Only someone as side-splitting funny as Ricky Gervais could successfully take a podcast – a purely audible phenomenon – and take it seamlessly to TV.
The HBO show takes the comic’s wildly successful podcasts – which set records for the amount of downloads it racked up in 2007 – and brings them to life via Hanna Barbera-style cartoons. The show revolves around Gervais, his longtime collaborator Stephen Merchant (who helped Gervais with The Office and Extras) and their newly-found foil Karl Pilkington, a man who could not possibly be as dim as he comes off on the show without having to live in some sort of assisted home.
The show is pretty much the three sitting in a radio studio and talking about any number of issues, from evolution to philosophy, each time setting up the comically round-headed Pinkerton for a hilariously bizarre take on all subjects. There are a few reoccurring bits, like “Monkey News” (where Pilkington regales the duo with supposedly true instances where monkeys have found employment as everything from construction workers and doctors to astronauts) and weekly readings from Pilkington’s Diary (that one is pretty self-explanatory).
Thanks to an original premise and no-holds bared conversations, the Ricky Gervais Show comes off as one of the funniest shows currently running.
Ricky Gervais Show: Complete First Season/2011/ 390 Mins./Warner Home Video