to think Jimmy Carr is a sleazy, creepy little oik?

[M48294Y]

Was randomly watching a C4 show the other night "That's So Last Century".

They have slebs on talking about technology from the 1970s onwards - so things like Walkmans, the first massive mobile phones, BBC computers on which you mainly played Pac-Man - etc.

I thought about recording it for the dc to watchth. Thought they might find it mildly amusing and most of the celebrities were actually showing these gadgets to their young children and part of the interest in the programme was how the kids really had no clue what, for instance, a video cassette was.

Anyhooo, Jimmy Carr's comments were all, without fail, about porn and the internet. Everything was a cheap crappy joke about "cracking one off" and boners and all the other mindless Inbetweeners type comments you could imagine.

So I decided not to record for the dc (shame) but felt especially sorry for the celebs whose children who had participated in the programme. Do they show their sweet little children this show they had been in or not??

Creepy Jimmy Carr wanker.

I watched him live and the jokes were about rape and child abuse - didn't find it funny to be honest

^^ THIS exactly.

First half was quite funny then it was just awful.
I like him TV sometimes but live, he's just not funny.

What his own father thinks of him...

www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/behind-jimmy-carrs-wisecracks-7188872.html

Whilst I don't find him remotely funny, and completely agree with his father's view that his "jokes" aren't funny but unkind, I do feel sorry for Jimmy Carr. I think he's a desperately unhappy individual, who went from being suddenly very spoiled and favoured as a child into the big wide world where... he was/is deemed as nothing particularly special. I don't think his ego could cope with it.

I find him very funny. But then I also find Frankie Boyle very funny. I'm obviously also creepy and disturbed. Judging by his constant, incredibly successful tours, there are a lot of us out there.

I'd rather sit on broken glass than sit through Michael MacIntyre.

He was deemed as nothing special?

I've just looked at his wiki page and from what I can see he went from a state grammar school to Cambridge.

That's pretty impressive even without the successful comedy career and awards.

Jimmy stays around after his gigs, happily talking to people, photos, signing things and is very nice.

Err, of course he does! He feeds off the attention! Thats his warm and fuzzies right there- he needs to hear the praise or his insecurities would take over and he'd eat himself up with self doubt. Believe me, he doesnt stick around for the fans' benefit.

Why can't you have a show about the 70s without discussing porn?

Exactly. The show was about technology- walkmans, cameras, computers, ghetto blasters. Every other celebrity managed not to mention porn when discussing these objects.

That article almost makes me feel sorry for him. Whatever happened, it doesn't sound like a very happy upbringing.

Amber I don't like Michael Macintyre either - it's not like we only have a choice of those three, is it?

celestialgin - yeah... so he went to Cambridge. As did a whole lot of other people, too. David Baddiel, for example. And Alexander Armstrong. And Ben Miller. And Stephen Fry. And Stephen Mangan. And Sacha Baron Cohen. So? Going to Cambridge doesn't make him any more special, or indeed funnier, than someone who went to... I don't know... the worst university in the country (off the top of my head, I can't recall the tables for these things, I'm afraid!).

He "followed in his father's footsteps" and went into marketing at the same company his father worked at/for (for some reason I want to say "owned", but I might be wrong about that), he was very close to his mother, was completely bankrolled by his father right up until fairly recently, avoided paying tax (until caught out), denigrates women/the disabled and uses child abuse as a means of getting a laugh... Interestingly, he didn't start being nasty until after his mother had died. Once upon a distant time, I actually found him funny.

Yes: he is very controversial. Yes: a lot of people continue to find him very funny. Yes: he's earned a lot of money. But will he be remembered as one of comedy's greats? Probably not, in all reality.

(Also, just for the record, whilst I now find Jimmy Carr very unfunny, I do admit to liking the way in which Frankie Boyle stands up to be counted and is seemingly true to his own principles/beliefs. Yet he is as controversial as Jimmy Carr is. Personally, I cannot help but think that Jimmy Carr is simply being nasty to get attention. Like a spoiled little boy who cannot understand why not everyone likes him/finds him funny and is willing to bow down to him.).

So Frankie Boyle is honorable now?

... where did I say that Frankie Boyle was honorable?!

I said that I like the way he stands up to be counted and is seemingly true to his own beliefs. I didn't say that made his comments about the disabled and so forth honorable. I didn't say that he was honorable, nor that I find him so. With Jimmy Carr, in my opinion, I get the impression that he says nasty things just to get a reaction out of the masses. With Frankie Boyle, when he castigates the government for bombing other countries... for example... then that is in all probability his own belief/opinion and he's saying it not simply to get a reaction, but because he believes in it.

I don't know about you, but I have to actually know a person before I decide whether or not I find them/their actions honorable.

He comes accross as a very angry man

Really?

Frankie Boyle, I could understand that comment, but I don't really see it in Jimmy Carr.

I think he's a desperately unhappy individual, who went from being suddenly very spoiled and favoured as a child into the big wide world where... he was/is deemed as nothing particularly special. I don't think his ego could cope with it.

From wiki:
Awards
LAFTA Awards 2008: Best Stand Up
LAFTA Awards 2007: Funniest Man
British Comedy Awards 2006 – Best Live Stand Up
Rose D'Or Nomination 2006: Best Game Show, 'Distraction'
LAFTA Awards 2005: Funniest Man
Rose D'Or Nomination 2004: Best Presenter, 'Distraction'
Loaded Lafta Award 2004 – Best Stand Up
Royal Television Society Award Winner: Best On-Screen Newcomer 2003
Perrier Award Nominee: 2002
Time Out Award Winner: Best Stand Up 2002

Out of the 65m people in the UK, I think he probably sits in the top 0.1% in various measures of success you'd like to take. I'd assume his ego is surviving fairly well.

Like him or not. Remember him in years to come or not.
Very nearly 90 people have commented on this thread.... We all know who he is!

No, quite a lot of us have made more than one comment.

And 90 is nothing in Mumsnet terms!

Quoting his wiki page's list of awards at me has only made me grasp one salient detail... he's not been awarded anything of any significance since 2008. So, whilst that's absolutely fantastic for him, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Yes: he won a lot of awards... but he's apparently no longer doing so? Why is that? He's still very much in the public arena. He's still on our TV screens. He's still apparently selling out arenas.

Why no awards since 2008?

Given that we know perhaps only one eighth of the truth of what went on his family background, given that it's in print that his own father went to the Press about how awful he is, given that his father bankrolled his career and he seemingly sponged off the same parent for years, given that he himself has admitted that he was very close to his mother, given that he must have grieved her tremendously when she died... I still think that he's a desperately unhappy individual.

I don't dislike him. I don't know him. I just simply don't find him funny (although loads of you do: that's great... the world would be a very boring place if we all liked exactly the same thing!).

As the OP said, he portrays himself as someone who is very sleazy. Whilst I don't think in years to come that he's going to be "outed" as someone who has done terrible things to vulnerable people... I also don't think that he's going to be terribly happy when, in a few years time, his 15 minutes is up.

And it will be.

I find his middle class 'lad' act and sex banter a bit strange to be honest. I'm sure he's said in an interview that he was a virgin till the age of 25 and has never had sex with anyone but his current girlfriend.

I think young James has sex 'issues'.

Yes, I was going to mention that his most recent award appears to have been 7 years ago.

It's a times like this I wish I Twittered. I would tweet C4 about the show if I could.

My general point was - apart from I think one person saying they were confused with Alan Carr no one has said they don't know who Jimmy Carr is - no one has said they had to google him just to find out who he is.

Op I get you don't like him.

I get there are millions in the world and mn is just a few people in comparison.

You've had lots of people agree with you. You've had lots of people raise valid points. You've had people disagree with you.

Just the same as not everyone likes Jimmy Carr, or who ever the next person is to offend someone, or whatever it is they do that someone doesn't like. You will always have people defend and like that person for all the reasons someone else dislikes them. That is just the way things go. Famous or in real life.

And luckily for us all, there will be mn where we can come and bent over it!

You're quite the armchair psychologist contrary13.

Would people who didn't know who he was click on this thread anyway?

The people posting know who he is but what does that prove? There are many people who would post on a thread just to say ''who's he then?'' are there?

Having said that i guess he is a 'house hold name', but then so is any no. of people i could mention. Certainly not all of them people i'd want anything to do with by any means.

I don't doubt that he is lovely, warm and engaging off stage. He is probably lovely to his wife and friends too. And he supports charities.

But all of that is irrelevant to any discussion of his work. It's what he says onstage that we're discussing here.

Bernard Mannings family are still insisting their father wasn't racist, it was 'just an act'.

We'll either he really was racist or he found racist material funny, so the fact he was great mates with the family from the corner shop means nowt.

Jimmy Carr makes vile, misogynist jokes. These are broadcast publicly. If he has a wonderful relationship with his wife and mum, that's private. We only know what he gives us ie a stream of troubling, sexual dark material.

I quite enjoyed him on The 10 O'Clock Show, probably because he talked about politics, rather than porn and anal and rape and misogyny constantly. I find his usual act incredibly dull - as OP said, joke after joke about anal sex is not remotely edgy, just very tedious and boring.

There's a lot of this pathetic laddish stuff on most panel shows - even on Have I Got News For You, barely a week goes by without some male panellist shoe-horning in a joke about porn or dodgy internet searches or whatever. DULL.

I always thought he had Asperger's. He's just very awkward in every way. That said, some of the stuff he says is hilarious and I love un PC jokes.

Every time I see this thread title I read it as "Jimmy Carter" and wonder what what deranged line of thought could arrive at such an idea.