MOD EDIT: This thread was split off from here.

I got Extras season 1 and 2 for £3.70 the other week
Ricky Gervais at his best. No doubt the Office is better, though.

Ey, let's larf at those funny people
 

I liked Extras more.

I liked Extras more because the people with actual talent distracted from Ricky Gervais being unlikable and unfunny.

you mean, you don't like him. Which is fine, its an opinion, but he's clearly not unlikable or unfunny.

Ricky Gervais is a comic genius, and brought about a revolution in the comedy world.

This explains so much about why modern comedy is shitty then.

Ricky Gevais was hilarious on The Office, that show is a piece of comic brilliance. The British one, I mean. I find he's stating to wear out his welcome now, always the same kind of awkward jokes.

Not anymore. He's revamped it, with Derek (not really a comedy) and AIA and all.

Oh, you're the Ronnie Corbet type?

I find Ronnie Corbet funny as hell, sure.

I wouldn't say I'm a 'type' though.

Fair Enough.

Lee Evans, Ricky Gervais, Frankie Boyle, Russell Howard, Michael Mcintyre, I could go on forever with my favourite comedians. Familiar with any?

Frankie Boyle is okay, he's actually witty.

Lee Evans and Russell Howard I don't like

Michael Mcintyre I've never heard of

I don't really pay attention to many stand-up comedians, but my favourites are mostly American comics, such as Louis CK, Bill Hicks, David Cross, and a few others.

I thought Derek was platitudinous in whatever message it might have been trying to convey, and quite bland generally.
I think Gervais is a shit, to be honest.

George Carlin and Billy Connolly. They are the men.

Excitable, people say he looks like a white Chinese man.



He's okay.

Lee Evans is shit, Russel Howard is mediocre, Frankie Boyle is good, Ricky Gervais is hit and miss.

The only Lee Evans joke I like is his response to the comment:
"Oh, things are always in the last place you look, aren't they?"
"Well of course, that's because when I've found something, I usually STOP FUCKING LOOKING."

Oh, and this one.

I don't like his stand up much at all, but I find he works great as a character actor and writer.

I liked him in The Office, but I do not think it's as good as is made out by a lot of folk.
From what I have seen, I do not like him much as a person at all, and unlike certain aspects of media, this is quite important to me where comedy is concerned, because I can't much relate to people I don't like.

Ah, this is very common.

Believe it or not, the character Ricky Gervais portrays (the dickhead) in pretty much everything he does, is nothing like him in reality, and if you listen to the podcast, you'll know this. He pretends to be arrogant, nasty, and just a twat in general. But in reality he hasn't got a malicious bone in his body. I'm serious. Many people don't like him because they believe him to be the same as David Brent.


Just an extract from the animated podcast, may not be the best example, funny as hell though.

i love Ronnie Corbet. he's fucking original.

I think Ricky Gervais has really exhausted the David Brent character, he just uses it for EVERYTHING. I've found most of his movies very boring, as well but I like The Ricky Gervais Show (if only because I think Stephen Merchant is great).

Now, there's a lot of hate for ol' Rickers bubbling around so beyond him being a real nasty little shit is there a particular reason why? I want to know so I can copy your opinion.

I too think Ricky Gervais is a douche.

It's half up to taste, and half up to the fact that I've heard from the grapevine that he is a self-absorbed, pompous cunt (even by British standards). The fact that I don't think he's talented or funny, paired with the fact that he thinks the exact opposite, is a down-home recipe for hate bile.

I still stand up for him because of the stuff he's written for The Office. I'm probably going on about htat show a bit much, and honestly I don't even find it that amazing, but there have been a few times in that show where I've just been in stiches from laughter. That doesn't happen very often for me. even if I do find something hilarious, it takes a special kind of joke/gag/scene to make me literally laugh out loud.

Except when I'm in a social situation, much easier to laugh then. What is wrong with me?

See, I laugh out loud at just about anything and I've never found The Office funny.

I'm the same, and I'm usually a big fan of social awkwardness kind of humor. The Office just doesn't do it for me. Not the British one, not the American one.

how can you find this not funny?





edit - IT Crowd is in my opinion one of the funniest shows ever

I haven't seen very much of his work, so I can't comment about it in detail. But I can say that when I've seen Gervais interviewed, particularly when it's on The Daily Show, I have found him hilarious. It might only be when he has someone funny to bounce off, mind you.


The episode of The Simpsons that he wrote is one of the worst, most obvious, unfunniest ones ever.

Let's see...
I like Frankie Boyle, Russell Howard, (Good News rocks :D) Michael Mcintyre, Lee Evans, (In my opinion, The funniest comedians today) Dara O'Brien, Hugh Dennis, Karl Pikiniton and Steven Merchant.

Karl Pikiniton is a legend. His way of making up theories about the World, saying how it is and moaning about everything is just simply hilarious. He is in some weird way a idol of mine.

I'm not a big fan of Ricky Gervais though he's okay. It's just he's too far up his own arse and his laugh is so irritating. I do love The Ricky Gervais Show and An Idiot Abroad though. But that's because of Karl Pilkington and Steven Merchant, not actually because of Ricky :D

I also used to like Mock the Week but after Frankie Boyle left, it wasn't as funny. Plus they replaced him with people who do one lines. I hate one liner gags so fucking much...

At the moment I'm really liking David Mitchell and Robert Webb, I think some of their work is genius. I really need to watch stand-up more.

Mitchell and Webb are fantastic, and perform great in Peep Show, which is one of my favourite programmes.

Oh fucking hell, How can I forget about these shows

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/content/..._1_396x222.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...ungOnes460.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lpiDRDaH-m...lackadder2.jpg

Peep Show is amazing. I rarely feel so uncomfortable watching TV shows. It really appeals to me.

Can I suggest that we restrict this topic to comedians rather than comedy TV shows? If the performer was also the writer, fine. But in the case of most of the shows Crashpunk displayed, the comedy came from someone else entirely.

Sorry Nate. I was pretty much meaning to say that the stars of them shows were hilarious.

I'm very neutral about Ricky Gervais. Extras and The Office didn't do much for me, but The Ricky Gervais Show, An Idiot Abroad and Life's Too Short a good shows, not excellent, but good. I do prefer Steve Merchant. Even though both of them wrote the shows.

About comedians in general, my favourite ones are Don Rickles, Conan O'Brien, Louis C.K., Dean Martins, Jerry Lewis, Hugh Laurie, Jim Carrey, Rowan Atkinson, Raul Solnado, Stephen Fry and some other Portuguese comedians and that's pretty much it.

But they're only funny because they're given good lines by the writer(s).

I can see where you're coming from here and I partially agree, but the way the actors deliver the lines and act in the scenes is also important.

I love the Ricky Gervais show so much, but it gets a little boring for me as I've listened to the podcasts and radio sh tows over and over, still always makes me laugh though. Karl Pilkington is a moron and a genius at the same time.

They were the writers.
At least in the case of The Young Ones and Bottom.

Didn't the stars of Black Adder also wrote most of the lines?

Rowan Atkinson did, but I think it was the first two seasons. Or just the first, can't remember though.

The first season was shit though.

Actually, the first season was my favourite. I liked the Blackadder character more in that, because he was much more of a snivelling little cretin.