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Brand X
After the MTV Awards, what a couple of months ago, now? I was rude about Russell Brand, who I called a tosser.
A fair number of people suggested that I was mistaken in my opinion and that he is a decent bloke and a clever comedian and that it shouldn't be held against him that a significant percentage of Americans didn't like his humorous stylings at the expense of Dubya.
Be that as it may, he's still a tosser and his prank phone call to Andrew Sachs proves it.
In the meantime, his companion in arms, Jonathan "Woss" Ross should be taken out and given a lesson or two in career development. His 'cheeky chappie' approach worked 20 - even 10 years ago, but now he's deep into his 40s, his tactile and lascivious approach to interviewing female celebrities has moved from being funny to edging on creepy, especially since the amount of TV make up he wears is beginning to make him look like one of the less tasteful drag queens out there.
Or maybe I'm just getting old. I dunno; it just doesn't seem funny to me anymore.
Edited to add: If anyone still cares, there's a transcript of the prank phone calls here.
A fair number of people suggested that I was mistaken in my opinion and that he is a decent bloke and a clever comedian and that it shouldn't be held against him that a significant percentage of Americans didn't like his humorous stylings at the expense of Dubya.
Be that as it may, he's still a tosser and his prank phone call to Andrew Sachs proves it.
In the meantime, his companion in arms, Jonathan "Woss" Ross should be taken out and given a lesson or two in career development. His 'cheeky chappie' approach worked 20 - even 10 years ago, but now he's deep into his 40s, his tactile and lascivious approach to interviewing female celebrities has moved from being funny to edging on creepy, especially since the amount of TV make up he wears is beginning to make him look like one of the less tasteful drag queens out there.
Or maybe I'm just getting old. I dunno; it just doesn't seem funny to me anymore.
Edited to add: If anyone still cares, there's a transcript of the prank phone calls here.
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He has recently fronted some programs confronting yoof issues, and when he wasn't "performing" he was almost back to his original calibre.
Jonathan Ross is still good when he's presenting Film [Year], but that's about it these days.
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A lot of people were disappointed when he wasn't there.
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His behaviour at the MTV awards was pretty low I am no fan of President Bush, but I think "retarded cowboy fella" is not an acceptable turn of phrase.
There has always been a bit of a cruel streak to some comedy, candid camera etc. But recently it seems to be acceptable to be personally offensive to people and to humiliate them for the purposes of entertainment.
The fact that the made the call was a failure of personal judgement, the fact that the BBC consider it acceptable for broadcast is symptom of the unpleasant and almost callous culture that pervades mainstream British media. Think of the disregard for the walfare of Big Brother contestants, or the humilation of the X Factor. Ritual humilation = ratings and therefore acceptable.
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most of whom are doing their best in life and wouldn't hurt a fly
the cowboy thing is also incorrect as dubya is afraid of horses
probably cows as well unless they come hacked to bits on a plate with A-1 sauce
besides picking on president bush is just a lame move of desperation
even my eight year old can do it
it's just too easy
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I think that leaving someone so young to deal with a prat like Russell Brand is really the mistake here. Of course there is a chance that the young producer is a bit of a tosser himself and thought it was funny....
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This led to a number of people arguing that his radio show was really good and I should listen to it. I never did and the radio remains firmly fixed on BBC Radio 4. But meh I thought fair do's.....then he went to the US....and I reverted to my gut reaction.
Likewise I've not watched Jonathan Woss's show for years now, and to be honest though I used to regard his assement of films quite highly he's blatently sold out giving obviously $hite films good reviews when they clearly didn't merit it.
I was genuinely shocked to hear of this stunt.
I proabably think they deserve to have their teeth knocked out a black eye and maybee a broken jaw.
I'll settle for OFFCOM fining them rather than the BBC....but if the BEEB must be fined (ie my license fee wasted...yet again) I'll settle for the BBC docking them the amount from their overinflated salaries.
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Bravo Aunty !
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Both Ross and Brand admit that they get carried away and have no self control, that is a matter for those individuals. Broadcasting it effectively endorses the behaviour. which then raises questions regarding the roles of producers have in mangaging the content of broadcasts and the behaviour of broadcasters.
I do not particuarly feel the need to complain to OfCom, I think Gordon Brown's intervention is frankly bizarre. But I do think there are some issues the BBC and others (as mentioned in previous posts) needs to address regarding their editorial standards.
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* I got bored and went to drink Bloody Marys instead of listening to Brand's not humour being laughed at by the not bright.
This has been making me red with rage for 2 days
Did any of you HEAR it when it was broadcast ? I did.
I'm not going to get in to the rights and wrongs of it or what counts as comedy (or phone 'pranks') I'll say this: After the broadcast 2, yes 2 people complained. Then there was 10 day where nobody said jack. Then the f'ing right wing press (including Murdochs attack dogs, and we know how Murdoch hates the BBC) got hold of it and saw a chance to beat the BBC with two pretty big Media sticks Ross (who they've been after because of his salary) and Brand (because of his reletive infamy). In 3 days the complaints mushroomed from 2 to over 20,000 (as of last night). The vast majority of those people did not hear the 'incident', maybe some of that number are people who heard it and 10 days later decided to bandwagon jump (even if all of them were that would still leave 1.88m listners to Brand who didn't moan).
People are angry ?! Nowher near as f'ing angry as I am that once more the howling of a massively ill-informed, hypocritical press and a sheep-like public have abused a badly designed complaints procedure.
Jerry Springer the Musical generated 47,000 complaints, I didn't hear many people on LJ calling for the blood of Stewart Lee (quite rightly).
Myself and Amy are p'd off that someone who has given us more entertainment that most other tossers on TV over recent months has resigned. If Ross goes too (and I don't expect him to though) that annoyance will be doubled.
We're talking about comedians not bloody politicians here, Krishnan Guru-Murthy made a very funny point in the middle of the news on Tuesday. He'd just finished a big broadcast on the terrible situation in the Congo mentioning that the UN was bagging for more troops. He then pointed out that Gordon the Moron had "studiously avoided the Congo all day but had spoken out of the far more serious matter of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand". Quite, I'm glad my PM is dealing with such weighty matters.
Grrrrrrrrrr
Re: This has been making me red with rage for 2 days
I think that the level of complaint here has come from people learning (admittedly after the fact) what has been done during the show and later broadcast.
Obviously there wouldnt have been many complaints from the initial airing of the show, if you are making a conscious effort to tune in to Russell Brand's show then you know what to expect from him and would most likely enjoy his 'edgy humour' and we all tend to enjoy a bit of Schadenfreude.
The problem here is that where most of our opportunities to laugh at the expense of other people are sanctioned by the butts of said jokes the opposite was the case here.
While I am far too lazy to send in a complaint to the BBC I thought the reported content of the phone call was completely unnacceptable (moreso because the BBC is a public service broadcaster and paid for by all of us) and was done with no consideration whatsoever for Mr Sachs.
I am not a Sun, Times or even a Daily Mail reader (yet), nor do I watch Sky News. I found out about it from watching BBC news. Not hearing the initial broadcast does not proclude me from either having nor expressing an opinion about it.
Tbh I find Russell Brand to be a bit of a one trick pony and while his 'nice to be excited by edgy comedy' approach was initially entertaining and different its now all a bit dull and IMHO his stand up was very disappointing (a couple of hours and £x I wont be getting back). But we all have different tastes and he obviously is still very popular and a lot of people listen to him.
It appears (especially on Radio 1) that the crank / prank phone call is here to stay and is considered an acceptable way for presenters to fill airtime so that no more money gets spent on that nasty expensive music. Perhaps they will be used less frequently now, hell, if Jonathon Ross quits as well they can spend some of those millions on playing more music instead.
I suppose that this broadcast has at least encouraged some lively debate. :-)
Re: This has been making me red with rage for 2 days
I don't actually disagree with the points you've made. That said, Brand and Ross are still tossers and while I think it's a bit much to have to quit when a proper apology (as opposed to the "I'm sorry, but it was funny, really" approach)would have done, but there we are.
The thought of Golden Gordon weighing in is absolutely bizarre; quite why he felt the need to, I don't know. Admittedly, once I had denounced Brand and Ross on this very forum, he probably felt the vox populi might turn on him next. I'm that influential.
Anyway. They're still tossers, but I wouldn't think about complaining to the BBC about them. That's Andrew Sachs' job. But then it seems that he didn't listen to the broadcast either.
it's always about context
I do have issues with the way it's being reported though which haven't in my opinion reflected what happened (eg the whole thing did not start out as a 'prank call' but a genuine call to AS to ask him why he had cancelled at the last moment, which happened before anything was said about his granddaughter, of whom the less said the better) and unconnected to this I don't like the way the press manipulates 'the court of public opinion' and especially get cross by people like Murdoch (who'll print *anything*) holding up others to standards they themselves have no respect for.
"The problem here is that where most of our opportunities to laugh at the expense of other people are sanctioned by the butts of said jokes the opposite was the case here."
I'm sory but in the vast majority of cases that is utter nonsense, watch any comedy programme, to pick one 'Have I got News for You' (very popular I believe) and tell me how many of the individuals sanctioned the ribbing they get. Remeber the time the generally very light and fluffy Paul Merton suggested that Princess Diana looked sad in a photo because Charles wouldn't 'take her up the Gary Glitter'. I don't remember any outcry about that. Some people have it in for JR and RB and sadly they've given them the ammo to take them down.
Over the last couple of days I've heard other DJs (while obviously trying not to break the BBC party line of 'THIS IS AWFUL') clearly distressed at the idea that the BBc would roll over like this on them.
What really riles me though is that Mark Thompson couldn't just say he thought it was inapprpropriate he specifically cited the thousands of complaints of people who didn't even listen to the show and possibly only know who these people are because they read about them. As mentioned he ignored such people on the matter of JS:TM so it's clearly something he can do, I just think he's throwing a bone to the dogs so when he criticised in the future he can say 'see I do listen!'. I think the man is a craven coward.
PS: I don't enjoy RBs stand up either by the way, I do like his broadcasting
Did your children see the broadcast ?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E7gP1xgRDJ4
Aaaah, if only!
Re: it's always about context
I have listned to his show on previous occasions and it is engaging and amusing. Russel Brand is not particularly nasty or vindictive, he just doesn't know when to stop, and the same can be said of Jonathan Ross. But it is the job of the producers to ensure that they if the cross the line they are told.
From previous comments it sounds like the
Re: it's always about context
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Tossers.