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| I bought this back in 2001, I've still never read/listened to it... |
Over the winter I got into watching NMtB on YouTube (oh thank you, people that find happiness from uploading old episodes of a show I have no other way of seeing). NMtB is a bit special to me because way back in 2001 I lived in London for about three months for a study abroad program, and it remains one of the best times of my life. I often wish I'd stayed on longer, but who knows how that would've affected the rest of my life... Anyway, in that time there were two shows that I found and loved to watched. One was The Dave Gorman Collection (which maybe I'll post about another time) and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Looking at the series dates, I believe I watched season 8. I totally developed a crush on Sean Hughes and ended up buying a couple of his novels. Once I found it, I didn't miss one for the rest of my time there, but of course I couldn't watch it anymore once I'd gotten home (I don't think torrenting TV shows was that big a thing yet...if even a thing at all...so that wasn't an option).
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| This is where I lived!! I take a walk by it whenever I visit London. |
[Sort of related, I actually ended up getting to see We Know Where You Live, Live! hosted by Eddie Izzard on the last day of my time in London (I'd accidentally booked my flight home a day too late but being a HUGE Eddie Izzard fan, I was very happy once I'd see an ad for this show). Phil Jupitus, who is a team captain on NMtB performed that night and did the most hilarious impression of Eddie Izzard.]
Anyway, I'd mostly forgotten about this show until a few months back when I had some friends over to watch Doctor Who (yes, it's taken over my life), I wanted to show them some Who-related videos on YouTube and one of my friends saw a video in the "related" section that had Richard Ayode on it that he wanted to put on. It was an episode of NMtB that he was guest-hosting. And it was bloody hilarious. (Another side note, it's what got me to finally watch The IT Crowd which I ended up loving.) After they left, I decided to watch some more NMtB as I saw there were tons of episodes up on YouTube. Being me, I needed to start from the beginning. I blew through the first 5 seasons in the following week or so, but then fell off. I think because I'd started during rerun season and new TV had come back on.
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| "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" |
So this afternoon, my Netflix was not connecting for some reason so I just put on YouTube on my TV and decided to watch some more. I think I'll finish season 6 today.
After all of that, maybe I should explain the show! It's basically a music quiz show, but points aren't always awarded fairly and no one actually wins anything. The first 17 seasons are hosted by this guy Mark Lamarr, who I think is a comedian but I don't know anything of him outside of this. There are two team captains, Phil Jupitus and Sean Hughes, also comedians. These three also have an amazing amount of music knowledge. Each episode has four guests, two for each team, sometimes comedians but mostly musical performers. Some guests include Suggs, Boy George, Billie Piper (omg she was around 17 at the time and ADORABLE and long before her stint on Doctor Who), Lemmy, Billy Bragg, Adam Ant and a ton of other mostly-British people I've never heard of, but many of whom are quite funny. (Eventually, Simon Amstell becomes the host followed by a bunch of guest hosts, also Sean Hughes leaves around season 10, replaced by Bill Bailey, who've eventually replaced by Noel Fielding, also from The IT Crowd.)
There are a bunch of different categories, like the one where they have to perform (without lyrics) the intros to famous songs or the one where the host says a lyric and the team needs to say the next line. There's another round where they show an old video focusing on a particular performer, then they bring out five people and you have to guess which one is the one from the video. (Ugh that description is so poorly written, I hope that makes sense.) Oh and the one where you have to figure out the lyrics to a particularly hard-to-understand song. That one is great and always makes me think of my mom who always talked about how she had no idea what the lyrics were to some of her favorite songs, particularly with The Rolling Stones.
The show is apparently incredibly popular over there and has made it to 27 seasons! So far there hasn't been any new episodes in 2014, but supposedly there's a new regular host in line for the next series. I would really like it if this show lasted forever. I've got quite a way to go to catch up though, so I'm not worried of running out just yet...
So that was all a long way to tell you, hey, I like this show called Never Mind the Buzzcocks. If you're a big music buff, or just an anglophile, you might like it. Check it out. :P
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