Welcome to the second installment of Funniest British and/or Jewish Comedy and/or Music Trios, a list that’s as definitive as it is necessary (which is to say, not at all). My last post was on Yo La Tengo, a fantastic and Jewish rock band that just happens to have a great (if quite music-nerdy) sense of humor. Today I highlight a trio from the other end of my wholly arbitrary spectrum: three Englishmen whose humor is a vocation, not a pleasant side-effect.
Ricky Gervais is probably best known for co-creating and starring in the popular British television series The Office and Extras. Stephen Merchant is best known for being the guy who co-created The Office and Extras who isn’t Ricky Gervais. They got a job a number of years back co-hosting a rather freewheeling radio show on the XFM network in between creating brilliant TV shows; for the first couple years they mostly did stuff like play Coldplay songs and complain about XFM, but every now and then they’d harass their producer/engineer, an odd little man named Karl Pilkington. Flash forward several years: Ricky and Stephen have quit XFM to produce a podcast that consists primarily of the two of them asking Karl questions and trying to figure out how his mind works. This might sound boring or pointless, but in the months since I’ve discovered The Ricky Gervais Podcast [1] (as it’s called on iTunes) I can’t think of anything funnier on this planet or any other.
Karl Pilkington is basically every co-worker or relative or casual acquaintance you’ve ever had who isn’t quite what you’d call stupid, but who sees the world so fundamentally differently than almost any rational human that speaking to him at length about anything more serious than television is both intensely frustrating and so fascinating you can’t stop the conversation. Here’s a clip of Karl trying to explain to Ricky and Stephen his plan to deal with overpopulation. It may be hard, but try to keep in mind that this isn’t an actor, it’s just a guy with a head full of ideas.
It’s remarkable that, when put together with two of the most brilliant minds in modern comedy (I hope to god you’ve seen The Office UK by now, but it bears mentioning that Extras is absolutely brilliant as well), a regular guy with a monotone voice few oddball opinions and ideas ends up being the funniest man in the room when given enough space. As far as I can tell he’s completely earnest in everything he says, as in this (fan-animated) installment of “Monkey News,” a regular feature where Karl shares a primate-related story he recently read/saw on TV/heard from some guy somewhere. Generally these Monkey News items are dismissed as insane by his cohosts, but Karl is as unflappable as your somewhat dim uncle who swears he read that octopuses change color when they’re angry, and look it up if you don’t believe him.
Maybe there’s a grain of truth somewhere in all that (probably just the part where they shot a monkey into space once, and nothing further), but no amount of mocking or insulting can sway Karl from his truth. We should all be so stupid.
The Ricky Gervais Podcast is available from the iTunes store. Apparently the show and its archives used to be free, but now they’re charging for most of it. You can still get loads of free samples if you subscribe to the regular updates. They’ve abandoned the radio show format lately in favor of sporadically releasing themed audiobooks such as “The Ricky Gervais Guide to Medicine” or “The Ricky Gervais Guide to Natural History.” Check them out if you’re curious about Karl Pilkington’s take on evolution and wildlife.
Links:
[1] http://www.rickygervais.com/podcast.php