Hello listeners,
This week, we wonder at the morals of fairy tales. You know, the stupid underlying ‘meaning’ that spoils the fun of a far-out fictional confection, and ensures that kiddies absorb some very dubious life lessons. There are probably some very dubious life lessons in AMT216, but at least we’re not pretending we have any morals.
Today we contemplate:
round robin letters
Keeping Up Appearances
Roy Clarke
Compo vs. Prometheus
basket cases
dominatrixes
non-alcoholic beer
hospital flowers
the grape cure
governess porn
sexy pizza
sexy Travis Bickle
American Apparel
why we don’t do shout-outs
and
the only thing that happens in 31 series of Last of the Summer Wine.
Plus: Olly would like Aesop’s Fables to be more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book; Helen is the Sookie Stackhouse of AMT; and Martin the Sound Man gets quite emotional about the tale of the Elves and the Shoemaker. Thankfully he recovered sufficiently to launch a contest for under-18 songwriters, which you can find out about by clicking here.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from a couple of chaps on their way to Alton Towers. Cue a blast of Mann Rage directed at theme park rides that blatantly used to be other theme park rides. Oh God, why dost thou torment him thus?
What is not a torment is asking us a QUESTION! (Though reading some of them is a torment for us.) Send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
And assuming the elves will step in to finish off our chores, we will see you again next week for AMT217.
Helen & Olly
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Tags: Aaron Barschak, alcohol, amputees, Andy Kaufman, basket cases, beer, birthdays, body farm, booze, Brothers Grimm, candy cigarettes, Channel 5, Cinderella, comedy, Compo, coroners, corpses, daytime TV, dead bodies, death, dominatrix, drinking, Elves and the Shoemaker, etymology, eyes, fables, fairy tales, First World War, food, fruit, Germany, grape cure, grapes, Greece, Helen's dad, hospital, Johanna Brandt, Keeping Up Appearances, King of Prussia, Last of the Summer Wine, laws, maps, mind-reading, Miss Marple, mistakes, mix-ups, morals, Munich, Myleene Klass, Nazi Germany, Netflix, non-alcoholic beer, nurses, old books, Olympic torch, One Foot In The Grave, outsourcing, pathology, Patricia Routledge, photos, phrases, pizza, prawn, Red Dwarf, rigor mortis, round robins, Roy Clarke, sayings, shout-outs, sitcoms, soft fruit, Sookie Stackhouse, stories, taxi driver, telly, time of death, Travis Bickle, TV, underage drinking, unfunny, USA, user-generated content, visual shorthand, World War One
Answer Me This! Podcast 
June 7, 2012 at 4:49 pm |
I have an acquaintance who works for a main branch Public Broadcasting which you mentioned plays those “Keeping Up Appearances” for their fund raiser drives. It should be noted that PBS and their affiliates replay that show and others of their ilk because they have a really long and *cheap* licensing agreement to be able to show that particular show (and many other old BBC series like “Are You Being Served”) so it is cheap to show and thus helps drives down the overhead during fundraiser drives. They do tend to try and schedule stuff around their anticipated audience (so that would play during a time when senior folks would be watching), no you may have misinterpreted how big “Keeping Up Appearances” is here. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a handful of folks who can actually name and describe this show.
June 4, 2012 at 12:47 am |
Well, to be fair, Keeping Up Appearances is used during pledge drives on U.S. public television during certain time slots appealing to folks of a certain age or demographic. For most of us in America, PBS is where we first got any taste of any British television programs, from Monty Python to Benny Hill to Inspector Morse. And thank goddess for that, because otherwise where could I put blame for my British television and radio addiction now if not for PBS? Your quality television is superior to ours. Allowing for the fact that crap is crap on either side of the Atlantic.
June 1, 2012 at 9:47 pm |
That new jingle (the one that sounded a bit Buggles) has risen to the top of my favourites list. Sounds fantastic on headphones
May 31, 2012 at 9:37 pm |
About nurses (as a sex fantasy).
There are two main resons why nurses are such a popular sex fantasy:
1. Nurses are (on average) very young: nurses begin working (here in Germany) at an age of 18 or 19, but usually not last more than 10 years (1/3 is in this age range), because of the intense manual labour, the menial income and around the clock hours. And those nurses who stay on the job, tend to reduce the “customer contact” because of increased (internal) social status. So, if you have to go to a hospital, you most likely will encounter YOUNG nurses.
2. Nurses (in todays society) come closest to slaves, as they (have to) cater to every (actual) need of their patients (=self imagined “masters”).
So if you are in a hospital, nurses will have to help you shave, wash, piss and shit… (Why not imagine this relationship go further?)
Verfassungsfreund
May 24, 2012 at 9:34 am |
I think the Elves and the Shoemaker story was supposed to be teach how profits work, and how to ensure growth.
Same resources
High-end production techniques
Higher retail value for same resources
Charge a price which will support your business and overheads, leading to increased production
Also, it is pro-immagrant workers – as a technique for increasing profits basically. Perhaps it is aspirational – you can become a sucessful business owner.