The One Show vs Kick-Ass

A Toby Jug full of piss apparently....

The one show arrived on our screens in 2007 and its agenda was simple: to be a light and airy magazine show with vaguely interesting guests and numerous segments filmed in the Trafford Centre, Manchester’s testament to Liverpudlian shopping.

Since then, it’s evolved from this initial idea to: knowingly be a light and airy magazine show with vaguely interesting guests and numerous segments filmed in the Trafford Centre, Manchester’s testament to Liverpudlian shopping.

Each week, Christine Blakely and, the ginger equivalent of an all knowing git, Adrian Chiles run us through numerous inane stories that serve no other purpose than to fill in the time before Eastenders. Actual stories I’ve seen over the last few months include:

• Pot holes and the repairing of
• Colour and the standisation of
• A warehouse filled with 70’s clothing and the finding of
• Old people and the euthanasia of
• Alan Shearer and the pointless of – Actually this may have been an actual interview with Alan Shearer

Each VT is bookended with Chiles looking off camera and pretending that this is all beneath him.

‘So, that was pot holes then… Interesting, eh?’ He smirks as the studio crew laugh along.

Oh, how they understand their position in life. This is just a bit of fluff. It’s for the old dears that have nothing to do but wait patiently for death, innit? In fact, one could argue it’s like The Word for OAPS. A few more tits and you’d never notice the difference.

As I say though, it isn’t always like this. When the going gets fluff, the fluff get fluffier. After Carole Thatcher’s rather ill-judged comment about a black tennis player, the show piled on the fluff even more. Oh look, here comes Gyles Brandreth with an amusing story about combing squirrels. Where was Chiles’s smirking after this report? Nowhere to be seen. Having been the person who grassed Thatcher’s backstage comment to the heads of the BBC, Chiles proved he knew which side his bread was buttered on. This meant everything went back to being supersweet and inoffensive.

But now we’re back to normal and Chiles, a man once described by Stewart Lee as like ‘being stuck in the buffet car of a slow-moving train with a Toby jug that has miraculously discovered the power of speech… A Toby jug filled to the brim with hot piss’, is back to rolling his eyes and looking off camera and making sure his cheque has been signed properly.

So, imagine my surprise last night, when The One Show took five minutes out from troubles of shaving pebbles to discuss the weightier matter of censorship. In particular, the movie Kick-Ass and the now infamous line uttered by 11 year old Hit Girl, ‘Which one of you c*nts wants to die first’. If you want the full story, do a bit of searching on the net, if you want a knee jerk reactionary version of the current story, here’s a link to the Daily Mail’s article.

Intermission – I don’t want to get into the whole should an 11 year old even be saying that, but just quickly, films like City of God and the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas show children as young as 8 or 9 in severe distress and the biopic Before Night Falls, has a 12 year old child having a 30 odd year old woman simulate a blowjob on him… So, as far as I see it, it’s okay if it’s ‘artistic’ but if it’s mainstream movie then we have to follow a whole new set of badly written rules. When, oh, when, oh, when will the liberals and the lefties and the commies get it.

Back to the show…

So, there sits a very bored looking Matthew Vaughn, the director of Kick-Ass, bracing himself for the barrage of questions.

‘Do you think it’s right for this child to be saying this?’ Christine Blakely asked in a serious tone she’d learnt looking at herself in the mirror

Vaughn responded that if you read the comic book or watch the film and take what is said and done in the right context then there’s really no issue. After this, the journalistic dynamic duo of Chiles and Blakely floundered. Frost vs Nixon this was not.

Chiles managed to lose all respect by telling Matthew Vaughn that he hadn’t seen the film yet, but he’d seen a picture and it outraged him. Chiles even offered the counter-argument that you can take anything out of context which seemed more reasonable to be coming from the defence as opposed to the prosecution. Vaughn suggested Chiles watch the film and Chiles attempted to bruise Vaughn’s ego by doing his usual eyerolling. Blakeley then later admitted that she had seen the film and that she enjoyed it despite its violence. 30 seconds later, Vaughn was thanked for his time and they moved onto the topic of hot curries.

Magazine shows don’t have to be hard hitting, but neither should they be smug or self-serving. However, if you deliberately aim to be like this than you will eventually be exposed. Chiles, a man used to interviewing monosyllabic footballers and Blakely, a woman I’ve yet to find an interesting fact about, were out of their depth. There was only so much hmmmming and furrowed browing one can do before you come out as being ill-educated on the subject you’re talking about. Chiles admission that he hadn’t seen the film showed disrespect to his guest and that’s why the interview began to drown.

One can only hope that next time they want to do a hard hitting interview, they get Carol Thatcher back in and get Chiles to explain why he grassed her up to the boss. Should be a little bit more entertaining than Harry Hill talking male nappies.

Ad’s All Folks/Fan Culture will Hate Itself: New Doctor Who Trailer

Lying on the ground of Hampstead Heath, staring at the stars, in complete defiance of the traditional act of dogging normally found the Heath, the Doctor and, new non-Rose companion, Amy Pond choose their next adventure… It’s a simple start to an advert that wears its budget on its sleeve. Lots of swirly colours, floating Daleks and grinning creatures ensure that those in the audience wearing 3D glasses are in for an awe inspiring 40 seconds. Okay, so showing a 3D advert on the BBC to advertise the new series of its flagship show on a medium often associated with being quite flat did give the whole proceedings an air of watching Jaws 3D when the shark explodes, but it was still an opportunity to see more of Matt Smith as the new Doctor.

But what do the fans think? Well, not a lot really. There are already cries of it not fitting into Doctor Who continuity. A 45 year old poster has spoken on behalf of the 8-15 year old target audience decrying the trailer as nothing but tosh. So angry was he, that he had no time for spelling or grammar.

Okay: “if” Amy didn’t know who he was: why was she lying on Hampstead heath looking up at the stars with him asking him what certain stars were? Why crack the joke that all RTD critics have hated in it’s repetitiousness for the last five years? Why have a promising looking earthshock…followed by a lone dalek and some seriously out of place Weeping Angels, one of which could have got Amy because it was behind her…and as for the blue back drop…it was just a bit CBBC – now the head at the end was new and the “Smiler” was there but almost ignored…it’s not a question of arguing over it being a teaser or a trailer: it’s just being diappointed in the quality of what we were given…no extrapolations on the series can be made from it but it clearly wasn’t a good way to introduce the viewing public to MT/SM’S era in my opinion when an audience of floating viewers waiting for Lets Dance were around – looked just like the sort of CBBC trailer that airs before “Eastenders” most nights….

And thank God he did speak out against this 40 second piece of propaganda. It’s been widely known amongst the fan community that since its reboot, Doctor Who has been purposely morphed from its traditional adult themes of time travel and robot dogs, to something resembling a family show aimed squarely at everyone outside of the continuity picking bracket. As a Doctor Who fan myself, I find it tough to swallow the BBC’s incessant need to distance itself from thought provoking drama and pour money into a show that may as well be called Queer As Folk series 3. The special effects are shoddy, the acting appalling and, in some cases, it all comes across a little too cheesy and childish. The following is just a number of instances where in the last five years, Russell T Davies has pissed on the corpse of William Hartnell. I only present them here so Steven Moffett can learn from them and quickly amend any problems before the new series in March.

1)    The 2009 episode ‘Robot’ found the Doctor and his companion Sarah Jane (God when will we see the last of her!), taking on the might of a giant robot. The worse part about this whole episode are the special effects. How are we supposed to realistically accept that Sarah Jane has been kidnapped by a Robot when she’s clearly CGI. If I wanted to cry at a bunch of 1s and 0s, I’d watch fucking Avatar.

2)    Russell ran a competition on Blue Peter for one lucky winner to design a bad guy for Doctor Who. The winning result was this:

Eventually played by Alan Carr, this episode served to show that Russell had completely lost the plot.

3)    With a new doctor came a new outfit and it wasn’t long before the fans were in a fevered rage only reserved for Gary Glitter and war. The image below shows how RTD’s gay agenda was in full effect. In a style that was later dubbed ‘geek chic’, the Doctor looked every inch the kind of person who appreciates the work of Van Gogh… If you catch my meaning.

Ooh, hello Mary!

4)    Russell was well known for trying to be overtly politically correct and this was never more obvious than in this clip taken from 2005’s Talons of Weng Chiang.

Fuck off Russell, you Guardian reading ponce!

5) David Tennant’s portrayal of the Doctor took a battering over the last few years and quite rightly so. As we see in this trailer for 2007’s The Time Meddler, David chooses to portray the Doctor as a crotchety old man who fumbles his lines! A long way away from the train punching Doctor we hardcore fans have come to love. Where’s the moodiness? Where’s the darkness? We expected more! Heck, we deserved more.

6)    Another example of Russell’s need to inject his lifestyle into the show can be seen in the opening sequence. Look hard enough and you’ll see the Doctor wink. Wink, for Christ’s sake. We all know the kind of people who like to wink. The same kind of people who like to read the Daily Mail in the dark… If you catch my meaning.

7)    Finally, just when we thought it safe, RTD gave us the 10^th Doctor’s final episode. And what a mess it was. The entire thing was set on Earth, John Simm returned as the Master for what could quite possibly be the campest portrayal of the criminal genius and to add insult to injury, how did the doctor die? Not in the hail of bullets we would have all liked that’s for sure. Instead, RTD’s constant hints of ‘The Doctor falls off a satellite’ turned out to be nothing more engrossing than the Doctor falling off a satellite.

Steve, if you have any ounce of dignity, you’ll listen to the fans, take note of the points above and give us a Doctor we want. One that justifies why we argue with 16 year old kids on forums whilst our wives file for divorce.

Fan Culture Will Hate Itself: Death to the Creator

Not as bad as everyone is making out...

Fan culture is a tiresome affair sometimes. I mean that genuinely. Reading the latest batch of rumours to come through the Doctor Who filter, the same thing comes up time and time again. Someone declares their misguided idea as fact and decries Russell T Davies et al for being nothing more than idiots for not following suit. More commonly, a writer will try something new and the same ‘fan’ will try to claim that they could have handled it better then anyone at the BBC ever could.

Whilst a well meaning maniac is part and parcel of the whole sordid sci-fi affair, its grating to read these ‘fans’ claim to know more about the show than the actual creators. As if somehow sitting in your bedroom watching endless box sets and eating turkey twizzlers gives you a green card to being a show runner.

Look at Matt Smith. The forgotten Beatle has yet to have an episode air and some members of the Doctor Who community are crying for him to lynched from his spot and replaced with someone ‘old and dark’.

The reason why I bring this bile up is that I’ve just recently finished ‘And Another Thing…’ by Eoin Colfer, the sixth part of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A lot of fans have been very upset about the idea of someone other than Douglas Adams writing about the adventures of Arthur Dent. This, to me, seems  a bit unfair to Eoin and a bit generous to Douglas. Let’s be honest, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish was awful and Mostly Harmless wasn’t far off from being next to suicidal. Even Douglas Adams admitted that he could have written them better. When talking about the ending of Mostly Harmless, he’s quoted as saying:

People have said, quite rightly, that Mostly Harmless is a very bleak book. And it was a bleak book. I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note.

But, no, there are those supposed fans who feel the need to talk for all of us. They hated the book and, in the case of one particular blogger, started a hate campaign before they had even read it.

For me, whilst some of the language was a tad cruder than expected, it was enlightening to see that Zaphod Beeblbrox had one head. This was something that happened in the movie too. Sam Rockwell played the Big Zee as mono-cranium. Oh, how the fans cried out! What was happening here! Why would someone do this! Where was this one you called God now!

The movie makers tried their best to deflect the blows and point out that most the script was taken from ideas by the big DA himself. And yet the ‘fans’ cried foul and took their ball home refusing to play.

Now, here, in this new book, Zaphod has one head and, once again, the ‘fans’ are upset and the publishers etc are telling them that the ideas are form Douglas’s notes.

To be honest, I like my Zaphod to have two heads but when two different types of media crop up both claiming to be based on the scribblings of the original author, I’m happy to put my hand up and say ‘fair enough’ and ‘why not?’. Is it that difficult for some ‘fans’ to think that the original creator of the show might have a better idea of what direction he wants his creations to go in than, say, the spotty goit forever furrowing his brow and banging his fists against a keyboard in sheer blind anger because the Doctor isn’t dark enough.

No doubt when David Tennant hangs up his converse at the beginning of next year, there will be a division of opinion and, in some cases, even a sigh of relief. However, amongst the chatter of like minded fans, there will be that lone beacon of pouting, sulking  and megalomania and when that voice rises, we must be to do the only grown up and sensible thing we can do. We must stick our fingers in our ears and go la la la. And if that’s not grown up, we could teach them how to put their anger to better use.

Tardis Interior

Those of you who visit Blogtor Who regularly will already be aware that someone has braved the rabid dogs of set security and obtained a few pictures of the brand spanking new Tardis interior. The images in question can be found by clicking here.

Those of you who don’t visit Blogtor Who regularly may not be aware that someone has braved the rabid dogs of set security and obtained a few pictures of the brand spanking new Tardis interior. The images in question can be found by clicking here.

For me, there’s not much to say. After all the hype that it would be bringing back the old skool days of this:

I can’t help but feel it’s exactly the same as last series, but with a staircase… Still, it’s got me intrigued.

Oh and apparently there’s some christmas specials this year with the Tenth Doctor, but I don’t think anyone is that bothered.

How to start an internet meme and not be Kanye West

1) Be a furry.

2) Write a somewhat dubious story about Pokemon sex. Have it end up on Topless Robot as part of his Fan Fiction Friday. Click here for that. Please note: Said story is completely NSFW.

3) Upon discovering the story send an email to said website declaring yourself to be an amazing author. Make sure it’s badly written and starts off with WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS!

WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS? I wanna know whose idea was this RIGHT NOW. Who did this on purpose, huh? I found this little secret and I’m so angry I wanna know who did this and why or I’ll report everyone here to the site moderaters on this website and Yiffstar and have the one responsible BANNED FOR LIFE. NOW TELL ME WHO DID THIS NOW?

This will then lead to things like this:

and this:

CONGRATULATIONS! You will now have a meme sweeping the internet. At last count there were over 83 million hits on Google.com.

Epilogue: If you get chance, threaten to ban everyone from the site you usually write for. This will make sure the meme spreads further and gets talked about on little blogs like this. Click here for that.

Now, take a deep breath and answer me:

WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS!

Maybe, even, someone will even write a song.

*Author’s Note: I hope no one from Topless Robot minds me stealing these images. Just had to do my bit and spread the word.*