Look Around You

Serafinowicz, Peter, and Robert Popper. "Maths." Look Around You. Adult Swim/BBC 2.

Look Around You is a British produced show that originally aired in 2004. It recently ran on Adult Swim in 2009. There are two distinct seasons to the series. The first season parodies 70's high school science program while the second season parodies 90's TV about science of the future. The episode Math however is part of the first season of 11 minute episodes. The show makes fun of how boring science programs are; using a very dry narrator, poor camera work, and uninteresting experiments. The crux of the humor however comes from the breaking of reality. The show presents itself as an old 70's with poor film, yet computer animation is used unexpectedly to defy reality. The show also goes against our normal conceptions of science and language. Its the breaking of our conceptions that can make this show really a hit or miss type of comedy. The only way a person will find it funny is if they have a large enough background with science and those types of programs. The comedy is very dry because of the way the jokes are presented. It's not like there are specific one line jokes, but rather that the program taken as a whole is inherently funny because of the discrepancy between what the program is saying and what actual science states.

Here is the episode "Maths"

Are Reality Shows Setting Unrealistic Standards For Skanks?

The Onion parodies newscasts by professional stations. This newscast has all the appearances of being professional—epic sounding audio track, use of large vocabulary, and all—but the content is ridiculous. In this segment they discuss the effects on skanks when they are barraged with TV images of extremely skanky behavior, as supported by a made-up study. The academic tone of the show and the regal panel of five hosts give the subject of “skankiness” mock significance. The Onion Network with its tagline, “Making You Seem Better Informed”, makes a statement about the absurdity of what the media covers at times, and society’s obsession with TV sex and superficial culture. The episode might also be commenting on newscasters themselves (because of the choice of ending in a brawl) for being the implementers of nonsense news and covering it up with jargon.

“Are Reality Shows Setting Unrealistic Standards For Skanks?” The Onion. Ed. Joe Randazzo. Onion News Network. 5 Feb. 2009. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE3gWZk4AEo&feature=dir>.

The Catherine Tate Show: Did You Hear about Our John?

The Catherine Tate Show was a multiple award-winning television sketch comedy program created by and starring Irish Comedian Catherine Tate that ran for three series (seasons) on BBC Two from 2004 to 2007. The program primarily deals with situations in everyday life. Recurring characters in the series include Lauren Cooper, a typical "punk" teenage girl, and Joannie "Nan" Taylor, an Irish grandmother who often swears and criticizes those around her. This particular clip deals with a smaller character, John Reilly, and his mother. John is a teenager in Northern Ireland, who decides that it is finally time for him to "come out of the closet." He comes out to his mother, expecting her to reject him, or worse, throw him out of the house. To his surprise, she accepts him fully, perhaps even a little too enthusiastically. The rest of the skits that deal with the story show how much John's mother tries to accept him. This particular skit deals with two subjects in identity politics, specifically, sexual identity. First of all, it makes fun of the fear that many gays and lesbians may have about coming out in this day and age, while also poking fun at a sort of "sympathetic homophobia" that some people may have (i.e. they attempt to hide their homophobia by attempting to treat those they subconsciously don't accept nicely through stereotypes).

Tate, Catherine, prod. The Catherine Tate Show. BBC Two. 26 Oct. 2006. YouTube. 11 Jan. 2008. 31 Mar. 2009.

Xavier: Renegade Angel

Xavier: Renegade Angel is a 15 min show on Adult Swim. Its first airing was November 2, 2007. Adult Swim is currently airing the second season.

Xavier: Renegade Angel's loose story line is that Xavier, who is a grotesque creature that is the combination of a man, a snake, a bird, and maybe a monkey, is traveling through the desert in search of the meaning of life. The show is very random in nature with odd characters appearing and crazy flashbacks happening consistently. The show's humor comes mainly from altering reality, which it can do easily through its use of computer animation. This "altering of reality" comes from Xavier travels through space and time. He is goes forward and backward in time, seeing things in his own past while also witnessing things like the destruction of Earth. His time travel is sometimes explained, but most of the time is not. These random jumps in time provide humor because the audience is never really sure where Xavier is going to end up and whether what they are seeing is real or not. Xavier also breaks the audiences normal perception of space; leaving our normal sense of reality in favor of abstract worlds that are far removed from any part of human existence. An example of this removal from human existence can be seen in the following clip.

For context, in this episode Xavier is stuck in a circular room with different colored doors, each one transporting him to an abstract place. That clip leads to my next point about how Xavier provides humor. At its core Xavier is a show about philosophy and religion, and that clip, along with many others throughout the series, touch on the belief in God and the search for some purpose in existence. The clip can be taken on the surface to be making fun of belief in God, but more importantly is the way it conveys religion as a viewpoint that is black and white. When asked the question "do you believe in God?" Xavier goes into his own views on existence and a higher power. The bar-code man is there to represent religion(from what I can tell the Judaic God) with the belief of God being either yes or no. Xavier on the other hand takes the role of philosophy, not only questioning the belief in God but going as far as questioning belief itself. I think the humor comes from showing how narrow minded religion can be while also highlighting how abstract philosophy can become. Bringing up philosophical questions is a common theme in Xavier and contributes greatly to its abstract humor. But Xavier: Renegade Angel's humor is not always so abstract in nature. The show also touches on the cultural issues of race, religion, and sexuality. The following clip touches on all these issues. On a side note, this show is made by the same people who did Wonder Showzen on MTV2; the following clip is very reminiscent of Wonder Showzen in its use of race, religion, and sexuality.

30 Rock

This half-hour program, created by and starring SNL alum Tina Fey, pokes fun at the NBC, the network on which it airs Thursday nights. Debuting side-by-side with other patently NBC comedies, such as The Office and My Name is Earl, 30 Rock is aimed at the 16-30 age bracket, who are most familiar with the TV/Movie industries and the celebrities they produce. The sitcom revolves around the staff, crew and stars of "The Tracy Jordan Show," led by off-beat manager Liz Lemon (Fey). But this comedy is not about the making of a television show, it merely uses the fictitious program as a means to tie each character's personal story together. Lemon regularly has to contend with the attitudes and egos of TGS stars Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) and Jenna Moroney (Jane Krakowski). The show is a critique of the modern celebrity in many ways, as recent episodes have been driven by the the problems these two actos cause, ranging from contract disputes to disastrous TV appearances to on-set rivalries. Jenna especially reminds us of the female startlet/bimbo types who dominate tabloid covers and celebrity gossip. 30 Rock is a counter to this culture, pointing out flaws in the cult of celebrity and self-obsession. Time and time again, Lemon is depicted as a heroine, the only character in the show who bothers to share with and care for others, two virtues that Hollywood has lost in the past.