Ricky Gervais Skips BBC Office Reunion, and Reviews of Louis C.K.’s “Ridiculous”

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Featured: Ricky Gervais, Mackenzie Crook, Martin Freeman, Louis C.K., Weird Al Yankovic, Dave Chappelle, Trevor Noah, Don Lemon, Kevin Hart, John Oliver, Tim Heidecker, Michael Che, Colin Jost

What’s in This Episode

• Ricky Gervais skips BBC Office 25th anniversary documentary for solo YouTube special
• Louis C.K. special ‘Ridiculous’ reviews
• Weird Al Yankovic turns down AI commercial deal
• Dave Chappelle visits San Diego mosque after mass shooting
• John Oliver guest stars on General Hospital
• The Onion launches Info Wars comedy content with Tim Heidecker
• Kevin Hart Netflix roast controversy and racial joke disparity

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

Caloroga Shark Media. We’ll do spoilers for the Louis C.K. Special after the break. Okay, everybody, Hi, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Late Night is off this week, but I had the late bot write some jokes.

It’s so hot. Trump announced he’s building a wall to keep the heat out in New York City. Mayor MUMDONI wants to tax billionaires to cool down the city. The billionaires flew to their second homes and the Hamptons, which kind of proved his point. It’s so hot.

Nateprighatsy performed at another Trump event just for the air conditioning. And it is so hot that Louis C.K. Is not wearing pants. But to be fair, that’s not entirely weather related. Ricky Gervais has a big news story and I would tell you about it here, but I didn’t actually paste it into the script, and I could edit this out, but that’s no fun.

Where did you go Gervay’s story here? It is Ricky Gervas gives The Office co star reunion for solo anniversary show. I just find it’s more fun not to do the edits. A source told the Sun. Now again, that’s a new newspaper.

Sources don’t usually talk to the big yellow thing in the sky making things hot, but a source has told The Son that Ricky Gervas’s decision is a huge blow as it taints the BBC’s celebration somewhat. The BBC is making a documentary to celebrate twenty five years since The Office arrived. Mackenzie Crook and Martin Freeman, who played Gareth and Tim, which are roughly Dwight and Jim for you Americans, will reminisce about the sitcom in the BBC celebration. Ricky Gervais will not be part of it. He’s decided to film his own documentary.

The source speaking to the newspaper The Sun said it just sums up his lack of allegiance towards the Bebe, which has been drifting for some time now. A representative for Ricky Gervas told The Independent that Ricky was quote not available hogwash. Does Johnny Mac to take part in the documentary, but remains in contact with the BBC all the time about the Office. The BBC declined to comment. Jervas announced last week he’ll be celebrating twenty five years of the Office with a document entry on his own YouTube channel.

That version will appear Thursday, July ninth, which I’m going to add to my script right now before I forget. And that is good news for me because week after July fourth is a slow newsweek. Thank you, Ricky Gervas Sorry, BBC. Jerves rep told The Independent that Ricky’s YouTube content will be an affectionate look back at the Office on this big anniversary.

Meanwhile, the BBC’s Mackenzie Crook and Martin Freeman remember the Office.

That’ll be on BBC to an eyeplayer Wednesday, July eighth at ten pm. Johnny Mac once again says thank you because week after July fourth is a slow newsweek. Thank you guys, not only content but a controversy. This is fantastic. Can you guys fight some more, maybe say mean things about each other in the press, Please do not be civil.

Johnny Mac has content holes. Back in twenty nineteen, Ricky Gervas insisted he was still a fan of the BBC, but said I wish it wouldn’t bow down a pressure from media or from one complaint. That’s gotten worse and the days are gone. When people say we’re leaving it as it is, missioning editors are scared of being fired. How hot is it?

It’s so hot. I got to prop open the door here in the office before I pass out. For weird Al, it’s all about the integrity. Mister Yankovic told Syracuse dot Com that he’s not a big fan of AI, and he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is. Al says he was offered a quote nice pile of money to start a commercial for what he was told was business software that would increase productivity.

Al says that a week before we’re supposed to shoot it, I found out, Oh this is AI, and I thought, oh no, I can’t be the poster boy for AI. Forget it. Dave Chappelle visited a mosque in California where three people were killed in a recent shooting. He met with community members and encouraged support for the families affected by the attack. Dave’s official Instagram shared a video in which Dave traveled to the mosque to pay his respects.

On Monday, May eighteenth, a mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego left of security guarden to community members dead During his visit, Chappelle met with members of the congregation and highlighted ongoing fundraising efforts to support the victim’s families. Trevor Noah on his podcast had guests Don lemonon they started discussing the backlash surrounding Kevin Hart’s Netflix roast. Trevor Noah said, I felt like it was weird that all the black comedians that came on stage told jokes about the people who were there, but then a lot of the white comedians who came on told jokes about black people. I was like, wait, wait, wait, I thought it was the roast of Kevin Hart on your television today. If you’re watching General Hospital and you’re like, is that John Oliver it is.

There’s even a trailer. I’ve got to get Jocelyn out of Bindimer. Now my work is done. I completed the prototype. Nathan isn’t who he says he is.

John Oliver guest stars General Hospital on ABC. John Oliver had announced the casting on the June twenty eighth episode of Last Week Tonight. General Hospital. Executive producer Frank Valenti said in a statement, when John Oliver publicly threw down the gauntlet and said he wanted to appear on a soap. We didn’t hesitate for a second.

He was everything you’d hope for. Prepared, professional, funny, and genuinely kind everyone on set. He plays an integral character in the story and I can’t wait for fans to see Ross has pass with within Port Charles General Hospital is now on its sixty fourth year. You’ll find it on ABC and Hulu. John Oliver said, General Hospital was everything I hoped it would be.

It’s a true honor to be a small stain on the history of this illustrious show.

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Also today, The Onion starts rolling out its first wave of official info Wars…

You may recall they acquired the property from the previous owner, Tim Hidecker, now the face of it. Idiker said, I think well SATs are gets old pretty quickly, and we don’t want to keep fueling previous owner. So the plan is to goof on him for a few months and have fun with it, and then transition the site into a comedy streaming platform for people that he would hate to see have success. Hidecker stressed this is a soft launch. He told Indy Wire everything will still live on the Onion because a standalone info Wars website and social media channel has yet to be set up.

The programming will be heavy on parodying previous owner and his right wing media counterparts. Iidaker says, we’re launching a couple shows. One is my extension of my emergency broadcast from a month or so ago, sort of a parody of the previous world. And we’re launching the Onions Jim Haggerty show that we’ve been teasing for a while now. That’ll all set the tone for the summer where this is heading.

Heideker said, I think it’s very much comedians and artists and creators I guess you’d say, who were using their experience and our experience with the Internet as the fuel and inspiration for their comedy. It’s very much people that are using the tools of social media and satirizing that are reflecting that on social media. Michael ja posted Happy b Day to my good buddy Colin Jessica Jost. I think back to all the stupid fights we had throughout the years, like when you came to work with that racist puppet, or when you kept doing Nazi salutest our fans on tour, when you got a first magazine cover canceled because I was making stupid faces, or when you insisted on getting or Kelly on the show, or when you took me to that whites only store, when you got us beat up at WrestleMania, or all the times I had to stand there and listen to you and Scarlet argue at work and I had to stand there and be like, okay. Or when Harry Styles gave us flowers and you gas lit me because I don’t think he likes me, and you got all mad because he got us the exact same thing.

You’re just being reverse racist again, Or that time when the FBI thought we were dating. None of that matters today, because we’re still pals and still the best update anchors besides Normantina, Amy, Jimmy Seth, Chevy Chain, Ackroyd Miller, Neilan and Quinn. And I’ll argue that with anybody. The remainder of today’s program will be reaction pieces to Louis C.K.’s new special. There will be spoilers.

If you don’t want to be spoiled, why don’t you come back tomorrow for everybody else. The Guardian gave it two stars out of five, their headline ridiculous review. Ridiculous is the name of the special. The Troubled Comedian returns with a whimper. Jesse Hassinger writes, Louis c.

K’s back again. It’s been nearly a decade since the comedian etcetera, etcetera. You know that story. It’s less a triumphant return than a gradual slinking back and unspoken assumption that no one really cares that much about his behavior. No particular defense or apology, just a shruggy emoticon.

A genuinely funny observation like I can’t be held responsible for what I dream. I’m not a good guy in my dreams doesn’t hit as squarely as it should, because we’ve already heard extensively about him doing bad guys stuff in real life. It’s also hard to avoid reading some moments intended as self deprecating or honest. Is when he talks about not having much sex recently and primarily dating woman in his own age, as a kind of tacit burnishing of his regular shrub cred, positioning himself as essentially harmless. Maybe this isn’t fair.

There are plenty comedians who haven’t been given the opportunity to assess whether the dark eyes being downplayed or set to the side for the sake of a funny bit. But it’s the reality Luis c K lives in the disconnect. The lack of shared reality accounts for some, but not all, of the specials halting on even quality. It has brilliant stretches to be sure. The review then gets into some specifics there and then skipping ahead elsewhere he relies on dopey shock laughs.

In past specials, at least some of those shocks would stemp more carefully from a logical progression almost trapping the audience, and a laughing at something taboo. Here, the set just feels like blunt, forced mischief, almost obligatory, and they’re pushing of some imagined envelope. Luis c K is clearly capable of more than this, and ridiculous as flashes of his writer’s flare for crystallizing what could be standard comedians laments into something more vividly relatable. For Slate, Imagen west Night writes, the material in this new special isn’t nasty and bitter as some of the material he was doing immediately after his cancelation was. It’s classic ck superficially offensive, but actually taking kind of gleefully a moral route to the morally defensible positions, and funny too.

You can tell from his on stage a fact that twenty seventeen is a long time ago from his perspective, But what about from hours as the audience. What is supposed to happen after somebody’s canceled. They’re things K could have done to an act of better redemption and didn’t. The problem is so much K’s big on television now, nine years after his disgrace. He was always going to return.

He’s simply too profitable and too famous to be put out to pasture. The problem is what he’s been doing in the interim. It’s giving ahead. I wonder how people would feel about it had he genuinely gone quiet and taken the long time he proposed in his initial statement about the accusations to step back and listen back. In twenty eighteen, Slate’s Christina Catterucci wrote this prediction.

Every time ck are one of his canceled peers re emerges, some people will get mad, but most people won’t. There will be other more pressing outrages to some other with energy, and before anyone fully grasps what’s going on. They’ll be back on tour or rolling through the credits of TV shows and movies with an ugly entry on their Wikipedia pages, but a growing bank account to sue that indignity, The rap writes, there’s no mention of Louis c. K’s once perceived downfall in this one hour comedy special, which finds the man a little older, not exactly wiser, but with a bit of a glint in his eyes, clearly enjoying his time on the stage. K’s audience eats out of the palm of his hand while he regals them with personal stories and his desire and never get plastic surgery to his face.

Variety says Ck is one of the most gifted and influential performers of his generation, and would remain so even if he never took the stage again. So when I say Ridiculous is a strong hour of material performed with practice expertise, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Skipping ahead, Variety writes about Netflix, when the company stand up Zar, Robbie Prat sold my Variety colleague, this is just about giving subscribers an option, and that viewers have a decision to make about their own personal viewing habits. He was downplaying the decision Netflix itself made to re enter a business relationship with c K. The release of Ridiculous also culminates a tour that saw Ck make inroads with the kind of liberal coded publications that once covered his reputational nador with favorite write ups in both The Times and The New Yorker and Indie Wire, and gave the special acus.

They write in Ridiculous, the remnants of his former inquisitive, committed self were all but gone. His set doesn’t build enough to be rewarding in the aggregate, and his individual riffs keep stopping short of real wisdom. It’s terribly sad that Netflix is platforming Louis K again, just as it’s terribly sad that there are enough people attending his shows to make a return of mainstream media possible. It’s also sad to see Ck so trapped creatively and emotionally, but nowhere near as sad as knowing he physically and emotionally trapped others. Then he lied about it, got caught, and now carries on as if nothing happened.

I have not seen the special yet. It is Tuesday as I record this I’m trying to work ahead this week into the holiday weekend. It was my plan to watch the special on Tuesday night and include it one way or another in Sunday’s episode. Would be the top specials of the year so far, it’s I’ll probably on Sunday tell you what I thought of Louis C.K. Ridiculous now streaming on Netflix, and that is your comedy news for today.

You can follow the show on Spotify, turn notifications on so st an episode and I’ll see here tomorrow.