I had a theory this week whilst reading the Arrow review comments that Disqus has accidentally started pollinating the site with IGN commenters. You can't *dis*prove it.

Allow me to make it more hilarious through explanation:

There's so little of Horse Outside that translates well to Americans, I suspect. Even the two finger salute.

This is a good moment to talk about the Rubberbandits! Because they're fucking hilarious and catchy as shit!

I'm as happy as a girl can be. End statement.

"some memorable one-off characters (the Crushinator"

Yeah, but in fairness, that quote itself was directly lifted from the original Superman movie. I can't complain about it too much though, because that whole Brando speech bit give me chills. Superman Returns was, at least, filled with a lot of great imagery and iconography.

I normally enjoy his writing, but that one was one hell of a misguided rant, even before Nolan denied actually saying the quote.

That was in Superman Returns, was it not?

And really, the only reason I ask is because US TV networks love to have very inexpensive, easily produced shows to fill their schedules with. Panel shows tend to fill that want (Take a look at the success of the UK channel Dave, for example), but with actually consumable effect.

QI is probably the culmination of the whole thing really - sometimes very funny (when they get the right people on), and usually quite educational (or interesting). It's the Reithian ethos in game show form.

Actually, checking on it, "Call My Bluff" is probably the first example, in 1965.

Well, none of the UK shows I'm talking about are variety shows really, they're quiz shows where there is no prize, no real goal really, and they're generally completely unscripted beyond the presenters script.

Also, I was making an exception for shows where the general public appear alongside celebrities (Blankety Blank, Hollywood Squares, etc)

Well, that's the thing - the UK hates most of their celebrities too, but makes exceptions for most comedians. So they bring the hateful celebrities onto some of these shows and spend the entire time mocking the shit out of them. Never Mind the Buzzcocks is notorious for doing that.

This is mildly off topic, but it's something I've wondered recently: UK TV is absolutely crammed full of "panel shows" (ie. ostensible quiz shows staffed entirely by stand-up comedians, and other celebrities, with varying aims) such as QI, 8 Out of 10 Cats (and Does Countdown which is one of my favourite shows), Have…

This is off topic and all, but really interesting because this actually happens a surprising amount in real life too:

I noticed that they don't really show his right hand at all, could this be a flashback, or would that make no sense?

Hood up, and they've nailed it imo:

This is kind of off-topic in a way, but Soulwax/2ManyDJs did an amazing tribute to Bowie about a year ago, it's basically an hour long, best-of, megamix. Best bit is the androgyny infused video they made to accompany the mix though: