Friday Funnies 2

It’s been four weeks since I restarted my earlier Saturday Smiles series as Friday Funnies, so it seems about time to give you a few more clips to make you smile. These are a bit of a mixed bag, but I hope you’ll find something in here to enjoy.

When I ran the previous series I played a couple of excerpts from the Graham Norton Show, of Greg Davies reducing a couch of Hollywood A-listers to helpless laughter. There are many great clips of people sitting on Graham’s couch telling funny stories, so I thought I’d give you a couple more. These are both from the British comedian and actor Lee Mack, who never fails to entertain me. This is a good example of how he does it:

I like mints, and have on occasion tried the sugar free types. Having seen this I’ll never be doing that again!

I’m not sure if John Cleese counts as a Hollywood A-lister, and Martin Clunes definitely isn’t, but Lee had the same effect on them that Greg Davies did on Jodie Foster, Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling in those previous clips. Sadly, this is the bleeped version, but I expect you can work it out for yourself:

One of the all time great British sitcoms was Yes Minister, which ran from 1980 to 1984, and was then followed by Yes Prime Minister from 1986 to 1988. The series were noted for what we all thought were accurate depictions of what went on in the offices of Cabinet Minsters, and there were many reports from those ‘in the know’ who confirmed that the writers were being uncannily accurate. I had a schoolfriend who went on to work in several Ministers’ offices and he once told me that he recognised where several of the scripts had come from. This is a typical example of what they gave us:

We all think that politicians are devious con artists, don’t we. That was probably too close to the truth for some! The three actors in that – Paul Eddington, Nigel Hawthorne and Derek Fowlds – gave masterful performances, and it is sad that none of them is with us any longer.

Another great sitcom was Father Ted, which ran for three series from 1995 to 1998 until the tragic sudden death of Dermot Morgan, who played the lead character. Rather than give you a whole scene I thought I’d share this compilation of a range of clips from the show. It is nine minutes long, but is sooo worth it:

We have also been blessed with some great sketch shows. One of my favourites has been the various creations of Harry Enfield, usually in close co-operation with Paul Whitehouse. This is typical of their brilliance:

Many footballers of days gone by did indeed smoke, and there are loads of stories of them going for a quick puff at half time. It was also an era when referees were much more tolerant of reckless and dangerous tackling. That’s what makes this one so much fun for me, as the game has been cleaned up a lot!

One final one for today. You’ve no doubt seen many of those acceptance speeches at awards events, which can often be very funny. This one is kind of unique:

The other version of that I found somehow stopped in the middle and needed a kickstart. This one says it has Spanish subtitles but I think I’ve managed to turn them off! Sacha Baron Cohen is one of those ‘Marmite’ characters, and I’ll admit that there are some of his creations that don’t really do much for me. But this acceptance speech prank has to be one of the funniest ever. Not only does he set up the totally unexpected big joke, but there are also many great lines in what follows, and the breaking of ‘Charlie Chaplin’s’ cane is pure genius.

That’s all for today, and I hope that you have managed to find something here to make you smile, guffaw or maybe even laugh out loud. Enjoy the rest of your day, and have a great weekend. I’ll see you again for Song Lyric Sunday 😀