Most of the shows I watch on television are ones with cult followings (nope I am not a Trekkie) When I try to talk about these shows with friends they have no idea what I am talking about and think I am some kind of madman.
Let me get Wikipedia to explain:
“A cult following is a group of fans devoted to a specific area of pop culture. These dedicated followings are usually relatively small, and often pertain to items that don’t have broad mainstream appeal.”
Thank You Wikipedia.
So here it is, (my) Top 5 Shows with a ‘Cult Following’:
5 – The League of Gentlemen
Not to be confused with ‘The league of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ (the rubbish film with Sean Connery in it). The League of Gentlemen consists of Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss, who play many characters within the show. I would call it a Black Comedy, because you end up laughing at others misfortune, or laughing at things that shouldn’t be laughed at. The League of Gentlemen is really strange also, my teacher once said, whoever watches The League of Gentlemen will become a serial killer (yes he is an idiot).
In this photo you can see Edward and Tubbs who run the local shop of the fictional town ‘Royston Vasey’.
4 – Monty Python
I love Monty Python, I love its randomness, and silliness. Monty Python is probably one of the originals, if it wasn’t for Monty Python, there wouldn’t be Mighty Boosh and shows like that. I have put Monty Python at 4 because it doesn’t have as small a following as the other shows on this list. When it was first aired it got allot of views simply because then there was only three channels, and not much too watch.
Very surreal too. In this photo you can see the cast of Monty Python.
3 – The Mighty Boosh
‘Come with us now on a journey through time and space, to the world of The Mighty Boosh’ Before every episode of The Mighty Boosh there is that Intro, and it really is true, they do live in their own made up world, mostly based in Camden, and for some reason use Euros instead of British Pounds. Staring Naboo the shaman and his familiar Bollo the ape, Howard the Jazztastic ‘History teacher’ (as Vince says), and Vince, who is just Vince, and the character I hate the most, Bob Fossil, he is lame.
(Howard + Vince)
2 – Brass Eye
Brass Eye is a spoof news program, which really takes the mickey out of the media and how the media exaggerates story’s. Written and starring Chris Morris, who I think is a genius, he most definitely ‘does it for the lulz’. Brass Eye only had one series, and I think that was just enough. The episodes talked about topics such as drugs, science, and the decline of society. A more controversial episode about Pedophilia was also aired as a Special episode, this caused allot of complaints. One of the traits of Brass Eye is the stitching up of celebrities, Chris Morris would interview celebrities with them thinking it is a real News broadcast, he managed to convince one celebrity that pedophiles are more closely related to crabs than they are humans. He managed to do this simply because the celebrities will do anything to be on TV, and to make the public think they are caring and will support anything, even the made up story by Chris Morris of an elephant with its trunk stuck up its anus, yes a celebrity did actually believe this.
On the topic of controversy, Chris has done several things to annoy the public (60 year old ‘write to the editor’ people).
- He had once told the public, on the radio, that Jimmy Savile and Conservative MP Michael Heseltine had died
- Performed a song in the style of Pulp song ‘Common People’ about child-murderer Myra Hindley.
- Wrote a 12 part column in The Observer titled ‘Second Class Male’ and ‘Time To Go’, which documented the suicide of columnist Richard Geefe. After complaints it was revealed Richard Geefe was Chris Morris.
- Added a subliminal message to one of Brass Eyes episodes, of which text flashed onto the screen reading ‘Michael Grade is a (see you next Tuesday, if you get my drift)’, Michael Grade was Chief Executive of Channel 4, and constantly intervened by making edits with Brass Eye. The episode got aired.
Chris Morris is often called a ‘media terrorist’ although he is very shy. He has only ever done one live show on ‘I am Alan Partridge’ which Steve Coogan (Alan Partridge) asked him if he had anything to say to the audience, to which Chriss replied, no, and ran back stage.
Chris Morris’s latest appearance was in the IT Crowd, in which he commits suicide by jumping out of a window in the middle of a conference meeting.
Well thats enough of Chris Morris, I find him fascinating, here is him at work:
Chris Morris is actually a living legend.
1 – Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace
Garth Marenghi is a fictional horror writer played by Matthew Holness, and also features his producer Dean Learner, played by Richard Ayoade from the IT Crowd. Darkplace is the kind of comedy that you need to look closely to find it funny. Little things that you need to notice will make you laugh. For example, there is lots of deliberate continuity in the show to exaggerate how bad Garth and Dean are at film making. The camera angles are bad, the sound dubbing is bad, the special effects are little to none. But that is the whole point of it, it takes the mickey out of egotistic film makers, with a 70′s feel slapped on top. One of the things that makes me always laugh is when Dean Learner says that they needed to add allot of slow motion effects to get to 30 minutes per episode.
When watching Darkplace, the main thing you need to keep telling yourself is, it is MEANT to be bad. Garth Marenghi is a character outside of Darkplace too, he even has his own website. http://www.garthmarenghi.com/
He has also appeared in ‘Man to Man with Dean Learner’. I emailed Garth with the email address on his website, he is yet to get back to me though.
