I developed a similar thing, where my day filled up with so many things to do that I couldn't fit much entertainment. So I'd listen to Ricky Gervais podcasts while falling asleep, and pick up the next night wherever I dropped off, and then ran out of those.

Amazing. This artist gets the Seuss style absolutely spot-on.

He's a games journalist, now freelance, and a consultant; he doesn't fire people. He also used to work at Studio Liverpool (mentioned in the article) in QA, so as well as being freelance now, he knows what it's like to be on the sharp end of this arrangement. He's not an asshole.

To me, it's not that long ago. Perhaps you're from the US? If so, do you realise black hospital workers were still having to strike in the 70s and early 80s because of giant pay disparities between black and white staff for the same jobs? That the Tuskegee experiment was still ongoing in the early 70s? I can go on…

If she was wearing blackface and eating watermelon, yes, I'd be outraged. Of course there are people who'd say, "hey, it's only food". If they said that to me, I'd tell them that they are ignorant of the history: that powerful US racists created the hurtful, dehumanising image of the idiotic and simple-minded 'coon'…

Slavery isn't ancient history, and neither are minstrel shows. It's a trail of history that still hasn't closed.

Your statement was that if it was any other race being ridiculed, the outrage would explode the internet.

Don't worry about it. I understand people reading between the lines with these short posts, and we all have to do that. I make mistakes all the time.

I've seen your blunt mirroring arguments elsewhere. They don't work for George Zimmerman, and they don't work here either.

No, I was being 100% serious. I didn't say discrimination against white people was justified. I was talking about the topic of outrage, and the difference in effect.

Cannot unsee dick raft

White people's history of cultural and political dominance is excellent emotional insulation, it's true.

It's got none of the power of blackface. This advert isn't telling anyone they're subhuman or grotesque, which is what blackface sought to do, and this advert isn't a bitter reminder of racial subjugation and slavery. It's a shit advert, mind you.

Looks great. I wonder how they encourage you to take those dangerous paths into the structures? Couldn't see any pick-ups or anything like that.

Fair enough. What you're missing here is that the audience isn't laughing when all he did was pick up a box. They're laughing because they're in on the trick that's about to be played, so they're laughing in anticipation, and also they're laughing on behalf of the character who's not able to laugh himself without…

It's like most comedy though - if you're ever going to like it (and you might not), you have to warm up to it. Once you have, you're in a completely different frame of mind, and being dropped into a clip is not ideal. That's an audience which saw a couple of episodes filmed in the same session, plus had a warm-up…

They've lost my donation. Unless they're dedicated to finding a cure for alecbaldwin.

Yeah, it really depends on the person's ability to laugh at themselves and understand that the show doesn't owe anybody a forensic examination of Their Truth :)

There's nothing wrong with audience laughter. Somewhere in the late 90s, TV comedy became obsessed with cutting that out. Lots of comedy would be weirdly eerie without it. Sometimes a certain form is being subverted. Father Ted really needed to feel like a traditional sitcom in order to play around with the standards.