Brand X

[caddyman]

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.

Comments

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time Russell Brand was a new "edgy" standup comic. He was good. Then he seemed to decide to become more edgier and turned into a hysterical, wannabe sexual deviant. Now, as you say, he's just a tosser.

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.

[oldnick.livejournal.com]

At least now we know why one of the main guests (Andrew Sachs) at the event I was working at the weekend cancelled last week for personal reasons.

A lot of people were disappointed when he wasn't there.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

I have no idea who R Brand is, and my own sense of humour is "edgy" enough, but, having read the article you linked to, that kind of behaviour marks him as much worse than a "tosser". If a guy said such things about my wife or daughter, my retribution would go somewhat further than demanding an unreserved apology.

[barrettyman.livejournal.com]

This kind of behaviour is just cruel, I have never liked it, and it has never been funny.

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.

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

I must have had a similar conversation after fencing a few weeks ago where I pretty much said I thought Russell Brand was a complete p**t.

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.

[ladkyis.livejournal.com]

I hope they are both charged with harrasment and anything else that could get them a prison sentece! I was subjected to similar calls by young people who thought it was funny a few years ago. This is the reason I have an unlisted number and WILL give the police all evidence AND take it to court. I hope they have their Ar**s nailed to a public wall somewhere so that we can all go and point and throw tomatoes. I cannot begin to describe my feelings about this but the air over Newport is BLUE

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

Hear hear.

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

his tactile and lascivious approach to interviewing female celebrities ...is pretty typical of how most guys seem to react to women they find attractive, in my experience. I think he just looks a little bit helpless, and I find that quite amusing.

[littleonionz.livejournal.com]

I think all this hysteria about said phone call is waaaay over the top. I think for Gordo to mention it instead of the sitch in the congo or you know something important is baffling. Having said that; Ross *is* a creepy overpaid d*ck and having seen about 40 minutues of Russell Brand's standup* (he read a newspaper in the same way your funny mate would, only you don't pay your mates a wad of cash to read a newspaper and make mildly amusing comments) I can honestly say he aint edgy, just mildly amusing-ish and has bad hair.

* 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

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Question:

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

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Wow. Cutting edge comedy - he mentioned menstruation and everything! And his peepee got involved too, and how funny is that (the girl doesn't count, cos she's a slaaag anyway innit?) They even phone back again, just like a proper nuisance caller! I hope that any prank callers who decide to give me a ring take these words of comedy genius and treat them as a primer. Well worth the licence fee.

Tossers.