Looks like I'm in for an easy posting week: Jon's got a bunch of comedians (and Scorcese), and Stephen's going with a bunch of Olympic athletes.
Ricky Gervais is back with Jon tonight. His current HBO show (deftly named The Ricky Gervais Show) is an animated podcast. Seriously. 13 episodes worth of animated podcast, on pay-extra-for-it TV. The material's also available in audiobook & actual tangible CD.
Consensus on the animation is pretty much "meh," ranging from pointless to detracts from the humor. But since you'll probably be 'watching' while blogging (or gaming, whatever), I suppose the "heh" of seeing Gervais drawn sorta like Fred Flinstone might equal things out. And some had no problems with the animation -- the NYTimes waxed philosophical, seeing it as "essentially a radio show transposed to television, much like the early comedy shows of Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle:"
The podcast is the ultimate symbol of modernity, a hipster alternative to the creaky, top-down formalism of conventional television. So it’s piquant, to say the least, that "The Ricky Gervais Show," a new animated series which begins on HBO on Friday, echoes the early days of radio and television.
These absurd and funny cartoon sketches are podcasts reworked for premium cable. They are described as "pointless conversations" and the riffs, musings and improvisational give-and-take recall in cruder form the routines of Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and George Burns and Gracie Allen....
Jon usually has fun with these interviews.
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