So which is the best one??
Which of 'The Comic Strip Presents' do you think is the greatest??
shareA Yank weighs in...
Absolutely NO ONE in the US remembers this show...I say "remembers" because, for about a year, they were shown on MTV on Sunday nights in a British comedy block with Young Ones and Monty Python. I was and am blown away by the early episodes, particularly "The Beat Generation" and "Summer School" -- there's just nothing like them.
I bought a region-free DVD player for the sole purpose of watching the Comic Strip DVD collection. And then I finally got to see how they'd been edited for MTV!
Go on, Jarret, you can't leave it at that. How had they been edited for MTV? No need to go into detailed analysis, but give us a clue.
shareI, too, am an American who bought the dvd set and switched my computer over to Region 2 just so I could play it. This is BY FAR my favorite televsion show, but I'll try not to go on at ridiculous length.
Everyone is awfully hard on the later shows, I guess because all of the weak and bad ones were post-"Supergrass". Lots of the very best shows happened then too:
* "Four Men In A Car" is one of the best films I've ever seen, period.
* "Les Dogs" is delicious (whatever happened to sexy bad boy Danny Peacock?)
* "Gregory" is spot-on delightful (did you British also have to suffer with the pathetically stupid soft-fetish film "Silence" being a huuuge hit? It was inescapable over here, ugh.)
* "Red Nose of Courage" is smart as well as gorgeously ridiculous. (LOVE Alexi ripping up books every time he's angry!)
* "Mr. Jolly" is excellent Dangerous Brothers fun - with the divine PETER COOK!
* "The Strike" deserves its acclaim
* I'm glad so many people have singled out "Spaghetti Hoops"; it's also one of Nigel Planer's favorites
* "Queen of the Wild Frontier" is such a treat! Such great acting.
In the end, though, I guess my favorites are also the first three seasons. "War" ends weakly, "Summer School" has serious plot problems, and the second "Five Go Mad" episode didn't really need to be made. Who cares? The rest is fresh, smart, brave, strange, and just perfect. Better than any other television show I know.
Has anyone else ever read the script for the never-made 6th episode of Series 1, the infamous "Back To Normal With Eddie Monsoon"? It's very funny, but also seems meant to test the limits. For example, the French and Saunders characters were named "Vag" and "Clitty" and they give advice on how to drink yourself to death (if you feel unconciousness creeping up on you during a binge, jab a needle under your fingernail). An article shown on "Eddie Monsoon: A Life?" is a real article about the banning of that actual episode, and the fake interview with Michael White talks about the real banned script ("The item about how to get big things in your mouth, the cruelty to animals sequence, the things you said about Burt Reynolds, the bit about stiffies...")
That brings me to Ade Edmondson, who wrote "...A Life?". He's appeared in more shows than anyone other than Peter, and his acting is always INCREDIBLE. His characterizations are thorough and intense, and he's always great onscreen - watch him in any scene, even if he's just in the background, and he's funny. This isn't true about all his other work, but he is consistently amazing in the Comic Strip. His writing is superb too. I love the whole cast, early and late, but Ade is definitely my favorite.
Has anyone seen the most recent episode, from Christmas 2005, called "Sex Actually"? If you have, it would be great if you could post a quick description and opinion of it.
This is written with warm regards to anyone else who loves this show.