The Cultural Content Consumption Appraisal Hour

THE THICK OF IT PILOT: Reviewed! Another hour full of all sorts of shit. Two guys saying things to each other and/or at each other. Folding iPhones and all sorts. Siri tries to butt in, as she often does. The cold open gets sweary. Very a guy just watched the pilot of The Thick Of It and Malcolm Tucker is his new spirit animal. We both give main character energy on this episode because we’re both very excited about the 21 year old pilot of The Thick Of It. Politics has outpaced satire by the year 2026 and AI is days away from killing us all (see the tweet of the week for more) but hey, until then let us reminisce about the halcyon days of the 2000s when an announcement about how there is no announcement could theoretically be your downfall as a public figure. Not nearly as many sidebars or side quests to speak of on today’s episode so I guess we’re sneaking them all into the shownotes hehe. We might sometimes argue and annoy each other but hey, we don’t chat shit about each other nearly as much as the characters on The Thick Of It do! And at least we’re here for you and each other each and every week. With our very different personalities. We’re very differently flavoured douchebags but yes douchebags nonetheless. *Your* douchebags.  But yes. As S07 winds down (and, potentially, the competitive stakes!) we are back in our bog standard era. No more footie, movies or the 80s! Pilot season. Pilots forever. Pilots always. We low key can’t wait to bail on this podcast and finally definitively end it all and break up the podcast … just so we can do another pilot of something else and start this whole shit back up again! Lets gooo! Now speaking of lets go and lets start the show and how we did it and we’re here … are you in or not? Let's get into the thick of it! Stay in the loop! Watch the pilot of The The Thick Of It for goodness sake, you weirdly endearing listeners of ours: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074rc0/the-thick-of-it-series-1-episode-1Watch ArmandoIanucci (one word) describe the process behind the making of an episode of The Thick Of It, its a rip of a feature from the DVDs and is so cool! Although after describing the difference between the improvised scene and the more by-the-book scene, the scenes shown back to back do not seem super different lol. But still: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNXPdMzCohICheck out the script samples mentioned by Ianucci that one of said DVD discs would have (once upon a time) easily allowed you to download in PDF form: https://archive.org/details/shooting_202305Watch the Youtuber Loomer discuss why this great show was ended by stupid modern politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBacy0hhTYHere is a programme Armando Ianucci and Stewart Lee did together since Lee came up but I haven’t been brave enough to pitch him. Strong Message Here is a guide to the use and abuse of political language. How fitting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHuty-UmlecA Malcolm Tucker compendium, for those in the know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjKHPv7b3fQTweet of the week: https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843Lol boring: https://www.youtube.com/live/39BalPDuTo0Check out our website: cccappraisalhour.showCheck out our e-mail: cccappraisalhour@gmail.comCheck out our Twitter: twitter.com/cccappraisalpodCheck out our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cccappraisalhourCheck out our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cccahourSpecial FAVE MOMENT FROM THE POD RECORD note for VIP read-the-whole-show-notes-members only: When Christopher claimed that The Thick Of It was very Veep-ish but the record was quickly corrected that Veep is in fact very Thick Of It-ish! We hope you heard the correction @JVD_Games. Order we watched it in be damned, order it was created in for chronological tracking of influence and inspiration all the way! Maybe one day all the Bones & chilling w/partners (whether in the 2000s, 2010s or 2020s) will make it to the pod, we'll see: https://www.netflix.com/watch/70154029