Friday 30 November 2012

Dear Brendan O'Carroll...


I hate you. 

When you decided that you had to be famous instead of actually being good at something, you chose comedy as the medium that you would drag to the depths of braindead idiocy. You decided that if you were going to be big then you had to be bad (because there was no way you'd make it if you tried to be of merit), and because you wanted to be HUGE then that meant you were going to have to be the worst thing that has ever happened to television comedy since it began. In a way, you have to be congratulated on sticking to your guns and remaining doggedly focused on being utterly insultingly appalling at all times. You aimed low and you made it! Straight to the bottom. Or so you thought...

You see, O'Carroll, you THINK you're throwing diseased excrement into the yawning faces of the thick but you throw like a girl. And that shit in your hand? There's nowhere near as much hepatitis and E.coli in there as you thought. Oh, you're a racist, sexist, old joke telling, reactionary bullshitter but you're not the worst. Turns out, when you were licking your lips and looking at that piss soaked bag of blood and cum underneath the barrel, you were aiming too high. The worst you could come up with was Mrs. Brown's Boys. HA! Stand aside, amateur. Kookyville is here.

Kookyville is Channel 4's latest nail in it's coffin and it stars ordinary people being ordinary in ordinary situations. Oh, yes. With a pitch like that, you can see how it got made. Turns out Channel 4, like most TV stations and production houses, think that it's best to show ordinary, regular people at their very worst so that the middles classes and, let's face it, Channel 4 executives can point and laugh at all the stupid poor people again. It's basically Made In Chelsea but this time all situations are set up to appear like comedy sketches with these ordinary people just talking amongst themselves and trying to be funny. As you know, Brendan, ordinary people ARE funny. Graham Linehan is an ordinary man. He's funny. Louis CK is made of flesh and bone so he's just an ordinary man and he's very funny. Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Zoe Gardner are the two funniest people I've ever seen and trust me, I know them, they're incredibly ordinary. But you're not ordinary, Brendan. Although you almost are compared to the bacteria that screams it's way through Kookyville.

I'm sure, Brendan, you still see Channel 4 as that scary alternative television station but you should give it a go because I think you'd like it. It's terrible. In the 80's and 90's it used to be the home of the best comedy on TV but these days, with one or two exceptions, it seems to have looked at channel 5 for inspiration and then decided to totally eclipse it. Kookyville is basically two women being thick followed by an old woman saying "fuck" followed by a couple saying what a pain in the arse disabled people are followed by two men in a pub talking about "peedos" followed by the first two women again pointing and laughing at a dwarf. Hey! Stop laughing, Brendan, I'm trying to make a point. 

Kookyville is the brainabortion of a TV executive producer. And what happens when a TV executive producer says "we don't need good comedy actors or creative comedy writers" and then gets in a bunch of the most obnoxious, horrible, not-in-any-way-ordinary people to just film themselves being themselves? They get good comedy actors and creative comedy writers staring back at them and saying "On your knees and beg". If anyone works for Channel 4 again after Kookyville I'd be shocked (although I am available and do have some ideas). And here's the big claim, Brendan: I think Kookyville is the worst comedy ever made. Not just television, I mean comedy anything. Television, film, radio, christmas cracker joke, hidden camera stunt, that bleak fit of the giggles that you get at a funeral. EVERYTHING IS BETTER THAN KOOKYVILLE. Jesus Christ, even Two Girls/One Cup had some comparative integrity (the clear influence of John Waters was divine, no pun intended). And that is why I LOVE Kookyville. I LOVE IT!!!!

Look at you, Brendan. Pathetic. You tried so hard to be the most awful thing in your chosen field and you failed. You were insulting, obnoxious, offensive and you even sold out your own good Irish people and you're STILL not as bad as Kookyville. Ha! That's the first time you've made me laugh, Brendan. You're not even good at being the worst.

Lots of love, Michael xoxoxo

ps. If you want to read another letter about Kookyville then have a look at @mr_craig's open letter to Channel 4 here: http://mr-craig.tumblr.com/post/36584262187



www.twitter.com/michaellegge

My blog is available on Facebook, Blogger and Tumblr. It's daily Monday to Friday. Some blogs will be long, some very short. If you're too lazy to read my blog it's also available as a podcast atwww.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or you can subscribe to it on iTunes. All formats are free. That means if I'm doing a gig near you, please come and support it. I give you free stuff. That's fair, right?

This blog is also available on Kindle. It costs 99p a month and I do not recommend it at all. It looks nice though. 

5 comments:

bunny said...

I may have just fallen in love with you. I actually belly laughed. So right about channel four and most channels in fact..why does everyone feel the need to disrespect the impoverished and point and laugh?! Whatever happened to the "good old working class fellow?" why are they now just patients at broadcast Bedlam?! Seriously, "haha look at the ignorant person, they deserve to be laughed at.." want to know what I find really funny? the circle of poverty that causes such under funding in their education systems that allows them to become so "un pc" and ignorant in the first place. Pfff Get me a stick, I need to beat something!

offpat said...

nice to know my instincts in avoiding both those shows appear correct...
but then I probably hate and therefore don't watch a lot of TV that most people like. - or even want to read tweets about them.
Mute:#Xfactor #strictly #Apprentice #masterchef #DragonsDen #IACGMOOH

Michael Legge said...

Thanks to both of you.

Bunny, I've had lots of weird feedback today from people who ignored the serious bits (ie the bits you commented on) and took the lighter bits (me "hating" MBB) way too seriously so I'm glad you got it.Thank you,

Anonymous said...

It's a bit rich to say he's sexist and then use the phrase "you throw like a girl."

Not saying he's not, he is, but that phrase doesn't give your argument much credence.

oliver said...

That, anon, is probably the most uni-dimensional comment I think I have ever seen.