Review: Mock The Week / 8 Out Of 10 Cats
by John Walker on Jul.02, 2005, under The Rest
While Radio 4 has been churning out unrelentingly poor attempts to find any other format than the increasingly tired (and HIGNFY-spawning) News Quiz, television has admitted defeat in the face of the Friday night stalwart. While certainly funny, and occasionally essential, perhaps the programme’s greatest achievement has been to rewrite a nation’s definition of the word “satire”. Merely by dint of its being recorded the day before broadcast, it has ensured any expectations of Swiftian anger or Chris Morris’ venom are replaced by the desire to hear jokes about stuff that has happened recently. Topicality is the new satire, and we’re poorer for it.
If any further proof were needed, it comes from the sudden appearance of two new attempts to mimic the formula. Channel 4’s 8 Out of 10 Cats, and BBC 2’s Mock the Week, both attempt to validate their own conceits through the short time between their recording and broadcast. And hope that that’s enough.
Another piece on Off The Telly.
July 2nd, 2005 on 17:14
Except:
1) 8 out of 10 cats = not funny
2) Mock the Week = far too funny
3) I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue = entirely ignored. Why the fuck?
July 2nd, 2005 on 20:16
Ahem. Except without the vitriolic profanity. Your pardon, sir.
July 2nd, 2005 on 23:30
1) No, it’s a bit funny.
2) What? How can something be “too funny”? Also, no it’s not – it’s hopelessly awful.
3) Remind me how ISIHAC is topical, you great fool.
July 3rd, 2005 on 20:27
Urm John again I must say, lighten up a bit. 8/10 is yes quite funny, depending on the guests, but Mock the Week I think for the most is the funniest thing on TV at the moment. /waits for anger filled reply :P
July 3rd, 2005 on 20:29
Ouch. Reading that page will spoil the programme tonight. I may well be in the cynics camp by the time I get to the end!
July 3rd, 2005 on 20:30
Whoops!
I see, you wrote it!
July 4th, 2005 on 01:13
What are you on about, you loon? Reading my review of a rubbish programme will change the content of an unbroadcast edition? HAS EVERYONE GONE MAD? Start again, and this time make any sense at all.
Also, no, you mustn’t say “lighten up a bit”. It’s up there with “get a life” and “you should get out more” in terms of unutterable stupidity.
I need better readers.
July 4th, 2005 on 09:58
I’m trying to work out how I can unread your blog, realising too late that I am unworthy. Any suggestions?
July 4th, 2005 on 10:34
Send me enough money.
July 4th, 2005 on 11:09
Mock The Week is dire. Something THAT scripted can never be funny.
July 4th, 2005 on 11:16
Well, yes it can. Most programmes are scripted. Like sitcoms, for instance.
However, a programme so poorly pretending to not be scripted, but being so obviously scripted to try and sound like it’s not scripted, can never be funny.
July 4th, 2005 on 12:31
how much is enough money, John? And enough for what? Are you going to develop one of those thingies that they have in men in black, to erase my memory, with your ill-gotten gains?
and had it ever occurred to you that television companies would love that invention, because they could broadcast endless repeats without your knowing it? only, wouldn’t there be problems with the mesh of associations, the kind of thing that is encountered in eternal sunshine, with things that are commonplace being erased because they have now been associated with the thing that is supposed to be erased, or else the thing not being erased, because certain fundamental links cannot be erased without complete cretinism being the result? so think carefully before accepting that psychotechnology phd you were thinking about. if you can remember thinking about it. before I erased your memory. remotely. hmmm.
July 4th, 2005 on 14:09
I forgot why I was reading that halfway through, and stopped.
July 4th, 2005 on 17:16
Sorry for my lunacy.
It’s just that cycnicism is catchy and I caught some.
What about the fighting over the microphone stand. Is that scripted fighting?
July 5th, 2005 on 14:52
Now is the new then.
July 5th, 2005 on 17:04
Yeah, I wondered if I’d get away with that. I remain safely not-famous-enough to escape the wrath of Private Eye, however.
July 6th, 2005 on 09:22
John 27/5/2005
“No one else, anywhere, has better commenters than me.”
John – 4/7/2005
“I need better readers.”
So much change in such a short space of time. You should finish reading Tim’s comment…I thought it was funny!
July 6th, 2005 on 10:03
Clare 6/7/2005
“So much change in such a short space of time.”
Clare 6/7/2005
“You should finish reading Tims comment I thought it was funny!”
All said.
July 6th, 2005 on 13:06
Hey!