Today’s guest comic is by Mysia Ri of our forums, who did not provide a web address to link too.

Also, if you have created fan art for us within the last 2 months, I’m sorry that I haven’t put it up yet, I’ve either lost it or just plain forgotten. Send any fan art to lotharhex[at]gmail.com and I’ll try and get it up within the next week.

And now, onto (I never knew if that was one word or two) the rant. A month or so ago the spin-off to the “celebrated” sitcom “Friends” started showing here in the UK. “Joey” starring Matt Le Blanc in the role that he will play until he kills himself, Joey.

Now I didn’t like Friends that much, as everyone liked each other too much, and a lot of the jokes just weren’t funny. The only times that I have ever laughed while watching Friends are the scenes where it was just Joey and Chandler (Matthew Perry). Now Chandler I liked because he was a sarcastic wanker, but even then he’s far too damn cheerful and could be very overdramatic. Joey was there for the simple “I’m an idiot” jokes, but had a clever moment every now and then. However, most of the jokes revolved around Joey doing something stupid, Chandler freaking out about it, them arguing, and then making up ten minutes later. That gets old after a while, but still considering they only used to take up maybe 7 minutes of the show maximum, it was spread out enough to at least get a smile.

“Joey” is basically the same as friends, but no other characters to distract from the fact that Joey is an extremely one dimensional character with only 2 things about him. He’s stupid, and horny. That’s Joey, and EVERY SINGLE FUCKING JOKE in the show revolves around Joey being stupid and horny. This is a 22 minute show where all the jokes are about Joey having sex and doing stupid things. IT JUST ISN’T FUNNY! When will American TV networks learn that doing the same fucking joke all the damn time does not make a show funny. In Seinfeld “What is the deal with…” and the fact all the characters were neurotic. Will and Grace was always “OMG HE’S OVERLY HOMOSEXUAL! AND SHE’S STRAIGHT! HOW WACKY!” Home Improvement? “Hey look I made a bench! *NUCLEAR EXPLOSION*”. This is not to say that running gags aren’t good, but there’s a point where a running gag stops being a running gag and starts become the entire premise behind a show. In Red Dwarf (the best comedy ever) they had a couple of simple running gags, my favourite being the “Space Core Directive” arguments between Kryten and Rimmer, but even then the show was pretty hard to predict. Though to be fair, being British (a.k.a. well-written, until halfway through season 7 anyway) and being set in a sci-fi universe did allow it to get away with a bit more.

The ONLY American sitcom have ever liked is Frasier, why? Because it’s bloody well written. though it had its fair share of repetitive jokes but it wasn’t always Niles and Frasier trying to one up each other. Plus it could also draw on the series “Cheers” of which it was a spin-off. Cheers I enjoy, but probably more because of nostalgia than the show’s actual quality.

Going back to Joey, it must suck to be Matt Le Blanc. Ironically his most lucrative and popular character is what’s going to stop him getting better roles. I remember going to see the film remake of “Lost In Space” when it came out at the cinema. And Matt Le Blanc could not pull off the character he played in that. After seeing him play Joey for 3-4 years in Friends at, it was hard to imagine him as a tough-as-nails space marine, or whatever the fuck he was. Though to be fair the entire film was a piece of shit, so that didn’t help. Now he’s back playing the same character again, but with no other “decent” characters to fill up the show and stop people realising his character only has two components to his personality (stupid and horny). I think Joey has now been cancelled, so now Matt Le Blanc has lost his most well known character. And because he’s been playing him so long, he won’t be able to get any other cos he can’t do any other roles. A bit sad really.

Also, Charlie Sheen’s newest sitcom started playing over here the same time as “Joey”. WILL PEOPLE STOP GIVING HIM WORK? CHARLIE SHEEN IS SHIT! HE’S ABOUT AS FUNNY AS MY LEFT TESTICLE! Though my right testicle is absolutely hilarious, it told this great knock knock joke yesterday.