Althouse: Ricky Gervais visualizes his dead body fed to the lions... as a scene like the spaghetti scene in "Lady and the Tramp."

January 5, 2021

Ricky Gervais visualizes his dead body fed to the lions... as a scene like the spaghetti scene in "Lady and the Tramp."

For reference:

As the tags on this post indicate, there's also a discussion of masturbation... and death.

33 comments:

John henry said...: Is there going to be a 3rd season of Afterlife? I'm not a big Gervais fan but loved that show.

It would make a great ending to the series. He goe to the zoo, falls into the lion house and gets eaten.

John Henry; 1/5/21, 6:46 AM
rhhardin said...: Uninspired. They're just running through the formalities without coming up with anything.

Gervais had a good take on death in Ghost Town (2008) though.; 1/5/21, 6:50 AM
rhhardin said...: Formalities, here's the formula for a joke again. A joke must have at least two, preferably three of these. They're working around with a couple but they're not going together for them.

1 Clever: "You recognize clever when you see it. It's just combining things that people didn't think you were going to combine, but yet you somehow made it work."
2 Naughty: "Naughty is usually just sex or bathroom jokes."
3 Bizarre: "Bizarre just means two things out of place."
4 Cruel: "Cruelty is a staple in humor. Cruel just means something bad happened to somebody or you said something unkind to somebody. You know cruel when you see it."
5 Cute: "Cute is usually just kids and animals."
6 Recognizable: "Humor usually requires that you recognize something about the subject of the joke being like your experience or like yourself. It's either like somebody you know, like you, but has to be familiar. Something you recognize."
ion-audit-more/; 1/5/21, 6:53 AM
rhhardin said...: The Steve Carell reference was good for a couple of joke points, but didn't get the necessary third, and The Office was unfunny in both versions, which is a minus point.; 1/5/21, 6:57 AM
rhhardin said...: Who knew that cat -n worked. The BSDification of Cygwin.; 1/5/21, 7:00 AM
Temujin said...: I love Gervais. One of the few comedians who can consistently make me laugh. This was not one of his routines, just a discussion with Conan, which would be akin to recording any of you having yet another chat with one of your friends. How funny would that be?

I heard a great hour-long interview with Gervais a couple of years ago on some comedic radio show. He's brilliant. And very different from most of the celebs you might hear from.

Really enjoy 'After Life' and it will be back for one more season sometime this year. As for Conan...he's looking more and more like an old British woman from some Netflix show about the royalty.; 1/5/21, 7:05 AM
Kate said...: The Zoom format. In a live audience, Gervais would say something and people would laugh. His comedic instinct would kick in and another joke would roll. Same for Conan. Here, only one person reacts in real time, and a fellow comedian is less likely to find your joke surprising. It's absolutely flat. What a shame.; 1/5/21, 7:05 AM
iowan2 said...: I thought our societal declines, were stupid parenting, video games, and porn. Move late nite "comedy" shows, to the front of the list. While their audience has declined since Carson and Letterman, millions still tune in. The problem is not so much the content. This has humor. The problem is they couch the whole schtick on supposably deep thoughts about life and the afterlife. It isn't. Its a couple of guys riffing off of 5 grade humor (NTTIAWWT, I love 5th grade humor). But too many form their life view from stuff like this. They will mock with disdain a person that has Church as a cornerstone of their life, while absorb something like this as reasonable intellectual discussion.; 1/5/21, 7:06 AM
Kate said...: Also, Conan's covid hair is hilarious and terrifying.; 1/5/21, 7:06 AM
Tank said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/5/21, 7:07 AM
Tank said...: Kept getting distracted by the hair on the woman on the left.; 1/5/21, 7:08 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I was surprised that they used the kind of technology where if one person talks, it cuts off the audio for the other.

Also Conan's hair...

I thought the stuff about elbow room in closets — or "wardrobes" — was the funniest part.; 1/5/21, 7:11 AM
michaele said...: I'll go a whole different direction...the expressiveness of the "faces", especially the eyes, in the Lady and the Tramp snippet was amazing...so sweet and dear.; 1/5/21, 7:28 AM
tim maguire said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/5/21, 7:32 AM
tim maguire said...: Temujin said...I love Gervais. One of the few comedians who can consistently make me laugh...He's brilliant. And very different from most of the celebs you might hear from.

I find Gervais' work hit or miss, but enough are hits to keep me coming back. I also like and admire him as a public figure. He's old style. If he's giving a roast, he doesn't just mug for the camera, he really roasts. And he doesn't apologize for things that don't need apologies--he shows a rare courage.

As for Conan...he's looking more and more like an old British woman from some Netflix show about the royalty.

Tim Conway did an episode of 30 Rock, in which Conan made regular cameo appearances. Conway's character thought that Conan is a really tall lesbian.; 1/5/21, 7:34 AM
William said...: I wonder if Conan's hair is premeditated. It defies gravity. Is it possible that hair naturally behaves that way? Anyway, that's what you pay attention to when he's speaking. Not as bad as Pence's fly, but definitely distracting.; 1/5/21, 8:08 AM
Rory said...: Okay, that was funny.; 1/5/21, 8:14 AM
William said...: I wonder what proportion of people die in their sleep. I get the sense that it's pretty rare. Mostly you end up in the ICU or hospice trying to gasp out one last breath. I suppose that's what happens when an auto-asphyxiation episode goes bad, but the plus side is that they've managed to eroticize those last moments.; 1/5/21, 8:15 AM
Wince said...: I thought it was David Carradine who died that way? In a Bangkok hotel room wardrobe, while filming a movie called "Stretch".

David Carradine found hanging from hotel wardrobe
Saturday 28 September 2013

David Carradine, the prolific actor and self-styled "tough old man" best known for his title role in the Kill Bill films, has been found dead in a Bangkok hotel room, after apparently hanging himself from the door of a wardrobe. He was 72.

Police reports said that Carradine's body was discovered by a maid cleaning his suite at the 5-star Park Nai Lert Hotel at around 10am yesterday. He'd arrived in the Thai capital on Tuesday to begin work on a new movie called Stretch.

A local newspaper, The Nation, said that Carradine was half naked, and had a curtain cord wrapped around his neck. He had been due to join his film crew for dinner on Wednesday night, but never showed up for the meal...; 1/5/21, 8:50 AM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: As for Conan...he's looking more and more like an old British woman from some Netflix show about the royalty.

My first thought is that he's looking very Thatcheresque these days.; 1/5/21, 8:54 AM
Wince said...: "Neighbors were alerted when a man ran from the premises... wearing only a dog collar."

You can't make up such a thing as that. I dare you to try. But that's what it took, you notice, to get somebody's attention. Digging graves in the backyard didn't bring any...

[Heh.]

Well, that's all right. I laugh myself sometimes. Ain't a whole lot else you can do.; 1/5/21, 9:00 AM
Joe Smith said...: Gervais is rare in that he is funny, non-PC, can write and create shows, and can act and perform standup comedy...there's a reason he's so damn rich.

If you haven't seen 'An Idiot Abroad' you need to find it...hilarious.

Btw, he's looking more like Bert Lahr every day.; 1/5/21, 10:14 AM
Joe Smith said...: "The Office was unfunny in both versions..."

I disagree...it wasn't supposed to be 'ha ha' side-splitting funny.

It was pathos; the average schmuck making his way through life but never quite fitting in and never quite getting what he wants.

The U.S. version was unwatchable when Carrell left and for the last year or two when he was there.

They were making so much goddamn money, nobody wanted to pull the plug.; 1/5/21, 10:32 AM
Lurker21 said...: Masturbation ... pasta ... death ...

What else is there?; 1/5/21, 12:09 PM
Lurker21 said...: I liked the English version of The Office because they understood that it was something people could get really sick of quickly, so they kept it short. The Americans didn't realize how annoying the characters were underneath the comedy.; 1/5/21, 12:11 PM
Rory said...: "They were making so much goddamn money, nobody wanted to pull the plug."

And never placed higher than No. 41 in the annual rankings. Even so, it stood out among its quirky stablemates: 30 Rock peaked at No. 69, Community and Parks and Recreation both at No. 96.; 1/5/21, 1:10 PM
bagoh20 said...: "I wonder if Conan's hair is premeditated. It defies gravity."

I think Conan uses the same hair gel as Mary in Something About Mary, which is apropos of ending subject matter in the clip.; 1/5/21, 1:56 PM
Joe Smith said...: "And never placed higher than No. 41 in the annual rankings."

I'm not in the entertainment business, but I believe the really big dollars are for syndication.

That sweet money rolls in for decades after the last show has aired.

You can't flip past 12 channels on DirecTV without hitting 'The Office' re-runs...they're everywhere at all times of the day and night.

But to do that, I think there are a certain number of episodes that need to be made first.

Brief searching yields this: "A show usually enters off-network syndication when it has built up about four seasons' worth or between 80 and 100 episodes, though for some genres the number could be as low as 65. Successful shows in syndication can cover production costs and make a profit, even if the first run of the show was not profitable."; 1/5/21, 2:29 PM
robother said...: I blame the French, for referring to sexual climax as "le petite mort." Some Brit parliamentary member was bound to take it too literally.

So, did Gays in Britain come out of the wardrobe in the 70s?; 1/5/21, 3:00 PM
Iman said...: That had some funny bits. I’ll be checking out “An Idiot Abroad”.; 1/5/21, 4:28 PM
rcocean said...: Conan And Gervais certainly were laughing a lot.

At least someone found it funny.; 1/5/21, 7:06 PM
rcocean said...: Measuring your closet for masturbation while hanging, zzzzzzzz.; 1/5/21, 7:07 PM
rcocean said...: Lions wouldn't want to eat a dead human, there regular food is much better. Maybe if you starved them for a day or two, they'd eat a dead, diseased, Gervais.; 1/5/21, 7:08 PM