foilarmsandhog

Behind the Scenes Diary - Sketch 24th June😁

Added 2021-06-22 13:00:49 +0000 UTC

When you're asked to go out and buy a prop for a sketch, something that looks 'Funny', the pressure is on. You can create a scripted joke yourself, craft it how you like, perform it how you want it done, and keep changing it until it's funny but with a prop, your choices are limited. It is what it is. Inflexible. It looks like, what it looks like and it's either funny or it's not.

The local shops are your first limiting factor, their stock narrows your choices. More often than not, they won't have exactly what your looking for, so you engage them in conversation... hoping they'll understand your odd requests. This is at best naive. I remember trying to buy paper bags from penneys/primark for our paper hats sketch, and the conversation always went something like this...

CASHIER: "you just want the bag"

ME: yes, and i'll pay for it

CASHIER: "just the bag.."

ME: yes

CASHIER: we don't sell the bags..

ME: right, but you give them away for free when you buy something, so i thought i could just buy them

CASHIER: we cant do that

ME: how come

CASHIER: we can't sell just the bag

ME: okay, so do i need to buy something?

CASHIER: yeah

ME: right... *looks around.. here, these childrens socks

CASHIER: okay..

it's scanned through

CASHIER: Would you like a bag?

So today, i have to go and find some funny meat, that's my direction. I'm thinking sausages... they're a funny meat aren't they? They dangle clumsily, all joined together, a chain gang of swollen pink squished into transparent jump suits. But what size? and what type? There's not much funny about boar sausages, or sage and onion bangers, they're too.... unrelatable, too fancy, there not your bang average linking meat chain. Rashers are funny, for their sheer volume, I mean why anyone would want to buy 80 rashers in one go...

The butcher keeps offering me weird sausages, and quoting prices and deals, and basically im smiling and nodding, thinking what if i told him these sausages were unlikely to be eaten so they could be 'Sawdust and Rubber' flavouring for all i care...

As it happens i find both funny sausages AND funny rashers (pictured) and the lads are pleased.

Today we're filming 'Getting passed Australian Immigration' and it's assumed we'll repeat the casting we've done before, so I'm sharpening my aussie accent. I keep repeating the first line, to get into character, and the lads are pissing themselves laughing at me. We always learn heaps about a country when researching these sketches, and invariably make an error or two along the way. Sometimes you even have to intentionally commit an error: I know that Aussies say bangers or snags instead of sausages, but if we said snags, would everyone get the joke in time? maybe not. I've made this diary entry almost entirely about sausages, which is a misrepresentation of their influence in the sketch, maybe forget about the sausages, which i have already cooked and eaten (prop buyers privilege). They were yummy.

A x