HIGNFY

bluebellnutter · **Posted:** Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:09 pm

Two things.

1. Merton never (or at least very rarely) turns to the crowd and basically encourages them to laugh at his joke.
2. Hislop isn't a comedian. He's a magazine editor, and has been from the moment HIGNFY started.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:13 pm

Substantial agreement with Nutter. Shitslop not actually a comedian. Merton very much so.

oboogie · **Posted:** Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:14 pm

1) I must be watching a different show because I see Merton do it frequently - that isn't a criticism, most comedians do it.
2) Agreed. Hislop is not a comedian who said he was?

oboogie · **Posted:** Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:18 pm

Abernathy wrote:

Substantial agreement with Nutter. Shitslop not actually a comedian. Merton very much so.

Agreed. Hislop is not, and as far as I know never has been, a comedian. His main job is editing a magazine.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:20 pm

oboogie wrote:

Yes I prefer it when he attacks the Tories because that fits with my prejudice but it would have looked very odd it he hadn't laid into Brown, Blair et al.

Well,yes, you're right. I just wish he'd done a better job than just idly parroting DM shit. It gave the impression of genuine antipathy on the part of Hislop to the left, which really cannot be right. Plus of course, Armsteen's point on the cynicism is bang on.

oboogie · **Posted:** Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:33 pm

Oh I agree about the cynicism and the MMR debacle was a terrible mistake, far from unique to Private Eye of course.
But I think that, on balance Private Eye is a force for good. They carry out a lot of proper investigative journalism and are often first with the news of scandal which is later picked up by the papers. I don't particularly like Hislop and frequently he annoys me with his smugness, but I certainly don't hate him, there are better targets for my hatred. I can't think of anyone who could fill his shoes on HIGNFY.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:44 pm

oboogie wrote:

Oh I agree about the cynicism and the MMR debacle was a terrible mistake, far from unique to Private Eye of course.
But I think that, on balance Private Eye is a force for good. They carry out a lot of proper investigative journalism and are often first with the news of scandal which is later picked up by the papers. I don't particularly like Hislop and frequently he annoys me with his smugness, but I certainly don't hate him, there are better targets for my hatred.

Nul disagreement.

Quote:

can't think of anyone who could fill his shoes on HIGNFY.

Not so sure about that. Lee Mack could do a much better job than Hislop, as could David Mitchell. Or Jo Brand, though I'd prefer her as host. Or even someone like Rich Hall or Andy Hamilton. Or Count Arthur Strong. :wink:

dailyheil · **Joined:** Mon Dec 06, 2010 7:39 pm **Posts:** 1017

or brooker

mojojojo · **Joined:** Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:33 pm **Posts:** 4311

Abernathy wrote:

oboogie wrote:

Oh I agree about the cynicism and the MMR debacle was a terrible mistake, far from unique to Private Eye of course.
But I think that, on balance Private Eye is a force for good. They carry out a lot of proper investigative journalism and are often first with the news of scandal which is later picked up by the papers. I don't particularly like Hislop and frequently he annoys me with his smugness, but I certainly don't hate him, there are better targets for my hatred.

Nul disagreement.

Quote:

can't think of anyone who could fill his shoes on HIGNFY.

Not so sure about that. Lee Mack could do a much better job than Hislop, as could David Mitchell. Or Jo Brand, though I'd prefer her as host. Or even someone like Rich Hall or Andy Hamilton. Or Count Arthur Strong. :wink:

Lee Mack??? Agree with all the others though - particularly the last one!

oboogie · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 12:09 am

Abernathy wrote:

oboogie wrote:

Quote:

can't think of anyone who could fill his shoes on HIGNFY.

Not so sure about that. Lee Mack could do a much better job than Hislop, as could David Mitchell. Or Jo Brand, though I'd prefer her as host. Or even someone like Rich Hall or Andy Hamilton. Or Count Arthur Strong. :wink:

It would be a different show with any of those though and no better than Mock The Week or any of the other satire shows which came along in the wake of HIGNFY's success. Why it works so well is because you have Merton for the silly and surreal but essentially inoffensive and harmless and Hislop to be more acidic and biting. Also, through his jounrnalism he can provide detailed smack downs when required. You need the balance of the two elements. None of the people you mention have that knowledge except possibly Andy Hamilton a bit, he's fairly good on the News Quiz.

Count Arthur Strong is probably the most annoying man I have ever heard in my life. I've sat through his radio show a couple of times and never laughed once. If he ever appeared on HIGNFY I wouldn't watch, I'd rather stick needles in my eyes.

Fozzy · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 12:14 pm

There's subtly playing to the gallery which Merton does, and there's turning to them practically holding a sign up saying "Aren't I clever?" which Hislop does. I also get really irritated by that trick of turning his head right over his shoulder and looking upwards when he's saying something cynical.

Arnold · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 1:07 pm

Malcolm Armsteen wrote:

on the grounds that Shitslop so despised Tony Blair that he automatically assumed that the opposite of any government statement was true

Blair's refusal in 2001 to say if Leo had had the MMR jab, probably resulted in people being influenced many other people not having their children given it too. Given the New Age nutters they associated with, it seemed entirely believable that Leo hadn't had it.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 1:09 pm

I think Leo had actually had the jab, though - Blair (correctly, in my view) simply refused to answer a question about it because it was nobody's business but his family's.

Arnold · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 1:17 pm

Abernathy wrote:

I think Leo had actually had the jab, though - Blair (correctly, in my view) simply refused to answer a question about it because it was nobody's business but his family's.

I think there was more at stake here than his son's privacy, when he must have known that many many would have drawn the wrong conclusion. And his wife had little concern for their privacy several years later.
http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

Quote:

But the biggest public health disaster of all – which everyone misses – was a sweet little baby called Leo. In December 2001 the Blairs were asked if their infant son had been given the MMR vaccine, and refused to answer, on the grounds that this would invade their child’s right to privacy. This stance was not entirely unreasonable, but its validity was somewhat undermined by Cherie Blair when she chose to reveal Leo’s vaccination history, in the process of promoting her autobiography, and also described the specific act of sexual intercourse which conceived him.

Andy McDandy · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 1:47 pm

I contributed heavily to the last HIGNFY thread, and made a number of points about it. Not having seen the latest show (thank Bog for iPlayer), I'll reiterate them (rephrased) now.

The comments were made during the series that ran over the 2010 election campaign. Please bear this in mind.

1. The show suffers from the delay between recording and broadcast. In the 2010 series, it was recorded on a Thursday, the same night as the electoral debates. This meant that anything happening in the debates (that understandably dominated the news) could not be commented on until the next week's show, by which time it was hopelessly out of date.

2. There was a real sense of desperation in the guests. Usually the makeup has been Hislop with comedian/ballast, Merton with journo/'good bloke' MP/stooge. It seemed apparent that some shows, they seemed to have just grabbed whoever was hanging around the BBC canteen that evening. David Threlfall, Claire Balding - what did they add?

3. Increasing reliance on standard gags - Charles Kennedy skittles, Kilroy share or shaft, Prescott is fat, Boris is silly etc. OK, this is something that plagues both magazines such as Private Eye (Andrew Neil photo, Ugandan discussions etc) and even this forum, but it smacks of tiredness and cosiness with the establishment that takes the bite out of the satire. If Prescott turns up and laughs along with the 'Prescott is fat' gags, then what's the point?

4. Hislop and Merton are both falling back increasingly on tired schticks for cheap laughs/points. Hislop does his head-jerk and meerkat impersonation when claiming moral outrage. Merton is a little better but does tend to fall back on resurrecting the surreal (and often failed) gag from 10 miinutes ago.

5. The car crash moments. Ross Noble going off on one. Nigel Farage happily playing the stooge for most of an episode before launching into a spectacularly misinformed, mistimed and ill-received rant 3 minutes before the end.

6. Guest presenters fall into one of two camps - the 'safe pair of hands' team (Dee, Armstrong, Young etc) and the 'gimmicks'. In the latter camp, the entire point seems to get cheap laughs out of sending up the presenter's regular job or image. Or you get Brian Blessed.

My suggestion:

Overhaul it. Replace Hislop/Merton with Brooker/Bailey. Revert to the format of Serious/Comedian on each side. David Mitchell as regular host. Get rid of all the 'And finally...' crap sight gags of people falling over. Stop the stooge element. If the guy you're laying into is sitting there chuckling along, it stops being satire and turns into a celebrity roast.

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