I listened to almost every single episode of Chris Morris’ genius-like radio show Blue Jam when I was on holiday.
It can put you in a very strange place. But it is absolutely amazing. Some of the writing is incredible. Yes it’s undoubtedly in odd taste (I’m sure some people would say incredibly bad taste), but it stands alone in my mind as a kind of fucked-up mutoid love-child of Derek and Clive, Monty Python, the set from an early 90s chill out room, and a warped psycho-therapist.
Here’s a kind of montage of a bunch of bits from YouTube. The video isn’t supposed to move, it’s a radio show :-)
From a DJing perspective the musical selection is fantastic too. That’s the thing you don’t pick up from these isolated clips, you don’t get a sense of the sonic journey.
These YouTubed snippets don’t really do it justice. You need to get transported into the whole 60 minute experience for it to really seep into your brain like is needs to.
If you think you might be a fan there’s an excellent comedy forum with a strong Chris Morris bent over at Cook’d and Bomb’d.
In fact there’s a complete episode guide as well as download links to the whole first series – yay!: http://chilled.cream.org/boards/index.php?page=bluejam#series_1
The only thing that I think you can legitimately get hold of is the Blue Jam CD
Oh and you can still get hold of the DVD of the Show JAM
There’s lots of snippets from Jam around on YouTube if you want to check it out. And in spite of having just said that it’s not as good as the radio there are undoubtedly moments of genius…
And it still does have that strange sense of melancholy that I love so dearly…
The sense that you’re not quite sure whether to laugh, cry or peel off your skin with a rusty penknife.
And don’t get me started on The Day Today, Brass Eye or Nathan Barley or we’ll be here forever…
I was listening to the Wayne Carr interviews last week.. and the Morris’ interview with Jerry Springer. “My Doctor fingers my kids up the Aaaerse”. It’s Outraaaagous…
The disabled person “biscuit test”.. oh dear…
Have you the heard the banned Princess Di doctor clip ? Possibly the most disturbing / amusing thing Chris Morris has ever done and thats saying something. I used to love listening in late at night to the show it was like falling into a weird hallucinogenic stupor.
When ever i listen too them i laugh so much i *nearly* shit my leg off …
wrong just wrong
=]
Agree that the radio show was better, but when the TV show ran, there was a remixed version that played on C4 two hours after the original show aired which lasted 35 mins instead of 30. The sketches were re-ordered, and everything was stretched out to fill the time so that it sounded even odder and playing at the wrong speed (which when you had come home from a night out seemed even weirder). Great thing to mess with peoples heads just that little bit more. Particularly when you saw the slowed down visuals matched to the sound.
“…and you better watch out you aren’t piling the pearls into st. peter’s dress…”
challenging series that tried to break rules. when it went on to channel 4 i think there were problems getting brands to advertise in the commercial break.