Karl Pilkington - An Idiot Abroad

You have to remember when Ricky and Steve first started on XFM they weren't really that famous, and regardless of Karls job title he basically was just the producer for their 2 hour radio slot (as well as his other job making promos and jingles) and pretty much just pressed the buttons and made sure things ran smoothly. It's not a stretch to think he was a complete nobody that just got lucky.

And to be honest if you start doubting stuff like this it's like tugging on the end of a ball of string, the whole thing unravels and where's the fun in that?

For example my two favourite XFM shows are the one where Ricky comes in completely hungover, and the one where Karl messes up the desk and the adverts break, leaving dead air for about 20 seconds, and then Ricky comes back on fuming and swearing. Yeah these could both be fabricated but personally I think ignorance is bliss :)
 
I'm not finding it funny at all tbh, enjoyable yes because of the locations but funny no. It's like wish you were here (extreme version). The India episode was better that the GWoC one for me, I'm not buying into the whole innocent naive Karl though, his reaction to India was far from legitimate.
 
Spektor said:
How many 'Head Producer' jobs have you applied to exactly? Karl had worked in radio previously, plus we're talking about XFM here...

Also again, you are in your own head applying high social/educational/fiscal prestige to the job he did, which was pressing the buttons for some presenters and throwing the odd jingle together.

I think you're just getting way too desperate now looking for something to support your faux-Karl theory, you already fell flat on your face a page or so ago, maybe just let it go whilst you're behind? :D
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How many have you applied for?
Once again you think they used to throw jobs at people in the olden days.
XFM was equal to Radio Stoke or Signal Radio where I live and I know the guys who are in those jobs and what qualifications/experience they needed.
Your theory sounds like a Pilkington sketch -
We've just opened a radio station and need some people to run it
What about him with the bald head walking past?
Oy mate can you press some buttons?
Dunno
You've got the job
If I press a button will I get a banana out of the dispenser?

Karl is a clever man and you need to wake up to it.
Even this new show is full of sketches - just watch the camera angles and how the interaction has been setup.
Still excewllent though.
 
dmpoole said:
How many have you applied for?
Once again you think they used to throw jobs at people in the olden days.
XFM was equal to Radio Stoke or Signal Radio where I live and I know the guys who are in those jobs and what qualifications/experience they needed.
Your theory sounds like a Pilkington sketch -
We've just opened a radio station and need some people to run it
What about him with the bald head walking past?
Oy mate can you press some buttons?
Dunno
You've got the job
If I press a button will I get a banana out of the dispenser?

Karl is a clever man and you need to wake up to it.
Even this new show is full of sketches - just watch the camera angles and how the interaction has been setup.
Still excewllent though.
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Olden days? 'I know a guy'? something you've entirely made up to support your own silly arguement? Riiiiight, airtight then.

You still just don't follow that Karl is very poorly educated and has no qualifications apart from his E in history. Had experience in radio and then got a job in a pokey radio station which despite the awe you seem to be inferring from the job title, only really required someone a step up from brain dead at the helm. Then just the whole scripting and who is it exactly doing it, considering Ricky & Steve are very busy with other things, took the best part of a year to write a 6 episodes for Office/Extras.

Karl isn't clever in the slightest. Sketches? Karl does something that day whilst wittering on about it, which is the point of the show. Just him throwing out his initial reactions and has a camera crew filming it, who assuming they want to be paid and kept on afterwards won't be filming it on a shaky mobile phone.

You have tried several things so far, you tried the "omg the trailer was different to the beginning of the show! proof it's scripted!" and fell flat on your face. You're now pinning everything on getting a job pressing buttons in radio being so insanely difficult that Karl can only be an actor who actually holds a masters degree or something. You couldn't be anymore wrong and I dread to think what you're going to throw all your chips into next.
 
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Spektor said:
Olden days? 'I know a guy'? something you've entirely made up to support your own silly arguement? Riiiiight, airtight then.
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Absolutely not and I resent that statement.
One of them is a bass player in a local band called Sinpusher who I have gigged with quite a few times and the other guy is called Nigel (an old member on here who hasn't posted much) who went on to be the promoter of Trentham Gardens and has moved on from there.
I don't tell lies.

Spektor said:
You have tried several things so far, you tried the "omg the trailer was different to the beginning of the show! proof it's scripted!" and fell flat on your face.
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The mistake was my eldest daughters and if you read the thread I changed nothing.
If you want to believe it was me then carry on.

I really do feel sorry for you that you can't see he is a character that has grown exponentially with Gervais & Merchants help.
Live in your dreamworld and keep believing that Karl actually believes that Monkeys go home and bonk their colleagues wife or climb up ladders to rescue people - he's having you on and you're falling for it for some unknown reason.

Oh yeah, and Karl is NOT AN ACTOR, he is a comedian.
Just watch the show, watch the camera work and listen to the dialogue - you will feel so stupid when it finally sinks in.
 
Gervais's blog today:

A Confession

Some people have correctly spotted that An Idiot Abroad is totally scripted. It took ages to write too. Each episode of The Office took us about 2 months to write but they were only 30 minutes long. This show is nearly an hour so each script took us about 3 and a half months to write. Casting was a lot harder too. Just finding that indian actor that looked like Bill Oddie took 8 weeks. It was also a bit embarrassing auditioning people and asking them to wrap their cocks round a walking stick. Still, it will all be worth it when Steve and I win all the BAFTAs again for writing and directing.

I'm a lot prouder of creating the "Pilkington" character (that's not his real name, of course), than I am of David Brent probably. (Although ironically, David Brent isn't a character at all. I am just like that in real life so I didn't have to write any lines for that one. In fact I didn't realise The Office was a sitcom at the time. The BBC just came to my place of work and filmed me selling paper. I've certainly milked becoming famous off the back of that lucky break, right?)

So yeah, Karl is completely fake. When you meet him off camera he's a bit like Steven Fry. We just get him to act dim to make money. All the podcasts and audiobooks were completely scripted too. If you listen carefully you can hear us turning the pages. The good thing about those were that we didn't have to learn the lines by heart as we weren't in vision. A lot easier than in An Idiot Abroad where Karl not only has to learn the whole script but often only gets one take because we only have all those extras for a few hours.

The tricky bit is when he's interviewed on radio and TV. We have to get the presenter in on it so they ask him the right questions. Luckily every single one has gone along with it and never given the secret away. Thanks. But I just thought it was time to come clean. I'm ashamed that I ever lied to you. Sorry.

"Karl" will find it difficult getting different roles in other scripted comedies and dramas as we have typecast him so much over the last few years, so please buy the audiobooks and DVDs as he will need the money.

I'm glad the charade is over as I won't need to pretend to find my best mate funny anymore. It's hard laughing at lines you've written yourself. Obviously I don't find him funny at all and we are not really friends. Thanks for watching all this time suckers, and well done to the really smart people who knew all this all along. You got me! You are brilliant.

Ricky.
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Dmpoole since hes a comedian who surely would have been picked up to do all of this by Ricky/Steve having been a comedian prior can you link me to his earlier comedy appearances or writings?

Plus the "watch the camera work" thing... Karl is directing it to now is he? you're an epic tool.
 
I am really not sure why they defend this sand castle so much. Of course the series are pre-scripted and careful preparation is put into each episode. Carl has not arrived in China or India at random date, they did not organize him rikshaw or hotel over the phone on the spot as an instant surprise, places he visits, events he witness, even people he meets are in large not coincidental or random. Otherwise we would be watching one episode about several people with bags of filming equipment being held indefinitely at Chinese boarder control and another episode about bunch of tired Englishmen fighting dysentery for two weeks.It is organized trip for tv series, with prepared routes, locations, guides, crew, translators and medical staff - everything is preplanned, prearranged, prescripted and ready to go, just like most of Carls one liners. He's a professional, making professional comedy show, for acceptance of professional television execs. There is no such thing as "sending imbecile to random location, in hope he'll encounter some events that will prompt him to do or say something genuinely funny". And if you did try to do tv program that way you wouldn't be able to make lol-worthy mockumentary about it, not even if Gervais had as much funds as Ruppert Murdoch.
 
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v0n said:
I am really not sure why they defend this sand castle so much. Of course the series are pre-scripted and careful preparation is put into each episode. Carl has not arrived in China or India at random date, they did not organize him rikshaw or hotel over the phone on the spot as an instant surprise, places he visits, events he witness, even people he meets are in large not coincidental or random. Otherwise we would be watching one episode about several people with bags of filming equipment being held indefinitely at Chinese boarder control and another episode about bunch of tired Englishmen fighting dysentery for two weeks.It is organized trip for tv series, with prepared routes, locations, guides, crew, translators and medical staff - everything is preplanned, prearranged, prescripted and ready to go, just like most of Carls one liners. He's a professional, making professional comedy show, for acceptance of professional television execs. There is no such thing as "sending imbecile to random location, in hope he'll encounter some events that will prompt him to do or say something genuinely funny". And if you did try to do tv program that way you wouldn't be able to make lol-worthy mockumentary about it, not even if Gervais had as much funds as Ruppert Murdoch.
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Well said.

It's simple things like in the first episode where he's sitting on the pavement eating his Monster Munch which was a great sketch claiming he's on his last packet.
He looks over and asks "What is he eating?" and a camera is already on the offending article in close up.
Chinese translator says it's a foetus egg and the other camera is on Pilkington pulling faces etc.
We then get a punchline later when they see the driver throwing apple at the bears - brilliant.

And like the Chinese woman wasn't told to shut the bus curtains at the right time - pretty obvious that one.
 
I agree with you that the events that will occur such as the rikshaw are pre-planned but what develops from that point are however in my eyes, completely real and from the mind of Karl Pilkington.

It's like saying a Football match is Pre-planned because they've booked the Cameras, the Commentators, the fans to turn up, the Police to be there, the players to be on the pitch at 3pm and so on. Just because parts of it HAVE to be planned, doesn't mean what unfolds the rest of the time is too.

The beauty in Karl is he can say the simplest of things and yet it's funny. I could listen to him all day, in fact on a recent trip down to Wales we listened to the Podcasts for the entire journey. His stories are delivered in such a simple way, that it provides comedic value and the thing about that delivery, is it's as natural as it comes. The only thing about the show you can say is Scripted is the Voice over and that's about it. Yet it's the on camera parts that provide the real quality.
 
dmpoole said:
Well said.

It's simple things like in the first episode where he's sitting on the pavement eating his Monster Munch which was a great sketch claiming he's on his last packet.
He looks over and asks "What is he eating?" and a camera is already on the offending article in close up.
Chinese translator says it's a foetus egg and the other camera is on Pilkington pulling faces etc.
We then get a punchline later when they see the driver throwing apple at the bears - brilliant.

And like the Chinese woman wasn't told to shut the bus curtains at the right time - pretty obvious that one.
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Surely they had more than 1 camera...and surely it's not filmed in Real time if not....

You can easily produce that with 2 cameras and yet it's still exactly how it unfolded.
 
MrMacca said:
Surely they had more than 1 camera...and surely it's not filmed in Real time if not....

You can easily produce that with 2 cameras and yet it's still exactly how it unfolded.
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That's my point.
Camera 1 on Pilkington
Camera 2 already on the foetus egg/driver
Which means it was a setup sketch.
 
But who is saying that the camera 2 on the Foetus was done in Real time? Karls reaction is still genuine even if then Camera 2 has to move in and get a closer look at the foetus.

Your at a restaurant with your friend, you have a little look around and you see a man eating this weird egg thing, just shoveling it in.
You say "eerrgghh, did you see that?!"
your friend asks "what?"
You say "That guy, he's eating something weird, looks like an egg"

Your friend turns round and takes a look.

Now in the above situation, does your friend see what you were on about? Answer is yes, just from a different point of view. For all we know, we might have been seeing the man eating his 2nd Egg, and Karl was reacting after seeing the man eating his 1st egg.

Feels like you're mixing up Editing and Scripting.
 
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MrMacca said:
Feels like you're mixing up Editing and Scripting.
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And it seems like you're coming up with excuses to make it real.

To make it real, camera 1 should have panned around to the driver and zoomed in and then gone back to Karl instead of editing.

I also like the toilet sketch.
Gervais rang him up and Karl exaggerates his experience in the toilet claiming their were 2 chefs in there taking orders while poo'ing.
Gervais says 'I wouldn't order a number two" to which Pilkington says "or a King Poo Chicken".
Brilliant and not something you come out with without thinking about it first.
 
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