Thank god you're here

Has anyone been watching the excellent new TV show Thank God You're Here? It's on Wednesday nights at 7:30pm on Channel 10. It's a (fairly) original concept from Working Dog productions, the same geniuses behind Frontline, The Panel and All-Aussie Adventures.

Basically the premise behind the show is that a comedian is dressed in a costume and sent through a door into a scene that they know nothing about. Other comedians play the supporting characters in the room and it's their job to prompt the comedian into improvisation. Some examples include: being a politician as a press conference, an executive as a pie company looking to expand their pie line-up, and a captain on a space ship.

You may be wondering what this has to do with music, but I'm getting to that. You see, the theme song to the show is Come anytime by Aussie rockers Hoodoo Gurus. This really baffles me as a choice of theme song. You see, the Gurus also have a very well-known song called What's my scene. Now wouldn't that be a better choice of song? The show is about a comedian who doesn't know the scene that they are about to walk into. Could there be a more obvious choice of theme song?

I don't think it's a legal issue; surely if they could clear one song by the Hoodoo Gurus then another song would be okay. I'm fairly sure that EMI owns the rights to all their albums now. Anyway, I'm very curious as to why they went with this song. I guess Come anytime is kind've appropriate, but What's my scene would have been just perfect.

The Office (US Version)

Did anyone catch the US version of The Office last night? Thoughts?

For those of you who didn't see it, the first episode was basically a ripoff of the first episode of the UK series. Every character from the UK series has an character who matches them on the US series.

Personally, watching the first episode felt like watching a bunch of friends getting the script to the UK series and acting it out themselves. I thought the acting was terrible (especially the guy playing the David Brent-like character). All of the subtleties that Ricky Gervais put into the role (the little glimpses, the laugh, etc) were completely lost in translation, the guy was just acting like an idiot but there was no uniqueness to the chacter. The magic of Gareth was completely gone, the US guy is just a geeky brownnose without the quirks that Mackenzie Crook put into the role (at least it hasn't shone through yet). Tim and Dawn translated over okay, generally because they are normal characters and how hard is it to play normal characters?

I thought the 2nd episode was better, if only for the fact that it was a new(ish) storyline, and couldn't compare it directly to the UK counterpart. The bit where they all had to wear minority races on their foreheads and then all talk to each other as if they were talking to that minority race was very amusing. The Keith equivalent did an okay job...

Personally, I don't think it's the kind of the show that translates well to an American audience. Ahh well, at least they didn't have a laugh track...

Classic Simpsons Quote

Marge: Have you noticed something about Bart?
Homer: New glasses?
Marge: No. It seems like something could be troubling him.
Homer: Probably misses his old glasses.