I'd quite like to write an episode.

Just saying this for when the Simpsons' script editor finds this post via Google (I'd guess he Googles for 'Simpsons' script editor' all the time, probably being a bit insecure).

Anyway, I would. It would be funny.

My three-month-old baby likes the Simpsons a lot. It could be because it is so colourful, but I reckon it is because it works on so many different levels.

Now that's a good idea. JB does the Simpsons - ooh the possibilities.

And I bet it would be funny, like properly funny, not like a miscasting coupled with an over-promotion coupled with misplaced egomania.

Anyway, the Guardian, I have just discovered, liked it. So what do I know?

Oh, and it was lovely to meet you in the pub last week JB. You were taller than I imagined you.

I'm in the minority in that I've never seen The Office and have only seen clips of the Simpsons but I've seen Gervais "interviewed" by Jonathan Ross and accepting an award (British Comedy Awards?). What a strange man! Oh and my rule of thumb for deciding whether to watch a tv programme/film? If The Guardian/Front Row give it the thumbs up then I'll probably hate it.

Ooh Daisy, you rebel you.

I have never heard his pod-casts and if I had I might think a little more kindly of him. No danger of me trying them out by anything other than accident though.

I don't think it's Gervais's fault. He's Mr Zeitgeist at the moment, or at least enough opinion formers have decided that he is. Over-exposure and over-work are bound to highlight anyone's shortcomings. I hope a sense of proportion will re-emerge shortly, or it will be someone else's turn to get all the attention.

The Office was funny.
Extras is funny only because of Ashley Jensen (who acts Gervais off the screen every time).
His "stand-up"... isn't.

Didn't catch The Simpsons and glad that I didn't.

As you say, he's currently at the peak so it won't be long before he starts getting a kicking on his way back down.

I missed the episode after being put into a boredom induced coma by the Marathon coverage.

I was thinking of watching the repeat on Friday, but I may now give it a miss. And I quite like Ricky Gervais.

Hello Mr Angry.

Give it a chance. If you like RG then it might work for you because there's plenty of his trademark humour in it. And of his trademark face. He even strums vapidly behind the closing credits. So there's plenty to enjoy if you are a fan. Unfortunately it tipped me from neutral-hostile ground to annoyed ground, but -hey - it would be a dull old world if we all thought the same, eh? And if you already have Hi Def TV then you will get a warm smug glow inside all the way through.

Clearly the JonnyB imposter rumour is gaining ground...

Agreed with Gordon RE Ashley Jensen. Terrific actor. I have her down to play the LTLP in the forthcoming biopic directed by Mike Leigh. (Assume Mike Leigh will find this comment via Googling himself etc - drop us an email Mike and we'll talk)

JonnyB: is that you? I mean the REAL JonnyB?

It is I, JonnyB!!!

[cue - 'no, I'm Spartacus' type comments]

Yes it is you. I know because you've tripled my traffic, and only A-listers can do that. Or a closure on the King's Lynn bypass..

Tripled pretty much by your own visits but also, let it be said, by referrals from your ever lively comments section.

I remember seeing RG on the 11-o-clock show all those years ago (98/99). All I remember thinking is "and this is funny why?" Never been a fan. Admittedly, I'm also in the minority who never watched the Office either. Too close to real life to be funny - as my parents always said about Fawlty Towers.

OK.

I will watch it now on your recommendation. On my ever-so-retro Cathode Ray Tube television set.

I'm also a fan of Ashley Jensen, I thought she acted particularly well in the "c'mon love, whack some minge around it" scene.

Tom: your parents must have had a wild and crazy life if Fawlty Towers was a bit too real for them. Wow.

Mr A: nice blog there. I would be interested to know what you think because you may well be coming from that all-important different angle. I just like my TV humour a bit more straightforward, and not relying quite so much on awkward ... pauses... during which you examine how much you dislike the character in question. I seem to remember that Frasier has unlikeable characters in it but loads of gags too. Ho hum - it's a bit drafty on this soapbox.

I've never seen Extras so y'all can discuss that while I'm out at the shops.

it took me a while to enjoy 'the office', but i instantly enjoyed RG's podcasts - probably from an overdose of 'the office'. whatever, i can very easily see why a lot of people don't like RG.

i didn't at first.

Hello Zed. By jove things look lively over in Belgium at the moment.

I'm an agnostic on RG, in general, and if he does whatever and it's good then I'm all for him. Office - good, Extras - dunno, stand up - patchy. Personally I just think both he and the Simpsons people played this one wrong.

I recently got a copy of extras on dvd over here and managed to sit through the first one with Ross Kemp by telling myself it would get funny. Then I managed about 5 minutes of the Ben Stiller one and gave up - what was the point?

I found the Office great as it was an environment most people could recognise and empathise with, but it just didn't work with extras as I've never been one and have no idea what they get up to off screen - and nor, now, do I really care. Nope, just didn't connect.

'The Office' is one of the most perfectly written and acted sitcoms I've ever seen - everything is bang on the money.

Once I heard the premise for 'Extras', though, I feared the worst and it was as I expected - celeb roped in, lots of gags at their expense but they're in on it so they're being cool and showing they've not got an overinflated opinion of themselves etc etc. It was, by and large, rubbish.

Gervais's stand-up, on the other hand, I have found very funny - but it's certainly crude and offensive, and looks to push buttons that lots of people wouldn't want pushed.

Which brings me to the episode of 'The Simpsons'. Didn't see it, and I would have liked to. Not quite so sure I want to now - I can well imagine from your comments what it was like. And you're spot on about the comic lines in 'The Simpsons' - many of them blend in almost imperceptibly with the straight lines, only standing out on the second or third viewing and only very rarely dwelt upon. Which suggests that Gervais's incorporation of awkward pauses would indeed seem unfamiliar and incongruous.

Hello Ben. That is a very balanced overview there. But of course you are a bit of a review expert by now.

There are bound to be Simpsons fundamentalists who don't like any change at all. I'm not one of them but I do think it ain't currently broke so why did they need Gervais? Yes, yes, freshen it up, let's be down with the kidz. OK, but do it good.

What a fantastic body of work it is in general, and RG seemed aware of this. He said, with due modesty, that in working on something like the Simpsons all you can do is hope you only make it slightly worse. Job done then.

Well, first off I should say I didn't particularly dig the RG simpsons episode, but I really do think it's important (well, not *important* obviously, because this is a discussion about a cartoon!) to point out that the Simpsons in general is much much less sharp than it once was. The RG ep comes to us from season 17 of the finest-television-show-ever-that's-not-seinfeld and the common consensus amongst fans seems to be that the lil' yella fellas have jumped the shark more than a little bit. It's not really fair to compare this episode to "proper" Simpsons, when the team working on it were clearly at their peak and appeared to have been assembled from all the funniest people in the world, because one writer does not, and never has, a Simpsons episode make (how's that for some tortured grammar?)...I think that some of the jokes that didn't work too well in the ep might have been "room" jokes rather than RG jokes, the uppity box one being a perfect example(although the jokes that were clearly his wasn't exactly terrific).

I loved the office and I liked Extras a great deal , and indeed the podcasts are insanely funny, but only really because of Karl Pilkington, his mancunian intellectually challenged erstwhile producer from X-FM. If you're struggling with RG's likeability levels, his continual bullying of Karl is unlikely to endear you to him further, but I think he's a very very talented comic writer - his stand up might not be the best thing he's ever done, but stand-up is a art perfected by repitition and years and years of practice, and Gervais has done 2 stand up shows ever (obviously he put them out there to be judged alongside other stand ups, but that they don't measure up isn't suprising really, and indeed that they even measure up a *bit* is quite an achievement).

Anyway, the point I was *really* trying to make is that *all* new Simpsons episodes are faintly disappointing at the moment, because they are being compared against the one of the great achievements of modern western civilisation (Johnny Cash singing Wichita Lineman obviously being the very finest), which was the Simpsons at its glorious best...

[/long rant about the simpsons!]

* applauds Paul *

Well, that just about says it. The young 'un has put us all straight - in fact just like a timely intervention from Lisa is wont to do in the simpo world we knew and loved.

simpsons r i p
gervais - the office - end of
goodbye