Wallace and Gromit Go Hollywood, narrated by Hugh, will be on Ovation TV Tuesday, Oct 23rd, 7pm eastern (4pm pacific if you get the channel through DirecTV - channel 274). The Ovation website used to have some clips up, but it looks like they disappeared when the channel was relaunched with a fancy new site... it's a really interesting documentary if you like Aardman's animation.

Another little treat for Fry & Laurie fans to help get you through a week without House... excerpts from First on Four: Saturday Live documentary, with bits of 7 sketches with Hugh and comments from Stephen. If I manage to get everything tied down in my yard, my mom doesn't send me too much more real work to do, and the expected winds don't knock the power out...I should have another (complete) sketch or two from Saturday Live up tonight.

Another little treat for Fry & Laurie fans to help get you through a week without House... excerpts from First on Four: Saturday Live documentary, with bits of 7 sketches with Hugh and comments from Stephen. I think Stephen was wrong about something. How can I say that you may ask? He said that we didn't have sketch comedy in America, but in fact we did. Back in the days of the old 'variety' shows in the sixties and seventies they would intersperse comedy sketches with musical numbers. Maybe you have to be as old as the hills, like me, to remember this. Some that I remember most clearly are the old sketches Bob Hope and his guests would perform in his specials. Nobody ever seemed to know their lines and were always staring off at the idiot boards. Carol Burnett certainly did sketch comedy, and very, very well. I'm sure I could name many others but memory fails at the moment.

DOB - some others were Red Skelton, Sid Ceasar, Milton Berle, Jack Benny.

I vaguely remember (not enough to source...) some other odd ideas Stephen has about America. I'm sure I have equally odd ideas about England :) I remember watching Carol Burnett, the Smothers Brothers, and Laugh In when I was growing up. The first half hour, at any rate. I think I had to go to bed before they were over!

Sketch comedy arose from vaudeville, I believe. While vaudeville survived in England as a live entertainment much longer than it did in the US (as musical hall, I believe), we certainly had plenty of it. The Tonight Show, starting with the Steve Allen version always had sketches, That Was the Week That Was had British and American versions and there's always Sonny & Cher, Donny & Marie. But The Smothers Comedy Brothers Show (that's the name of the album I have) and Carol Burnett were the best.

I vaguely remember (not enough to source...) some other odd ideas Stephen has about America. I'm sure I have equally odd ideas about England I think Stephen has a tendency to think of the US as being just New York and Los Angeles. I also think he realizes that this isn't really an accurate representation. It's kind of funny to me. It's very much the opposite of that whole right wing talk radio mantra about how liberals worship at the borders of NY and LA and hate everything between. Stephen's a liberal minded guy who forgets that there are other parts of the US and stereotypes the nation based on his prejudices against the more absurd personalities of those two cities. I enjoyed seeing the little blurb recently about his plans for his travel series (he's here, like, right now I think) and how he was going to avoid the bigger, familiar places (such as the two offenders above) and go deeper and...I'll just find the quote. ‘My major thought is that I don't want to go there and say, “Aren't Americans stupid?” My experience is that they are more intelligent than anyone gives them credit for and polite, and charming. And also honourable. It's sort of funny to me because it's not really a backhanded compliment so much as it's a compliment that sounds sort of offensive. But, when you think that, yeah, people do think that about Americans it makes me believe that he'll seek out truly interesting people for the show.

‘My major thought is that I don't want to go there and say, “Aren't Americans stupid?” My experience is that they are more intelligent than anyone gives them credit for and polite, and charming. And also honourable. If I weren't so polite and charming I might be just a little ticked off by that remark.

Yeah, I do adore Stephen Fry quite a bit but that doesn't mean he doesn't have blind spots or that he can't be patronizing at times. (I've been watching QI on the interweb lately and he's both loveable and insufferable, but he's never a jerk, so yeah, love him.) Someone (maybe Hugh?) once said that he bruises you and then mends you and he agreed that he does do a bruisy-mendy sort of thing. So I guess we in the States are about to be bruised and mended by the master. Yikes!! Can't wait!

If I weren't so polite and charming I might be just a little ticked off by that remark. Hence my own comment after posting the quote. Though, I don't actually think he's wrong. Other parts of the world *do* think we're stupid. Which is not to say that every person in every country or a part of every culture thinks we're all dumbasses, but it's certainly no newsflash that other parts of the world consider Americans to be less than. And I don't think I'd necessarily consider that something to be ticked off about so much as just mildly annoyed as a result of his phrasing of the statement. Personally, I enjoy hearing him say such things, even if there's a slightly condescending air about them because it proves, as usual, that he's open. He's not just lumping everyone together and he's giving us credit for being more than whichever vapid Hollywood stereotype he last saddled us with. He's actually acknowledging that we are unfairly labeled from time to time, which would include statements made by him.

DOB, I assume he was talking about the "ugly American" stereotype. The fact is that some Americans do deserve that rep. And some French people are snob and so on. But I think what he was saying is that people shouldn't forget that those are not the norm. The last time I was in London I went to The Jewish Museum in Camden on a Sunday. As I was entering, an American woman who was leaving asked a man who worked there where there was an ATM. He said "excuse me?" So she repeated it. He said "I don't know what that is." So she repeated it several more times, louder and slower each time. I wanted to hang a sign around my neck saying "I'm Canadian" but instead I said that she was looking for a cash machine. He said "oh" and gave her directions. You repeat it once on the assumption the person didn't hear you. But 6 times? By the 3rd time it should have been obvious that the English don't call it that. So you find another way to describe it. Which is a long way round to say that I think Stephen meant that Americans have a reputation for being like that but most of them aren't.

When I went to Scotland, I had a similar experience with some people in my group. So yeah, his comment is a little backhanded, but I don't exactly think he's wrong. You know, someday I want to travel somewhere and not be embarrassed to say I'm an American.

Possible Hugh/BfTV 8) mentions coming up :shock: On 10/19: Greg Grunberg will be on Jay Leno On 10/26: Greg will be on Ellen DeGeneres

In peripheral Hugh news, The Sundance Channel is going to air Stephen's documentary HIV and Me as part of it's World AIDS Day programming on December 1st. I really enjoyed it. Like the manic depression piece, this one really hit some highs and lows, with every emotion in between registering.

Re: Stephen's oddly erroneous comments about America... I wonder if Hugh, now having spent so much time here, is either setting him straight or confirming those false impressions? At any rate, hopefully Stephen's experiences over the course of his 50-state tour will prove enlightening. I mean, I don't really care that we're categorized as intelligent or anything else -- rather the opposite, in fact, which is that we're not uniformly categorized at all. There are 280 million of us at this point, which makes it virtually impossible to construct a monolithic portrait of America other than to say it's highly varied. And now, an anecdote: I was having dinner in Italy last May with some people who live in Munich, and one of them told me I was the first American she'd ever met who spoke proper English. I was a little shocked to hear that, but I think she meant it as a compliment, however backhanded. "I assure you, madam," I replied in my best imitation of an unctuous Stephen Fry character, "I am not the only one."