What entertains you?

Off-Topic Off Topic
#41

A short story in video, song, and text of a 60s Oz rock star.

Entertaining in the true sense of holding one’s interest as distinct from the colloquial sense of diverting or amusing one.

Before

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg4yl4Qwy-o&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt0RI6N6oL8&feature=related

During

Rowe’s career was suddenly interrupted when he was called up to do National Service. The press followed his military service, but it was no substitute for the attention he had received as a touring and recording celebrity. He was duly sent to serve in Vietnam with A Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment.

…

Rowe has said of his National Service days: “You can look at your life and say that wasn’t fair and that killed your career … or you can look back and take out of that segment of your life whatever was good. The best friends that I’ve got are Vietnam veterans.”

R&R

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2DybpjMmZc

After

Written by someone who knew him before and after his war service.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQbcAQ9SqmM

#42

Freddie was always a favourite

Freddie Garrity died at Bangor in North Wales, at the age of 69, after being taken ill while on holiday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Garrity

#43

Numerous brilliant performances of most versatile personalities ever active in the show business, capable to blend the comic with an undertone of pure inventive geniality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8L-ZZSc8JU

Oh, Lord - where has good TV gone ? :frowning:

#44

Good TV, on airline pilots, was here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh_shsRfXqk

#45

No way, Pedro!

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-5150311163275295425&ei=TECiS5aDPMy0-AaJk4mXDQ&q=only+fools+and+horses&hl=en#docid=2126021991255390130

#46

Thank you very much, my dear Mr. Rising Sun! Yes, those immortal Monthy Pythonisms with their blessed enormity of pure geniality still are and always will be in my personal repository of pleasurable gold ingots. :smiley:

You know, it seems to me that the future historians of human entertainment may look on the last twenty years as lean ones in terms of brilliant personalities, new ideas, or genuine humoristic uniqueness. While a few producers and stars have been born, many have died, dried up, or transplanted themselves to the dusty soil of remembrance. TV shows that once glowed with the presence of pleased public have been replaced by profanity, or infiltrated with so called “reality celebrities”. Short on humor, awash with profanity, programs of this kind now seem as a festivity in poor taste. :frowning:

Yet, amid this sorrowful desiccation there blooms an extraordinary flower – the You Tube, where numerous champions of genuine comedy have attained a new vitality. Many old-time shows were carried out by absolutely unique star comedians. In comparison, most of today’s funny man seem pallid indeed.

For that reason, allow me a tiny presentation, dedicated to person who really was a protean performer, trained in a hard school, accustomed to theatrical audiences who could not be cued by “Applause” signs – the golden old-timer which knew his trade inside out, being capable and various enough in his accomplishments to carry a whole show almost alone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBca1ixoEbg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUznYwE6-lA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUBKgvrq2Bk

I always admired his unique delivery manner - the stool, the smile, the cigarette, the hand gesture… He was a Master, a unique and stunning TV experience, one great moment of modern stage history, which embodied imagination and effectiveness unknown today.

#47

If I’m correct in my assessment within the era, future historians and especially those concerned with mores, morals, philanthropy, and humane and humanitarian ideas and conduct will identify the current era as the start line in a race to the bottom where morons from Big Brother ‘contestants’ to schoolyard bullies use ‘Lord of the Flies’ as a training manual. And exult in exceeding its nastiness.

After recovering from a momentary distraction flowing from linking ‘delivery’ with ‘stool’ in its medical sense :D, I knew you were referring to Dave Allen before I viewed the videos.

It’s hard to believe now in this world awash with baseness; rancid vulgarity (and this comes from someone who has made a career of being pretty vulgar by the standards of 1950-65); and a general hostility to and contempt for courtesy, wholesomeness, and virtue that Dave Allen was quite daring, radical and offensive in his day. The difference between then and now is that Allen was often incisive and ironic and that made his observations pointed and funny where now a lot of so called comedians think that a tedious routine about trivia becomes humorous by inserting ‘fuck’ or one of its derivatives every few words. If it was that easy I’d be paid a lot more than Eddie Murphy.

They’re often not funny. Dave Allen and many others of his generation managed to be funny without pointless vulgarity, in the same way that classic 50s and 60s popular music managed to tell a simple story without lyrics extolling the supposed virtues of poppin a cap in da face of a mo’fuckin dude wot dissed ma bitch, with a video clip to explain what happened to people who can’t comprehend words.

Then again, George Carlin managed to be very funny with his routines challenging the six (or seven?) words you can’t say on TV, but he was funny because he was challenging boundaries which have long since been passed. So there aren’t any boundaries to challenge any more, and saying rude words that we hear all the time for free in public places isn’t exactly ground-breaking comedy.

#48

George Carlin, on dirty words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmZfYyctiuo

#49

Sadly, life seems to imitate art all too often here. A recent plane crash near Buffalo, NY seems to be the case of an incompetent pilot hitting on his good-looking, female copilot–who was sick and sleep deprived…

#50

I believe they refer to it as Dumming-down.

#51

Where’s the polling booth? I want to elect you! :lol:
(I did say elect.)

#52

I rather liked this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0KHt8xrQkk&feature=related

#53

Indeed, my dear Gentlemen! I really don’t know how and why, but it seems to me that our “modern” TV entertainment is somehow constantly hostile to the mind, petulant toward tradition and good taste, and indifferent to any kind of intellectual coherence. It is concerned chiefly with indulging inarticulate feelings, glorifying raw impulses, and with securing “cool kicks”. It is hardly a coincidence that the jargon of criminal gangs is almost identical with the colloquial speech of modern TV stars. :frowning:

The mixed verbal aggression, plain illiteracy and intellectual meekness of modern tongue-tied dialogs are an index of the true excellence of our TV programs. So is their accent on youth. About the only “crime” offensive to all those “Big Brother” participants is that of growing old. Juvenile delinquency, on the other hand, is often a subject for glorification, since it is an expression of “spontaneous feelings”…

These “heroes” of modern TV amusement are constantly exalting the actor’s personality over the eloquent word. The result of this is a culture of primitive expression. Without an appropriate language our stars are constantly unable to understand or to express genuine human feelings. They can only act them out physically. It seems to me that our next TV heroes will be inevitably inclined to illustrate their feelings with their fists. With no genuine burlesque, comedy or parody left in which to educate themselves, all they can really do well is mumbling.

But enough with our depressing reality. Let us see certain examples of a long and successful tradition of benevolent satire and hilarious parody, which was broadcasted once upon a time on BBC and wholeheartedly accepted worldwide, even in former Yugoslavia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-SVCjEcoBs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8HEMWlQ_Gs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDsi6ypOU-w&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6Ikn2zkfEk&feature=related

Honestly, my dear Gentlemen, 'Allo 'Allo! was one of the wittiest, truly brilliantly performed, TV shows I’ve ever seen, which never fails to make me laugh even today. :slight_smile:

#54

Having a bit of a problem finding accommodation for this year’s Hay Festival, but no doubt something will turn up.

http://www.hay-on-wye.co.uk/

#55

Was lying in bed this morning, just reading the part in Pheonix Squadron where a couple of Bucaneers buzz Belize City, when the Missus switched on the radio (which is always tuned to Classic FM). Suddenly, the air was filled with the opening bars of 633 Squadron - I was pissing myself laughing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upsmjJRYmzw

Bucaneers operating from Ark Royal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVQe0O6GT-0&feature=related

And this was a bit interesting - Top Gun
http://current.com/entertainment/movies/89912281_americas-top-guns-taught-by-the-brits.htm

#56

Great movie, watched it a week ago…Retirement, and Netflix go together well.