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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
More evidence that Brits and Canadians are funny -- and "Saturday Night Live" is not. Plus: Confessions of a two-TiVo girl.
Nov 13, 2003 | O subtlety, where art thou?
The second season of "The Office" continues on BBC America, and everyone's favorite manager, David Brent, is in top form. His boss asks him for an update on how things are going with the new employees from the merger, and Brent delivers a typically bizarre, rambling explanation:
"They're malleable. You know? That's what I like about people. I don't like people who come in here, 'Oh, we do it this way, we did it that way.' I just wanna go, 'Do it this way. If you like. If you don't...' Team playing. I call it Team Individuality. It's a new management style. Again, guilty! Unorthodox? Sue me! Nothing ever changes by staying the same. Quite literally."
As usual, watching Ricky Gervais in action provokes utter awe. If this is improv, it's brilliant. If it's scripted, the script is brilliant and the performance is beyond belief.
The characters and comic moments are so strange and understated. One of the new female employees has a birthday party, and gets nothing but lingerie and sex toys as gifts, each of which makes her squeal and yell, "Sick!" Later, when we see her on the phone giggling loudly and bending over, covering her mouth showily, she emerges as a familiar type. Something about the way she laughs, and the way her desk is covered with birthday cards. She's the office party girl, the star of every function who never socializes with anyone outside of work. No one needs to explain this to us; it's telegraphed with the smallest of details within the first few minutes of the show. As she cackles into the phone, we cut to commercial break. Which begins with:
Girl 1: It's willing to take a risk in a way that no American show is willing to!
Girl 2: Everybody's like, "The Office"! We love "The Office"!
Guy: It's over the edge of what would be acceptable at a normal American network!
Girl 3: It's the saddest and funniest show I think that I've ever seen!
Girl 2: It's sooo real that it was kind of shocking!
Girl 1: It constantly surprises me, and that is, like, the purest form of entertainment!
OK, advertising morons, here's how to snuff out a word-of-mouth groundswell of appreciation for something that sneaks into the public consciousness on its own merits: Hold a big mirror up to those who think they've discovered it and make them feel really self-conscious and lame for not knowing that everyone else in the world has already discovered their little discovery. In fact, use the exact language they use, so much so that your advertising will serve as a funhouse mirror, a repugnant distortion of your supporters' most unabashed expressions of giddy enthusiasm.
Why do I like "The Office," again? Well, it's willing to take a risk in a way that no American show is willing to. But when I see some other punk uttering those exact words, it's like showing up at a party in the Mission in San Francisco and they're playing the Pavement album you already wore out last month, three other women have the exact same shade of reddish-brown hair that you have, and someone nearby is talking about how "The Simpsons" has gone downhill, a conversation you had not three minutes ago with one of your roommates, the reddish-brown-haired one.
If there's one thing our generation hates (and yes, I feel totally and completely comfortable speaking for my entire generation, every last one of you), it's feeling unoriginal. You can blame that on our hippie parents (I know it was a magical time -- joining a cause without feeling unoriginal sounds like pure bliss, in fact) or you can blame it on our hippie parents throwing away their Levis and Dr. Scholl's and taking jobs in marketing. Either way, shifting from subtle comedy to skin-crawling, on-the-nose raving about same comedy makes about as much sense as an agoraphobics' street festival.
"Kids in the Hall" are people, too
In order to feel special again, I suggest flipping over to "Comedy Central" for some "Kids in the Hall" reruns. "Saturday Night Live" has been moderately disappointing so far this season (despite the addition of weirdo comic wizard Will Forte) and "Kids in the Hall" provides a little reminder of what SNL does wrong, week after week. While those kooky Canadians try everything and anything under the sun, from straightforward skits to bizarre nonsequitor-laden interstitials, at SNL they lack the courage of conviction. Instead of forging into strange, new territories, SNL writers seem to muck around in the same tired skits. I'm sure the ridiculous schedule and relatively crappy pay have a lot to do with it. I'm sure there are people to blame for the badly rehearsed skits and the fact that Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz crack each other up every single time they're onstage together, even though no one else is laughing.
