MovieChat Forums > Meet Ricky Gervais (2000) Discussion > Recycling

Recycling

posted 17 years ago by finley909
4 replies | jump to latest

Now Ive seen almost everything Gervais has done, it's become quite clear how much of his material is recycled over the years. Wether it be in extras, office,live etc....

The fly on the penis joke
Cabbage patch doll/orphan joke
The 93 year old woman being scarred for life/only 7% joke

The list goes on....

Plenty of comedians recycle/re-work jokes in their sets on a tour, but to me it seems lazy, maybe I'm expecting too much, I dunno. The guy is funny as hell, it just only occured to me watching these shows how much he re-uses.

Discuss...

[–] mjscag 17 years ago

I think he recycled a lot of this material because not a lot of people saw Meet Ricky Gervais, and he did tell the jokes better in Animals.

Let the merciless mockery commence.
Dave Foley, NewsRadio

[–] gremmel_invador 17 years ago

The fact that loads of stuff is avaliable on youtube now is a new fenomenom.

It's just like watching all the stuff Bill Hicks did (greatest stand up ever done). Never noticed it before, but now that you can go to youtube and watch loads of his stuff. It's clear he reused bits aswell. They're still geniuses both of em, and it's not really lazy i think. If a GOOD joke haven't been heard by all it's no shame of using it on a new audience. As a hardcore fan i can take the blow for him to repeat a few jokes so everyone hears em.

And i can honestly say i never even heard of Gervais up until like 2 months ago. In Sweden atm the top comedy show on television is a badly produced dick and fart series portraing the royal family. I'm just glad i found him. Ofc i have heard him before in the Simpsons episode he wrote just never knew it was him.

Aaanyway I'm getting off point. Gervais ftw and all that.

[–] bistromathics 17 years ago

i know its a little disappointing when you hear recycled jokes from comedians you really like, but its no different for ricky gervais than anyone else. it really comes out in shows that mix in stand-up...things like dr. katz, is it bill bailey, or asylum.

my biggest problem with this show is that i dont know any of the people! i'm american, but i've been watching lots of british shows recently and this one is pretty good although i'm sure i'd like it more if i knew more about the people to start off with.

[–] finley909 16 years ago

And 9 months later I reply.... Totally forgot I posted this ;)

Good points made all round. Bill Hicks is one guy I respect a lot, but he too recycled material. One case was one of his last public appearances (at least in England) on "The Word" in '93/94. he was clearly uncomfortable being on the show (as were most guests on that show!) and was fitting old material into his general conversation with the presenter. Material he had used in stand-up for years.

Still gotta love the guy!