The Adam and Joe Show

For the radio show, seeAdam and Joe (radio show).

The Adam and Joe Show
Genre	Sketch comedy
Starring	Adam Buxton Joe Cornish
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No.of series	4
No.of episodes	22
Production
Running time	30 minutes (inc. adverts)
Production company	World of Wonder
Original release
Network	Channel 4(1996–99) E4(2001)
Release	6 December 1996(1996-12-06)– 17 April 2001(2001-04-17)

The Adam and Joe Showis a British televisionsketch comedyshow that originally ran from 6 December 1996 to 28 May 1999 onChannel 4for the first three series and then moved toE4from 13 March to 17 April 2001 for the fourth and final series.

Origin and format

Adam and Joe first appeared on Channel 4 showTakeover TVin 1995, with Adam presenting alone at first and Joe joining him as the series progressed.Following this they createdThe Adam and Joe Showfor the same channel. Unusually for a comedy programme, the show was commissioned by Channel 4's head of religious programming, Peter Grimsdale: according to Cornish, "The remit for religion at 4 was to do with personal belief and personal expression, and somehow we came under that banner: it was almost like pop culture was our religion".

The show took the form of short, condensedsketchesinterspersed with links filmed in what was purportedly Adam and Joe'sbedsit,but was actually a shared "performance space" above a branch ofThe Body ShopinBrixton,SouthLondon.When in this room, Adam wore a plain black T-shirt with 'Ad' and Joe wore one with 'Joe' written on the front. Although the two comedians were involved in other projects before and after it was aired,The Adam and Joe Showremains their most popular and well-known creation, and it gained acult following.

Opening narration

WARNING:The Adam and Joe Showis a high-density programme, start taping now!

Memorable sketches

Toymovies

Each week, Adam and Joe would re-create a popular current feature film usingstuffed toysand elaborate cardboard sets. These "Toymovies" condensed the story, look and action of each film into a couple of minutes. The most memorable included spoofs ofTitanic(Toytanic),Showgirls(Showtoys),The English Patient(The Toy Patient),Saving Private Ryan(Saving Private Lion),American Beauty(American Beautoy),Shine(Shiney),Shakespeare in Love(Shakesbeare in Love),Fight Club(Tufty Club) andTrainspotting(Toytrainspotting), as well as television shows includingFriends(Furends),Ally McBeal(Ally McSqueal) andStar Trek: The Next Generation(Stuffed Trek: The Toy Generation). According to Cornish, the amount of work involved in creating these sketches led Adam and Joe to work on them individually to avoid arguments, resulting in a rivalry with each attempting to upstage the other with ever-more elaborate sketches, as Joe explained: "I remember doingThe English Patientand going to massive lengths to make a plane and a desert with sand dunes shaped like teddy bears. Adam was jealous and went: 'Right, I'm going to do something even better'. It ended up with me making aTitanicthe length of a room to try and completely crush him ".

BaaadDad

In the first series of the show, Adam's fatherNigel Buxton(aka BaaadDad) reviewedmusic videosby contemporary groups that he knew nothing about. In later shows, he ventured out of his fireside armchair and into the field, going on aClub 18-30holiday inIbiza,going undercover at apublic schoolball, and smokingcannabisfor the first time at theTribal Gatheringmusic festival. In a 2019 interview, Adam stated that the idea of getting his father to review contemporary music originally came fromLouis Theroux.

Vinyl Justice

Dressed as policemen, Adam and Joe would raid rock stars' homes, then examine their record collections for embarrassing or surprising items. The star would then be forced to dance to the shameful discoveries. Victims includedFrank Black,Gary Numan,Alexis Arquette,Tim GaneandLætitia Sadier,Symposium,Dave Navarro,Cerys Matthews,Nick Heyward,Thomas Dolby,Ray ManzarekofThe DoorsandMark E. SmithofThe Fall.In 2009, Adam revealed on theirBBC 6 Music showthat some of the stars' 'homes' were not actually their own.

Songs

The Adam and Joe Showregularly included songs on random pop cultural themes, co-written with their school friend Zac Sandler. The most memorable included "The Footie Song" from 1998 the same year whenFrancehosted the world cup, an ode to football sung and written by people who clearly neither cared or knew anything about it, "TheRobert De NiroCalypso ", a tribute to the famous actor from 1999," My Name is Roscoe ", acountry and westernsong whose lyrics included thetheory of relativityand "Song forBob Hoskins".

Star WarsTV

In this segment, Adam and Joe usedStar Warsaction figuresfrom the early 1980s to parody current British television shows. Targets includedGladiators,The Crystal Maze,You've Been Framed(Chew've Been Framed),Blind Date(Blind Data),TFI Friday,Big Brother(Big Jabba),Stars in Their Eyes(Star Wars in Their Eyes),This Morning,The Jerry Springer Show(Jedi Springer),Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?(Who Wants to Be Killed on Air?) andThe Royle Family(The Imperial Family). Throughout these sketches,Obi-Wan Kenobiwas memorably portrayed as a drunk vagrant.

Ken Korda

Ken Korda, a character played by Adam Buxton, was an obnoxious but self-assured media entrepreneur who undertook absurd popular cultural projects in the real world. These schemes included the production of a short film about criminal junkies calledSpeeding on the Needlebliss,and the formation of a teen band called1471.By the fourth series, the segmentOmnikenhad become a parody ofOmnibus,with Korda fronting overly serious profiles of minor television celebrities includingPat Sharp,Handy AndyandJenny Powell.On 13 June 2010, Ken hosted the film-themed edition of "Adam Buxton's Big Mixtape" (titled "A Proper Mix Now!", a play on "Apocalypse Now" ) when Adam was unable to host the show due to having locked himself in his shed.

The 1980s House

This segment of the show was a parody ofThe 1900 HouseandThe 1940s House,in which theFatboy Slimfamily from the early 21st century travels back to the 1980s. The only 21st century object has allowed in the house was awebcam,using which the Fatboy Slim family recorded video diaries, recounting their experiences of 1980s living, such as riding theSinclair C5,thoughts on the guy from theReady Brekadverts, and watching thevideo nastycalledCannibal Holocauston a newBetamaxmachine.

Media Chaos Collective

In series 4, Adam and Joe began a segment seeing them play West Country anti-authority media terrorists, who would 'interrupt' the regular programming and show their own clips harassing and playing pranks on targets they deemed suitable to cause chaos. Targets included an MP, theMillennium Dome,and banks, however the characters themselves were so inept that most of the time they end up looking foolish, an example being unfolding a misspelled banner on the stage of the Millennium Dome saying "The Dome is Carp". The characters came from an original prank the boys played on a hardware shop, acting suspicious when buying tools and materials to dispose of a corpse.

In some episodes, they parody otherChannel 4TV shows which were popular at the time of series 4's broadcast, such asJamandTrigger Happy TV.

In 2003 their parody ofJamwas put on the Jam DVD as an extra.

Pranks

Adam and Joe would regularly film each other performing camcorderpranksin the real world. In the first series, they ventured into a supermarket inBrixtonand began helping themselves to the 'free' percentage from packages marked as including, for example, "20% free". In the second series, they ruined an unsuspecting man's front room while posing as designers from a home makeover show, then broke into a brewery to see how easy it would be to organise a piss-up. In the third series, they built a poor-quality, movie-themedanimatronicwax museumfrom mannequins and charged tourists for entry, as well as competing as streetmimesinCovent Garden Market.

External links

Adam and Joe's links were performed sitting on their bed, in front of a crowded backdrop of contemporary popular cultural clutter. Memorable links included a guide to ways to fiddle with a candle while in a restaurant with a boring person; the most entertaining household objects to put in your microwave oven; and an experiment to see whether consumingCoca-ColaandSpace Dustsherbet really does make your stomach explode. They concluded that no, it does not, but it is 'very bad'.

Transmissions

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	6 December 1996	31 December 1996	4
2	22 November 1997	13 December 1997	6
	6 March 1998	13 March 1998
3	16 April 1999	28 May 1999	6
4	13 March 2001	17 April 2001	6

External links

• The Adam and Joe ShowonChannel 4
• The Adam and Joe ShowatIMDb