h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I feel I must point out that unless you're specifically referring to 'England' itself, the usual name for the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland is BRITAIN. Failure to use the proper name will incur the of many a Welsh, Scots, or Irish person.

Is Great Britain also used? (he asks sheepishly not willing to risk Goshowrath)

Britain, Great Britain, the UK, all of the above will do fine elwood If you use The British Isles though, you'd be including Eire too, which is a separate nation of itself. Personally, although I was born in England, I'm of Irish and Welsh ancestors, but I don't get anything like as about this matter as my friend Pete who was born and raised in the Welsh Valleys, and I'd never get at you elwood

:: a great sigh - the fear of Goshowrath is a terrible thing to live with ::

I thought that Great Britain didn't include Northern Ireland. For one thing, the official name for this country is 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'.

Of course, that name doesn't include the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands. Mind you, they have separate Parliaments. But so now do Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales...

Ooooooh...Petes gonna feel some big Goshowrath!!!

WTF is Goshowrath?

How come I never got informed of the last two posts on my postings page? I don't think I unsubscribed from this conversation
That's a good point Pete - I guess Great Britain must refer to the mainland and surrounding islands (Mann, Wight, Scillies, Hebrides, etc), keeping Northern Ireland seperate. As for the whole "they have their own parliaments" bit, I want to say that as long as the Queen is head of state there, they are part of Great Britain, but what about Canada, India, Australia? All independent republics, but AFAIK, the Queen is head of state there too. She's on Canadian coins, so she must be. We need a constitutional affairs expert to help us out here.
And there is no such thing as Goshowrath. It's just another invention of that scary place called "inside elwood's head"

Oh my scars still haven't healed Pete!

Don't believe him!!!

what about UK and US humour? anybody got some comments on the differences? We just had a project about that at school, main conclusion was that Brits make fun of themselves, yanks of everybody else (elaborated to: Ameri-comedians are the only sane person left in a flakey world, whereas Brit-comedians are the flakey ones in a sane world) One book called Brit-laughs, Ameri-laughs is partly responsible for this. It's pretty cool, what we've read. Anybody want more details of it? And importantly: do you agree? I can't know, you see, I'm a Dane (uuuuuuhhhh!!!!)
Can't help it, though...
Marie Rivendell

There's a lot more nonsense in British humour -- witness Lear, The Goons, Spike Milligan since then, Monty Python, Vogon poetry in HHGTTG, etc.

American humour often makes references to people whom no Brit has ever heard of or ever will hear of. (This happens VERY frequently on the David Letterman show -- for example, the guy who commentates on the Kentucky Derby.) Is the opposite also true?

NB: "Derby" should be pronounced "Darby", not "Durby".

Mainstream American humour seems to take very few risks, relying on huge teams of writers coming up with streams of one-liners, as in Taxi, Cheers, Roseanne. But then you get humour like Saturday Night Live, which is one of the few places where political satire lives on American tv. American humour can be just as surreal as British humour though, but in a different vein. In Britain you've got The Goons, Python, League of Gentlemen, and America there's Ren and Stimpy, South Park, Cow and Chicken... I can just see the creator trying to pitch that one to the network - "Ok, here's my idea for a new cartoon. There's a brother and a sister. The sister is a six year old 600lb cow, and the brother is an eight year old chicken. They don't have names, they're just called Cow and Chicken. They live at home with human parents, who you only ever see from the waist down, and go to school with human friends. And there's this red guy who looks a bit like the devil and never wears any trousers. Oh, and sometimes Cow puts on a special cape and becomes a superhero called... Supercow, and when she's Supercow she can only speak Spanish. Well, whaddya think? Ya wanna put it into production?"

Indeed! Cheers to daring TV- and radioproducers of all times!!!!
How about this concept: Yeah, and the earth is being demolished, and this guy's house too, and then there's something about a robot, who's very sad.
Or: We'll finish only half of our jokes, and the rest will be about lumberjacks in negliges and dead parrots...
can't believe they accepted that... but I'm glad they did.

Cow and Chicken, Ren and Stimpy, Catdog etc. etc. all come from Nickelodeon. It's the same minds coming up with much of this stuff. (But this view might be unfair, as I haven't read much written humour other than Garfield and Dilbert.) In Britain everyone's at it. They have been since Lewis Carrol.

One very British thing seems to be the sketch show. There are scores of the things, and Monty Python was not the first.

Here's one from "Not The Nine O'Clock News": Mel Smith is a zookeeper or something, and Rowan Atkinson (I think) is in a gorilla suit as a gorilla that Mel's character caught and tamed. The gorilla can speak and has become even more civilised than Mel. They are being interviewed. A quote:

Zookeeper: He was very wild when we caught him...
Gorilla: (interrupting) Wild? I was absolutely livid.

There are also sketch shows (eg. The Fast Show) with characters that are used throughout the series and consistently in different series. The Slobs and Kevin the Teenager even survived the changeover from "Harry Enfield's Television Programme" to "Harry Enfield and Chums".

Are there similar things in the USA?

You've got mail...
Anyways... you're all presenting lovely inspiration for my English essay, thank you very much....
My only problem is that I look and get inspired and then start looking through the guide for more stuff
and that does not get my essay written.
This place is too bloody interesting!

Is there such a thing as the Stand-up Comedian circut in the UK?

That's where you can find the crazy stuff in the US!

Absolutely elwood, and it all blossomed in the early 80's with "alternative comedy" and the "cabaret scene", spawning the likes of French and Saunders, 20th Century Coyote/The Dangerous Brothers, The National Theatre of Brent, The Comic Strip team, Lee Evans, Eddie Izzard, Ben Elton, Jo Brand, and several others I can't bring to mind right now. Most of them have since moved on to tv and films - French (Vicar of Dibley) and Saunders (AbFab), 20th Century Coyote (The Young Ones, Bottom), Ben Elton (Saturday Live, The Man From Auntie), Lee Evans (Funny Bones, Mouse Hunt), Eddie Izzard (Mystery Men), and all of the Comic Strip team have worked in each other's shows. Some of the early alternative stand-up was very surreal, most of it was very left-wing political. Ever watch Red Dwarf? Craig Charles was an early addition to the cabaret scene when he was a ranting poet. You really need to check out Ian Saville, the Marxist magician - he does a great political version of the 'cutting a piece of string into 3 pieces and joining them up again' trick

The Comic Strip might have been the centre of the alternative cabaret/comedy scene, but all credit has to go to Roland Muldoon and his CAST (Campaign Against Shakesperean Theatre) organisation for spreading it around, by hosting weekly comedy nights at venues all over London - sometimes in old theatres, sometimes in function rooms at pubs, wherever they could find a space. I believe that Roland now runs the Hackney Empire - an old variety hall in east London which was used as a location in the movie Chaplin with Robert Downey Junior.

They aren't all from Nick Pete - Cow and Chicken is Cartoon Network, and though R+S were on Nick, they are the creation of John Kricfalusi and his Spumco studio, who is now doing some very very weird and disturbing stuff online.

This sounds like something you've been very into back home.

I've really enjoyed AbFab and The Young Ones(wish they'd rerun those again) Haven't heard of Red Dwarf or Ian Saville, but will keep an eye out for them now! Thanks.

Have you found anyone here worth following at the clubs?

Not really, but Austin isn't that kind of town. There's a revue bar here called Esther's Follies, but that's pretty much it. Austin just isn't blessed with the sort or number of comedy venues that London, or NYC, or LA is.