The Ricky Gervais Show
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| The Ricky Gervais Show | |
|---|---|
| Host(s) | Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant & Karl Pilkington |
| Website | www.rickygervais.com |
| Genre | Comedy |
The Ricky Gervais Show is a comedy audio show in the UK starring Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. The show started in November 2001 on Xfm, and aired in weekly periods for months at a time throughout 2002, 2003, 2004, and mid-2005. In November 2005, Guardian Unlimited offered the show as a podcast series of 12 shows. Throughout January and February 2006, the podcast was consistently ranked the number one podcast in the world; it may appear in the 2007 Guinness World Record for the world's most downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month. [1]
Contents |
[edit] Radio Shows
[edit] Early Shows
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's first attempt at radio was on XFM. Their show was broadcast from January to August 1998 from 4-6pm on Sundays, and only featured Gervais and Merchant (pre-The Office). The show's original format was more interactive, with features, guests, phone-ins, and audience interaction through listeners letters. During one show, Ricky and Steve attempted to bleep the Super Furry Animals' "Man Don't Give A Fuck" live by pulling down the fader and making a noise in place of each of the fifty-plus mentions of the word "fuck" in the song. However, the pressure became too much for Gervais, who messed up and swore in frustration. In August 1998, Ricky and Steve took voluntary redundancy after the Capital Radio Group bought out XFM.
There was a brief period when Gervais and Merchant were BBC Radio 1 DJs. They mention this in an XFM show, and say they were both eventually fired from the station for claiming that fellow DJ Simon Mayo gave a rentboy a blowjob outside of McDonalds (however, Gervais later said "we weren't saying he had done it, we were saying we'd like to see him do it"). Also contributing to their dismissal was that the work they were handing in received complaints such as "you forgot to record it."
[edit] The Return to XFM
Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in September 2001, after the first series of The Office had been broadcast. Gervais felt he was "too important" to push the buttons, so Xfm brought in a producer for them: Karl Pilkington. The show was originally just billed to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and Karl's presence wasn't acknowledged on posters and other advertisements. Gervais and Merchant would speak to Karl about his thoughts on whatever they were talking about. In 2003 Pilkington was officially added to advertisements for the show as over the years Karl's role on the show became more prominent as Ricky and Steve were finding more amusement with his views and personal life. As the producer, Karl had input with features such as Rockbusters, Cheeky Freak of the Week, and Educating Ricky.
The show was broadcast between 1pm and 3pm on Saturdays, and included music from the selection of Ricky or Stephen, who often brought in a bag of CDs of their own to play, although they were obliged to play certain tracks on a set playlist from the station (in one instance, Ricky apologised on the air for having to play Muse's "Feeling Good"). There were competitions throughout the show, yet the prizes were often poor in the eyes of Gervais and Merchant. An example of this is giving out Silence Of The Lambs on VHS, which Karl had watched earlier in the week, and prompted Stephen to wonder whether Karl had even rewound it.
Karl would be replaced by Claire Sturgess when he was on holiday or not well (except once when Ian Camfield filled his shoes). When Karl wasn't present, Ricky and Steve said "we sound like real radio" as they often would have more music-oriented discussion (such as the worst album titles ever, which they gave up after a few minutes as it appears all their listeners were "probably at a protest against the war").
[edit] Recurring Features and Competitions
[edit] Monkey news
Monkey News is a popular feature that has been running since the early XFM days where at first it was titled "Chimpanzee That". Monkey News is all about "[a story] where a monkey has been involved". Normally the monkey is a mysterious protagonist until he is revealed, despite the fact that it is obvious that it is a monkey (or, most commonly, a chimp) throughout the story. The stories usually originate from a tale that Karl has made up or extrapolated out of all recognition from a news headline. Monkey News is an easy way to anger Ricky, who often disrupts the show due to being so wound up with disbelief — and in several of the XFM shows left the room because he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Stephen Merchant normally defends Karl's right to deliver the story in full vigorously (on one occasion threatening to cut off Gervais' microphone if he continued to lambast Karl), but even he has been driven to verbally abuse Karl during the most obviously fictional or extreme of his stories. Despite the fact that the stories are frequently highly unlikely (or even completely impossible), Pilkington appears to genuinely believe what he is saying. These interruptions and confrontations often turn Monkey News into a sort of collaborative shaggy dog story. During their podcast Ricky and Steve try to disprove his monkey news by "casually" talking of the story being told and how the central character could not possibly be a monkey due to need of opposable thumbs, high intelligence, etc. In this way Ricky can more subtly attack the stories though Karl pays them no heed. According to Karl on the 20 February 2006 podcast, Monkey News will no longer form part of future podcasts. However, it came back for a final reprise at the end of the third podcast series. On one XFM show Ricky and Steve found out Karl had stolen this idea from fellow XFM DJ Christian O' Connell
[edit] Rockbusters
Rockbusters was conceived by Pilkington and was played on Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's long running XFM radio show in between 2002-2004 and brought back in 2005. It debuted on 12 October 2002 as a phone-in, but converted to an e-mail competition the following week. Despite punning in its title, the game has very little in common with Blockbusters. It is played by Karl giving three clues, which he considers "cryptic" but are in reality convoluted colloquialisms which often depend on the answer being mispronounced. Along with the "clue", Karl includes the initials of the answer. Gervais and Merchant often referred to the clues as 'craptic'.
[edit] Songs of Phrase
This competition was introduced when Karl was finding it hard to come up with new Rockbusters clues. A well-known phrase from the show, such as "You never see an old man having a Twix" was split up into words of different songs. The competition was to guess the songs played. In this instance Gerry and the Pacemakers' "You'll Never Walk Alone" made up the first two words of the phrase. Problems arose in this case when Karl couldn't find a song with "Twix" in it. He changed it to David Bowie's "Life on Mars", changing the chocolate bar in question, and the phrase from a Twix to a Mars Bar. Songs of Phrase was a feature present throughout the later series of the XFM shows.
[edit] White Van Karl
At the time The Sun ran a feature called "White Van Man" whereby questions on the stories of that week were put to white van drivers across the country, just to gain an insight into their views and opinions. Stephen Merchant posed the same questions to Karl, to find out more about him. The best aspect of this was Karl's bizarre beliefs and theories. Gervais and Merchant also found humour in the very mundane answers the White Van Man of the week would give (the most famous of these being a comment about Sainsbury's bringing in square tins: 'That should be interesting for meatballs'). This feature was mainly used as a way to introduce new listeners to the mind of Karl Pilkington and was only used during the earlier days of the XFM shows.
[edit] Karl's Diary
Karl started keeping a record of his thoughts and experiences whilst on holiday in Gran Canaria with his girlfriend Suzanne. The segment first appeared in episode 8 of the Guardian Unlimited podcasts (23 January 2006). Karl compared his literary efforts to those of Anne Frank, claiming that "If she's sat in a, you know, a loft knockin' stuff up, not much goin' on in 'er life at that point, yet she was still writin' it down...I thought well I'm on holiday...start a diary".
Memorable diary moments include: conceptualizing a wristwatch that counts down the remainder of your life, the large number of cross-eyed people at the hotel on Gran Canaria and the cat licking its testicles outside the pub, also in Gran Canaria the bar called "Tattoos" where the landlord never had Tattoos but Karl never saw the landlord's wife, the time Karl refused to wash his hands after eating lemon cake at Ricky's house leading to a major argument, Karl thinking that both him and Ricky Gervais are bored when they go to meeting as "after twenty minutes he (Ricky) was trying to wrestle me", Karl's idea for a television programme Look what we can do with Science in which parts of a person's body are gradually removed until just the head remains, the post Karl received that was addressed to Mr K. Dilkington, the time Karl was carrying a lamp and bin when moving house and people thought he was in a marathon, the tongue twister "if you can't treat a cheerful tramp, what sort of tramp can you treat?", that certain tribes of cavemen wave their "tackle" about when they've had enough of visitors, and the 'experimental' mirrored wall in Karl's flat that he has stuck wallpaper over.
The diary itself is a large desk diary and is usually read by Stephen Merchant.
Notable is the fact that the jingle, performed live vocally by Ricky Gervais each podcast, is often remarkably similar to the theme from "Monkey News".
[edit] Other Features
[edit] Music Specific Features
As music was played on the XFM show, Ricky and Steve often came up with features for choosing songs to play. Some of the frequent ones include:
A Song for the Lovers was a feature Ricky ran in the days of the XFM show, where he played a favourite song of his which he dedicated it to couples listening.
A Song for the Ladies was a feature Steve ran, similar to Ricky's feature, however as he is single himself, he would dedicate a favourite song of his to the ladies listening.
Hip Hop Hooray was another Steve feature. He would play a track of the hip-hop genre to Ricky and Karl. In one show, Jonathan Ross popped in live on the air to give Ricky some tickets to an Awards Ceremony, and claimed that Hip Hop Hooray was the "worst feature in the history of radio".
That Film Sounds Good was a feature run by Ricky, where he picked a song from a film and played that (not to be confused with his film review).
[edit] Notable short-lived features
The Education of Karl: Following the revelation of Karl's GCSE results, a sole E in History, Ricky decides to give Karl a piece of homework, usually a short biography of an important historic figure, which Karl must report on each week. Subjects included Rasputin, Che Guevara, Hitler, Winston Churchill and Aesop's Fables. Karl soon became bored and annoyed with his homework since it reminded him of school, and abandoned the feature. This was one of the first recurring features, along with White Van Karl, which principally revolved around Karl relating his opinions on various topics.
Educating Ricky: This feature lasted in the early days of XFM, when Karl tried to teach Ricky several facts every week by catching his attention with a made-up headline, usually a pun. Some classic 'Educating Ricky' includes a man who was abducted by aliens and they grew him a beard, a man who was beheaded and his body took 32 steps after decapitation and the infamous tale of the hairy chinese kid.
Song With A Story: This feature ran in the final shows of XFM. Karl doesn't particularly enjoy a song unless it has a story to go with it, and in this feature he chose one of his favourite songs with a story and would play them on the show. The songs were often accompanied by commentary from Ricky, Steve and Karl. A classic example of this feature is when Karl believed that Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight was about a disabled man in a wheel chair, while having no strong evidence for this belief. Perhaps the most notable song included in this feature is Rod Stewart's The Killing of Georgie, which Karl claims to be his favourite song.
Do We Need 'Em?: A feature from the middle years of the XFM series in which Karl would call an animal expert and argue for the extinction of a certain animal species, which he felt was useless and "getting in the way". Karl became dismayed by the opposition he faced from the experts, believing there was a conspiracy to keep every animal from extinction, and thus ended the feature. At the beginning and end of the feature, the theme tune to Michael Parkinson's chat show was played.
Cheap as Chimps: Karl provides information concerning the economy of raising apes. As with several other of his short-lived features, Karl had come up with the title before the actual concept of the feature, and it was discontinued when Karl, upon viewing a most likely illegal animal poaching website, realised that raising chimps wasn't as cheap as he'd originally hoped. After dropping the feature Karl became convinced that Donal MacIntyre had stolen "Cheap as Chimps" and put it on Channel Five. This, of course is most likely incorrect.
Cheeky Freak of the Week: For this feature, Karl discussed his favourite freak of the week chosen from the tabloids, internet or the Fortean Times. Cheeky Freak of the Week was a relatively short-lived feature, which only existed during the earlier days of the XFM shows. Karl ended up having to stop this feature as he was worried about people thinking he was "having a go".
Knob News: A feature in the later shows of Xfm, which was started when Ricky shared a recent news story about a penis. In following shows, Karl decided to report on several penis-related stories. A one-off show feature, similarly related, was Fanny Facts — where Karl presented news about or related to vaginas.
Ricky's World Famous Film Review: Ricky's Film review was one of the earliest features included in the show. In it Ricky reviewed a film he recently had seen. Often the reviews contained very little opinion and were often just a summary of what had happened in the film. Ricky seemingly always gave films 9/10. He decided to end this feature when because he wanted his average film score to stay as 9/10. The last film Ricky reviewed was The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which he hadn't even seen at the time claiming "Robbie Coltrane is probably in it, because he's in that "other one", Ricky still gave the film a 9/10 even though, he said "its about wizards called Gonads with beards."
[edit] Audio Podcasts
[edit] Season 1
The first series of Podcasts started on 5 December 2005, and a new episode was put out for the next 12 Mondays. The show relies heavily on the wit and bizarre theories of Karl Pilkington. Karl is now "unemployed", having left his job as radio producer at Xfm. The podcast focuses more on Karl Pilkington as a primary figure of humour in the show in various ways, including questions directed at Karl that have been emailed in, either by fans of the show or by Ricky or Steve themselves, whereas the XFM show had slightly more input and humour supplied by Ricky and Steve, with Karl's theories and features being a lot less focused on in the Xfm shows.
[edit] Season 2
Series 2 of the podcast started on 28 February 2006. It consisted of 6 episodes with the last one released on April 4, 2006. The series saw the return of Karl's Diary and Rockbusters. A new (though short-lived; it was only presented in the first episode) feature was also introduced in order to replace Karl's "Monkey News", called "Real Monkey News", where Ricky attempts to present facts about chimpanzees which are factual and scientific.
Fee Implementation
With the start of series 2, the formerly free Ricky Gervais Show shifted to a pay model - and as a result the show is now classified as an "audiobook". It is available through Audible and the iTunes Music Store with individual episodes going for £0.95 ($1.95 in the USA); Audible also offers the complete season for £3.75 ($6.95 at audible.com). The reason for this addition, according to Ricky on the podcast, is because The Guardian agreed to pay for the bandwidth for 12 episodes, and any more extra episodes would have to be paid for out of their personal finances (hence the change in company when series 2 started).
[edit] Season 3
Series 3 of the podcasts was released on the 22 August 2006."[2] This season sees the return of Karl's Diary, though all other known features have been abandoned, with the rest of each episode focusing instead on conversation. The season has the same pricing implementation as season 2, although the file quality has risen from 32 kbps to 56 kbps. A new feature that will be recurring is Karl's Poem.
At the end of the sixth episode, Ricky and Steve agreed to put the show on an indefinite hiatus. They have not ruled out ever resuming the show, and indicated that they may do free episodes every once in a while.
[edit] The Podfather
Three free podcasts have been announced that coincide with special days. The first was released on 31 October 2006, to coincide with Halloween, the next was on 23 November (Thanksgiving) and the last is to be released on Christmas day.
[edit] Video Podcasts
On 24 March 2006, an "irregular run of free video podcasts" was launched through the iTunes podcast directory. The video podcasts do not follow the format of the earlier, audio shows and the content varies greatly from podcast to podcast. The first video was a conversation between Karl and Ricky, with Ricky enthusing on the idea of Karl becoming a human crab or having massive reconstructive surgery. The second podcast served as an advertisement for Ricky and Karl's new book, The World of Karl Pilkington (a series of excerpts from the previous podcasts and various musings and drawings produced by Karl). The third on the series was an audio clip from a previous edition of Monkeynews, synchronised with a flash animation. The fourth video podcast features a controversial audio advertisement for The Prostate Cancer Charity and Ricky talking about his Aerial Award. The fifth is Ricky and Stephen making Karl watch Brokeback Mountain. The sixth podcast was another conversation over Karl's book The World of Karl Pilkington. The seventh podcast was about a story Karl told in series one, episode one, about Karl's bizarre journey in an abandoned asylum and rehabilitation clinic. The eighth video shows Ricky showing the viewer around the various sets during the filming of the second series of Extras, followed by Karl giving his opinion on Ricky's latest book, Flanimals of the Deep. The ninth was Karl talking about Ricky's cat; Ollie. The tenth was Ricky, Steve and Karl telling us about the new series of the show on the way on 22 August.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
