The Adam and Joe Show
Encyclopedia
The Adam and Joe Show was a British
television comedy
show, written and presented by Adam and Joe
, that is, Adam Buxton
and Joe Cornish
, which ran for four series on Channel 4
between 1996 and 2001. All four series are available free to watch on 4oD
, but currently only a compilation of the best of the entire run is available on DVD
, however all episodes are available on iTunes.
interspersed with links filmed in what was purportedly Adam and Joe's bedsit
, but was actually a shared "performance space" above a branch of The Body Shop
in Brixton
. 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 Show remains their most popular and well-known creation, and it gained a cult following
.
and elaborate cardboard sets. These 'Toymovies' condensed the story, look and action of each film into a couple of minutes. The most memorable included spoofs of Titanic
(Toytanic), The English Patient
(The Toy Patient) and Trainspotting
(Toytrainspotting).
(aka BaaadDad) reviewed music video
s by contemporary groups that he knew nothing about. In later shows he ventured out of his fireside armchair and into the field, going on a Club 18-30
holiday in Ibiza
, going undercover at a public school
ball, and smoking cannabis
for the first time at the Tribal Gathering
music festival.
, Gary Numan
, Alexis Arquette
, Tim Gane
and Laetitia Sadier, Symposium (band)
, Dave Navarro
, Cerys Matthews
, Nick Heyward
, Thomas Dolby
, Ray Manzarek
of The Doors
and Mark E. Smith
of The Fall. In 2009, Adam revealed on their BBC 6 Music show
that some of the stars' 'homes' were not actually their own.
Calypso", a tribute to the famous actor, "My Name is Roscoe", a country and western
song whose lyrics included the theory of relativity
and "Song For Bob Hoskins
". Zac Sandler is now in his own Superhero Funk Rock band called Astroman, currently gigging regularly in London, with an album called Riffzilla now available online.
action figure
s to parody current British TV shows. Targets included You've Been Framed
, Stars in Their Eyes
and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
. Throughout these sketches, Obi-Wan Kenobi
was memorably portrayed as a drunk vagrant.
. By the fourth series, the segment had become a parody of Omnibus
, with Korda fronting overly serious profiles of minor TV celebrities including Pat Sharp
and Handy Andy
. Ken hosted the film-themed 13 June 2010 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.
in the real world. In the first series, they ventured into a supermarket in Brixton
and 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-themed animatronic
wax museum
from mannequins and charged tourists for entry, as well as competing as street mimes
in Covent Garden Market.
and Space Dust sherbet really does make your stomach explode. They concluded that no, it does not, but it is 'very bad'.
was released featuring selected sketches from all four series, titled The Adam and Joe DVD, including a documentary on the making of the show, a BaaadDad retrospective, audio commentaries, 'Adam and Joe's World of Sound' and a best-of Vinyl Justice feature.
An easter egg can be accessed by highlighting 'Adam and Joe's World of Sound' on the extras menu, pressing 'up', and then 'right'. 'right', 'left', 'left', 'up', 'right', 'right', 'left', 'left', 'up', and 'select'.
The series has not been released on DVD but is available for free on 4od
in the UK and for purchase on iTunes.
There was also a single of "The Footie Song" (see Songs section), and there were two versions of it on the single. One of these was the "League Edition" and there was also a "World Cup Edition".
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television comedy
Television comedy
Television comedy had a presence from the earliest days of broadcasting. Among the earliest BBC television programmes in the 1930s was Starlight, which offered a series of guests from the music hall era — singers and comedians amongst them...
show, written and presented by Adam and Joe
Adam and Joe
Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish are British comedy performers known together as Adam and Joe. They are best known for presenting Adam and Joe on BBC 6 Music, and The Adam and Joe Show on Channel 4 from 1996 to 2001.-History:...
, that is, Adam Buxton
Adam Buxton
Adam Offord Buxton is an English comedian and actor. With Joe Cornish, he forms one half of the duo Adam and Joe. The pair presented Adam and Joe on BBC 6 Music, whilst Buxton also presents his own show on 6 Music on Sundays, called Adam Buxton's Big Mix Tape, currently on hiatus.-Major work:His...
and Joe Cornish
Joe Cornish (comedian)
Joseph Murray "Joe" Cornish is an English comedian, television and radio presenter, director, writer and actor, who along with his long-time comedy partner, Adam Buxton, form the comedy duo Adam and Joe....
, which ran for four series on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
between 1996 and 2001. All four series are available free to watch on 4oD
4oD
4oD is a video on demand service from Channel 4. Launched in November 2006, 4oD stands for "4 on Demand". The service offers a variety of programmes recently shown on Channel 4, E4, More4 or from their archives...
, but currently only a compilation of the best of the entire run is available on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, however all episodes are available on iTunes.
Origin
Adam and Joe first appeared on Channel 4 show Takeover TV in 1995. Adam presented at first, and Joe joined him later. Following this they created The Adam and Joe Show for the same channel.Format
The show took the form of short, condensed sketchesSketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
interspersed with links filmed in what was purportedly Adam and Joe's bedsit
Bedsit
A bedsit, also known as a bed-sitting room, is a form of rented accommodation common in Great Britain and Ireland consisting of a single room and shared bathroom; they are part of a legal category of dwellings referred to as Houses in multiple occupation....
, but was actually a shared "performance space" above a branch of The Body Shop
The Body Shop
The Body Shop International plc, known as The Body Shop, has 2,400 stores in 61 countries, and is the second largest cosmetic franchise in the world, following O Boticario, a Brazilian company...
in Brixton
Brixton
Brixton is a district in the London Borough of Lambeth in south London, England. It is south south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
. 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 Show remains their most popular and well-known creation, and it gained a cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
.
Toymovies
Each week, Adam and Joe would re-create a popular current feature film using stuffed toysStuffed animal
A stuffed toy is a toy sewn from cloth, plush, or other textiles, and stuffed with straw, beans, plastic pellets, cotton, synthetic fibres, or other similar materials. Stuffed toys are also known as plush toys A stuffed toy is a toy sewn from cloth, plush, or other textiles, and stuffed with straw,...
and elaborate cardboard sets. These 'Toymovies' condensed the story, look and action of each film into a couple of minutes. The most memorable included spoofs of Titanic
Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
(Toytanic), The English Patient
The English Patient (film)
The English Patient is a 1996 romantic drama film based on the novel of the same name by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje. The film, written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella, won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture...
(The Toy Patient) and Trainspotting
Trainspotting (film)
Trainspotting is a 1996 British satirical/drama film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in a late 1980s economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life...
(Toytrainspotting).
BaaadDad
In the first series of the show, Adam's elderly father Nigel BuxtonNigel Buxton
Nigel Edward Buxton is a British travel writer and wine critic, also known for appearing as BaaadDad in the Channel 4 comedy series The Adam and Joe Show, which was written and presented by his son Adam Buxton along with Adam's friend Joe Cornish.The comedy behind the character of BaaadDad is the...
(aka BaaadDad) reviewed music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s by contemporary groups that he knew nothing about. In later shows he ventured out of his fireside armchair and into the field, going on a Club 18-30
Club 18-30
Club 18-30 is a holiday company owned by Thomas Cook that offers cut-price holidays for young men and women who seek a more lively holiday than those offered by many large package holiday providers. It takes around 110,000 guests each year with turnover of around £50m a year...
holiday in Ibiza
Ibiza
Ibiza or Eivissa is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea 79 km off the coast of the city of Valencia in Spain. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. With Formentera, it is one of the two Pine Islands or Pityuses. Its largest cities are Ibiza...
, going undercover at a public school
Independent school (UK)
An independent school is a school that is not financed through the taxation system by local or national government and is instead funded by private sources, predominantly in the form of tuition charges, gifts and long-term charitable endowments, and so is not subject to the conditions imposed by...
ball, and smoking cannabis
Cannabis
Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...
for the first time at the Tribal Gathering
Tribal Gathering
Tribal Gathering was a dance music festival that catered for different types of dance music cultures such as drum and bass, techno, rave and house. -History:...
music festival.
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 included Frank BlackFrank Black
Black Francis is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the frontman of the influential alternative rock band Pixies, with whom he performs under the stage name Black Francis. Following the band's breakup in 1993, he embarked on a solo career under the name Frank Black...
, Gary Numan
Gary Numan
Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...
, Alexis Arquette
Alexis Arquette
Alexis Arquette is an American trans woman, actress, musician, and cabaret performer.-Early life:...
, Tim Gane
Tim Gane
Tim Gane is the leader of the rock band, Stereolab.He started his musical career as a purveyor of harsh noise in the early 1980s under the alias Unkommuniti releasing self financed cassettes on Black Dwarf Wreckordings along with fellow Unkommuniti members Kallous Boys and other noise projects....
and Laetitia Sadier, Symposium (band)
Symposium (band)
Symposium were a punk pop band from England. They were active from 1994–2000 and were known for their live shows. The name 'Symposium' originally referred to a drinking party , and was taken from the book by Plato...
, Dave Navarro
Dave Navarro
David Michael "Dave" Navarro is an American guitarist who plays in the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction and cover band Camp Freddy. He has also played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Panic Channel, and many others.- Early life :...
, Cerys Matthews
Cerys Matthews
Cerys Elizabeth Matthews is a Welsh singer and songwriter. She is known as the lead singer of the Welsh rock band Catatonia, her more recent bilingual solo career, and for a 1998 Christmas duet with Tom Jones.-Biography:...
, Nick Heyward
Nick Heyward
Nick Heyward is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the frontman of the early 1980s band Haircut One Hundred, and also had a briefly successful solo career after he left the band in 1983.-Haircut One Hundred:Nick Heyward formed Haircut One Hundred after the...
, Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby is an English musician and producer. Best known for his 1982 hit "She Blinded Me with Science", and 1984 single "Hyperactive!", he has also worked extensively in production and as a session musician.-Early life:Dolby was born in London, England, contrary to information in early 1980s...
, Ray Manzarek
Ray Manzarek
Raymond Daniel Manzarek, Jr., better known as Ray Manzarek , is an American musician, singer, producer, film director, writer, co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors from 1965 to 1973, Nite City from 1977–1978 and Manzarek-Krieger since 2001.Manzarek is listed #4 on Digital Dreamdoor's "100...
of The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
and Mark E. Smith
Mark E. Smith
Mark Edward Smith is the lead singer, lyricist, frontman, and only constant member of the English post-punk band The Fall.-Early life:...
of The Fall. In 2009, Adam revealed on their BBC 6 Music show
Adam and Joe (radio show)
Adam and Joe is a Sony Award winning radio show on BBC 6 Music presented by Adam and Joe; comedians Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish. The show began in October 2007 and runs for three hours in a Saturday morning slot, originally from 9:00am to 12:00pm before moving to 10:00am to 1:00pm...
that some of the stars' 'homes' were not actually their own.
Songs
The Adam and Joe Show regularly included songs on random pop cultural themes, co-written with their school friend Zac Sandler. The most memorable included "The Footie Song", an ode to football sung and written by people who clearly neither cared or knew anything about it, "The Robert De NiroRobert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
Calypso", a tribute to the famous actor, "My Name is Roscoe", a country and western
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
song whose lyrics included the theory of relativity
Theory of relativity
The theory of relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word relativity is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance....
and "Song For Bob Hoskins
Bob Hoskins
Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...
". Zac Sandler is now in his own Superhero Funk Rock band called Astroman, currently gigging regularly in London, with an album called Riffzilla now available online.
Star Wars TV
In this segment, Adam and Joe used 1980s Star WarsStar Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
action figure
Action figure
An action figure is a posable character figurine, made of plastic or other materials, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, video game, or television program. These action figures are usually marketed towards boys and male collectors...
s to parody current British TV shows. Targets included You've Been Framed
You've Been Framed
You've Been Framed is a British television show, produced by ITV Studios for ITV where viewers send in humorous home videos. It is currently narrated by the comedian Harry Hill....
, Stars in Their Eyes
Stars In Their Eyes
Stars in Their Eyes is a British television talent show that ran on Saturdays nights from 21 July 1990 until 23 December 2006 in which contestants impersonate showbiz stars...
and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (UK game show)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a British television quiz show which offers a maximum cash prize of one million pounds for correctly answering successive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty...
. Throughout these sketches, Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. He is one of several primary characters in the Star Wars series. Along with Darth Vader, R2-D2, and C-3PO, he is one of the few major characters to appear in all six Star Wars films...
was 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 pop cultural projects in the real world. These schemes included the production of a short film about criminal junkies called Speeding on the Needlebliss, and the formation of a teen band called 1471Last Call Return
Last-call return, also known as call return, is a telephony feature offered by telephone service providers to give a called party the time and telephone number of the last received call, and may also offer the facility to place a call back to the calling party.The feature is typically listed as...
. By the fourth series, the segment had become a parody of Omnibus
Omnibus (TV series)
Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings....
, with Korda fronting overly serious profiles of minor TV celebrities including Pat Sharp
Pat Sharp
Pat Sharp is a British radio and television presenter and disc jockey. In the UK, he is known mainly for his work on the children's television programme Fun House, his former mullet and his radio shows as well as his support of Arsenal...
and Handy Andy
Andy Kane
Andy Kane , nicknamed Handy Andy, is a British television personality best known for his work on the BBC's DIY programme Changing Rooms.-Background:...
. Ken hosted the film-themed 13 June 2010 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.
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, the Millennium Dome, and banks, however the characters themselves were so inept, most of the time they end up looking foolish. 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.Pranks
Adam and Joe would regularly film each other performing camcorder pranksPractical joke
A practical joke is a mischievous trick played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, indignity, or discomfort. Practical jokes differ from confidence tricks in that the victim finds out, or is let in on the joke, rather than being fooled into handing over money or...
in the real world. In the first series, they ventured into a supermarket in Brixton
Brixton
Brixton is a district in the London Borough of Lambeth in south London, England. It is south south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
and 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-themed animatronic
Audio-Animatronics
Audio-Animatronics is the registered trademark for a form of robotics created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks, and subsequently expanded on and used by other companies. The robots move and make noise, generally in speech or song...
wax museum
Wax museum
A wax museum or waxworks consists of a collection of wax sculptures representing famous people from history and contemporary personalities exhibited in lifelike poses....
from mannequins and charged tourists for entry, as well as competing as street mimes
Mime artist
A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer was referred to as a mummer...
in Covent Garden Market.
External links
Adam and Joe's links were performed sitting on their bed, in front of a crowded backdrop of contemporary pop 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 consuming Coca-ColaCoca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
and Space Dust sherbet really does make your stomach explode. They concluded that no, it does not, but it is 'very bad'.
DVD
In 2004, a DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
was released featuring selected sketches from all four series, titled The Adam and Joe DVD, including a documentary on the making of the show, a BaaadDad retrospective, audio commentaries, 'Adam and Joe's World of Sound' and a best-of Vinyl Justice feature.
An easter egg can be accessed by highlighting 'Adam and Joe's World of Sound' on the extras menu, pressing 'up', and then 'right'. 'right', 'left', 'left', 'up', 'right', 'right', 'left', 'left', 'up', and 'select'.
The series has not been released on DVD but is available for free on 4od
4oD
4oD is a video on demand service from Channel 4. Launched in November 2006, 4oD stands for "4 on Demand". The service offers a variety of programmes recently shown on Channel 4, E4, More4 or from their archives...
in the UK and for purchase on iTunes.
There was also a single of "The Footie Song" (see Songs section), and there were two versions of it on the single. One of these was the "League Edition" and there was also a "World Cup Edition".