Eating The Sandwich

March 31, 2017 5:42 AM

Andy Riley (writer on Veep, Black Books and many other things) has just updated his glossary of terminology used by (mainly UK TV) comedy writers.
posted by Bloxworth Snout (19 comments total)

And he likes to get at least one Langdon a week into Have I Got News For You.

Ahh good, now I have a name to use for another thing that I find tiresome about Have I Got News For You. I'll add it to the list.
posted by eykal at 5:48 AM on March 31, 2017

Turd in a Slipper – a joke which feels good, but isn’t really any good. [via Judd Apatow]

Oh, I like that. :7)

Last week, on the Risky Business information security podcast, someone (maybe commentator Adam Boileau?) said that they had decided to do some real research after a long time of accepting conventional wisdom. He referred to this as people in the past making "voodoo fingers" instead of actually explaining their assertions, and I really liked the image.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:38 AM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

Group 4 – a subject that is held in such public ridicule that just mentioning it in a topical show can get you a big laugh. Group 4 Security used to get this reaction on Have I Got News For You in the 90s, as did the M25. In the run-up to the 2012 Olympic Games, it was the G4S security firm (AKA the renamed Group 4). Going back to the early 90s, Ratners (the jewellery shop) was the comedy touchstone. Still further back in the late 70s/early 80s, it was British Rail, and even more specifically, the British Rail pork pie. Group Fours which never seem to go away: Pot Noodle, and Sting’s tantric sex. [via John O’Farrell]

Augh, this is my least favorite thing in comedy. Other Groups 4: Justin Bieber, Jar-Jar Binks, Bill Clinton's sex life. We get it. Move on.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:41 AM on March 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

Augh, this is my least favorite thing in comedy. Other Groups 4: Justin Bieber, Jar-Jar Binks, Bill Clinton's sex life. We get it. Move on.

Fine...as long as we get to keep the Thing On Trump's Head.
posted by briank at 6:56 AM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

Gilligan Cut – a common American term for the bicycle cut. Derived from ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ The term Gilligan Cut is never used in the UK because Gilligan’s Island has only been shown very rarely, and even then not in all regions of the country.

This makes me sad. The British should know Gilligan's Island.

Not because it's good as such. But it's part of our cultural DNA and should be part of a global diversity of silliness. Like a seed vault or something.
posted by Naberius at 7:01 AM on March 31, 2017

I wondered about that, actually. I feel like Gilligan's Island is already fading out as a pop culture reference point. You could probably pinpoint it to an age. If I had to make a bet, I'd guess fewer than 1/3rd of American 25 year olds have knowledge of Gilligan's Island.
posted by Diablevert at 7:28 AM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

If I had to make a bet, I'd guess fewer than 1/3rd of American 25 year olds have knowledge of Gilligan's Island.

But if you sing them the theme song once, it will latch onto their DNA and never let go...
posted by mkhall at 7:42 AM on March 31, 2017

If I had to make a bet, I'd guess fewer than 1/3rd of American 25 year olds have knowledge of Gilligan's Island.

I would argue that they might not know Gilligan's Island, but they know about Gilligan's Island, because it's been referenced in other pop culture for the last half-century. Like how people in the Gilligan's Island generation knew about James Cagney and Bing Crosby largely via Looney Toons depictions.
posted by Etrigan at 7:47 AM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, but I had no idea that chicken sketch was meant to be Bing Crosby vs Frank Sinatra. I think it wasn't until a college class on film noir that I groked that there was such a thing as an Edward G Robinson and/or a Peter Lorre, that those weren't just generic gangster/snivelling assistants but impressions.

Anyway, re-railing --- this is an interesting list. It made me wonder --- every profession has its jargon, and I'm sure writers are especially prone to it, making up words for shit being their jobs. So many of these are so highly specific that I wondered if comedy writers might be the most prone to it, since they work in groups and are unlikely to have gone through some sort of formal academic training in the gig. Like fiction writers and journalists might have been put through the wringer of grad school, where some of this stuff might be encapsulated by formal, acedemic terms.
posted by Diablevert at 8:08 AM on March 31, 2017

Nice find! It's a neat supplement to Jon Rogers's extensive series of Jargon Preservation blog posts (part 2, part 3, part 4).

Highlights include:

"First Blurt": the very first pitch on a joke, and it makes everybody in the room laugh. You then spend 15 minutes trying to beat that joke, only to realize that writer's first instinctive joke was the best. When in doubt, first blurt wins.

"the Idiot Ball": On a sitcom, demarks the character who's misunderstanding of a situation or comment - and his predicate bad decisions -- fuels the comedy of the episode. That character is "carrying the idiot ball" for the episode.

"Schmuck Bait:" A threatened plot twist/outcome in a TV show which will obviously never happen. Example: "Will Ross leave Rachel forever and move to Paris?" Obviously the actor isn't going to leave the show so it's "schmuck bait".

"a Squiggy" or "the 'Hello' Gag": From Laverne & Shirley. Can only be defined by example.

Laverne (crossing to door): "What sort of degenerate freak would agree to that?"
Squiggy (door opens): "He-looooo."

(Are Kids Today going to get a Laverne and Shirley reference when the show barely registers as a footnote to A League of Their Own and This Is Spinal Tap?)
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:20 AM on March 31, 2017 [3 favorites]

Eating The Sandwich – an expression used by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, inspired by a memorably bad scene they read in a script once: a character drugged a sandwich with some sleeping pills and while on the way to deliver it, forgot, took an absent-minded bite, and passed out. Any time a character seems to be directly causing their own problems in a rather contrived way, they’re ‘eating the sandwich.’ More external pressure is needed to make them do something funny.

Am I just easily amused, or is that actually potentially funny?
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:27 AM on March 31, 2017

Am I just easily amused, or is that actually potentially funny?

I think when the idea is actually put into a script, with a plot hung around its shoulders, the excuse of "he forgot" is just too weak to support it.

Thanks for this. There is nothing I love more than comedy process and picking apart jokes. I like trying to figure out why a joke works more than a joke itself.
posted by Think_Long at 8:32 AM on March 31, 2017

Except that people can be absent-minded, and that can be funny, albeit in a physical, double-take-into-a-spit-take sort of way.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:54 AM on March 31, 2017

This is a really interesting look inside the writer's room. It really gives you a sense of what they find funny amongst themselves.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:09 AM on March 31, 2017

Am I just easily amused, or is that actually potentially funny?

They did a similar gag this week on Modern Family. At first it felt a little forced, but the payoff at the end was laugh-out-loud funny.
posted by Wild_Eep at 10:42 AM on March 31, 2017

Evidently Chicken Town is my favourite poem ever.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 10:56 AM on March 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

Not because it's good as such. But it's part of our cultural DNA and should be part of a global diversity of silliness. Like a seed vault or something.

The Brits really don't need American silliness. Their TV comedy history is 1000X more absurd and far better than America's. And I say this despite only getting about 1/5th of their jokes.
posted by srboisvert at 11:45 AM on March 31, 2017

Except that people can be absent-minded, and that can be funny, albeit in a physical, double-take-into-a-spit-take sort of way.

You should always follow art rules like this unless there's a really good reason not to, in which case you should ignore them.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:53 PM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

Any time a character seems to be directly causing their own problems in a rather contrived way, they’re ‘eating the sandwich.’

I would consider this to be a solid bit of general advice, maybe, if didn't describe basically all of Arrested Development, and more pointedly, Peep Show. But perhaps the advice is just for the normalos.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:38 PM on March 31, 2017