“..Yes, it’s called “The Ricky Gervais Show,” but the real star is that guy, Karl Pilkington.
Billed as “a series of pointless conversations,” the show mostly features the animated faces of Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington talking into microphones.
Occasionally, as the three hosts discuss monkeys flying to the moon or history or Pilkington’s strange stories, those things are animated, too.
“And you’re thinking, well, why are we doing a podcast?” asks Gervais during the first episode.
“It’s because I’d like to be in a room with Karl Pilkington.
You know how people go and help chimps? Karl Pilkington is an ongoing experiment for me, because I’ve seen him sort of blossom from an idiot to an imbecile.”
The madness always begins with a classic That Guy statement from Pilkington.
For example: “We’re in that era where we’ve invented most of the stuff we need, and now we’re just messing about.”
What about airplanes, says Gervais.
“Yeah, but, is that a good thing, planes and that?” Pilkington replies.
“Do you need a plane, really?”
Planes only allow you to fly to places that you need an injection just to visit, he explains.
What’s the use of that?
He wants to know.
If we’re going to invent something, he says, we should invent a way that people could live to the age of 78, die, and when they die, there’s a little baby inside to take their place. Um, right.
In another episode, Gervais brings up Benjamin Franklin, and the fact that he coined the phrase “Waste not, want not.”
Pilkington doesn’t know who Franklin is, and when Gervais tells him and explains the meaning of that phrase, Pilkington replies..
.. “So, he was a bit of a hoarder, then.”
While countless sensitive readers will probably leap to the conclusion that this is yet another British comedy with a hopelessly abusive slant and a disastrously unkind central goal of shaming Pilkington over his lack of intelligence, think again, friends.
Pilkington rather enjoys the hullabaloo and also, he’s as dismissive of what other people think of him as he is of facts and science and history.
You cannot hurt this man with words, because he doesn’t believe anything you say.
In other words, Karl Pilkington is a hero to confused but outspoken amateur theorists — and all dumb people, for that matter — everywhere!
Take the conversation in which Merchant and Gervais discover that Pilkington believes that humans and dinosaurs were “knocking about” at the same time:
Merchant: You know that “The Flintstones” is only partly based on fact?
Dinosaurs and man did not coexist.
Dinosaurs had long gone before man arrived.
Extinct, kaput.
What, you don’t believe us?
Pilkington: Why couldn’t that have happened?
But why weren’t there dinosaurs back then just like we have dogs now?
Gervais: He’s watching “The Flintstones.”
Pilkington: I just think that there must’ve been a crossover point.
Gervais: Exactly.
Why didn’t Hitler meet Nero?
There’s must’ve been … they must’ve met somewhere!..”
go to source/story>>- Salon.com
