Karl Pilkington

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Karl Pilkington
Born	September 23, 1972 Manchester, England.
Occupation	Radio Producer, Performer

Karl Pilkington (born September 23, 1972 in Manchester) is an English radio producer best known for producing The Ricky Gervais Show on the radio station Xfm. Pilkington is a published author since writing The World of Karl Pilkington. ^[1]

1 Biography
2 Career
3 Persona
4 Celebrity
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Biography

Pilkington grew up in Manchester and left school without collecting his exam results^[2]. Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant later contacted his school and discovered that Karl attained only one GCSE exam (in which he achieved an "E" grade for History)^[3], which surprised him as he says he remembered sitting several others - such as his Art GCSE where he recalls making a "little clay man with his arms in a car"^[4]. Pilkington has been through a number of jobs, his favourite being his paper round.^[5]

[edit] Career

On October 3, 2006, Pilkington's book The World of Karl Pilkington was released. The book features conversations between Pilkington, Ricky Gervais, and Stephen Merchant as well as original ideas and drawings by Karl.^[6]

[edit] Persona

Although Merchant and Gervais publicly maintain that the personality he displays in the podcasts is genuinely that of Karl Pilkington, speculation has arisen that Pilkington is a fictional persona created and scripted by the two. In particular, Chris Campling, a journalist writing for the The Times, has speculated that Karl Pilkington is not a real person, but an actor portraying the role of a scripted character created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant^[7]. Campling pointed towards the fact that Pilkington's views on Chinese people had been stated on Gervais' radio show, before he stated the same thing on his interview with Gervais, on the Politics DVD.

On April 24, 2006, The New York Times ran an article about Ricky Gervais and the podcast which described Pilkington's behaviour as a well executed "deadpan comedian" routine which "crosses Ali G and Steven Wright".^[8]

Merchant and Gervais themselves have repeatedly denied claims that Pilkington is a creation of theirs. In an on-air response to Campling's claims during a broadcast on Xfm, Merchant stated that he would be "ashamed" if the radio show was scripted, adding that "If we came up with a character as good as Karl, we would never use him on a poxy little radio station like this one (Xfm London)" ^[9] Gervais concurred, pointing out that writing half-hour episodes of shows such as The Office and Extras took the two up to a year, thus making the writing of two-hour radio shows impractical.

Despite their claims, Pilkington frequently repeats anecdotes on the podcasts that he had earlier told on the Xfm program, each time Gervais and Merchant respond to the stories as if they've never heard them before.

[edit] Celebrity

A stencil in Augusta, Georgia, of Karl Pilkington and his famous soundbite "I could eat a knob at night".

As a result of the success of The Ricky Gervais Show podcasts in particular, Pilkington has become something of a cult celebrity. Pilkington is sometimes mentioned in interviews that Gervais gives, and is often on the receiving end of Gervais's practical jokes. When asked who was the funniest person he knew, Gervais said Karl Pilkington, whom he mentioned was "the funniest man alive in Britain today." In addition, Pilkington appears in a twenty minute interview on Ricky Gervais's live stand-up comedy DVD, Politics.

Karl recently reached new heights of fame by commenting that he could "eat a knob at night" during a discussion on the podcast about I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, a British reality TV show in which contestants had to eat a kangaroo's penis. Karl stated that, whilst in the morning he would be unable to face the appendage due to having a weak stomach, he would more than likely be able to stomach it in the evening. His phrase "I could eat a knob at night" has since spawned dance music remixes, T-shirts and other merchandise, as well as discussion on many websites and thousands of search engine hits.

[edit] References

^ ISBN 978-1401303426
^ Ricky Gervais Show, xfm, February 23, 2002
^ Ricky Gervais Show, xfm, March 02, 2002
^ Ricky Gervais Show, xfm, February 23, 2002
^ Karl Pilkington Biography. Retrieved on 2007-03-19.
^ Ricky Gervais Presents the World of Karl Pilkington (Paperback). Retrieved on 2007-03-19.
^ Chris Campling, 2005. "A qualified success." The Times.
^ "A Comic Expands His Persona via Podcast on 'The Ricky Gervais Show'," Virginia Heffernan, The New York Times, April 24, 2006
^ 'The Ricky Gervais Show, Episode Four', broadcast Xfm June 2005)

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