, was totally clueless about the "force" in this one. It's not for everyone, but I was laughing quite a bit.
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Post by TheNewMads on Jan 3, 2012 17:09:39 GMT -5
yeah, i like to analyze and overthink things until all joy and happiness in the world has died. it's fun!
it reminds me of the douglas adams thing where he hears the joke about why don't they make the whole plane out of the black box if the black box is so indestructible? i always thought that was a passably funny enough joke but it's not douglas adams' cup of tea so he hears it and says, "Well, that doesn't actually work because the metal in the black box is too heavy; the plane wouldn't be airworthy." Everyone basically knows this, of course, but if it's your kind of joke you think, oh, right, because then the plane would be indestructible, haha. i get it, and now am ready to move on. adams just wasn't taken with it so immediately he started analyzing. that's how i felt with the owner of a lonely heart sketch. i got far more entertainment out of brooding over the myriad ways it made no sense than i ever got out of actually watching it. and there are very few sketches like that for me. usually i'm like, oh, he's the warrior of the lost world but he doesn't have a license so he has to ride with his mom. awesome! i never think, wait, how is his mom driving around shopping after the apocalypse, or, what sort of anarchic society makes people get driver's permits? (or, to be more accurate, i do, and the stupid illogic of it just enhances the joke.) there's a funny grab, joel with the three-day beard and acting like a sullen teenager, and i go along. for some very few sketches there's not even a basic grab so i'm immediately like, even if i wanted to find something funny about this, i'm not sure what i'm supposed to even think MIGHT be funny. pants and lonely heart are like that for me. it's not even obvious what the attempt at humor is, so i'm left to cast about wildly, overanalyzing and getting all literal on every detail.
i guess what i'm saying is: suspension of disbelief. i can haz it?
On staring at goats, i think i loved the air quotes around "attack" the best. i already knew clooney had comedy chops but mcgregor has some real talent, too. i'm not willing to forgive him for the star wars prequels yet, but if he called, i suppose i would take it.
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Post by TheNewMads on Jan 3, 2012 17:37:29 GMT -5
i also think i might be saying joel was a bit stronger at pulling skits with ill-thought-out concepts out of their nose-dives. i think when a skit was half-ass joel could just fall back on his standup style, which was very shaggy-dog. mike, as a host seg performer, always seemed more comfortable doing supporting characters than hosting (his amazing colossal man was, well, amazing, as well as the russian cosmonaut, etc., hysterical stuff) but in the mike years, if the host seg was solidly written, he'd nail it (a long-time favorite is the spanish kid's show sketch) but if you had to rely on mike as a front man, the skit would likely fall apart. that's not to take anything away from mike; he and joel had very different skillsets and a creative team should be like that.
i actually think that had the side-effect that a lot of the host segs in the mike years were better written. in the joel days they knew they could half-bake something and have joel just carry it on his stand-up skill and doe-eyed good looks. (there you go, ms. mistie!! squee!!!)
anyway, rarely did that not work for joel, although for instance, i think the sidehacker song skit is HIDEOUS. that's another one for me is down there with lonely heart and pants. they thought joel could cute his way through that and in that instance, not even he could save it.
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Post by TheNewMads on Jan 3, 2012 17:56:04 GMT -5
also, i'd like to disaggregate the pants sketch from the "i punched a window for you debbie" sketch, which is frickin' hilarious. i forgot they were together.
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Post by msmystie3000 on Jan 3, 2012 18:12:52 GMT -5
I like most of these sketches, especially Joey the Lemur. I just watched SFO, and loved the Urkel stuff. I guess I just like callbacks. I'm a firm believer in the John Di Maggio theory that if something's not funny 9 times in a row, it'll be funny the tenth time, and then again for the 20th time. It's a close relative to anti-humor, which I also get a perverse enjoyment out of. When everyone turns on Mike after laughing for so long, I love it. It's a perfect reflection of what actually happens to one-note characters on TV when they get overexposed. that's funny about "anti-humor," i'm not familiar with that concept but i just watched "the men who stare at goats," which i enjoyed quite a lot more than i thought i would. the whole premise behind the movie is that every single joke in it is a shaggy dog joke, based on the premise that george clooney thinks he has the supernatural jedi powers but he actually doesn't, so every time he gets in trouble he tries to do something "jedi" and.... nothing happens. and yet it's quite funny. i also am pro-joey the lumur, didn't mind urkel, and bobo's sandwich. the difference is that, yeah, they're sorta anti-humor, whereas owner of a lonely heart and praises-of-pants are just non-humor. i wind up not buying their core premise and go all curmudgeonly for the whole rest of it. i mean, why would ancient romans go ga-ga for pants? is it supposed to be a pants party instead of a toga party? but the whole point of a toga party is, you don't have to wear pants! it's very freeing and more casual and so on. so when they start dancing around carrying pants, i just... don't even know what they're doing or why they're doing it. ditto "owner of a lonely heart." i think it's quite clear why the owner of a lonely heart would be in a unique situation not comparable to, say, the owner of a reasonably priced set of encyclopedias or the owner of a pie, or whatever those random examples tom came up with are. so they're running with their sketch and meanwhile i'm thinking, wait, the original song is drawing a rather clear line of comparison between owners of lonely vs. owners of broken hearts, and when you substitute randomly selected words with no dialectical or epistemological relationship to "lonely hearts," you've altered the sense of the song so as to make it meaningless. also, why is everyone constantly startled every time the synth hits sound? it seems like after the third time or so they'd piece together that it was happening every time someone said "owner of a lonely heart" and they'd start seeing it coming. but no, apparently, to paraphrase crow, they have no reasoning or deductive skills at all and no short-term memory and so life, even when repetitious, continues to appear novel and frightening to them. so i'm lost in all these over-literal objections to the sketch's premise and the next thing i know, it's over, and i'm frowning with my arms sullenly crossed. it's not like joey the lemur, which is funny expressly because it isn't funny. it had no real concept, it's just joel riffing on doing that comedian's voice and rubbing puppets with other puppets. not ambitious, but it does what it sets out to do. the pants and lonely hearts sketches aren't funny, and continue to be unfunny by virtue of their previous unfunniness. I guess that's the "absurd humor" the Brains were going for with the "Yes song" sketch. The ludicrous juxtaposition of "Broken Heart" with cheese slicers, pies & rural Montana real estate (and Tom singing as many syllables as he can into a line). I thought Joel's praises to pants, Sidehacker song, the "Pina Colada Song" was cute, though. A few skits really were awful: The Hexfield Gorilla & Kitten With A Whip (though Kevin looked hilarious in a stupid cat costume). Apart from the Mads as 70's ball players & Billie Jean King & Bobby Riggs, the skits (except for the Shame-O-Meter) were really lame-o. Mike as Bruce The Gym Guy was hilarious yet it didn't seem to go anywhere. Mike's first appearance as Valeria is only mildly funny if you're familiar with the dialogue & such of ROBOT HOLOCAUST.Joel smashing the Bots with the chair in ROBOT MONSTER....THE HELL?! |
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