Pet Shop Boys Community

Did you see Gervais interviewing Garry Shandling? That was probably the most excruciating hour of television I've ever seen.

Yeah, it was quite painful to watch in places. I'm not sure if it was deliberately so, but from memory I don't remember it being particularly easy to watch.

Although I quite like Extras, more so the first series than the rather overindulgent second series, it is essentially a poor man's Larry Sanders.

Yeah. "Extras" had some high points, but that hour-long finale was so bleak and depressing, despite the tacked-on happy ending.

"Larry Sanders" really was a gem, quietly breaking ground that Ricky Gervais really did mine and exploit (and good for him).

It's all comedy at a very high and sophisticated level: you gotta appreciate that. On the other hand, it's funny to me that in real life, some of the very best comic actors and writers are known to be insufferable pricks. Shandling, Seinfeld, Mike Myers, and now Gervais- they are always described as demanding divas when he cameras aren't rolling, and rather depressed people by temperament.

I'm not criticizing, just observing aloud. I think it may have to do with the immense humiliation comics have to endure when they're unknown- the shitty bars they play, the drunken hecklers, the dispespect they get. I don't think they ever fully get over that, even after they become successful.
It's a very tough career, that of a comic actor.

This could probably be another post or a whole essay, but: I must declare that the very best of American comedy is essentially Jewish comedy. From Woody Allen to Shandling to Larry David to Seinfeld. A great deal of Jewish thought and philosophy has to do with morality and ethics.

And so much of the brilliant humor of these guys comes from them trying to selfishly evade the responsibilities and ethics they were taught. Do I really have to call that guy back? Do I really have to donate a kidney? How can I get out of this? How nice do I have to seem to be?

The tension between ethics and morality, between doing the right thing and doing what the individual wants, is the secret heart of their comedy, I think. And of course the obligations are outsized and ludicrous: that's where the comic tension kicks in.

Woody Allen alone has taken this to an amazing level. His very best "serious" movies are meditations on fate versus action, and the morality of selfishness. "Crimes and Misdemeanors" comes to mind.

I'm not Jewish, Roman here, but I do truly appreciate the highly verbal and stylized patterns of classic American (Jewish) comedy, that Gervais has brilliantly adapted-not always, but close enough.

I love extras. I just think that the focus on him being an extra was inferior to the other season where he actually got a hit show. it got alot more brighter and funnier.

there was more comedy to be had now that he had a show and was getting touched by fame rather than him playing an extra in various different movies even though that was the initial plot.

I mean that award show segment with the talking doll that wouldnt stop "are you having a laugh,is he having a laugh?"was another in a long line of Gervais classic moments.

as far as shandling, his previous show was just an awesome show, but even though I havent seeen that interview, everytime I've seen him on a interview show he is sooooooooooo dry its painful to watch.

anyone that doesnt laugh at the fizzy water scene needs looking at.... thats what i say ...

yes! "that was unlucky" hilarious!

I have to pay attention to this series!