A year ago, perhaps the hottest thing on the internets were the podcasts of the Ricky Gervais show. And why not? The weird comic rhythms of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington had already been honed for a few years on XFM radio, even while Ricky & Stephen were making comedic history with the original BBC The Office.
The overwhelming buzz, however, died down somewhat when the podcasts went from free to paid.
That was to be expected, of course, and Kirk called it when he recognized the Gervais Show podcasts as a special phenomenon, and not a precursor of a slew of paid podcasts.
As it turned out, there were only two paid series of podcasts this year. Instead, Ricky seemed to be putting in his bid for to take over the now-abandoned mantle of “hardest-working man in show business” by writing another “Flanimals” book; scripts for the U.S. The Office and The Simpsons, taking roles in major motions pictures like Night at the Museum and For Your Consideration, and helming another series of Extras.
Whew. You could see where doing all of that stuff would be preferable to listening to Karl go on about his kidney stones.
After all that, Ricky, Karl & Stephen ended up the year where they started it: a series of three holiday-timed if not holiday-themed podcasts on the Guardian website called — for no discernable reason — “The Podfather.” Still no monkeynews, but lotsa Karl’s diary. These may be the last podcasts in quite some time, so grab them while you can: you don’t want to miss the very special Christmas song for the orphans, do you?