INTERVIEW: Pappy’s Fun Club

Last year, while traipsing around the hustling,  bustling streets during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Void were harangued by a group of four young lads who said “come and see our free show, it will be very, very, funny”. Always game for a laugh, we went along, and subsequently laughed. This year, we went and saw them again and, once again, laughed. So naturally, when they were nominated for a comedy award, we felt we had stumbled across something very special.

We caught up with Tom Parry, Matthew Crosby, Ben Clark and Brendan Dodds, or Pappy’s Fun Club as they are known collectively, for a little chat…

How did Pappy’s Fun Club first come about?

Tom, Brendan and Matthew met at university; Ben knew Tom from Wolverhampton. We were all doing stand-up and sketch shows, and decided to set up a comedy night in London to play with ideas. It started as a collective performing individual material, and roping in the others to fill in other parts in sketches, and we called it Pappy’s Fun Club. After a while we thought we’d give it a go and see if it was funny to people who weren’t in our immediate families, and the four of us took a few sketches out onto the London circuit. It was a lot of fun, we got booked to play more shows, and Pappy’s Fun Club as it exists now took shape.

How would you describe yourselves to someone who hasn’t heard of you before?
We’re a four man sketch team, and a group of friends who like being on stage together. We try to put on comedy that’s fun, playful and draws the audience into our world.

What was it like being nominated for an if.comeddie award this year, with only your second show?
It was a genuine surprise because our first show, which we’re all really proud of, went under the critical radar, and we hadn’t even contemplated being nominated for Best Show. So when the if.comeddie people got in touch we were quite stunned. Ben got so excited he punched himself in the cock.

Your show this year did not have any of the characters from the previous year’s show. Was that a conscious decision, and will some of the previous characters find their way into other shows you do?
We thought it was pretty important to create a whole new show. Part of that is to encourage ourselves to generate new ideas, and push the format instead of just repeating catchphrases. But it’s also partly because we’re a bit more experienced this time around, and hopefully our writing reflects that. We’ve not completely abandoned our favourites from previous shows though, and we do expand on some of the characters on the live circuit.

Who were your influences when you first started doing comedy, and who do you aspire to be like now?
We aspire to create something a bit new. That’s not to say we don’t really like other acts and shows out there; Mr Show and The Mighty Boosh are particular favourites at Pappy Towers. People draw comparisons between us and other sketch teams, which is inevitable and sometimes flattering. Every sketch team gets compared to Monty Python’s Flying Circus at some stage. They were so influential, and they produced so much material, it’s not surprising people look for parallels. But we’re out there to create our own style, and we’ve probably still got some evolving to do.

What’s next for Pappy’s Fun Club?
We are currently working on a pilot for Radio 4, and a Comedy Lab for Channel 4, both of which are really exciting projects we’re really throwing everything at. Just like Edinburgh, we’re looking to generate as much as possible new material for them, so we’ve got plenty to keep us busy. We will definitely do another Edinburgh show in 2008, but before that we’ve been invited to the Melbourne Comedy Festival in March, which is going to be great.

If the group split up tomorrow, who would be the first one to sell their story?
I’m not sure we’d get much for the Pappy Story. Hopefully we’ve got a few chapters still to write yet, and we pretty much put everything on stage anyway. We play exaggerated versions of ourselves on stage a lot of the time, and even the characters are often extensions of our own personalities. Stuff that’s going on in our lives tends to find its way on stage, for example if we struggle to pay our taxes then an evil super-villain Taxman might show up in our show, trying to shut the Fun Club down. We’re either very honest or very unimaginative, depending how you look at it.

Quick fire questions (Answered by Brendan):

Favourite Film
Snow Dogs. Cuba Gooding Jr proves once again why he deserved that Oscar.

Last CD your bought/listened to?
Gavin Osborn’s In the Twee Small Hours.

Who is cooler? Doc Brown or Marty McFly from Back to the Future?
Matthew likes Marty. I like Doc Brown. Tom and Ben have gone to McDonalds to get breakfast, so I guess it’s a draw.

Which member has the most irritating laugh?
Me probably, but it’s not that irritating.

Most famous person’s mobile number you have?
Not divulging that. (Boo….. – Ed)

To find out more about Pappy’s Fun Club, clickio here my friend.

REVIEW: Flight of the Conchords (Radio Series)

Rejoice! New Zealand’s self-professed “fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo”, HBO starlets and Edinburgh darlings Flight of the Conchords are about to see their acclaimed eponymous Radio 2 series released on BBC Audiobooks, just in time for Christmas.

For anyone unfamiliar with their brand of humour, the show was a surreal mix of (mostly improvised) narrative and song, following the band’s attempt to secure success in London. Having managed to continue their consistent run of critical acclaim with their latest television broadgramme, now is an excellent opportunity to revisit this classic material.

Stalwarts of the Fringe, before mainstream exposure on the BBC, Flight of the Conchords is a deceptively smart show. The duo – Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement effortlessly turn out inventive lyrics and make it all look so easy. Their natural rapport lends their songs a catchy charm all of their own. It is the unspoken irrepressible dependency of the pair that is the lynchpin of the show and what makes their comedy work so well.

Comparisons are inevitable with cult-student pop rockers Tenacious D, but try and check those in at the door. Flight of the Conchords is funny, madly heart-warming stuff that doesn’t need to shout. Beyond the simple folk-rock melodies beats a smart, deadpan heart that is difficult to resist.

As a special treat, click here to hear a sample of the series.

The series can be purchased from the BBC Audiozone website by clicking here, or if you prefer the authentic rustic sound of a Compact Disc, click here.

INTERVIEW: The crew behind The Simpsons

With twenty years as the world’s most popular family already under their collective belts, 2007 has been one hell of a year for The Simpsons. Having just passed the milestone of their 400th episode, it goes without saying that The Void had just a few questions that we wanted to ask them about the show and especially about the movie, which has just graced the shelves of DVD shops and online boutiques. With this in mind, we dragged our rather excited selves to chat to creator Matt Groening, producer Al Jean, director David Silverman and writers Al Jean and Mike Scully about the film, the series and the future of the show.

The Void: Why did you choose to make a Simpsons movie now rather than earlier in the show’s history?

Matt Groening: One of the reasons is that The Simpsons were created in 1987. So that’s 20 years. We’ve just passed our 400th episode. I thought that this was a landmark time. It’s now or never.

Al Jean: One reason we didn’t make it earlier was the fact that we didn’t have the cast contracted until 2001. You might say, why 2007? But it took us a while to write it. We tried to do it ten years ago, but we wouldn’t have had the ability to do digital animation that we have now. We wouldn’t have had the ability to turn things around and write them as quickly. You really couldn’t have made the film five years ago.

c

We’re all used to seeing in The Simpsons characters in 22 minute episodes on the TV. How much of a challenge was it to keep them interesting when you moved them to a feature length?

James L Brooks: You have to tell a story and you have to have a narrative and it’s been one of the most difficult, challenging things in the process.

Matt Groening: We basically tell a feature-length story every episode of the show. So it has been a challenge, given how much story we can compress into a TV show, what are our opportunities on the big screen? So, there’s more ambitious animation and a more epic story.

c

All the people who created the show have reunited for the movie. David, how was it having the auspicious responsibility of directing the film?

David Silverman: It’s a big challenge and a lot of pressure, but there’s also a lot of support. So, certainly while the task was daunting I felt very supported by everybody here and they helped me do the right job.

Matt Groening: David Silverman has been working on The Simpsons since the beginning, so many, many years. He’s been with us since the days of The Tracy Ullman Show, James L Brooks’ TV show. He basically invented a lot of the rules for how to draw the characters. He invented a lot of the rules, so the animators could draw them consistently. He came up with the number of hairs on the top of Bart’s head. That was David Silverman’s choice. I drew about 25 or 30; he honed it down.

David Silverman: We had it at 11 and I decided to bring it down to nine.

Mike Scully: He picked the nine funniest ones.

c

Whose idea was it to make the characters yellow in the first place?

Matt Groening: I came to animation as a print cartoonist and I’m very lazy, so I only draw the outlines of characters in black and white. I just don’t think about colour. Then it came time to colour the characters and I wanted to do something other than that conventional colour that passes for caucasian in cartoons – that horrible pink. And Giorgio Pillucci, our colour stylist, made them yellow and I thought that was great.

David Silverman: One of the reasons she made them yellow is that Bart, Lisa and Maggie don’t have a hairline. So it works as their skin and hair colour.

c

How many storylines did you have to go through in order to get to the story used in the movie?

James L Brooks: We had one session where everybody brought things and then it started at that first session what the notion was going to be. We’ve had lots of drafts – it wasn’t that formal. We had a large group of writers who came together, which was anybody who’d been with the show from the beginning, who’d ever run the show, would be part of that initial group. It was a reunion. Everybody brought in something and we had a conversation and it wasn’t that long before we came away with this starting notion.

Groening: We have a concept we call a notion on the show too. Writers on the show come up with notions and it’s just based on a single idea, a thought or ‘what if we do our version of a famous movie and localise it’.

c

Plot details on the film were kept very much under wraps throughout production. Why did you choose to reveal very little about it?

James L Brooks: I think it started out as a privacy thing and then it started to be fun to keep it a secret. Also, it allowed us to change without explaining. The fact that privacy doesn’t exist anymore is not altogether a good thing. It’s nice to have a little privacy while you’re doing your work. We put out fake storylines and everything; it’s fun to play around with it.

Matt Groening: I think one of the reasons we get along and are friends is because we’re continuing to surprise each other. One of the great things about this whole project is the idea of surprising ourselves. We’ve been working for a long time together in the same room that’s too small and people continue to come up with surprising things. If we can continue to surprise each other then we’ll surprise the world.

c

So many animated movies released nowadays are computer generated. Did you have any thoughts about changing the way the movie was animated, from 2D to 3D?

David Silverman: I would say that we’ve used more 3D in the movie [than we do in the show], in terms of having 3D sets and doing camera moves and 3D props. But we wanted to keep a hand-drawn look because we wanted people to still associate this with the TV show. We never thought about doing it as a whole 3D animation, because that would destroy the personalities of the characters.

Mike Scully: Also the computer lets us do things in the film that we just can’t do on the show. Like there’s a huge mob scene – we just couldn’t do that on the show. So the fans will really feel like they’re seeing a movie and not just an expanded TV show.

James L Brooks: It should always look like The Simpsons. You don’t want the characters to look like Pixar characters. I also think it makes us different to other animated pictures.

Matt Groening: Through the history of animation, there’s always been something very charming about the hand-drawn line. I think that’s the appeal of comic books too. There are no computer-generated comic books. It’s all about the gesture of the artist.

David Silverman: What I love about it too is that you’re watching a picture come to life and I’m always charmed by that.

Al Jean: I think our early trailer showed that people are getting tired of that CG beauty – that bunny that was animated. People want something that’s real.

Mike Scully: I also don’t think there’s been a great 2D film that has failed. I think sometimes studios over-react and think the public doesn’t want 2D. The public just wants to be entertained; they don’t care if it’s 2D or CGI.

David Silverman: I hope we can help regenerate interest in 2D animation. That would be a great bonus.

c

Will the TV show change much following the movie?

Al Jean: For me, they’re independent entities. You can watch the movie without ever having seen the TV show and it’s not like the movie will end with ‘Oh, you’ve got to see this episode to understand it’. It’s a self-contained unit. However, people who see the movie, if they haven’t seen the show, we hope they’ll check it out.

James L Brooks: And there’ll be some continuity. Some things that happened in the movie will affect the series.

c

So the events of the movie will carry over into the show?

James L Brooks: Certainly, the events that take place in the movie will have happened.

c

Matt, how much of you is in Bart and Homer?

Matt Groening: There is a little bit of everybody who works on the show in all the characters. Let me put it this way though – it is not autobiographical. Originally the characters were named after members of my family. The only one I will admit to being like anyone in my family is Lisa. My sister Lisa is sensitive, intelligent and pretty. The rest, and my family and I agree on this, are not like the characters on the show.

c

There are a few new characters in the movie….

David Silverman: Yes and some old ones too. We have a lot of scenes where there are crowds, so we figured let’s just grab people from different episodes and put them in there for big fans of the show to spot.

c

Will any of the characters introduced in the movie become part of the regular cast?

Al Jean: We’re hoping to. That’s the goal, yes.

c

How have the characters changed since the show started?

David Silverman: I would say, by the time we got to the third series we settled down on the characters. Look at any animation and it’ll change. Look at Bugs Bunny at the beginning; look at Mickey Mouse at the beginning. Even if you look at comic strips. You look at Peanuts at the beginning; the style has not quite congealed. What happens for every cartoonist is that you discover little things.

c

Do you see a point in the future when the show will eventually end?

Matt Groening: Actually, several years ago I did an interview in which I speculated on that same question and I talked about the first rule of Zen: nothing is permanent. And it became this big thing and I learned how much it upset people – the idea that The Simpsons might end. The attitude that I have is that there is no end in sight. We keep having fun and we keep doing new things and the movie is the latest and most ambitious project yet, but the show will continue and everything associated with it.

Al Jean: On the show last year we won at every award show we went to, including the Emmy for Best Animated Show. So, we’re still doing stories that we really like and it’s still being responded to by the audience. So why stop?

David Silverman: It’s amazing for me when I see kids of eight years old and they tell me how much they love The Simpsons. It’s great that it’s still fresh to people that young. That’s an amazing feeling, so I don’t see any end in sight.

c

Why do you think this show has had the success that it has?

Al Jean: Because it’s good.

David Silverman: In my mind, it’s like those Warner Brothers characters, like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. It’s a totally different style of animation, but the longevity is the same. I don’t compare it to other TV shows. We’ve created this whole universe of characters, in the way that Disney has Mickey Mouse and Goofy and Warner Brothers has Bugs and Daffy and we have The Simpsons.

Brooks: It’s an accident when you touch a culture; it’s an accident when you strike that chord. We’re the beneficiaries of some alchemy of timing and a group of people that came together. You just have live in appreciation of the fact that this happened to you and serve it.

Mike Scully: From what I’ve heard, for some parents the show has gone from something they didn’t want their kids to watch to something they watch with their children. It’s now a family institution. It’s one of the few family activities left, as far as watching television together. So I think that’s tribute to the show lasting all these years. Nobody wants to see it go away…

The Simpson’s Movie is out now on DVD and Blu-ray. Why not treat yourself by clicking here and buying a copy today. Also, why you are at it, why not click here and create your own unique Simpsons Movie DVD cover, using a Simpsonized character you have created. Ace!

REVIEW: Bender’s Big Score (Futurama)

It is fair to say that here at The Void, no DVD has been as keenly anticipated as this. It was quite a sight to see so many people clambering for the post bag to see whether our overseas order had come though, and more importantly, lived up to our great expectations. Thankfully, the wait and credit card bill paid off.

When Futurama was cancelled four years ago, university and college campuses mourned a great loss: a programme which not only made you laugh, but had many high-brow ‘geeky’ references in it that allowed sly chuckles at the ‘cooler’ person sitting next to you. However, like a space-phoenix from a supernova, the show was reborn and, like Family Guy before it, and returns for our viewing pleasure in the form of a feature-length straight-to-DVD film.

The show continues where it left off pre-cancellation, with Philip Fry, Leela and Bender working for the Planet Express delivery company under the watchful, though senile, eye of Professor Farnsworth. Together they travel across space (and occasionally time) to deliver packages and often end up saving the world or their own asses, depending on the situation.

Normally about now in a review the journalist would write some words explaining the plot of the film and how good or bad it is. But as fans of the show will know, Futurama episodes have never really had the easiest of plots to sum up quickly without either going off into highly descriptive prose or revealing the ending. This means that in this review, the focus will have to be on the quality of the humour which cocoons the plot of this film. Well, the programme is made by the same team that brought you that other cartoon… what’s it called… oh yeah, The Simpsons, so it is fair to say that you expect a certain level of quality, which is dutifully delivered with some fantastic one-liners, comical references and cameos by Al Gore, Mark Hamill and Coolio to name but a few.

One thing that can be said about this film is that unlike the Family Guy ‘film’, this does actually works as a feature. While Family Guy was three episodes taped together, this has a much more consistent plot throughout. So much so that at times the only thing carrying you forward are the many many jokes which litter the finely-crafted script.

Like all previous DVD releases by Mr Groening, the DVD also comes with a host of extras, such as deleted scenes, concept drawings and commentaries, which not only reveal some background into the show, but also help highlight some of the geekier references via a 20 minute lecture by a mathematician explaining the theory behind the jokes.

This is clearly a disc that has been made for the fans who have petitioned for this show to come back on air, and the fans of the show will no doubt rush out and buy this DVD straight away. For those who have not embraced Futurama before, you would probably do best to catch a few episodes before sitting down to watch this disc, not because it is too complicated to understand, but because you will appreciate it a lot more if you did.