Ricky Gervais, on television, has a perfect streak going. BBC's The Office, the original series in which he starred, and which co-wrote with Stephen Merchant: brilliant. HBO's Extras, the series featuring both him and Merchant on-camera as well as off: brilliant. Gervais' HBO stand-up special: brilliant. And now comes The Ricky Gervais Show, an animated HBO version of an ongoing series of conversational podcasts.
And guess what? It, too, is brilliant...
Gervais, and his special brand of humor, have been infecting pop culture for almost a decade now. Hardly anyone outside of British radio enthusiasts were aware of Gervais when the new century began. His only significant media experience came in the 1990s, with a show for London's Xfm radio, where he worked with an assistant named Stephen Merchant. Merchant left for the BBC, Gervais followed, and the two of them pitched and created The Office, broadcast in the United Kingdom to great acclaim from 2001-2003.
After the success of The Office, Xfm invited Gervais and Merchant back to do anything they wanted -- and what they wanted was to sit in a studio and talk. They were assigned a producer, a man named Karl Pilkington, and his strange take on the world, and everything in it, soon turned him into the show's secret weapon and breakout star.
The years of Xfm's The Ricky Gervais Show have long been available as podcasts -- but after the success of Gervais' follow-up TV series, Extras, HBO cut a deal to mount an animated version of Gervais' podcasts. The result, HBO's Ricky Gervais Show, begins Friday night at 9 p.m. ET -- and whether or not you've heard the podcasts, the TV version will leave you charmed.
Chalk it up in part to alternatively incisive and cruel questions by Merchant and Gervais, in part to Gervais' infectious laugh, and the rest to Pilkington, whose observations may have little connection to facts or reality -- but, in their deadpan delivery and skewed logic, are priceless. No one, not even Gervais and Merchant, could write the stuff that comes out of Pilkington's mouth, which is why they're so delighted by him.
Karl Pilkington is to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant what Margaret Dumont was to the Marx Brothers -- a comic foil so blissfully unaware, everyone else is made funnier as a result.
The animation, at times, works perfectly, as when Karl confuses the evolution of man with information he's absorbed on The Flintstones. Other times, it's totally superfluous. It's the sound, not the sight, that makes this TV show so much fun... but as TV shows go, it's another home run regardless.
By the way -- next week I'm interviewing Gervais for Fresh Air. I usually don't have enough advance warning to ask this, but this time I do, so I may as well:
Have any questions you're dying to have Gervais answer? I'm not promising to ask any, but I'm open to all suggestions... and I'd also love to know what you think of The Ricky Gervais Show, so let me know.