6 August 2008

Don't know when, but a day's gunna come

| johnboy
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I have long believed that it was only a matter of time before the ABC’s Mark Carmody appeared on the evening news wearing a corsage bigger than his head.

Tonight he came close.

It’s just a matter of time I tell you.

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la mente torbida9:20 am 08 Aug 08

Mark’s a dag….but he’s our dag

keep him in canberra – he is a pleasant distraction, and I get to play pick the flower, as well as finding out whether it will bucket down tomorrow.

I love Mark almost as much as I love Virginia and her ‘Penguin award winning journalist’ ways. Her uneasy/uncomfortable interactions with Mark are always amusing; not sure if she loves or hates him, but it is always amusing trying to figure it all out. I worked on the Steve Vizard show pilot many years ago and Virginia was first in line for the newsreader job ultimately taken by Jennifer Keyte. Poor Virginia could not have been more uncomfortable with Steve, the late-night format, the banter and the whole ‘news as entertainment’ concept. She ditched the show (didn’t make it past the pilot) and went back to being a serious journalist – thank god.

Yeah, I find him a bit hard to take. As mentioned above though, very funny to hear “cloudy” pronounced as “clairdy”! Makes me chuckle every time I hear it.
He is very energetic though, just a little much sometimes. Well, all the time actually. imho of course.

Mark Carmody is awesome. The guy is real, and geekily amusing. The haters should really STFU.

As for the interaction between Virginia and Mark, it’s actually far less wooden than most TV interactions. I think she’s genuinely amused, and slightly bemused, by his antics, and he plays up to it.

*toast* Here’s to you, Mark and Virginia, for being real people.

peterh said :

and I would pay those fines gladly. Then continue reciting till my wife bludgeons me into silence….

So long as she uses the comfy pillows, you’ll live.

Jaysus, now I’m doing it.

Were we? Carmody.

The guy’s got some charm and he’s certainly the stuff of water-cooler banter (hence, as another has noted, part of his worth), but someone needs to ring Central Casting and have him shipped off to Gardening Australia. Leave the whacky weathermen to the cringe-inducing breakfast shows.

Overheard said :

I’m a big Python fan, but I believe that there is such thing as too much Python reciting. I sometimes wish the Chaser’s Julian Morrow could bob up and issue infringement notices at times:

“OK, you had one Inflamatory Hungarian Phrasebook gag in the first hour, and you did two silly walks as well, but that extended parrot sketch (with over-emphasis on PINing for the FJords!) just took you way over the limit, buster. That’ll be $200.”

and I would pay those fines gladly. Then continue reciting till my wife bludgeons me into silence….

I’m a big Python fan, but I believe that there is such thing as too much Python reciting. I sometimes wish the Chaser’s Julian Morrow could bob up and issue infringement notices at times:

“OK, you had one Inflamatory Hungarian Phrasebook gag in the first hour, and you did two silly walks as well, but that extended parrot sketch (with over-emphasis on PINing for the FJords!) just took you way over the limit, buster. That’ll be $200.”

Jazz said :

oh god peterh. too much monty python for you methinks

if only they had taught me in school along the same lines as monty python’s memorable skits – might have had better grades….

or not.

and you can never have too much monty python.

albatross!

neanderthalsis4:31 pm 07 Aug 08

Skidbladnir said :

On Monty Python….

Why, decades after the fact, have people chosen to remember, line for line, comedy from people who preferred the impact of shock and unexpected, and the breaking of convention?

Get it right skid, it wasn’t shock and the unexpected, it was fear and surprise, oh, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…

Why, decades after the fact, have people chosen to remember, line for line,

Because it’s highly quotable, and still funny almost 40 years on. Only a small percentage of their humour was shock value. And the breaking of convention often stemmed from the fact that they couldn’t think of a punchline (exception being “Nudge, Nudge”), but focused more on quality scripts with …um….quotable material.

Hmmm, that was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it. D’oh. (Now why do people still quote The Simpsons? It has jumped the shark)

On Monty Python….

Why, decades after the fact, have people chosen to remember, line for line, comedy from people who preferred the impact of shock and unexpected, and the breaking of convention?

Graham Chapman would be rolling in his grave (Probably even harder than Asimov for that godawful “I, Robot” movie), and if it weren’t for the fact its made them obscenely rich, the other members of MPFC would probably be offended.

oh god peterh. too much monty python for you methinks

If he does then he must be a witch.

a witch! a witch!

Burn him, burn him!

Holden Caulfield1:13 pm 07 Aug 08

Ralph said :

Thank Christ I have Foxtel. Being subject to 4 or 5 channels is so primitive.

7pm and I am tuning in to Bill O’Reilly.

You’re lucky, we don’t have the Comedy Channel on our package.

Holden Caulfield1:13 pm 07 Aug 08

emd said :

I think he stopped doing the radio gardening show because he was going on an extended family holiday.

He’s getting better at the TV weather job, I think. It’s a big jump from doing talkback radio to doing TV presenting, but he’s getting there. At least he’s genuinely local and has some personality compared to the usual “is she a model or a weathergirl?”.

I agree with you, but I also have no problems pondering the model/weather girl conundrum.

I think he stopped doing the radio gardening show because he was going on an extended family holiday.

He’s getting better at the TV weather job, I think. It’s a big jump from doing talkback radio to doing TV presenting, but he’s getting there. At least he’s genuinely local and has some personality compared to the usual “is she a model or a weathergirl?”.

HE was fabulous on the ABC radio gardening show – why did they take him off??

And he would be great on Gardening Australia – I”d watch for sure.

I was lucky enough to meet Mark in the flesh last weekend! He was a guest debater for Hartley Lifecare and was arguing that ‘real men and women wear lycra in public’. He was just as personable in the flesh as he seems on camera, and was game enough to don his lycra riding shorts for the event. That earns some brownie points in my books! I believe he’s a great representative for Canberra – kinda kooky but still friendly!

Joe Canberran10:14 am 07 Aug 08

I loathed him at first but now I can’t get enough of him. He’s priceless!

Because he generates this kind of attention and chatter for the ABC News (as in its not a screencapture from Today Tonight, or ACA, and Jessica Good only gets chatter here when she’s wearing clown outfits or showing some cleavage or cleft), I can’t see them getting rid of him unless they can replace him with something equally buzzworthy.

With all the ‘plastic’ people we see on TV (mainly national) it’s a nice change to get a real person like Mark on the TV. I love it when he says ‘showers’.

Can anyone tell me if he has some kind of rotation scheme for the plants he wears. I mean, how many can there be? Surely he’s done them all by now?

Holden Caulfield said :

Craig Allen was reading and when Carmody did his closing quip the body language from Allen was priceless, haha!

My take on it has always been that Virginia likes Mark and her giggles are genuine but that Craig can’t stand the guy

Personally, I think he’s great

I like that guy. He’s quite personable. I watch just to hear him say ‘cloud’.

lionelvioletguyandslingsby9:34 am 07 Aug 08

Going by the expression on his dial, we’d hate to see the size of the corsage he’s got up his arse.

It’s the wrong job for someone who seems a personable bloke. He’s good at plants and such. Gardening Australia needs someone. The weather gig needs someone who knows that “showers” is a two-syllable word. QED.

Thank Christ I have Foxtel. Being subject to 4 or 5 channels is so primitive.

7pm and I am tuning in to Bill O’Reilly.

Carmody tcb ftw haha

Holden Caulfield9:11 am 07 Aug 08

pptvb said :

And have you noticed that Virginia giggles
like a schoolgirl at Mark’s closing quip ?

You missed last night’s news then. Craig Allen was reading and when Carmody did his closing quip the body language from Allen was priceless, haha!

Also, they did a close up of Carmody’s flower last night, so it actually was bigger than his head for a bit — it took up the whole damn screen!

I agree Nanzan, although at first my reaction was WTF? Mark Carmody was always great on the radio gardening show. I think ABC should put him on Gardening Australia. They seem to have someone on there from nearly every city. He is definitely passionate about gardens. Maybe he could tell me if there is a callistemon that is the colour of the flower in the pic above, that grows to just over 1m.

Absent Diane8:16 am 07 Aug 08

does he float?

Well, I’d need a few more Y chromosomes in order to be Mark… and I hate bicycles.

Mælinar - *spoiler alert* I've seen S04E1310:47 pm 06 Aug 08

You never have confirmed whether or not you are Mark Carmody, Ant.

Nice on the spot knowledge of the flower he was wearing by the way…

You buggers, you.

Mark Carmody is the best thing to hit ABC TV Canberra since sliced bread.

He is positive, personable, humorous, knowledgeable, confident (almost) – and Australian through and through!

He’s different, he’s unique, he’s local and he has an incredibly sunny disposition – pretty important for a weather presenter.

He dares to be different, on TV, night after night, and that takes guts (and talent).

Yeah, I like him.

best weatherman. ever. Our next PM says I.

b2 said :

I love watching him, Virginia really has no idea how to respond, and no one has any idea what he is going to say! Although she is doing better now than she used too.

Yah, there was a real “lemon lipped, stepped in sh*t” look on her face at first…

I love watching him, Virginia really has no idea how to respond, and no one has any idea what he is going to say! Although she is doing better now than she used too.

He’s excellent, I come away from cooking dinner to watch his bit. Apparently, the botanic gardens are donating his flower during the olympic period, so they might come up with a tree for him yet. I thought tonight’s thing was a callistemon but the closeup revealed a Hakea, and a pink one at that.

his face is so ‘how YOU doin’

roflmao at that pic!!!

Woody Mann-Caruso9:54 pm 06 Aug 08

MIKE! MIKE! MIKE!

Carmody is awesome. JB, can we have him as the next entry in your “why the ACT is better…” series?

He’s great! So nice to hear non-‘received pronunciation’ on our ABC. Actually I think Virginia talks funny – she does that MALbourne thing.

lionelvioletguyandslingsby9:08 pm 06 Aug 08

Could we somehow arrange things so Carmondy becomes the ABC bloke in Singapore facing a caning and a nice long term behind bars? Please. Pretty please? Pretty please with sugar on it?

I’m still trying to decide whether Virginia is genuinely amused or merely laughing that someone can act like a bogan, tell bad jokes and get paid for it. Seriously, he is terrible on TV doing weather. He’s not a bad guy though so ABC, give him a better gig.

I guess it is her only possible response to his inane ramblings.

And have you noticed that Virginia giggles
like a schoolgirl at Mark’s closing quip ?

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