Gabba Gabba what?

[davidn]

Among the stranger things that my brother found while out in Boston was this horrifying striped apparition, which he planned to give to his friend as a birthday present - I hope that the two foot high grinning monstrosity survived being crammed into his suitcase. It's from a psychedelic children's programme called Yo Gabba Gabba, which is apparently a bit of a phenomenon among university students now, perhaps this undergraduate generation's Boohbah. And I thought that that and things I grew up with like Bagpuss were a bit weird, but the Americans seem to have outdone us all this time.

As an attempt at explanation, he got me to watch a segment of Charlie Brooker's TV commentary programme "Screenwipe". e_to_the_ipi had been trying to get me to watch this for some time - this man used to write for PC Zone and was apparently the inspiration behind Ben Croshaw's entire persona on Zero Punctuation (and you can really hear the resemblance), therefore tying together separate elements of the past and present of my life. I've been exploring more of his videos, and he also has a wonderful commentary on an awful bit of televisual garbage called "Sweet Sixteen" that I was subjected to one afternoon - this very neatly illustrates why the British don't like the Americans in general, because we only see them through television like this!

Also available is a video of Elijah Wood having been transported into this multicoloured nightmare and forced to dance with its inhabitants, which seems to have proved extremely popular - but personally I still can't get that stupid "I like fish" song out of my head and I blame him entirely for it.

Comments

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

WAT

NO, SERIOUSLY, WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

I think I managed three or four of those during the viewing of these links; I'm not sure, I lost count about the time my brain committed seppuku and impaled itself on my spinal column while watching the "sweet" 16 video. Good frickin' grief.

You are right, though, you really can see the similarity between Charlie Brooker and Ben Croshaw's reviews. Not just the style, their voices are eerily similar. If Charlie Brooker ever reveals a fondness for trilby hats I shall be forced to come up with a conspiracy theory to show that they're the same person. :P

D.F.

[kibet.livejournal.com]

We just had Charlie Brooker's "You have been watching" show finish. It is just him and a panel ripping apart TV shows. Youtube has some.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

You should check out Brooker's columns on the Guardian, they're excellent reading. He seems to be getting more out; after his spin-off Newswipe, which was excellent he's got a Gameswipe special around Christmas, which I imagine will be right up your street.

He also has a bizarre show on C4. "You Have Been Watching." I went to one of the filmings. While entertaining, it's horribly misconceived. It attempts to be a panel game combined with a TV discussion group, along with quite a lot of Screenwipe style rants and commentary pieces from Brooker. It oddly ends up feeling like the entirity of the show is nailed on, and the discussion angle needs a chance to breathe. It would benefit hugely from an extra five-ten minutes running time. Fundamentally flawed format, I think. Did teach me Frankie Boyle is excellent when live and spontaneous, though.

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

I completely missed the existence of "You Have Been Watching", which sounds like a terrible oversight on my part, since I really enjoyed Screenwipe (which my last flatmate and I discovered by accident when we were ripping the piss out of BBC 4 one evening, and then BBC 4 started ripping the piss right back). Anyway, his Grauniad Column (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker) is another great source of the misanthropic vitriol we know and love.

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether I'm more disturbed by Elijah Wood's dancing or his attempts at facial hair.

[bonappetite.livejournal.com]

That's the first time I have ever seen Yo Gabba Gabba.

That show is going to give me nightmares.

And this is for children? I used to watch Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers.

[davidn]

I frequently say that it is a shame that the drawn animation or stop-motion in children's programmes that we grew up with has been largely replaced with... really weird angular styles or 3D renders (or Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds-like insanity like this). But I saw that Disney is at least experimenting with going back to their old drawn style for their somethingth anniversary.