Graham Linehan Interviewed at TSOYA

The Sound of Young America has an interview with Graham Linehan (creator of two of my all-time favorite comedies: IT Crowd and Father Ted).

The questions, as you might expect, pretty much stay focused on his work in TV (i.e. there’s no childhood memories or ‘how I met my wife’ stories). I had never heard an interview with him, so this was fun for me. He comes across as a light-hearted, nice man.
↓↓(show more)↓↓

‘Father Ted’ Producer Passes Away

This is sad. Geoffrey Perkins died in a road accident yesterday. Father Ted is one of my favorite comedies ever, and its creator, Graham Linehan, shared a nice anecdote regarding Mr. Perkins’ contributions to its beginning.

Mr. Linehan had selected a theme song he felt to be perfect because of its silliness and because it would seem to be “subtly making fun” of the show. Geoffrey Perkins didn’t like it.

“Why do you want to make fun of your show?” said Geoffrey, finally, looking wounded and worried. “People will love these characters.”

I later realised that it was a fork in the road, that discussion, and if we had not travelled the way Geoffrey suggested, we’d have ended up lost…we may never have made it to series three. Without Geoffrey, ‘Father Ted’ would have been a cacophonous riot, and not nearly as loved as it is today. He gave the show a heart, and gave me–still very young, and unsure as to what type of person I should try to become– someone to model myself on.

Ten years ago, Dermont Morgan, the comedian who played the Father Ted character, also passed away unexpectedly. It’s a bit depressing to think that two people so connected to that show’s success are now gone.

A Circular Route Reminds Me Of A Point

Clusterflock has a very simple post with a modest two words linking out: Dear Jesus. Following that link takes you to the personal blog of Matt, called “you are the only person not reading this blog“. Matt likes to incorporate letters to Jesus in his blog. It turns out that Matt saw clusterflock writing their own ‘Dear Jesus’ and he’s not happy about it. He links back to clusterflock to make sure we see it. This creates a wonderful circle. Was that clear? Doesn’t matter.

We’ve reached the origin, which is the original clusterflock post:

At the beginning of every season of The Wire when I hear the new version of the theme song I think how odd it sounds and how I will never forget the old one. Then I do. Please forgive me.

My wife and I are currently nearing the end of season four of The Wire (in case I never get around to giving it its own entry let me quickly just state that it is one of the best shows ever in the whole world throughout history and stuff). The single flaw that stands out to both of us in an otherwise flawless series is the theme song. For those of you who don’t know (and I don’t feel this is spoiler territory here), each season of The Wire uses as its theme a different cover of “Way Down in the Hole” by Tom Waits. The season four version hasn’t been horrible. The first couple really were just awful. I do like the montage of clips that sort of filter through that season (foreshadowing and reminding), but the whole thing just lasts too long. Or at least it seems to last too long because of the song playing over top.

In conclusion, I thought the clusterflock “Dear Jesus” was funny.

via clusterflock → Matt → clusterflock.