What has happened to sketch shows and what doesn't Richard like on TV?

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1:24Hello and welcome to another edition of the Rest is Entertainment, questions edition. Questions and answers edition. I'm Richard Osman. I'm Marina Hyde. Hey, Marina. Hello. I am over my jet lag now. I'm very pleased to hear you're over your jet lag. I think we should get straight into this. Can I say one thing, by the way? When I had that jet lag, I was thinking, actually, I felt like I had a bit of a cold. And it made me think that thing of, if you're a quiz show presenter, no one's asked this question, but I'm going to answer it anyway. When you've got a cold, people think you're very, very ill.

1:51Because if you had a cold for three days, then actually on a TV show, that means 15 episodes. So they're like, my God, he has had a cold for a really, really long time. It's a chronic illness. It's a chronic illness. Anyway, that's what that made me think. Yes. But no one wrote that question. We got questions about literally everything else, but no one said, what happens when a TV presenter gets a cold? Shall we start with this question from Craig Walker. Thank you so much, Craig. Why do you think sketch shows no longer exist? I grew up watching Goodness Gracious Me, The Fast Show, Smack the Pony, Sketch Show, etc., all 20 plus years ago.

2:20How and why did British comedy change to leave behind that legacy? Partly what it is, is a rather boring answer, and then it's become perhaps the slightly more interesting answer, is that money, it is so expensive to put these things on and the pool of money available for things like that has become smaller. What has become bigger is stand-up is huge and people going into comedy might be going more towards in the direction of stand-up because stand-up is so huge. If you're making a sketch show, what you need is little troops of people to build one of these shows around who are out there on the circuit.

2:54And if they aren't there because they've gone in the direction of stand-up, then you haven't necessarily got these people around whom you can build a show. It's very expensive because you've got multiple, multiple sets, costumes. People don't want to watch something where it almost looks like they're watching a sort of kind of cheap panto and they're just pulling on costumes to give you the basic idea of the character. It takes a lot of time to do all of it. And I suppose that's part of the reason it fell out of favour. Funnily enough, I did watch a show recently called something like Deepfake Neighbour Wars, I think it is.

3:25And it's a really, it's a really like, it's dark, it's an AI sort of show. And there's a Neighbour Wars show, Some Strand, which I think is internationally sold as a format. And they put celebrities' faces onto these people and had them arguing. I have to say, I didn't like it. But I did think about halfway through, oh, I see, I'm watching a sketch show, which is something I haven't watched for a very long time. Money is, of course, the answer. You get huge sets, costumes, and for a two-minute thing, whereas in a sitcom, you know, you use your sets over and over and over again. So it's very, very expensive to do.

3:55It's very difficult to write because writing 24 one-minute sketches takes longer than writing one 24-minute episode of a sitcom. Certainly more expensive to film in a sketch show as well. By and large, everyone has equal billing. And so it's quite expensive as well because you've got an awful lot of cast. But yeah, two things. So look at Ghosts. And that's essentially a sketch troupe, you know, who grew up on horrible histories, which, by the way, is one of the best sketch shows of all time. they made one of the best sitcoms of the 21st century one of the best ever british sitcoms ghost i think we can safely say now and it comes out of the tradition of sketch comedy which is broad characters catchphrases you know and so i think people are going in that direction but also in the world of youtube and the other platforms there's so many sketches out there now so many great character stuff so many amazing sketches and i think probably the world of sketch shows is going to come back because it's going to get cheaper and cheaper to film.

4:51That will mean there'll be less time between maybe filming it and transmission. Because one of the great things about all these platforms is that things can be so immediate. You can make a funny sketch and someone can see it straight away. Now, this never existed before. We couldn't have this. And it's quite hard in lots of ways to keep being okaron, being funny, being about the thing that's just happened when it might not be aired for nine months after you shot it. Yeah, exactly that. And by the way, there was a brilliant sketch show on Netflix, which is Tim Robinson's I Think You Should Leave, which is lunatic.

5:24So it wouldn't be for everybody, but it certainly takes every initial premise of every sketch it does and absolutely grinds it to the absolute further outer limits of what you can do with comedy. If you like it, you'll love it. If you don't like it, after the first five minutes, please feel free to switch it off. But yeah, it's as so often as the answer, it's economics. And also, you know, that world, you know, the ones that Craig mentions there, Goodness Gracious Me, Fast Show, that world of linear TV has sort of passed us by. But I think the future for sketches is very positive because it's, as you say, you can write it in the morning, film it in the afternoon, put it out in the evening.

6:04And, you know, you can't do that with a sitcom. I've got one for you. Richard Horne says, do you get to keep the prizes in Taskmaster that the contestants have brought in? Oh, that is a good question. By the Richard Horne. Little Alex's brother. He's used my first name and Little Alex Horne's surname. Yeah, I think that's a pseudonym. Yeah, we could probably do a deep dive on Taskmaster. I would love that, by the way. All the time. Perhaps we'll do an episode at some point. I'm so obsessed with it. I'd like to do that. It's a load of fun. I'll say that. Well, you know what? I'm going to save a lot of this, especially for our emergency podcast about Taskmaster.

6:40if we do it can I call it an emergency podcast otherwise I'm not doing it don't negotiate with me on this thing no no we can't do it I'm going to talk about everything now then you do not get to keep the prizes there's such a lot of pressure on the prizes though because they say beforehand what's there I can't remember on mine but you do think you genuinely want the points from Greg and obviously Greg has his very capricious and will do exactly what he wants but you do if you get one point you kind of want to go your honor that was that was a really that you have to bring in your your favorite blue thing right on one of mine and my son because this is his personality type and an antique shopper bought a police riot helmet right he saw the police riot helmet i say it's his personality it's mine as well yeah i looked at it i was like hold on and my boy was like uh uh sorry can we actually buy that i think we can and so he bought it and it was blue and so I took it in and I thought well this is to me five points that's the best blue thing ever especially as I said and my son bought it um so come on and he went well that's getting one point and my son was there that was like the episode he came to I was like whoa that is actually that has actually broken me Greg but uh he is a hard taskmaster that is quite simply he literally is yeah we will go into much more detail on taskmaster funny I will I'll say this.

8:03I said to Alex Horne recently, I was on my US book tour, and so many people in the queue asked about Taskmaster. Did an event in, I think, Nashville, one of the places, and you'd get all the questions afterwards. And a woman stood up, like, the third question, just say, can I first say congratulations on how you did the yoga balls task in Taskmaster? And literally half of this big audience started applauding. In Nashville? Yeah. Oh, my God, that's incredible. It was crazy. So I had that. And just getting back from a book tour in India, and it was the same. There were people there just going, by the way, can I just say, there's two shows they love everywhere in the world, Would I Lie to You and Taskmaster.

8:40What a show. Those are the two shows they say, but no, you do not get to, because people put up their car or their kids or something, so it would be, I mean, some of the stuff that, yeah, I might have won or lost. Yeah, I've seen bathroom suites. Yeah, there's a lot that, you know, just can't sling it in the saxophone. I think you have to have your best piece of celebrity memorabilia and I put up one of my favorite things in the world, which is a Strongbow Cider promotional poster of Jockey Wilson that he signed. Honestly, if I'd lost that, I would have been devastated because it's hard to replace.

9:09It's up in my living room. It's one of my favorite things in the world. So, no, fortunately, you get to hold on to what you've got. But, yeah, so let's definitely do because people love Taskmaster. Maybe we'll get like Alex on or something. Well, they've got their own podcast, haven't they? So they probably wouldn't let us. But we'll give it a go, eh? We've never had a guest, have we? I've never had a guest. First one should be Alex Horne. Yeah, and the only guest. Yeah, just the only person we've ever had on the show before or since. Three times a week. We'll do the regular show on Tuesday. We'll do question and answer on Thursday.

9:38And we'll interview Alex Horne every Friday. Okay, I have a question for you, Marina. This is also a very suspicious name. Dave Gorman asks, can't be the real Dave Gorman, can it? I hope it is. Yeah, let's pretend it is. He was on Taskmaster. Thanks, Dave, for your question. Possibly the comedian asks, how does product placement work i see it on a lot of shows what can a show or film make from it well there are a lot of rules on product placement in television it's interesting in films and because of a thing of a show i'm working on i ended up doing quite a lot of research on you know marvel's product placement and i mean they make huge amounts of money from it um and sometimes they'll like leave a chiller cabinet blank and then you'll add the thing in post-production oh that's cool because there's a sort of huge competition for what you know what's going to be in the chiller cabinet and also certain movies have kind of established product placement that comes back each time if you think of something like james bond you know he's going to have a certain type of watch he's going to have a car he's got he needs a car he needs a car he cannot rely on uber he cannot he's a spy but when the people um the cars are slightly different obviously because that's extensive filming those action sequences but things like the watches when the people come on set with the watch or in any other film where they've got a sort of Dr.

10:56Strange had a certain type of fancy watch. Five guys will come on set. They will be all chained to their briefcase will be chained to their thing. And they'll make a really big thing about like checking the watch is being lit in the right way that you can see it's really meticulously done. And as I say, it's big business. You make a lot of money from this. But there are also things that are these kind of, I suppose you might call it sort of soft power product placement. So in Marvel, they've done a lot of work with the Pentagon. And there are certain movies that kind of effectively promote those kind of things.

11:27One thing that was quite interesting, this is just a side note, but I thought it was quite funny. At a certain point, the Pentagon stopped cooperating because they couldn't work out where S.H.I.E.L.D. would come in the hierarchy with the Pentagon and would the Pentagon technically. And I think they concluded that it seemed like the Pentagon might actually have to answer to S.H.I.E.L.D. And at that point they were out. Wow. Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? So there's quite a lot of that sort of thing. And sometimes they have huge sort of, they say, well, hang on, would this brand exist in Gotham City?

11:56And they will talk for a long time about whether they can have the product because they can, to some extent, it's supposed to be a quite lifelike world. But obviously superheroes exist. And although Batman, as we know, has not got any superpowers, he is a costumed vigilante. But could this exist in Gotham City? Sometimes there are promotions just for foreign markets. So people will pay huge amounts to have. And there was a sort of, I think there was a Japanese jewelry store, Chinese jewelry store, to allow themselves to be in the background of a shot or blown up in a shot in a Marvel movie, which was only in the whatever the China release was.

12:31And that's something we must talk about on a future episode is how films get released in China, which is something that people really, really want. So that's just a little note to myself. But there are many in different markets and sometimes they kind of get away with it. But in general, people will tolerate some, but they don't like it when it's being rammed down their throat. So there's a trade-off on the money. Yeah, and there's a fortune to be made. Yeah. I mean, an awful lot of money. It's like every time we ever see a TV show and they go, flew our contestants over to America and there'll always be a shot of an aeroplane.

13:01Yeah. Well, okay, that's the aeroplane. They've all got free flights, the whole crew, everyone's got free flights. Or they'll show the kind of front of the hotel. And you think, well, everyone's got a free hotel. So you can get payment in kind and things like that. The BBC find it much, much, much harder because you can't have product placement at all on the BBC. Even to the extent, you know, you'll watch, you know, a cookery show and they'll say, do you know the absolute secret to a shepherd's pie is I put yeast extract in there. Yeah. And that's because someone has just said I put marmite in there.

13:29And they said, I'm really sorry, we can't say marmite, you have to say yeast extract. And clothing, which is constantly has to be completely plain or pixelated at the tiniest logo. Yeah, if you ever come as a contestant on a TV show and you have to bring along all your stuff, you cannot have anything that has, you know, you couldn't even have like a little Adidas logo. You couldn't even have the three stripes. You can't have anything at all like that. You also can't have anything that's going to clash with the background. It's almost impossible to wear it. That's why everyone on quiz shows sort of wear pastel shirts.

14:01That's like every man ever on a TV show has got a short-sleeved pastel shirt. Which he's never worn before or since. Yeah, exactly. Unless they win. This is the shirt, then it becomes the lucky shirt. Which is exactly. But they've literally picked it up from M &S like on the way or wardrobe just has like just rails and rails of pastel shirts for men that don't clash with the background of the set. They don't have busy checks on them or anything like that. So the BBC find it harder. You know, they'll say, oh, we're making our version of an ice cream dessert. You go, that's a Vionetta. I'm sorry.

14:30That is not. We all know that's a Vionetta. So anything that's a name, you can't say at all on the BBC. But now, you know, companies are making whole shows. Marks & Spencer's have got inside Marks & Spencer. They've got lots of different things. And there's a limit to, even on Channel 4 or 5 or ITV, there's a limit to how many times you can mention a product. And if you've mentioned it three times, you then have to sort of start describing it as something else. So with that, you could say Marmite a couple of times. But from then on, we've got our old friend, yeast extract. Yeast extract. In the spirit of this, I'm going to make a quick little bit of housekeeping, which is that last week when we were talking about Channel 4, we said that ITV and Channel 5 didn't have public service obligations they do of course what I meant was that they are not publicly funded so we just let us correct that we wish not to be a yeast extract to people this show exactly and if I can also add something I just say I'm really enjoying my PG tips it is so refreshing isn't it not even sponsored you've done that for free although we're available to be if Yorkshire Tea want to come and make a counter offer Yorkshire Tea are just mad on the socials they sponsor everything or they get involved in everything.

15:36They get involved in every fight, beef, whatever. Yeah, they had that brilliant one where the guy was furious when he discovered that the tea wasn't from Yorkshire. He said, come from India. He said, come on. And they were like, okay, I don't know what to say about tea. But yeah, listen, get in touch, Yorkshire Tea. So that's product placement. Oh, here's a good one. Richard, Fraser Webster says, I love your podcast and both of you. That's a good way to start. If you want your question read out. Oh, I feel a box coming. That's the way to start. but it strikes me that Richard loves pretty much everything on TV can he wax lyrical for a second about something that he doesn't like the news or question time does not count oh that's clever that's clever a little codicil at the end well done Fraser he's closed you off there yeah it's a by and large my rule is always you know with tweeting or anything if you like something talk about it if you don't like something don't talk about it that's literally half my career so I have absolutely no no I have no such qualms yeah exactly and I think Fraser knows that Yeah, you know what?

16:33Fraser's been very clever there. He's trying to drive a wedge between us, isn't he? He's going, Marina, you don't have any problems slagging things about that idiot. There's nothing you don't like on television. There's loads of things I don't like. I tend not to talk about them because it's hard to make television programs. I'm not almost trying to make a bad program. I guess I don't like it when stuff is lazy. I don't like it on daytime TV when absolutely every voiceover is full of puns, right? And every voiceover is full of puns because of Dave Lamb's voiceover on Come Dine With Me, which changed daytime television forever.

17:03Because they went, oh, we can do jokes and we can, you know. Truly iconic. But Dave Lamb writes that with his producers that and is really, really good at it. And ever since then, just endless daytime TV shows which have that slightly jokey voiceover. And every time there's a pun, they have to, boom, they have to hit it like banging a drum. They go, oh, no, can you just say that is an egg-cellent idea because it's about eggs. and you go, listen, if a pun works, just say it. If you have to go, that is an excellent idea. So that I cannot stand. If ever I see that, and daytime TV and often some evening shows as well, when they hit those puns like that, you think that is not humour.

17:44Dave Lamb is funny. He'll do puns sometimes, but he'll lighten them up with actually being funny about the contestants and having a genuine comic timing. So puns in daytime television, I don't like. We talked a lot about the Traitors. I've just been watching the Australian Traitors Series 2. I have trouble with the casting on that because some of the least insightful people in the entire world are on that show. And I found it quite a difficult watch at times. Traitors Series 1 Australia, one of the best Traitors of all times. Absolutely brilliant. The host of Australian Traitors, Roger Corser, I love.

18:19I think he's amazing. But this series, honestly, watch it because it's still the Traitors and it has this great twist and turns and this, that and the other. There's three or four contestants in that who will absolutely drive you mad. I mean, literally, to the extent I was like, honestly, I don't know if I can watch the next episode. I cannot continue to watch these people driving this bus off this cliff. And so, yeah, listen, there's shows that I don't love. Do you know what? This is fun. I just I mean I could maybe Fraser has changed me I just want to say that we're going to draw this out of him over a period of many moons and we'll yeah we'll draw more of this can we put an asterisk on Fraser's question and just return to it every few weeks yes that's one so Fraser the perma question the perma question exactly that and we'll find one for you as well that will just get under your skin but yeah so yeah there's stuff but when I don't like it I really I really get mad yeah Paul Ingram, when I'm sitting there going, how can this be on TV?

19:27How can they have made that decision and then still thought this was a good idea and put it on television? Honestly, it drives me bonkers. But yeah, I'm not going to listen. You're not going to say that on air. Well, I'm going to try and get you to say those sort of things on air. Now, with that, we're going to go to a break. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from EBCLIS. After an initial dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking EBCLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.

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21:44Welcome back, everybody. Marino I have a question for you but before I do we have some any other business Nick Holland has been in touch he says here is a possibly an EastEnders moment for you we've talked a lot about gladiators Bradley Walsh and Barney Walsh's son who present it by the way still doing great guns on BBC One huge audiences still Nick says Barney Walsh's mum which I presume is Bradley Walsh's wife Donna Darby used to be the lead cheerleader on the original gladiators That's cool, isn't it? The cheerleaders were called G-Force. They're the one thing the new series seems to have done away with.

22:20Yeah. The last place you will see cheerleaders is the darts, by the way. It's the one thing they refuse to get rid of. And according to Jet, Diane Newdale, Bradley Walsh first met Donna on the set of Gladiators in the 1990s. Wow. Why hasn't he done a little bit saying I met my wife on this show? Maybe he has in the interviews, but I haven't seen it. That's very cool, isn't it? Okay. very good he met his wife and I was about to say Barney met his mum but you know that's not how it works don't spoil it but that's not how it works thank you Nick Marina a question for you from Ron just one name why is there such a big difference in the number of episodes in a season between British shows and US shows the answer to that mainly is smaller writing teams on British shows and we've historically had things written by one person two person you know sometimes there'll be three almost everything on US television in comedy, drama, whatever is written by writers rooms and they are big and that can sustain a 20 episode season whereas we might have a six episode season in fact in the most recent WGA strike one of the things they were asking for was like a minimum staffing in writers rooms which is a lot compared to anything that was on the, you know we don't have any of that in the UK but there was an exception to it which everyone called the Mike White clause now Mike White is the guy who writes The White Lotus and he's almost unique in American television in that he writes the whole show and you just don't have that they just do not have it and partly what they do partly what the reason of that is they invest a huge amount of money in these shows and they want bang for their buck and they want to have many many episodes per season particularly in the days of the old networks and they want to continue coming back season after season We also have a thing in, it's a cultural thing as well.

24:14In this country, we have a thing where you can, you know, I've made two six-episode series of, say, The Office, and Ricky Gervais can say, I think that was where it should end. I think we did everything we wanted to do. Now, I don't know how many seasons the US version of it, which, by the way, was brilliant, but they had many episodes per, far more than six episodes per series, and it went on for, I don't know, what would I say, nine seasons? Yeah, I think it's like 20 episodes times nine seasons. And it was absolutely brilliantly done. But you need huge amounts of writers to do that and to keep it at a good quality level.

24:47And we have always culturally had things that are brilliant, we love more than anything, and last for two seasons. Because that's when the creators want to stop them. If you're signing a deal for a US, you know, there are various development deals I've done with US television and deals for shows that have gone to air. they're not saying oh yeah you want us to invest huge amounts of money in this show and the development of it then make it and then you're allowed to walk off after two seasons if you don't like it if it works and it becomes successful you're sort of contracted to stay around you have to have the option of staying for seven years really in something like comedy seven is the key seven is the key seven is the key if you're effectively signing if it goes well a seven season deal on something because they want you to stay you can't just say well i think we've done everything we'd like to do with those characters.

25:33But that's why season eight of any big, long-running American sitcom is interesting, because that's when the Steve Carell's leave, that's when Donald Glover leaves Community. I always think It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is amazing, because they're on season 15 and they've all stuck around. They're all like, no, this is a lot of fun. But the joy of finding an American sitcom you like is suddenly there are 200 episodes of it for you. So if it's a Community or an Office or Brooklyn Nine-Nine and you watch two episodes, you go, I love this. You go, well, you've got your next couple of months of every night you can watch two episodes of this because it goes on and on and on.