Jam (TV series)

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Jam
The front cover of the DVD release of Jam.
Genre	Ambient comedy
Creator(s)	Chris Morris
Starring	Chris Morris Mark Heap Kevin Eldon Amelia Bullmore David Cann Julia Davis
Country of origin	UK
No. of episodes	6
Production
Running time	approx. 25 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Channel 4
Original run	March 2000 – April 2000

Jam is a British comedy television series created by Chris Morris. It was based on the earlier BBC Radio 1 show, Blue Jam, and consisted of a series of unsettling sketches unfolding over an ambient soundtrack.

Many of the sketches re-used the original radio soundtracks with the actors lip-synching their lines, an unusual technique which added to the programme's unsettling atmosphere.

The show was broadcast on Channel 4 during March and April 2000.

The cast included Amelia Bullmore, David Cann, Julia Davis, Kevin Eldon and Mark Heap. It was written by Chris Morris and Peter Baynham, with Jane Bussmann, David Quantick, Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews and the cast. Chris Morris also stars in some sketches, although not as many as his co-stars.

The series consisted of six twenty-minute episodes, and, unusually for a TV show on a commercial channel, had no advert break in the middle. Some reports claim this was because no company would want their products associated with the show although others say Morris insisted on there being no advertisement break as it would ruin the show - presumably through loss of continuity of the distinctive tone and texture. The closing credits were also missing, replaced by a brief link to a website [1]. When the DVD of the series was released, the website changed and offered a link to a long sound file containing the thumping sound of heavy artillery, which it is suggested is played while watching the programme to simulate surround sound.

Jam is sometimes referred to as being "controversial", but in spite of containing scenes many would find quite disturbing (and prompting at least one article in the Daily Mail), it nonetheless did not receive the same outraged headlines as the Brass Eye episode on paedophilia Chris Morris produced the following year. This was probably because Jam was aired quite late and had no promotional trailers and so many people were unaware of it.

Jaaaaam was a late-night remix of Jam. Its audiovisual distortions of the original series introduced the musical remix concept to British television.

Jam came 26th on a list of the 100 Greatest Scary Moments on Channel 4, managing to beat other more famous horrors such as Carrie and The Silence of the Lambs.

Contents 1 Opening scenes 2 Episode details 2.1 Episode One 2.2 Episode two 2.3 Episode three 2.4 Episode four 2.5 Episode five 2.6 Episode six 3 Homage 4 External links

[edit] Opening scenes

There were no opening titles to the show. Instead, they would begin with a strange and often disturbing monologue by Morris along with appropriate images. They usually concerned someone finding their paranoid fears being made real or some other bizarre happenings, such as a man waking up to find his body is that of a bizarre maggot creature (with Morris's dispassionate dialogue reading "...and when you wake up, wondering where you are, only to find that the rest of you is wondering where you've gone.")

Morris would then declare "Then welcome", followed by a nonsensical sentence (e.g. "Ooh, astonishing sod ape") before finally announcing "Welcome...in Jam." The word "Jam" would never be said normally; it would either be heavily distorted, said in a strange fashion or just screamed at the viewer, usually repeatedly.

Sketches often had a documentary feel to them, with the character(s) acting as if they were being interviewed about recent events.

[edit] Episode details

The sketch names, if any, come from the music credits.

[edit] Episode One

Homo Mum Dad

Two parents explain to their son's godfather that they are worried their son will become homosexual because he has a friend who is apparently gay. The father has been having sex with his son's friend to keep him distracted, whilst the mother has been keeping her son "interested in ladies" by having sex with him. The godfather is encouraged to pitch in and help.

Kilroy

Chris Morris announces it's "The day Kilroy lost his mind." There is then a series of manic shots of a lookalike of television presenter Robert Kilroy Silk going mad in a shopping mall, running around naked, shouting at passers-by, urinating on a shop window then falling asleep in a supermarket's freezer after attempting to wrestle a baby from its mother.

Coma

A doctor insists that one of his patients - who is obviously perfectly healthy - is in a coma, one that apparently has no symptoms. He then carries out a mercy killing on the heavily drugged patient.

Shrunken Car

An angry man walks down a street complaining that he recently took his car to a garage and, when he went to pick it up, the car was only four-foot-long, the mechanic insisting that that was how it was when it came in. The complaining man gets angrier and angrier as he explains this anecdote, swearing frequently and eventually attacking the pavement.

One Man Wedding

A forty-six-year-old man explains how he married himself out of fear of being a life-long bachelor. We see a shot of the wedding with the solitary newly-wed driving off on a honeymoon with himself.

Indian Restaurant

A brief scene shows two men in an Indian restaurant. Poppadoms are served. One man breaks the poppadoms for ease of consumption. His dinner partner becomes enraged, flings the table aside and starts beating up the other man, the violent assault accompanied by very relaxing music.

Thick People

An agency provides thick people for jobs they are good at, such as arguments, which they are apparently very good at winning "because they are too thick to realise they've lost."

Apartment Jumper

A suicidal man wants to kill himself but, instead of leaping from the top of the building, he opts to throw himself from the first-floor repeatedly in case he changed his mind half-way through.

Tree

Whilst standing in a tree, a man spanks a woman with a spacehopper whilst she is singing "Loving You" by Minnie Riperton.

Infidel

A wife's fury at her husband having been caught apparently having sex with another woman is tempered when her husband tells her he was merely raping the woman.

Doc Knee

In the first of many sketches set in a general practitioner's office, a woman comes in to complain about her sore leg. The doctor goes to rub it and asks "Does this hurt" when in fact he's rubbing his own leg. He loses himself in the pleasure of stroking his thigh and asks the woman to leave. The visuals and audio of the sketch are slowed down, creating a very dreamy and even hypnotic effect. It is accompanied by An Ending/Ascent by Brian Eno.

[edit] Episode two

Sex Birth

A man is seduced by his wife's midwife and has sex with her in the next room whilst his own wife is in the middle of giving birth.

Doc Phone

A doctor insists on going to the next room to listen to his patient list his symptoms over the telephone. The doctor has a very bad memory and ends up forgetting what he's doing, so that when the patient telephones the office next door, the doctor chides him for not making an appointment.

Personal Services Evening

A recurring character is introduced, a man named Mr Ventham. Even compared to the surreal nature of the show, this recurring sketch is clearly dreamlike. In each sketch, Ventham enters a plush office for a meeting with a middle-aged man to whom he goes with his minor problems. In this one, Mr Ventham doesn't know what to do on Saturday evening. He is advised to go and see a show with some friends. Everyone involved in the Mr Ventham sketch is incredibly polite and formal with each other, although Mr Ventham always gets strangely nervous when making small-talk with the secretary outside.

Porn 99

A Dutch porn star (played by Chris Morris) explains his fear of getting "The Gush", which is apparently a terrible affliction male pornographic movie stars can sometimes get. It involves being unable to stop shooting semen, resulting in the victim ejaculating themselves to death over a period of several days.

Woodshredder Revenge

A man throws himself into an industrial shredder that is set up to spray his bloody remains over his ex-wife's house. He calls out to her before jumping into the shredder so that the horrified woman leans out the window just in time to get a face full of gore.

Madeley

Faked CCTV footage shows television presenter Richard Madeley beating up a cleaner and having sex with a vending machine.

Plumber Baby

One of the most controversial sketches of the series shows a woman begging a plumber to "fix" her dead baby. She reasons that the baby is only really constructed of pipes and other materials, and tells the plumber that he would easily be able to repair the corpse to working order. He is very reluctant, but after being offered £1,000 an hour he takes the job and uses the baby as a housing for steam-ejecting pipes, taps, and various other things. We do not see his completed work, but the mother - who is obviously quite deranged - is very happy with the results.

Gun Idiot

A man holds up a shop, demanding a packet of cigarettes whilst thrusting a gun into the terrified cashier's face. The armed-robber then insists on actually paying for the cigarettes, and is confused when it is explained to him that he didn't need the gun; he explains that it is for the purpose of ensuring he gets his change.

Woman in Trouble

A brief scene shows a crying woman complaining "I can't feel my cock" when her mother asks her what's up.

Life's So Good

A middle-aged man declares how is doesn't like the idea of dying in his old age and so has himself buried (alive) "whilst I'm in my prime." He sits up in the coffin during the funeral service, listening to his own eulogy.

[edit] Episode three

Sex Fantasy

A woman, with her grinning husband beside her, explains her preferred method of foreplay. It involves her husband coming home crying and claiming he has just been homosexually raped "by a gang of street poofs."

Doc Cock

A doctor asks to see a patient's penis, which he then expresses great admiration for, much to the concern of the patient who actually only came in with a headache. The doctor then shows off his own penis. His colleague catches him and tells him off, making it apparent the doctor does this regularly. The doctor then asks if he will be able to do the same thing a few more times before being reported, and the colleague grudgingly agrees.

Kilburn Protest

A woman whose housing rent has recently gone up decides to take action by lowering the house prices in the area (Kilburn) by spreading grease on shop windows and frying excrement on a grill by the side of the road.

TV Lizards

An angry couple complain to a repairman that their new television has lizards coming out of it. The repairman offers some hopeless solutions ("sweep them up"), and then accuses the couple of putting the lizards there themselves. They angrily ask for his name and his manager's name in order to report him; he only mockingly gives them "Mr. Lizard" and taunts them before strolling out of the house, laughing. The husband becomes mad with rage, and his wife slaps him.

Pay Rise Fart

A manageress cannot afford to give a member of staff a pay-rise so, as an alternative, she offers to fart on her secretary's head. The employee is quite satisfied with this although the secretary is understandably rather distressed.

Gun Stomach

A man tries to hold up a shop by insisting he has a gun in his stomach. The cashier doesn't believe him and attempts the serve the next customer, so he fires it. The gun shoots the wrong way, blowing the would-be robber's spine out and killing a customer that was waiting quietly behind him.

Coffin Clinic

A scene without dialogue shows happy couples strolling through the grounds of a private clinic all holding tiny coffins; one woman who has a tiny coffin greets another who is pregnant and waves goodbye to the bump.

Personal Services Wallet

Mr Ventham goes to see his mysterious advisor, to whom he complains he can't find his wallet. The advice-dispensing man suggests he looks around the kitchen for it.

Press Conference

During a press-conference, a couple sing a tearful song, accompanied by a cheap synthesizer, begging for their young son to be returned safely to them by his captor.

Scheming Parents

In order to help get their son into a very competitive local school, a couple have been sabotaging the competition. This involves getting other people's (very young) children drunk and encouraging them to smoke and take up an interest in pornography.

[edit] Episode four

Bored Sex Doc

A doctor, allegedly to raise money for a little girl with head cancer, offers telephone sex, even when he is with patients. One patient is horrified when, in between asking him about his symptoms, the doctor keeps picking up the phone or speaking through a headset and saying things like "I've come on my knee", always in a very formal, disinterested voice.

Cleaner

A maid gets very upset when her employer tells her off for taking so long to vacuum the house because she uses a tiny vacuum cleaner that is only a few inches in height.

Fixit Girl

In a scene reminiscent of Nikita, a man has a fight with a friend and waits for someone to come round and dispose of the body. The person who arrives is a six-year-old girl, who, despite her tender age, turns out to be very proficient at chopping up corpses. She is also very foul-mouthed and carries a gun. The body turns out not to be dead, but she kills him so that she can finish the job. The police arrest the surviving man.

Personal Services (Chin Warmer)

Mr Ventham goes to see his advisor with the dreadful problem that his chin is a bit hot. He is advised to lick his chin and stand on a tall building on a windy day.

Coffin Mistake

A couple grieving for a miscarried baby are horrified when their cheerful neighbour comes round with a present in the form of a miniature coffin, which he proudly proclaims that he made himself. The couple are not impressed, and the man explains that coffins aren't generally used. The conversation runs dry and the neighbour attempts to console them by pointing out that the baby was his.

Two Men in a Window

Seen through a window, two men shoot one another in their rectums with automatic pistols then roll around in agony and apparent sexual pleasure.

Injure for Friends

A very lonely woman with a dull voice goes to great lengths to meet people, such as by setting up traps to injure them so she can come to the rescue, or in one instance dressing up as a policewoman and telling a woman her son is dead then immediately asking the sobbing mother if she wants to see "Cats" at the theatre that evening.

[edit] Episode five

Acupuncture

A woman who claims to perform acupuncture actually practices crucifixion, explaining that she puts them out in the back yard and 'they're usually gone in the morning.'

Doc Aldis Lamp

When he is accused of prescribing heroin to a girl, a doctor blinds himself by flashing an Aldis lamp into his face and thus enabling him to go home sick (he is intent on driving) and avoid having to give an explanation for his actions.

Sex For Houses

A couple reluctantly agree to buy a house after the vendor insists that, on top of the asking price, he wants to have sex with the intended purchasers. The couple eventually grow tired of it and the husband lets his mentally handicapped sister take his place for the sex session.

Forgotten Axe

Featuring CCTV footage of his actions, an inept armed robber admits that his plan of holding up a shop with an axe went a bit wrong when "the day I went in with the axe wasn't the same day as the day I made the threatening gestures".

Couple Outside

Standing in a rainy field, a man - played by Chris Morris - explains how he survives by living outside and eating moss and insects. He ignores his wife who keeps suggesting he move back in to the house. He tells that sometimes he thinks that it would be so easy to go back in, but it would be giving up. He concludes by saying that he will probably be killed off by a frost when the winter comes.

Piss Directions

Whilst giving directions, a man urinates on the side of the car belonging to the man asking for the directions. Bizarrely, the car has urinals all round it, except at the place the man is standing.

Unflustered Parents

Two parents seem totally unconcerned when their young son does not come home from school. It is some time before they bother trying to find out what happened to him. When the police telephone them and say they have found the boy's raped and strangled corpse, the parents are rather annoyed that they are obliged to bury him, and the father vows to "Have a word" - polite but indignant - with the man, a friend, suspected of carrying out the murder.

[edit] Episode six

Apartment Lady

A woman invites the man from next door into her flat. She opens by asking him to feel her breast, and explains that she will have to slap him for doing so. She does; this repeats, and after a number of similar advances, ends up tricking the man into "raping" her, for which he is arrested. Despite her warnings, the man still gives in to his urges.

Musical Chairs

CCTV footage shows a children's game of musical chairs which turns nasty when some over-competitive parents start attacking each other's children and then each other.

Lift Guard

To his horror, a timid security guard in an office witnesses several people step into a lift shaft and, thanks to the lift not actually being there, they plunge, screaming, to the bottom. He tries to warn others but his nervousness doesn't allow him to get the warnings out in time. They all ignore him and continue to stroll into the empty lift shaft and fall to their deaths.

Little Girl Balls

A couple explain that they are convinced their six-year-old daughter is actually a forty-five-year-old man trapped inside a child's body. They give her an operation to fit her with a penis and testicles. They express particular satisfaction with the testicles. We do not actually see the handiwork, as it is out of shot.

Pub Kiss

Two male friends start kissing whilst in a pub, despite evidently having no previous homosexual urges. They try to tell their wives when they arrive but the women think it's a joke.

Thick Couple Baby

A couple go to see a doctor and refuse to believe the diagnosis that the wife is pregnant. She believes her swollen belly is just a "spot". The couple believe that the doctor is attempting to examine the woman for her own sexual gratification, whilst the doctor attempts to explain the pregnancy.

How About it Dog

In a veterinary surgery, a man requests that he is allowed to have sex with his dog whilst it is in the process of being euthanised. The veterinary refuses, so the man contents himself by just pulling down his trousers whilst he watches his dog die.

Mah-nu-Mah-nu

Police hunt for a corpse in the woods whilst two rather bizarre elfin figures leap and covort around them, singing to Piero Umiliani's Mah Na Mah Na. One memorable sight is that of a bass clarinet being placed in the corpse's mouth and being 'played' by his chest being manually pumped.

Bad Sex

A couple have an incredibly bizarre session of sex, involving such antics as the man fulfilling the woman's request to "shit your leg off" before he begs the woman: "Whack my bonobo!! Whack my bonobo!!". The woman eventually demands that the man makes his sperm come out green, but he can't do this; and when the sex session fails, he complains about his leg. We see very little of this, merely a shot from a camcorder half-buried under a pillow.

Doc Bedwetter

A woman goes to a doctor with her son, who can't help wetting himself. The doctor insists that there is nothing wrong with wetting oneself, and proves it by doing exactly that in front of his horrified patients. As with most 'Doctor' sketches, the speech is timestretched, and the 'torrent of urine' shot is shown in slow-motion, adding to the dreamlike effect of the sketch.

[edit] Homage

Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish's characters; "The Media Chaos Collective" from Channel 4's The Adam and Joe Show, filmed a homage to Jam, called "Goitre". In the sketch, the two actors made very amateurish attempts at creating unsettling sketches. One such sketch involved a repair man who found a "dead baby" (actually a doll) behind a TV and insisted he would have to bugger it in order to fix the television. The Goitre sketch later appeared as an extra feature on the Jam DVD.

[edit] External links

• Cook'd & Bomb'd - Chris Morris fan site. Contains a guide to the soundtrack to Jam.

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No Known Cure • Chris Morris • Loose Ends • Up Yer News • The Chris Morris Christmas Show • On the Hour • Why Bother? • The Chris Morris Music Show • Blue Jam
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The Day Today • Brass Eye • Jam/Jaaaaam • Brass Eye Special • Nathan Barley
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Big Train • BEST BAR (NONE) • Second Class Male/Time To Go • The Smokehammer • Absolute Atrocity Special • Bushwhacked • My Wrongs 8245 - 8249 and 117 • The IT Crowd
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Charlie Brooker • Armando Iannucci • Peter Cook
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