Fat Tony.


In many ways I’ve had the perfect evening, by watching a few of my favourite Simpsons episodes with my wife and a bottle of wine (not one and the same) closely followed by Tony Hancock’s The Blood Donor to round off.

While both series are amongst my go-to wind-down choices, with me watching C4’s evening showing of The Simpsons almost every day of the week at 6pm and catching up on the radio broadcast of Hancock’s Half Hour on BBC Radio 4 Extra every Monday, we decided to treat ourselves by making a rapidly lengthening list of what we see as some of the best ever Simpsons shows to work our way through online.

Both programmes are impeccably written when they’re at their best and are prone to make me laugh out loud time and again. The Simpsons shows we’ve got through so far - we actually started yesterday are:

·      ‘King-Size Homer’: Homer puts on weight so he can work from home; probably my all-time favourite episode, though to be fair, the goalposts move regularly.
·      ‘A Fish Called Selma’: Actor Troy McClure marries Selma in attempt to shake tales of his fish-loving (in the most inappropriate sense of the phrase) past; another personal favourite.
·      ‘Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily’: Bart, Lisa and Maggie wind up in the custody of Ned and Maude Flanders with crazy results.
·      ‘Homer Versus the Eighteenth Amendment’; Homer makes and sells his own alcohol in the midst of showndown.
·      ‘Mountain of Madness’: Homer takes his family on a teambuilding exercise to do with work and ends up in a rocket house.

(I’ll have to eventually post the whole list for reference.)

As for watching The Blood Donor, this came about as a result of my wife giving blood yesterday thus making it appropriate. While the episode often comes up in the most popular lists, it’s not a personal favourite of mine, I think partly because I know it was shot using cue cards, which ruins the magic for me, making the dialogue a little more stilted. Hancock obviously gives a pitch perfect reading (he was reknowned for it) and it was still a great way to end the evening, even if it wouldn’t have been my first choice; sometimes reveling in a little of your favourite television shows is a good diversion.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...
Read more

Hoo-ray and up She Rises.

So much has happened since my last post in March that this blog risks sounding like an itinerary. The main news is that Hitchin Mostly Comedy will return in the summer at a new venue, the Queen Mother Theatre . The road to this decision was convoluted, though enough fell into place en route to leave me optimistic about this new start. The catalyst was a survey I ran via our mailing list a few months back, in which I asked, "If the club returned in the current climate, with tickets still around £15 (and with similar line-ups), would you still attend?"; the response to which, in simple terms, was a resounding yes. Nearly 250 mailing list subscribers responded in a single week, with around a hundred also taking the option to leave some feedback. And only two people were abusive, which counts as a win when you consider they posted their comments online anonymously. Imagine how many more insults we would have received if the comedy club was a woman. Particularly if she was Diane ...
Read more