I've always been really bad at actually sitting down and watching things, largely because I'm either working on creative stuff or because I'm distracted typing out long messages to people, especially Caby. That's where the trips are great. It's a hell of a lot easier to disappear for an hour or two into the lounge and watch something random together, usually while air-frying a load of finger food or dessert, than it is to sit at my computer surrounded by games, projects I wanna finish up, and music to jump around the room to and sit intently watching something.
Our trips are always bookended by us checking into a Travelodge in London, and this one was the first time we actually decided to pay attention to what was on TV. The TV situation in the UK is funny compared to the US. In the US, even as cable and satellite tenuously hang on, a lot of what's replaced them are effectively Internet TV services, what you'd call cord-cutter services, your YouTube TVs and Hulu Live TVs and Slings and the like. In the UK, because they have much fewer channels than we do, everyone's into on-demand streaming for specific networks instead. (We also have those in the US, obviously, but it's much less attractive when you watch a variety of different channels instead of mostly iPlayer and Channel 4 Player.)
Caby's family is whole hog on the free on-demand streaming and boxsets lifestyle, so our return trip this time was the first time I actually got to catch some live TV! Nothing special, but interesting to me for sure. Here's a handful of individual shows and movies we caught, and then some recollections of that night in the Travelodge. Hope you like weird 70s special effects and Queen!
Individual shows and movies
These are just in alphabetical order, so expect schizophrenic tonal shifts. Most of it was comedy, because that's what we like. There's a big one missing here, our new favorite show together Red Dwarf, and I had so much to say about it that I wrote a whole page on it specifically. Needless to say, it was the highlight of the whole trip, though certainly not all we watched:
The Bad Guys 2
I already wrote a journal on this one during the trip, but I'll summarize here. We took a chance on seeing The Bad Guys 2 despite never having seen the first one because there's a cinema just outside Queens Arcade in Cardiff and we had a rush hour to miss. It was great. Visually, it's so lovely, delighting in pseudo-mixing mediums despite all being CG, such a treat to watch, proof positive that if you let animators go nuts, the juice will be worth the squeeze. The story isn't anything amazing, but it's very well done, perfectly paced, and whatever dumb, funny thing Caby and I were imagining happening next very much did happen next. Definitely one to catch where you can. This one takes Zootopia's crown for the best visual feast of a film starring anthropomorphic characters. (How specific.)
Big Fat Quiz of...
One for the comfy pile alongside Top Gear. The Brits love their panel shows, and Big Fat Quiz is a fun one. An annual special where Jimmy Carr (hah-hah-hah-haaaa!) asks a who's who of teams of British comedians and also Sharon Osbourne (it depends on the episode) various questions rounding up the year, or the decade, or a decade, or something. The competition is very not serious, and the amount of real-life shitposting in the answers (especially when they get the show's iconic power couple of Richard Ayoade and Noel Fielding on the same team) is phenomenal. Mostly Caby and I watched episodes from before the world went nuts, the ones she used to watch on her 3DS late at night.
Much like Top Gear, I knew about this show's memes long before I'd seen any of it. Probably the most famous moment of the whole run is when Jack Whitehall, during the first of the 90s episode, loudly proclaimed how much he hated Mr. Blobby ("he looked like a fat jaundiced baby")—only for them to get the Mr. Blobby, the original guy in the suit as his last-ever performance as Blobby, to come out and absolutely terrorize Jack. (And Jimmy, and everybody else.) The fear in that man's eyes cannot be staged. The way he hides and begs them to make Blobby leave, that cannot be acted. I think he thought he was going to die. "How the FUCK were you allowed near kids?"
Brass Eye
This is a bizarre one. You ever seen 60 Minutes or shows like that, docudrama public affairs type stuff? Brass Eye is such a dry, on-the-nose spoof of that that, in its original run, it frequently confused actual MPs and even Phil fucking Collins into giving serious interviews about the absurd, exaggerated, and fictional scandals it discussed. We're talking a designer drug from Prague called "cake" that gives kids "Czech neck" and makes them cry all the water out of their body, and a West End musical featuring infamous mass woman murderer Peter Sutcliffe where he's "very truly sorry" for what he did.
Honestly, in the age of people yanking on each other's nuts on the Internet, I'm impressed Brass Eye has never been rediscovered. I've heard some people chalk it up to it having such a short run, only six episodes and a special, but that's typical for British comedy. I'm pretty sure I'd need to watch this one again to truly get it, especially given how compact, dry, and vantablack the comedy is, but I do find it completely fascinating and something only British comedy writers, deranged as they are, could come up with. Here's a six minute retrospective on some of the most insane bits of the show as a sampler. As the quoted "magician and complainer" Paul Daniels puts it, "it ain't funny, and if you think it's funny, then I think you really need a psychiatrist."
The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh comes out of an often-forgotten long-running comedy tradition, that is, "two guys who find themselves in utterly bizarre situations". The Goodies kinda started that, and I grew up with its animated prodigy Regular Show, but to middle-aged Brits, The Mighty Boosh is probably the biggest show in that vein. It started as a stage show between Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett (who, amusingly if you know the show, Trys and Caby and I always forget the name of), and it's...well, freaky. The first episode involves Julian being trained to fight a kangaroo to bring in interest at the zoo they work at in the first series, and Noel having a dream about nuts. As in testicles. And how to use them to your advantage in battle.
Boosh has the distinction of being our new Thursday watch-on-call show after finishing Red Dwarf's original run. We've started inviting Trys in on them because he likes calls, and the whole family's life has been a mess this year and he could use another escape like the rest of us. Caby and I have a habit of digging through the Mighty Boosh tag on Tumblr to see the frankly more-canonical-than-you-think gay ship nonsense that gets posted about our Vince Noir and Howard Moon, respectively. Also, they're both musicians, so Noel and Julian have a habit of breaking into jarringly elaborate musical numbers. Basically, it's strange. You should watch it.
Paddington 2
Finishing off with something more classic! I'm the only person I know to have seen all three Paddington movies. My mom and I caught Paddington in Peru early this year, and Caby and I saw the first Paddington together on a used CEX DVD back in 2024. Really, all three are super charming, super adorable, and surprisingly funny. Anyone who tells you Peru is where the trilogy jumped the shark because something something out of London and something something different director is a nutter. Paddington went to prison in this one. It's fine. Peru is probably my favorite, but 2 has the gayest safe-for-work prison musical number you've ever seen, and I find that really funny. I also really enjoy how much crossover happens between especially British comedy actors; watch for Daisy from Spaced as the newspaper vendor, which, as you can tell, is absolutely her biggest role yet.
We also watched a little bit of the 70s Paddington, since the family's got the whole run on a boxset, though "watched" is a strong word because the episodes are seriously like two minutes long apiece. It feels like you're watching a collection of bumpers between shows, albeit cute ones. To end off the Paddington rambles, anyone see how they're making the stage version happen? Honest to God little talking bear wandering around on stage. "I'm having a little moment here." "Take your time." Ah, it just melts my heart. Paddington might yet save the world.
Channel surfing with Caby and Cammy
To break up this page and prevent it from going on longer than it needs to be, I'm gonna shift into more of a stream of consciousness reminisce on the sets of images and memories from the Travelodge that stick with me the most. We didn't sit down and actively, critically watch much in particular anyway. These are in the order I remembered them in, not chronological. Spread out over two nights:
- One of the first things I remember was a show on orphaned orangutans and them being taken care of and taught by a human crew of rescue workers. I was more focused on Madden 2005 for the DS, which Caby dutifully watched me play despite having no idea what was going on, and then we had dinner and chatted, which again distracted me from paying too close attention.
- I think there was another nature show on owls at some point. That one was cute.
- Just before the owl show, I caught a BBC sign-on! That was fun, if uneventful and extremely autistic. Interesting, the idea of a TV channel just having a static message saying "BBC Four starts at 7pm, go watch iPlayer if you're impatient". All the channels in the US are basically 24/7 now.
- So many music shows... I wish I caught what specifically the show was, but there was one with all these bleeding psychedelic colors and patterns, dudes wearing white spacesuits as the floor and walls and their keyboards glowed bright green and magenta, no doubt from the 70s. If that rings a bell for anyone, lemme know please. It was on BBC Four, if that helps.
- There were a couple Top of the Pops marathons with slightly more normal color palettes, plus pop-up text with facts about each band and performer. I think one was all love ballads, which amused Caby and I greatly. The bit that sticks with me the hardest was catching Ben Folds Five performing "Brick" to a dance show crowd completely unsure how to groove to this heart-wrenching piano ballad about abortion. An amusing sight to be sure, but one that made me a bit sad for a long time as I attached the sadness of "Brick" to the sadness of having to go back home.
- Oh, Would I Lie to You?! That's another panel show that I caught a bit of. I think I'd have to watch more to truly get it, plus it probably depends on you knowing the panelists to get the most out of it (as they either tell true anecdotes or lie about a crazy story and have to fool the other team with it, should you not know the premise). That said, it is always fun to again watch the British comedians I do recognize cross over with each other, as they do all the damn time on WILTY.
- I think I caught more Queen than I ever have the very last night. Documentaries, all the Live Aid show that was fit to broadcast in an hour, and I'm pretty sure at least one other live show. That was on one of the UKTV channels, I wanna say. As much as we like some Queen, they don't make the most ideal snuggle music.