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That is truly a stupid, stupid ad. I am astounded, but not all that astounded.
I would put that into the category of ‘ads to grandparents’, specifically advertising to grandparents who have no idea of or relationship with their granddaughters. There is always a wave of products and other garbage marketed specifically at that crowd every November-December. Crap that looks like something you’ve heard the kids like these days.
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They can, and they must. It is their true purpose.
Something, something, earthen vessels.
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If you have only been aware for a year, you may have missed the Dickens parody:
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Onto the list it goes!
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I’ve watched something like 100 hours of Mitchell at this point, and read his Backstory (and haven’t even gotten around to Peep Show). Once you’ve seen
you’re ready to appreciate the incredible portrayal here:
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Mitchell and Webb are really high on my list of sketch-show comics who did culturally relevant, highly quotable bits. They have their “are we the baddies” sketch that became so quoted, for obvious reasons, in the Trump era, their “conspiracy” series (where the Moon landing is faked… on the Moon), the “new age hospital” sketch (where homeopathy and crystals are used a treat a car accident victim), a couple different series of sketches about lazy writers (one in which we see the results, where they’ve failed to do any research, so we get the vaguest and most inaccurate medical/legal dramas that feel quite familiar, and another series where the writers are talking about… our reality), and a whole bunch of media-commentary sketches about Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond (and hilariously Bond-style villains, having to deal with e.g. health and safety issues as they build their evil lairs), a series about bawdy 1970s comedies set in a hospital, post-apocalyptic game shows (that have felt a little too on the nose in the last couple of years), meta-sketches about writing comedy and how viewers respond to comedy, and bits that take on a whole bunch of sci-fi and fantasy tropes. Their work is more hits than misses (and they have sketches about that, too).
Occasionally a friend expresses a lack of familiarity, so I start compiling a collection of clips with their best stuff and it quickly becomes overwhelmingly huge, so I just have to recommend they watch the show, That Mitchell and Webb Look (though the earlier, short-lived The Mitchell and Webb Situation had its moments, they weren’t so relevant/quotable). Much of it is on Youtube, which makes it easy to reference.
I prefer their “The Quiz Broadcast,” though lately it’s feeling far too familiar… “Hello, good evening and remain indoors!”
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Some ads should smile more.
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Re: greatest sketch shows of all time, how can you possibly discuss the topic without mentioning Monty Python? There’s an argument to be made for excluding it from the top 3, sure, but I feel like you at least have to acknowledge it.
I’d also include The Kids in the Hall, but that’s a more controversial take
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I would include Not the 9Oclock news but then I’m weird.
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great stuff. when my tech-savvy friend told me that Netflix was streamable through a playstation back in the early 2000s, there wasn’t a lot of great content but two British shows I’d never heard of – The IT Crowd and That Webb and Mitchell Look – that I immediately binged. W&M are just so brilliant. them, Kids in the Hall, and that 1 in 20 sketches on SNL that you slog through the rest to see are the best of the genre, imo.
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They were the first thing the YouTube algorithm ever foisted on me that I actually enjoyed. This was fifteen years ago now.
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The Carol Burnett Show should be on the shortlist.
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Absolutely. But whichever millennial puts together the lists is probably as ignorant of Carol Burnett as Americans are of Mitchell and Webb
(Mostly /s)
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The radio show that preceded the television program also has its gems. I love the bit about what institutions call identity theft.
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Yeah, The Mitchell & Webb Sound became the basis for The Mitchell & Webb Look, so it’s quite similar, though the tv show feels slightly more evolved and the radio show less accessible on Youtube. However BBC Radio 4 Extra has regular repeats of the whole shows that can be listened to over the web after they air - including one starting this weekend, looks like.
I think in the same episode as the “Identity Theft” sketch, they had a skit about a cash register shop that was amusing but turned into a multi-skit meta-gag about meeting audience desires when you create something that people like, that I think about regularly.
Don’t forget also:
Sir Digby Chicken Caesar, after the event, evil genius who gets foiled by building codes, compassionate freakshow, homeopathic a&e, the man who had a cough but it was only a cough, Heroin for Christmas, Barry Crisp’s unsafe tourist attractions, among others.
There’s sooo many good skits. So bummed that it isn’t streaming in the states anymore.
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Just look at it!
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