Drunk History Season 3: "I'm gonna punch you in the balls with this story"

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Drunk History Season 3: "I'm gonna punch you in the balls with this story"

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

ashpanash posted:

I think there are a few vital components to Drunk History:

1) Sincerity. The drunk person must legitimately want to tell the story and legitimately like the story. That leads to them getting excited about it.

2) Commitment to the warped verisimilitude: The re-enactors must commit to essentially being marionettes of the narrator. They should go along with the slurring, the forgotten names, and the cultural anachronisms, and only express confusion when the narrator themselves is confused.

I think I ever saw the UK version, I think I just read reviews - but I think they at least got these things either partially or completely wrong.

Edit: Also, the presence of Derek or someone like him is vital - someone who serves as a bit of an anchor in the drinking scenes, and acts as the audience's surrogate in asking questions and for clarifications of the crazy poo poo that comes out of people's mouths.

I'm watching the UK version right now.

- Yeah, they need an anchor like Derek. There's an unstated premise in the original version that Derek is on a journey around America to learn about history from the locals. Also, Derek's presence is really important for the storyteller to talk to and make everything feel like a genuine conversation. Moments like Paget Brewster putting her grandma's dress on Derek Waters or Jen Kirkman crying on Derek's shoulder about the injustice of Mary Dyer's execution is the sort of thing that makes the recording sessions feel like a couple of friends just hanging out, compared to the clinical feel of the UK version where they're just talking to thin air. It's a very subtle thing, but when the US storytellers are looking off camera, you know they're talking to Derek and it feels grounded. In the UK version they also don't look straight at the camera, but you wonder who or what they're talking to. The audience? Jimmy Carr? A producer?

- The UK version isn't based around locations, which feels like it's missing some secret sauce compared to the US version. It ties all the stories together into a theme (and even if there are a couple US episodes which aren't location-based, at least they pick a theme, like women or athletes). The intro the US episodes do where they walk around joints in the city and get to meet the locals does a fantastic and under-recognized job of prepping the audience emotionally for the stories. Despite telling stories drunk off their asses there is some genuine sense of respect and awe about the history of Atlanta, Boston and Washington, etc.

- Jimmy Carr goes overboard in hyping up the segments. Listing off what the storytellers drank on screen, and even telling us what the story's going to be about before the storytellers get to tell their story kind of feels like the show is spoiling the moment for the storytellers. Let them tell the audience how much they drank. Let them introduce the story. It's such a minor thing but it makes a huge difference to hear Amber Ruffin introduce the topic of Claudette Colvin rather than hearing Jimmy Carr tell you what the next story is going to be with a comic doodle on a yellowed textbook page.

- I dunno if it's the editors or if they just have better storytellers, but the US version seems to have better stories where each segment has some great dramatic irony or some moral of the story. The UK stories kind of feel like "a bunch of stupid poo poo happened, the end." Not all the time, but generally the UK stories feel more meaningless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fpok24QaAU

edit: Also, the US storytellers seem to get drunker. The UK storytellers don't seem to struggle with slurred speech and mistakes as much.

Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Sep 10, 2015

# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 00:09

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 22, 2024 17:01

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

The loving mouth on Louis Armstrong's cornet.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 07:32

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

timp posted:

Yeah I noticed during this story that her way of storytelling fits Drunk History perfectly. The second story about Sam the Banana Man is another reason why I love this show so much. Apparently some punk teenager tries a banana in the late 1800's, loves it, and notices people dumping ripe bananas overboard. He convinces them to sell the ripe bananas to him instead and proceeds to make $100,000 selling bananas in America before he's 21. Who the gently caress knew?!

Nevermind that he also overthrew a government so that he wouldn't have to pay taxes on his bananas. It was like Operation Ajax except over bananas instead of oil.

The Louis Armstrong story was the weakest story-wise, but they made up for it by being funny.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 18:21

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Zemurray

poo poo, he helped overthrow Guatemala with the CIA too? Two loving governments over loving bananas.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 18:30

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

Get you some whiskeeeeeey

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 18:40

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

Ashley Barnhill was kind of boring as a storyteller.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2015 04:31

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

"These are my hoes"

# ¿ Oct 14, 2015 06:10

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

So far they've had one or two non-American stories. There is a Drunk History UK and it makes me think that maybe Drunk History US isn't venturing outside the US a lot in case they can make deals to have other international adaptations of their show.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 19:09

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 22, 2024 17:01

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

Yeah we actually posted an episode several pages back and picked it apart. I didn't realize until seeing what the uk version did wrong how many subtle things the us version was doing right

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 19:45

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Drunk History Season 3: "I'm gonna punch you in the balls with this story"