Tiger Woods could have learned something from Lily Tomlin and her Laugh-In skits as the wisecracking switchboard operator Ernestine: nothing's private when it comes to phone service and your telephone company. Each Saturday we highlight a humorous and sometimes poignant video, comic, or skit concerning different "careers," past and present. From W.C. Fields to Rowan Atkinson, from classic...
Blackadder Remastered: The Ultimate Edition Hey, it’s Friday, and by my estimation, Chanukah is right around the corner, so why not have another giveaway right? To win a copy of Blackadder Remastered: The Ultimate Edition (featuring Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie), fill out the entry form after the jump. Contest ends on December 9, [...]
I had meant to conclude with a final post on this subject reserved simply for laughing at the Manhattan Declaration and the comical preening of its pompous prose. It provides a hilarious, real-world example of the kind of wince-inducing misplaced...
Dawn French thinks so. “It is no more acceptable to make a fat joke than it is to make a gay joke… People need to learn to take everyone as they are.” What comedians can joke about is an increasingly treacherous minefield. Rowan Atkinson campaigned against proposed laws targeting “incitement to religious hatred” because he feared [...]
Andy Griffith, as fans of The Andy Griffith Show well know, was an expert storyteller and a master of "reverse psychology." In this classic scene he finds a way of getting Opie and his friends (and of course Barney, too) interested in studying American history. Each Saturday we highlight a humorous and sometimes poignant video, interview, comic, or skit concerning different "careers,"...
The boffo box-office-busting opening of the end-of-the-world spectacular 2012 (trailer shown here) suggests two things: first, discerning viewers love John Cusack, and second, in this time of grinding hardship and overall slide into decadence, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good cinematic exercise in apocalyptic visions. With this in mind, the Britannica Blog’s own Gregory McNamee...
I see that Rowan Atkinson, the Archbishop of Cadbury, met with Pope Ratzo recently to discuss carving up the world into spheres of influence and the trade in souls. I think the whole spectacle was summed up by His Eminence’s gift to our Rowan of a gold cross. I am reminded of the parable of the camel of easy virtue passing a needle for a Samaritan pauper prospering in the vineyard of the prodigal...
Video YouTube has launched an area for television and films . It would be remiss of me not to point to some classics and whatnot: The Quatermass Experiment : As live production created for BBC Four featuring Jason Flemyng in the titular role. Also Mark Gattis and one David Tennant, who found out he was going to be playing Doctor Who during the rehearsals for this. This is Dom Joly : It is indeed. Joly's...
Spy vs. Spy has long been synonymous with MAD magazine. The wordless cartoon, created in 1961 for MAD by famed Cuban cartoonist Antonio Prohias, who left Cuba for the United States when Castro came to power, was a classic reflection of Cold War sentiments, with each combatant reflecting a mirror image of the other in trying to up the ante and get the upper hand. Here's a nice animated collection of...
The UK-based film company plans a sequel to the 2003 Rowan Atkinson-starring spy spoof, as well as a new adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Bad news for anyone who thought that Johnny English's licence had been revoked. The Guardian can exclusively reveal that the bumbling British spy is set for another mission, with Rowan Atkinson in talks to reprise his role from the...
Movie cover: Plot summary: Storyline: A category of billionaires led beside a Las Vegas casino owner (John Cleese) frisk for things to ante on. They udge to yank cull a category of six strangers ad as a group to race from Vegas to Silver City, New Mexico to recall $2 million cover in a locker. First one there gets the whole of each of the cas. The pre-eminen group are two addled brothers (Seth Green...
It was announced last March that the 2010 British Motor Show has been canceled by reason of the ongoing global economic downturn and the next year hoped the event could be held again was 2013.
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