Fancy endless scientific-ish theories about how comedy works? Well, either eavesdrop on me in writers’ room meetings where there’s a weary producer and something more pressing to discuss, or BUY THIS BOOK, which is probably more convenient for everyone…
Follow
Click to Follow gralefrit
Joel Morris
@gralefrit
Writer & highwayman United Agents (TV, film, radio, games) Johnson & Alcock (books) Podcast: Comfort Blanket gralefrit.weebly.com @joelmorris@mas.to
pod.link/1614879928Joined March 2009
Joel Morris’s Tweets
*CREATIVES*: Please respond to this and help shape this incredibly timely Government debate on AI. It could not be more important:
24
24
Remember proposing at the time that the perfect Edinburgh show would be the story of Nasty Nick Bateman from Big Brother 1, performed from verbatim transcripts, as if it was by David Mamet.
Show this thread
I’m not saying that social media is inherently witch-hunty but I just set off Facebook’s automated caution-do-you-want-to-delete-your-comment community standards alert by discussing a witch trial from 1582.
2
1
21
Ooh. Lovely. A splendid session on offer in the company of “Lord Paddington” and “Fatty”. Nice.
Quote Tweet
A Chump at Oxford is on @TalkingPicsTV this afternoon at 4:35pm. Notable for a cameo from Peter Cushing, “good morning to you” to the tune of Happy Birthday and Stan’s ear wiggling.
#laurelandhardy
2
This promotional commercial made me laugh. I’d call that a good sign.
Quote Tweet
I wrote a BOOK! Montgomery Bonbon: Murder at the Museum launches on Feb 2nd. I hope you (and kids aged 8-12) like it:
Show this thread
1:37
30.8K views
4
“I don’t think it’s fair that they’re allowed to compete in capitalism. It ruins the whole game. Because they’ve got all these advantages. It’s how they’re born, lots of them. They’re just, you know, safer.”
1
2
25
Show this thread
“See who moved in next door? More millionaires. There goes the neighbourhood. The smell of caviar. And the noise of the helicopters. I mean, I can’t even understand a word. They should make an effort to learn Estuary, or how do I know what they’re saying to each other…?”
4
3
32
Show this thread
I think we should start talking about really rich people like we do any other minority in this country. Mistrusting their motives. Saying they don’t integrate. Printing made up shit about them on front pages. Worrying where they might want to go to the toilet. That sort of thing.
8
95
352
Show this thread
Somewhere in this house, a fire alarm is intermittently chirping to indicate it needs a new 9v battery, a sound seemingly only audible at 4am. Let battle commence.
read image description
ALT
13
1
110
Also: Budgie the Little Helicopter.
Quote Tweet
The BBC have branded Prince Harry's new memoir Spare "The weirdest book ever written by a royal".
Which is a great excuse to tell you that in 1597 King James VI & I published the Daemonologie, a book on necromancy, black magic, and how to find, test, and punish witches.
read image description
ALT
4
2
21
Ooh. I see NASA have found Peter Davison's face at last.
Quote Tweet
This also included @NASAWebb's first deep-field image, which captured the farthest galaxies galaxies we've ever been able to see
newscientist.com/article/232813
Show this thread
read image description
ALT
3
15
88
British newspaper columns are like: "Life can be such a grind. Cleaning the house (mansion), getting the children ready for school (Harrow), getting your husband ready for work (as the Secretary of State for Wanking). What a drudge!"
7
64
671
As a Goonies megafan (I did an hour long podcast about it for ) I am absolutely living for Ke Huy Quan’s Hollywood redemption story.
13
3
165
TWO films with jokes in on the list of Best Picture nominees! What? And those are the ones people are mainly talking about. It’s almost like people LIKE comedy. Still: let’s fund as little of it as possible, eh? And expect filming it to cost half the price of filming drama.
1
32
Seems to be a daily cycle of furrowed-brow questions to which the answer is “because: money”. Corruption fatigue is really starting to set in.
Quote Tweet
Why did the Treasury give permission to the sanctioned head of the Wagner Group to pursue a British investigative journalist through the UK courts? Article below. theguardian.com/world/2023/jan
Show this thread
3
15
Order tickets for the… ✨
FULL BAND ALBUM LAUNCH SHOW ✨
15.4.23 🤍🖤🤍🖤 ✨
alttickets.com/josienne-clark ✨
8
14
Show this thread
12
49
86
Show this thread
So, a🧵from someone who has an inkling of how these things come about, and for those who might be interested to know how to avoid it. This isn’t a narrative issue in the way it might appear. IMHO it's come about due to narrative/level design & object placement misalignment. 1/16
Quote Tweet
Minutes in, and this is worse than any dialog. Her life savings are RIGHT THERE! Pick up the bag!
This is the bad Forspoken writing you should be mad at. I'm livid.
Show this thread
0:52
446K views
41
883
3,743
Show this thread
has pointed out that Ken Williams did Bloo Loo ads. Which makes this all… bizarrely connected. Anyway. I was just referring to this, in case anyone didn’t watch credits as hard as me as a kid.
read image description
ALT
2
9
Show this thread
Actually, Sunak could do it.
1
1
6
Show this thread
Solution: replace First Past The Post with Proportional Representation, with number of MPs linked to each tenth percentile of income distribution within the population. So the stupidly rich still have one MP to argue their priorities but he’s really really tiny.
4
1
23
Show this thread
Now *that’s* a joke for the 0.01%
3
13
Show this thread
Spargo’s urinal screens. A tragic career end for Willo The Wisp.
7
2
40
Show this thread
Remember Warren Mitchell quoting a family friend. “You get out there on polling day! My old man borrowed a pair of boots to walk *eight miles* to vote Tory!” It’s that. Make sure you’re supporting the winners. Don’t be associated with the losers, it might be catching. High Magic.
6
2
55
Show this thread
90% of Britons take home less than £50k pa. A man was just “careless” with £5m, an unimaginable amount almost every other person in the country would stare at obsessively, fret over, and never let out of their sight. And yet saying “hang on” feels disloyal and political. Bravo.
6
7
71
Show this thread
It’s a tribe that excludes you in every sense, except the promise that you can apply for candidate membership (which you can’t really) but there’s a shop with loads of merch, and telly shows about the team, and you can show you’re on side, so do make sure you cheer for them.
3
3
35
Show this thread
The propaganda through all outlets, habits baked in for millennia, doffing caps to wealth and power, the promise that their world might include you in a minute, if you work hard enough. They’ve absolutely pulled off “team super rich” as an identity for us, sold us the strip.
2
5
53
Show this thread
That’s how effectively they’ve bought the room. It’s incredible. My brain tells me a joke at the expense of the 0.01% should be a, forgive the pun, banker. But my gut says “you’re going to split the room about 50/50”. The trick’s sensational. Got to hand it to them.
3
5
58
Show this thread
It’s really interesting. The fear that sticking it to “careless” awful multimillionaires might be “political”, divisive. Statistically, it should be the safest gag to do in the world. Punching up. To a tiny tiny minority. Real room pleaser. But still you know people will object.
4
1
47
Show this thread
Weird thought. When you make a joke, you read the room. I’ve been doing a lot of anti-super-rich people gags recently, ‘cos I’m cross, and statistically 99%+ of the potential audience should be on side. But I worry that some people are going to jump to their defence. Why?
16
46
140
Show this thread
I take ‘careless’ as meaning not caring and generally not giving a fuck.
Quote Tweet
Official
One part of @nadhimzahawi’s statement about his multi-million pound YouGov tax settlement, which included a penalty, puzzles me. He says HMRC concluded he was “careless” in his tax arrangements rather than being “deliberate”. His…
Show this thread
2
2
12
Geraldine Newman and Stanley Lebor are sublime. Any other casting is unthinkable. A parody of sitcom neighbours with this great well of authentic observation underneath it. Esmonde and Larbey knew their wheelhouse well enough to tear it down while leaving it standing.
2
1
10
Show this thread
Howard gripping Hilda’s shoulders in the snooker tournament episode and in response to her saying “Howard, you’re hurting me”, barking through clenched teeth, “I’m almost tempted to say… AM I?” is one of the most charged moments in talking pictures. Shivering now thinking of it.
1
1
8
Show this thread
It’s easy to forget that without their matching cardies, both Howard and Hilda were fierce 70s TV no-prisoners gender archetypes, and it’s that simmering undercurrent of sizzling pheremones that powers the behind-closed-doors Hughes dynamic in The Close.
Quote Tweet
Spotted by @scatterkeir : Hilda from Ever Decreasing Circles in Crown Court on @TalkingPicsTV
5
1
12
Show this thread
The starkness of those numbers in that piece is terrifying. Of course they’re doing fine. The system is deliberately engineered to deliver the most benefit right to the top, where it is needed least.
8
Show this thread
Seems the pandemic Jabberwocky has been great for business. Great news for the merchants’ guild. Sure we’re all in this together. They’ve got our backs. Just all need to cut our feet off and lie on the floor and we’ll be fine.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/
read image description
ALT
2
4
8
Show this thread
They completely flunked that. Honestly. Kids today. To avoid this happening again, I would support the introduction of an extra quiz show on Monday nights that was just about Psyche Folk.
8
Show this thread