Posts with tag british
Posted Jun 28th 2008 3:01PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Video, Game Show, Reality-Free
From 1986 through 2004, there was a popular English game show called
Catch Phrase (we had a version in America, but like tea drinking and civility, we ditched it after only a very brief run). Here's how the bonus game on the show worked: nine blocks covered up a short video snippet. The blocks were removed randomly and the first contestant to correctly guess what phrase was being represented by the video won some British prize (like a top hat or a subcontinent or something).
In the following video, the randomized blocks' perfect placement over the animation combines with the dirty-minded twelve-year-old that lives inside all of us to hilarious effect. Every time a block is removed, the animation just looks more and more filthy. Even better is the reaction of the contestants and the host, who, about ten seconds in, decide to abandon any hope of getting through the animation without losing their minds with laughter. The video after the jump.
[Via
DIGG]
Continue reading British gameshow pornography - VIDEO
Posted Mar 18th 2008 4:43PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Food/Home/DIY, Pickups and Renewals
There's more reality being served up by NBC:
a food-based competition show in which couples vie to open a restaurant. British chef Marco Pierre White will be the judge. NBC has greenlit
The Chopping Block for next season, calling it a sort of
Top Chef meets
Hell's Kitchen. Actually, it sounds like a twin for BBC America's
Last Restaurant Standing. That one has nine couples competing for one restaurant with Chef Raymond Blanc as the judge. The NBC incarnation will have eight couples, and unlike Chef Blanc who has earned two Michelin stars for his restaurants, Chef White has three.
Continue reading NBC okays restaurant reality show
Posted Mar 29th 2007 3:02PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, In the Limelight, Celebrities
Last year, after multiple recommendations from my English friends, I got around to watching a few episodes of
The IT Crowd. Unfortunately, it failed to live up to all the wild hype generated by my buddies, but something did stick in my mind... The crazy-haired, nasal Moss character, played by
Richard Ayoade. There was something wonderfully weird about him and, since I was so intrigued by his strange voice, I decided to look him up. Well, as it turns out, his usual voice is really that weird and nasal, which just made him a million times more better in my mind. In fact, Ayoade's the only cast member who has been carried over from the original version of
The IT Crowd to the American adaptation, reprising his role as Moss.
Continue reading Richard Ayoade: In the Limelight
Posted Mar 29th 2007 11:22AM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, South Park, Comedy Central
(S11E04) This was a hilarious episode, and yet I couldn't help but feel it's the sort of episode that comes easy to its creators. The "snuke in Hillary's snizz" gag wasn't exactly inspired, considering the very first episode centered on a gigantic satellite in Cartman's ass and just last season another episode focused on Oprah's "minge." Then there was Cartman's fart torture and the scene toward the end where the Queen shoots herself, both of which I laughed at quite uproariously but that still seemed a bit too easy by South Park standards.
Continue reading South Park: The Snuke
Posted Mar 22nd 2007 8:01PM by Brad Linder
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, BBC, Doctor Who, Sci Fi
Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies
says the show will be back for a fourth series (that's British for season). He made remarks at the London premiere of series three.
What's less clear at the moment is who will be playing the Doctor in series four. Current Doctor David Tennant has remained silent on the issue. Series three has actress Freema Agyeman playing Martha Jones, the doctor's new assistant. She fills the void left by Billie Piper's departure from the program.
It had been widely suspected that a fourth season was already on deck, but Davies' confirmation should come as good news for
Doctor Who fans. Now if only Americans didn't have to wait months or years for each new season to show up on the SciFi channel.
Posted Mar 20th 2007 1:23PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, FX, The Riches
One of the things I noticed when I watched last week's pilot of
The Riches was that Eddie Izzard was struggling to maintain an American accent of any kind, much less the southern accent that his character, Wayne Malloy, is likely to have.
But when I watched last night's episode (Brett and I are trading off reviews on this show), I noticed that Izzard's accent had smoothed out, and his British didn't seep out as much as it did in the first episode. This is no small feat; doing an accurate American accent is extremely difficult for Brits, as the many tiny differences between how each country speaks English are tough to keep track of. The effort to make the leap has sunk many accomplished British actors; even ones who do a reasonable job, like Emma Thompson, let their native accents leak through every so often.
Continue reading Is Eddie Izzard's American accent getting better?
Posted Mar 9th 2007 3:23PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, ABC, FOX, CBS, Grey's Anatomy, Celebrities
Oliver Platt, last seen in the Showtime series Huff, will star in the ABC comedy pilot The Thick of It, about workers for a low-level congressman. The show is executive produced by Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz and based on the British comedy of the same name.
Chris Lowell (Veronica Mars) will join previously cast Tim Daly and Taye Diggs in the two-hour Grey's Anatomy episode meant to serve as a springboard to a possible Grey's Anatomy spinoff.
Steve Howey of Reba has been cast in The Beast, about a womanizing veterinarian who hates animals. Tucker Cawley, a writer and executive producer for Everybody Loves Raymond, will also write and executive produce the comedy pilot for FOX. The series is based on the British comedy Beast.
Continue reading Still more network pilot casting news
Posted Mar 5th 2007 6:26PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: CBS, Programming, Celebrities, Game Show
Another European import gets a stateside remake. In TV land, it's sometimes cheaper to buy somebody else's idea than to come up with one of your own. This would be funny principle if we started teaching it in schools. "I was going to do my own science fair project, but then I realized, I could just do a remake of the photosynthesis experiment that won two years ago." Kids could pay each other royalties for old book reports. I see a whole new economy in the works for the playground set. Anyway, these international translations are obviously working out quite well for the networks, Simon Fuller (
American Idol) and Ben Silverman (
The Office,
Ugly Betty). So, why shouldn't they work out for producer Ashton Kutcher who has already made a bundle marketing
Beauty and the Geek worldwide?
Kutcher is translating the British Game Show in My Head for CBS. While the production company has remained quiet on the details, we know that the show involves a hidden camera element and is casting "everyday people who are ready for a little fun in extraordinary situations." They're looking for people who considered themselves to be "daredevils, risk takers and great sales people." The pilot will be shot later this month. Anyone out there seen the British version? Got any insight for us?
Posted Feb 26th 2007 7:41PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, ABC, Celebrities
Christopher Guest has agreed to direct the pilot for
The Thick of It, a comedy being created for ABC by
Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz.
The show is being adapted for an American audience from the popular British comedy by the same name. In Britain, it was about a member of Parliament who had to deal with inept politicians, a prime minister and other silly minions. I can only guess that the American version will take place in Congress?
According to his
IMDB bio, Guest hasn't done much directing for television lately. He seems to stick to the "mockumentary" (he hates that word) movie genre that's heavy on improv, such as
Best in Show and
Waiting for Guffman.
Posted Feb 21st 2007 9:32AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: 24, Watercooler Talk
Jack Bauer is a good name. It's a strong name that doesn't denote much ethnicity. It's the name of a fictional American hero.
And now it's also the name of a computer programmer in Britain. Tim Annan, 35, loves
24 so much that he has changed his name to 'Jack Bauer'. And he makes people at work call him that. He says, "It beats being plain Tim from Watford." Yes. Now he's "crazy Tim from Watford." No word on whether he does a lot of heavy breathing into a cell phone like his alter-ego.
According to British newspaper The Sun, the British Jack Bauer is single. Surprise, surprise.
Posted Dec 3rd 2006 4:29PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Documentary
Channel 4 in the UK is moving ahead with plans to air Virgin School, a documentary that will follow a virgin in his late twenties as he attends a sex school in Amsterdam and eventually loses his virginity with a sex therapist, despite protests from former chief executive of Channel 4, Jeremy Isaacs, who says the channel has been dumbing down its programming as of late.
There may be some merit to Issac's claim, since the network also plans to air a series of shows about masturbation next year. That's right, not one show, but a whole series of shows. I had no idea there was that much ground to cover when it came to playin' Whack-A-Mole with Captain Wang, but I also didn't know one could attend a three-month sex school, either. Frankly, I've never understood why people feel they need to be taught how to have sex. It's fairly easy: stupid people have it all the time. It's a pretty basic evolutionary mechanism.
Posted Dec 2nd 2006 2:24PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Video, Commercials, Celebrities
There's an old British 'Where Are They Now'-type special up
on YouTube that is all about Sacha Baron Cohen. The special looks a little dated because it focuses on his work on television as Ali G, and it shows Kristoff, an Albanian reporter character that strongly resembles Borat. It chronicles Cohen's childhood-- he attended an affluent school and then went to Cambridge. There are some old, cringe-worthy video clips of him and his brother ridiculing Jews and of Cohen hosting various cable access shows. One interesting revelation is a picture is of Cohen as a model. That's right- behind the Ali G and Borat characters is a rather good-looking fellow. His short stint as a fashion model reportedly inspired his red carpet reporter character, Bruno.
The video is after the jump. It's pretty long, so if you just want to see the modeling bit, it's at 8:00.
Continue reading Sacha Baron Cohen, former male model - VIDEO
Posted Oct 16th 2006 7:01PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, FOX
The Brit series
Beast, which aired for two season son BBC1, is being adapted for American television with the new title
The Beast. That "The" makes all the difference in the world, I believe. Now those who tune into the series will know it's not about a beast. That's important, because in this day and age, I think we all need to underst-- sorry, I'm rambling. Anyway, FOX has ordered a pilot of the new series about a man who inherits his dead father's veterinarian practice, despite hating animals. Tucker Cawley, a writer and producer for
Everybody Loves Raymond, will also write and executive produce for the new series. A vet who hates animals? Isn't that basically like
House, but with animals instead of people?
Posted Sep 15th 2006 3:24PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Cable, Late Night, OpEd, Comedy Central
"
Trial and Terror": During his interview with Matt Lauer, Bush seemed to express extreme interest in others murdering everyone that Lauer has ever known, seen, and loved. "These are people that want to come and kill your families!" Holy crap. Way to bring the terror, President Bush.
"John Oliver's Journey: Don't Stop Believing": John filed his first out-of-studio report, which was tremendously well done. He introduced the viewers to his difficult journey through America, a nation built on sepia-toned immigrants, as an immigrant. See, I'm sucker for this kind of thing... Awkard British guys, Benny Hill music (just the music, not the program), and exaggerated suffering... That's instant-funny to me. I'm really liking this John Oliver fellow. Keep it up, man! Oh, and would anyone care to share their funniest story about immigrants being dehumanized at work?
Continue reading The Daily Show: September 14, 2006
Posted Aug 26th 2006 10:36AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, HBO, Premium Cable, Talent, Celebrities
Something tells me Gervais isn't losing any sleep over this.
Seems that hotel heiress/reality show star/professional nightclub visitor Paris Hilton wanted to be on Extras, and Gervais said no. So now Hilton is firing back, calling him insecure and saying: "I guess he's obviously scared of starring alongside an A-lister."
Hilton did not elaborate on who this "A-lister" was.
[via TV Tattle]
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