The Ricky Gervais Show: Difference between revisions

'''Ricky Gervais''' basically describing the entire show. }}

 

 

The show basically has the format of a [[Seinfeldian Conversation]]: Ricky, Stephen and Karl talk about life in general, the news, amusing anecdotes and sometimes even a little life philosophy. The show started with just Ricky and Stephen, but eventually, Karl was included into the show, since Ricky and Stephen realized from talking to him that [[Cloudcuckoolander|Karl's... interesting worldview]] was a source of humor they just ''had'' to exploit. Recently, they produced a series called "The Ricky Gervais Guide to..." and focused on topics like Medicine, England, Society, the Future, and the Human Body, though the discussions rarely remained that focused.

* [[The Eeyore]]: Karl. Ricky often gets angry at him for complaining so much when, as Ricky sees it, he has close to no problems or responsibilities.

* [[Everything Is Better With Monkeys]]: [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|Monkey News]], a section of the show where Karl tells a news story which stars a monkey. Highlights include a fire-fighting monkey and a space monkey who committed suicide after not adapting to life back on earth.

* [[Everything Is Trying to Kill You]]: Karl's feelings on Australia, naming several of the (many) dangerous species that live there as to why he refuses to go there. Especially camping.

* [[The Faceless]]: Suzanne in the animated show. Whenever they have her drawn for a story involving her, its always from behind, or her face obscured by an object, or in the fifth episode, completely enshrouded by darkness while standing in a lit doorway leading into a dark room. The reason why is that she's asked that her face not be in the public domain, a point which the fans have respected.

* [[My New Gift Is Lame]]: Karl explains how he gave Suzanne a Christmas gift of an industrial-size box of condoms. Upon being pressed, Karl admits that this was a "good year" for her.

** Poor gift-giving is a bit of a theme of the show. Karl blames his traditional lack of effort on the childhood experience of buying his mother (who's "into gnomes") a Victoria Plum figurine that she hated, and on the year he got a computer without enough memory to play any games, which caused him to throw up out of sheer anguish. Ricky is revealed to have [[Convenience Store Gift Shopping|bought his entire family scratch cards for Christmas]] and recalls the year he realized he was too old to just wrap things he'd found around the house to give to his older siblings. And the main attribute of Steve's father of which we're aware is his lack of gift-buying sensitivity: his birthday gifts to the adolescent Steve included "The Making of ''[[Michael Jackson|Thriller]]''" and the collected wartime speeches of [[Winston Churchill]] ("Never forget, son"), and for his twentieth wedding anniversary, he passed over Steve's suggestion of a makeover/spa day and dinner for his wife in favor of a stainless-steel trowel ("Do you think I should've got it engraved?") and an industrial-size tin of coffee. Years later, Steve mentions that his father finally got his mother an appropriate Christmas gift -- a gold bracelet -- and then spent the entire day bragging to people about it.

** They once dedicated an entire segment of the radio show to Karl's stories about his "near-death experiences" as a kid. The first involved choking on a Mr. Freeze pop (which he credits with giving him a sense of a new lease on life, as a result of which he went to school for three whole days in a row); the second was a snowy day when his mother didn't think it was safe to go out, so he had to sneak out to do his paper route in time to get back and watch ''[[The Pink Panther]]'', and he got caught in an upstairs window and almost fell; and the third was during the martial-arts craze in the eighties when he tried to "kick his height," but froze at the apex of the kick to try to get his father's attention, lost his balance and hit his head on the ground. There was also the story about the time he ate too many cream cakes and had a bad stomachache. His mother called the doctor, who sarcastically said he didn't have long to live, which his mother believed until Karl's dad came home and phoned the doctor to check. Ricky tactfully suggests that in another family, they might have realized the doctor was joking.

* [[Not Good With People]]: Karl seems far more comfortable around bugs (or ghosts!) then friends or family. During a date with Suzanne, he becomes far more interested in the ladybug that lands on his arm.