Graham Norton on BBC Kids

Monday, July 14, 2008

Is there anything weirder then watching The Graham Norton Show on BBC Kids? If you have not seen this show, it appears on BBC Kids on Rogers Cable at 10pm on Sunday evenings and is somewhat raunchy in nature. Seeing it on BBC kids makes for an odd experience though as you go straight from some rather coarse sexual innuendo to a commercial for bubble-gum squarely targetted at a 10 year old audience.

My wife and I got hooked on Graham's previous show when we lived in the UK in 1999. Like Leno and Letterman it is a talk show with celebrities but the similarities end there. For one, his show is quite raunchy with many jokes of a sexual nature and since Graham Norton is openly gay many of the sexual jokes stray to that side of the fence as well. For a second, Graham typically has two guests on for the whole hour and includes them in various bits and scenes often with hilarious results.

One of the best scenes was when he had Martin Sheen on and they did a bit called protect the President. The idea was to have a cardboard cutout of Sheen off stage and audience volunteers would jump in front of the cutout to intercept a paintball in order to protect the President. Ed Byrne, an Irish comedian who was also on, wanted to have a go himself and this prompted Sheen to actually stand-in for the cutout as well. You can view the clip on YouTube. This example highlights why this show is so good, you get to see a side of celebrities that you don't see on American talk shows. As another example, try to catch the episode with Dustin Hoffman and his wife.

In addition to Graham Norton, we usually watch Top Gear as well making Sunday nights a BBC evening. If the CBC would put out programming half as good as its British counterpart no one would complain about its budget.

Posted by Gerald Nunn at 9:03 AM | Categories: Home Theater | | | Permalink