Knife Writer

Sorry the show is late. We were up till 3am editing this morning, but then brains didn't really work, and it's taken us longer than expected to join the dots etc. But as an apology, and a celebration of all that's good, please watch this video. I have a burning desire to dance like this. Charleston = better than breakdancing, but similar.

I was pondering the other day just how weird it is that Jelly Babies are a sweet and that people happily eat them without thinking 'yes, this is weird'. Anyway, perhaps even stranger is this clip from a Japanese kids' TV Show from the 60s, where three monsters kidnap, throw and harrass a baby octopus.

Yes yes, we are reliant upon Adam Buxton for our dose of funny AGAIN. But who could resist this one? Buxton makes use of News 24 with a very good idea.

Children's TV has a long history of subtly slipping 'adult' content in to their programmes. But there's nothing subtle, but everything long, about this clip. It's from Telly Tubbies. Keep Away Kids!

When I stole lingerie I had the decency to own up to it. This man from Northern Ireland, however, claims that when he brandished a japanese sword and took two sets of bras, knickers, suspender belts and stockings, he was actually playing the character of a dwarf-girl called Beho. Beho wanted the clothes. What would he have wanted with them?

At last! A dog with a comedy name gets the recognition he deserves. Although maybe the years of name calling have given 'Fabulous Willy' his sad, sad eyes. (Telegraph)

At its best, rap is poetry; at its worst, merely vain repetition.

Just like in our next clip.

Eurgh. We have had to delay this week's Knife for a number of reasons out of our control (not global warming). Sorry. Tim had to have a meeting with Channel4 which took up time and put a spanner in our usually very well oiled works.
Anyway, we've written the script etc, and one man who is going to feature quite heavily is Steve Sutton. He's the creator of a very deadpan animation called 'Clover Beach' which I like very much. It revolves around a boy called Corey, who's just moved in to the Clover Beach neighbourhood. In this episode, Corey has his first History lesson:

Steve is a little less colourful on screen than his creations. Here he is, for example, explaining his decision to 'open up' the show to other voice artists:

I will be penning a request myself.

Some people just love to talk and some love to talk faster than others. All others. Dunno what the hell this guy's saying but I can only assume his audience does because they bloody love it.

And who knows who's meant to be the audience for this fast-paced run-down of the books of the Bible. Just remember the faster you say them, the more God will love you.

Our beatboxing obsession continues and heads into continental Europe where a young gentleman impresses the panel on La Nouvelle Star (kinda like Pop/American Idol for the French) with some bon beats. Whether, and indeed how, he's going to perform all his songs in the later stages is unclear.

Poor old Norfolk has taken a bit of a bashing recently, what with the Bernard Matthews bird flu scandal n'all, so here's something for Norfolk to celebrate - a badly cobbled together CGI newscaster who reads the local news. Bootiful.

Oh gosh. The neutral news is: we're awaiting to hear back to see if E4 still want us. They liked the pilots, and I don't think they were just being nice, but now they've gotta make a decision. Jeez. The bad news is: contrary to what I said last week, we're NOT making a show this week! Sorry! We figured that we should probably spend our time working out what the hell to do with our lives if soon we're out of a job. One idea involves this man:

I'm kind of 'internet-friends' with Luke already. He wrote the 1970s classic book "The Dice Man", and he's agreed to be involved in a little project that we're working on at the moment. I think we'll release it in to the world sometime next week...and ALL OF YOU must be involved too. Watch this space (or one of the spaces above this blog post. And don't watch all the time, as that will probably get a bit boring).

Well well. It's come to our attention that the Super Mario Bros theme tune has proper lyrics, and in this clip coming up, the Nintendo Big Band + singer, conjure the whole thing up. It's in Japanese. But there are lyrics in Engrish below so you can appreciate it on another level. But one level is probably sufficient.
Go Go Mario

Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
Go save Princess Peach! Go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!

Get a mushroom - it's Super Mario!
Get a flower - it's Fire Mario!

Goomba! Troopa! Buzzy Beetle! Beat them all!
Mario is always full of energy and strong!

[Spoken] The only one who can reverse the spell that has captured the Mushroom People is Princess Peach. But Princess Peach is hidden underground, in a far-off castle. Ah, the days of peace... if we could once more return to those days... to save Princess Peach and bring peace back to the Mushroom Kingdom, that is why Mario is on his journey today.

Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
Go and beat the Koopa tribe, go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!

Get a star - become invincible!
Quickly, go save Princess Peach!

Lakitu! Blooper! Cheep Cheep! Beat them all!
Mario is always full of energy and strong!

Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
He's made it to the castle and gets fireworks!
Lightly sidestepping the Hammer Bros.
Show the last of your power, Mario!
It's been a long journey but it's nearly at an end
You've done it, you've done it! You've defeated Bowser!

Princess Peach says "Thank you"
Mario's got a great big heart!

Mario's adventure is over for now, but
Mario's dream lives forever...

Just some people I met once when I went walking for a very long time. The first guy just said that a big lorry was coming:

The second guy performed a poem for me:

Youtube are handing out awards for the most creative/funny/inspirational etc videos this year. The closing date is in two days or something. Thisisaknife has not been nominated in any way. But these funny videos have. I think youtube hates us. Never mind. Vote! If you feel like it.

An amazing page is to be found here. Basically, a whole load of sexual innuendos and other such rudeness in comics which are only sexual innuendos and other such rudeness thanks to the passage of time. Number nine is my favourite.

Have you uncontrollably cheated on your loved one? Don't fret! Use your evil for good, and offset your naughty ways by paying someone else to not be as terrible a person as you.

"Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience."

Annoying. Worse even, as it's actually been designed to point out the problems with carbon offsetting. Like... if you could just pay for someone else not to cheat (IE. USE CAR)... wouldn't you just do it anyway (IE. USE CAR)... causing... like... a whole lot of pain (DEATH OF WORLD)? Why can't anyone have fun for no reason anymore?

Well, to be fair, it's a neat analogy. But I'm still annoyed.

Something really did strike me with a heavy blow a few moments ago when I was reading an article about Dolly the Sheep (July 5, 1996 – February 14, 2003) - the first 'cloned' animal. Basically, it's just a little bit frightening how much Dolly resembles her 'creator', a Professor Ian Wilmut. Did Ian play more of an intimate role in Dolly's creation than he is willing to admit?

Dolly:

Ian:

For no other reason than it'd needed doing and will be a cheap laugh, je te presente Dolly Wilmut, poorly rendered putative off-spring of sheep and sheep-lover.

It's a little known fact that I first met young producer Tim when we both went to see the Chuckle Brothers at our local theatre. Needless to say, we bonded over their simple humour and plain lack of showbiz polish.

So it was with pleasure that I came across this video of them performing in the 70s on YouTube; and with disbelief that I found that their material was exactly the same as when Tim and I had seen them all the way back in 2002.

My friend Oscar just sent me this picture, with no explanation whatsoever. I think that's what makes it funny. I wonder what type of biscuit you might dunk in to a cup of tea that had brewed inside Hitler's head?

That's right. After ten months up on his roof, old 'Rick on the Roof' (who we featured way back in July in a show which I have embedded for your convenience just below)...

..has been forced to appear in front of a judge, who told him that he's lgot to go to jail now for 6 months. I hate to say it (and I don't really mean it) but at least it doesn't rain in prison.

A little something now to follow up on that entry of yesterday about Dolly the Sheep and how she resembles her creator, Professor Ian Wilmut.

Well our dear friend Chris Avila turned our attention to the real life, no-joke, fact that scientists are creating HUMAN-SHEEP hybrids. So maybe Wilmut did genuinely involve himself with Dolly's 'mother'. Hmm. It's all very confusing. Kind of on the same subject, a few weeks ago, the Daily Mail had a front page headline declaring something like "Scientists Create Human Rice". Online, the headline was toned down a bit, and is far less funny. But read the story if you have a hunger to find out. I might pressure the UK Government to usher in a much needed Universal Declaration of Human Rice.

Saw this man play the bagpipes this morning, just after I had drunk some tea. I enjoyed it. It's here if you want to pleasure yourself with it.

It's not that amazing, I know. Although I like the sound of such pipes.
The scene reminded me a bit of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, where all these bodiless people in armour march on to the hillside.
I couldn't find that scene on YouTube. But I found this one, below. And it's an Italian translation. Amazing.

But actually 4 minutes and 50 seconds in, there is some bagpiping. Good.

I've decided that it's about time I got a haircut.

So I've set up a free haircut from the hands of a trainee at Vidal Sassoon. I'm going to bring in a photo to let them know how I'd like my hair done. So far, these are the suggestions from friends of mine:

OPTION 1 (Tim's suggestion)

OPTION 2 (Tim's suggestion)

OPTION 3 (Oscar's suggestion)

OPTION 4 (Nathan's suggestion)

OPTION 5 (Nathan's suggestion)

OPTION 6 (Will's suggestion)

Let me know which you would like to go for. The size of the photo has nothing to do with how I personally rate them. Please send in any more photo suggestions to knife@worldofwonder.co.uk. Thankyou.

What do you do when your dog has a mild medical condition? You write a song about it! Of course.

Perhaps the best thing about this is the fact that the dog is called Charles.

Yes yes it was in the newspaper yesterday cos my cousin said so. But even so, here it is in reality. A man who skiied down the escalator at Angel tube station (the longest in Europe I think).

And then here's something else that a boy called Dan did at Angel tube. Not quite as impressive, but I like it:

A few more GREAT haircut suggestions. These two are from Chelsea (she's American. Not in London).
CHELSEA OPTION 1:

CHELSEA OPTION 2:

And then Mr Chris Avila suggested this one. I didn't realise Sadam had his head cut - I mean hair cut, like that.
AVILA OPTION:

What do you reckon?

Our good friend Matt has just started doing something in the style of Alan Bennett. Matthew began purely with the thought of how Alan Bennett would deal with a world of podcasts, vlogs and headphones, and concluded that of course he would do some sort of online diary. Here is the first instalment:

Interesting. Do you remember a blog post a while ago which featured quite possibly one of the funniest things I have ever seen? Well here it is. And here below is a video of some of the highlights. For those not in the know, it features Dean Gaffney, former Eastenders star, appearing in "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here". He's taking part in the inaugral BushTucker trial.

Incredible. Anyway, it tells us in the Mirror that Dean Gaffney is answering your calls on his mobile phone today, between NOW and 2.30pm. Please please please give him a call. Scare him, maybe. Apparently a TV Channel is making a show about this. Seems like a bit of a copy of Ring My Bell to me.
Gaffney's number is: 07935 939 943.
Phone him! And let us know how it goes.

Here he is saying goodbye to Jack Straw in the House of Commons, just following Gordon Brown's Budget Speech:

And here is Mr Deputy Speaker urging the House to give Mr Cameron a bit of respect and not raise their voices so much. I think this Deputy Speaker character is a comedy genius about to smash through our screens. A bit like a Demon Headmaster with a splattering of campness. Look out also for the disembodied head in the bottom right hand corner of the screen about mid-way in to the clip.

Following the hype about Ribena recently, Tim decided to drink some today. He's got a cold though, so I'm not sure why he didn't order an orange juice. He did actually buy some orange juice later. Anyway, we noticed on the back of his carton, that you could phone Ribena 'just for a chat'. "We'd love to hear from you!", the carton said. And their website says something pretty similar too: "BURSTING TO TELL US SOMETHING? - or just fancy a chat?"
Well, I did. So I gave Ribena a call on 0800 096 3666, and here is what happened:

This is from a post match interview of Luton FC's last game of 1981-2, where they managed to stay up in the First Division, thanks to a late goal by Raddy Antic. Watch this interview, and enjoy the background chuckles. But in particular, 3 very different men's voices. Raddy Antic especially is something to behold (ears-wise).

My oh my, a lot of blog posts today. I'm signing off. Night night.