The Timm Capsule with Andrew Timm

Toilet humour

Okay, toilet humour is probably the lowest form of humour, besides sarcasm, puns, and possibly SABC3's "Font". But this is a true story loosely linking a toilet "situation" and television and me, so dammit, I'm going to tell it!

Being a health-conscious individual, I am given to eating much fruit and fibre, but it wasn't always so.

One week in August, a few years ago, I noticed that the loo rolls weren't going down as quickly as usual. I checked that Tryphina wasn't on leave. She wasn't. Made sure the wife and kids were still living and eliminating. They were.

So I had to come to the conclusion that the problem lay with me when I calculated that it was four days since I last had the opportunity to delete SMSes in my inbox, something I only do in quiet solitude. My inbox (on my Nokia) was full! It was proof enough! I was constipated!

This entire epiphany dawned on me on the very day that I was to meet a new and potentially big client at a lovely little designer bistro in pretentious Parkhurst...

Now, not having suffered from constipation before, I simply did what a guy would do and went out and bought a box of laxatives and took double the dose to sort out the problem quickly so that I could free up some space before a total system failure could occur (I'm talking about my phone). This was about 9 in the morning and I thought I could have my inbox cleared by lunchtime in time for my meeting.

I was so wrong.

By 12.30pm absolutely nothing had happened! I read the leaflet and to my horror discovered that you are supposed to take the stuff at night, just before bed, and that you would then wake up to a wonderful liberation first thing the next morning.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the makers of this human drain cleaner obviously figured in an 8-hour turnaround time so you could plan your morning routine of housework, exercise and breakfast without fear of staining the furniture.

I was soon to discover that formulations of laxatives are based on a rather inexact science. And I totally ignored the fact that I had doubled the dose and therefore potentially halved the working time of the stuff.

I blithely set off for my meeting without as much as a peep from my midriff.

The client was kind and affable, but as with any first meeting, you are never quite at ease and are desperate not to make a bad impression. We sat outside and ordered lunch and it was all going so well... until about 15 minutes in. First a stirring, then a gurgling, and then cramps that made me wince. That was still bearable but then the pressure down below started to build and the "knyping" began. Eventually I was clenching so hard that my eyes started to water. Oddly, a morbid fear of coughing also came upon me.

The potential client was unaware of the brewing storm and continued waxing lyrical about the project but then, he stopped suddenly. Seeing the intense look on my face and my moist, slitted eyes, he enquired if I was okay.

Instead of coming clean about my precarious condition, I simply told him how fascinated I was by the project and that I found his passion for it very moving. (What the hell was wrong with me!? Who would buy that!? He must have thought I was a total loon at best or a complete sycophant at worst!)

Suddenly the pressure increased tenfold and I simply had to escape!

I excused myself from the table and slipped into the tiny little restaurant. It was a converted house and the loo (there was only one) opened (unbelievably) directly into the (quiet) eating area, PLUS it had a huge gap at the top and the bottom of the door. There was just NO WAY! I could not do that to a restaurant.

To cut a long and agonising story short, my sphincter could not contract any tighter so I excused myself from the meeting and sped off to my office in Randburg, considering all the way whether it would really be that hard to clean leather seats.

Anyway, I made it back, albeit with tears streaming down my face and my knees locked together as if fused at the patellas.

And yes, the client did eventually work with me. It seems he could read the passion I had for his project on my face.

Why South African comedy is unfunny – some pointers

I have a passion for television comedy, that little 30-minute holiday you get from your stressful day when you sit down, watch a favourite sitcom and escape into your happy place once or twice a week. But what is it that makes my toes curl with cringing embarrassment at the local fare being offered up as situation comedy?

Having been through the experience of writing and producing one myself, I think I may have a little insight into why we fall short of international standards. Oh let me stop talking in euphemisms... I may have a little insight into why our comedy is unfunny crap.

But first, let me come clean right here - I conceived The Coconuts (recently aired over two seasons on M-Net). I was also the head writer and the director. And, let me say, I am not for one minute holding up Coconuts as the shining beacon against which all others must be compared. Not at all, but I did learn a couple of things from both the mistakes we made and the ones we didn't make.

Number one, we didn't insult our audience with a laugh track. Yip, we had a real studio audience of about 100 - 120 people a week, not because we couldn't afford to buy the laugh effects disc used on other local sitcoms but because we actually needed to know if what we were writing was funny.

And let me tell you, there is nothing more humbling than the silence of a studio audience... and nothing more heartening than when they break into uproarious laughter that takes forever to subside while your actors wait to deliver the next gag.

More than that, we also learnt not to insult the audience with old gags, tired puns and the temptation to resort to slapstick.

South Africans are seasoned TV viewers now, with access to the world's best. A corny crack in a SA accent isn't going to cut it anymore - that novelty died with The Dingleys (who remembers that?)

Secondly, we learnt that one writer cannot a sitcom script write (bad grammar intentional), or two writers or even three! You need a team! And you need really funny people, seasoned story editors and gag writers and recognised stand up comedians whose stock in trade is laughter. They will tell you if your script is funny, and yes, you will have to lose some of those lovingly written lines that just won't make people laugh!

Our scripts often went through between 8 - 12 people and many, many rewrites before the final draft. There's a reason the top international sitcoms have massive writing teams. What makes us think we are so funny we don't have to have the same to get the same kind of laugh count per page?

And thirdly, dare to be daring, fresh and take risks. The best comedies are never "safe". If political correctness is the trend, dare to say, ‘stuff that' and write the most politically incorrect stuff you can write, as long as it's funny, and you'll be amazed at how well it is received!

People (of all colours and persuasions) hate to be patronised, so don't try to be funny while also trying to sanitise it into what the powers that be deem to be acceptable. That's why we have the crud we have on TV now!

I'll end off with my favourite quote about political correctness: "Political correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

It's anonymous, but I sure as hell wish I'd said it!

Shoots and travel

Some people love to travel to do shoots in far off and exotic locations. So do I, but I have some ground rules, and you'll nod in agreement if, like me, you're one of those people whose idea of ‘roughing it' is single-ply loo paper.

Here they are:

1. Never stay in a hotel renowned for accommodating sports teams.

I made this mistake in 1992 when I booked my crew and myself into a Durban hotel which, in its heyday, was apparently lovely.

The brochure must have been a few decades old because my first impression on booking in was that I had died and gone to hell (I won't tell you its name, but here's a hint: there are more than "Four Reasons" not to stay there).

I should have run when I opened the door to my room and found that it had eight single beds in it.

I should have fled when the warm, moist smell of dirty jockstraps and stale cigarette butts made my head swim and my throat close.

I should have bailed out of the window when I got into bed that night and found my sheet riddled with cigarette burn holes (or were they bullet holes? I shudder). Like Goldilocks, I moved from bed to bed, looking for one that was ‘just right'. The sheet on the eighth bed looked fine on first inspection, but when I found that some dry body fluid was making it stick to the other sheet, I just dry-heaved and went back to my original bed and slept in my clothes.

I should have checked out the next morning when I picked up the phone to wake the crew and a seven-inch Durban cockroach lazed its way out from underneath the handset and scuttled over my yellowed pillow.

Yes, I should have fled to the bosom of Sun International, but no, I had a budget to watch, and so I held out till breakfast. That was the last straw.

Sitting down between the girls under-16 hockey team and the first team rugby players from what must have been a nearby reformatory, we waited for coffee. What was poured into our greasy, cracked cups was something akin to diesel mixed with medical waste. I had second thoughts and opted for the orange juice. It had an aftertaste like Savlon and asparagus, and I came out in a rash, so I left it.

Each member of the crew ordered a different breakfast but when it landed on the heavy ceramic government-issue plates, it all looked the same: grey, gelatinous masses, floating in a sea of yellow oil. It was too much. We just got up, stifling our gag responses, and headed for the nearest Juicy Lucy. At least there, we wouldn't have to battle with cholesterol hallucinations for the rest of the day.

2. Never stay in a hotel with a name like "The Ruins"

When you stay in town with a name like Gravelot (yes, it really does exist, look it up), be prepared for the worst. Sun International is not even an option there.

On the upside, this hotel was too small to accommodate sports teams. On the down side, it was so rustic, so rudimentary, so determined to give you that authentic bushveld experience that they provided you with wildlife INSIDE your room.

Normally, I do not travel without an arsenal of poisons and repellents, but this time I had been remiss. The thatch in my ‘room' had an infestation of long thin red caterpillars. These creatures where very restless - hungry, I concluded - and wormed and squirmed their way to and fro across the thatch above me, in a state of perpetual writhing motion.

I lay there in candlelit terror, as one by one, these clumsy worms lost their footing (or whatever the heck it is that worms have) and fell onto my bed writhing and flailing around like something out of a Stephen King novel. With tears running down my legs I ask you, who can get a good night's sleep while being pelted with poisonous-looking red invertebrates?

3.Never stay in a hotel with an all night disco, bed bugs and hot- and cold-running hookers.

I don't care if it's one of the largest hotels in the Mother City. I don't care if it is a franchise of one of those mega-chains of hotels. I will never go back to a place where sleep is impossible thanks to music (coming from several floors below you) is so loud it makes your sheets vibrate.

Neither can I stomach the sight of red blotchy crew members again. My production manager emerged from a night of restless itching looking like a poster child for ebola or hives or something.

Those are the don'ts. So here are the do's, when it comes to booking your hotel:

Book Sun International or a reasonable facsimile thereof. (And no, I'm not being paid to say that)
Ask them to send you a swatch of one of their sheets for DNA analysis.
And ask them to post you a sample of their loo paper. If it's single ply, forget it. If it's triple-ply, tell them you may want to buy timeshare there.

• Republished courtesy of Screen Africa

In the headlights

She stood there trembling; her eyes wide and paralysed like a terror-stricken rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming 18-wheeler. As she opened her quivering lips I thought she was going to scream or perhaps projectile vomit.

Anxious moments passed. She started to breathe erratically and in noisy gasps like one of Dr Kervorkian's patients at the end of a house call. But the real horror was only just beginning.

At first she managed to emit just tea-curdling hissing noises followed by a couple of hoarse grunts. But then she mustered every quivering muscle in her body, gulped another lungful of air and emitted a sound, the likes of which I will never forget. It was frightening.

Chance at stardom

She didn't care, though. To her, this was her chance at stardom in one of South Africa's reality talent searches, but to us it was the sound of a pubescent chicken being slowly mangled in an industrial-strength food processor.

What is it about us that we all have such delusions of adequacy? And it's not just South Africans. Think back to those British Pop Idol auditions with that new age dingbat singing "Cwismis twee, oh Cwismis twee", and you'll understand that this is a universal phenomenon!

What made the pubescent chicken's first and last performance in front of the cameras even more startling was that this competition was to find a gospel singing star. There we all sat, expecting sweet songs of praise, and instead were treated to a foretaste of hell itself!

Utter bewilderment

And she was one of hundreds whose utter bewilderment (possibly due to years of over-zealous praise from dewy-eyed parents) led them to put on their best frocks, queue for hours and then caterwaul mercilessly into the startled faces of the shell-shocked judges.

Now, I'm not trying to be cruel here. And I'm not judging the worth of people by their talent. But please, if your singing voice stops clocks and frightens children and horses, for Pete's sake don't enter a singing competition! Granted, the bible does exhort believers to "make joyful noise", but I don't think the psalmist had reality shows in mind!

Our judges had it particularly tough. They, like me, started out as caring souls, gently encouraging those with voices like strangled macaws to ‘keep at it', and ‘don't give up'. As the day wore on though, the utterances of edification began to take on more sinister tones and double meanings.

Sly panel

Let me explain: on the entry forms there were three main boxes for the judges to tick: 1) No, 2) Maybe, and 3) Yes. So, what the sly panel of professionals eventually started doing after no-hoper contestant number 486, was to shout out in unison, "Number one! Number one!"

At first, I was confused as to why they would be encouraging such outrageously horrendous skirling, but soon I saw the method in their madness. ‘Number one', of course, meant ‘no'!

It was dastardly, but very efficient.

With shouts of acclamation in their ears, the deluded divas and musical deviants could leave the audition confident of having given a winning performance, the judges could smile to themselves happy in the knowledge of not having to ward off hate mail, and the entry forms in the ‘No' basket piled up neatly where they belonged.

To their credit though, I couldn't fault the judges' decisions, and we ended up with 20 semi-finalists who really do have a chance of being worthy of the grand prize of a recording contract with one of the country's biggest music publishers. As for the rest of them, make a joyful noise, but please do it at home.

• Republished courtesy of Screen Africa

The circle of life… and TV

I recently turned 40. Being a milestone birthday I felt I had to re-examine my life, and my achievements (or lack thereof) in the grand scheme of things. Well, that didn’t take long – I decided that my greatest achievement was still having actual human hair on my head, and that my biggest disappointment was increasing my waistline by three sizes since I was 30 (I still hang onto eight pairs of size 32/81 trousers, convinced that I will one day wear them again.)

Anyway, I digress (but I’m told that’s normal at this age). Now, what were we talking about? Oh yes, the circle of life… and TV.

When I was a child growing up (while the earth’s crust was still cooling in the Triassic Period according to my kids) in the then Rhodesia, we enjoyed the best of sanctions-busting TV. It was all about stories – really well-told stories. I’m talking series like The Courtship of Eddie’s Rather (with the late Bill Bixby), Mission Impossible (yes, it was a TV series first), The Flying Nun (yip, I’m serious) with Sally Field in the title role, The Munsters (distant cousins of the Addams Family), and countless other feel good family yarns.

These were not big on effects (except perhaps for those amazing nun flips); they weren’t about wannabe celebs clawing for their 15 minutes of fame by taking a dump in the nasturtiums; and they weren’t obsessed with kinky sex.

Naïve, tame and unrealistic

By today’s standards we might judge those shows as naïve, tame and unrealistic (granted the nun thing was a bit out there – today she’d have to have superpowers, a ray gun in her crucifix, and a habit that turned into a speedboat).

But you could safely sit down to watch TV with your kids and your parents, and no-one had to shift uncomfortably at open-mouthed lesbian kissing, teenagers chatting about their group sex experiences, or soap characters hell bent on spreading herpes to as many people as they can in one episode!

Enlightenment and liberation is one thing, but have we gone too far? I mean, it was only in the late ’60s that American sensors allowed the word ‘pregnant’ to be said on television! These days you can watch the entire process if you stay up late enough on a Friday evening (I’m told).

Now before you write me off as a prude, I’m not advocating that we return to the hypocrisy of Victorian morality. What I am saying is that I’d like to sit down between 6pm and 9pm in the evening with my kids and not have to keep flicking to another channel to avoid a biology lesson more suited to students of gynaecology than junior school kids. I talk about sex to my kids all the time, but in an age appropriate way, and in a context that will hopefully impart morals to them. If I let them learn their morals from American sitcoms they’d be foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed, precocious brats with kids of their own by now (and herpes).

Clever plots and unexpected twists

I don’t even remember the names of some of the shows I used to watch (my son believes that this is due to a blow to the head I sustained when a meteor shower killed the dinosaurs) but I do remember sitting entranced in front of the old black and white TV and being transported into another world populated by carefully crafted and beautifully written stories with clever plots and unexpected twists.

Sadly, ‘carefully crafted’ has largely given way to ‘unscripted’ TV (not that all reality TV is bad); ‘beautifully written’ has all too often stepped aside for ‘totally laughable’ – Avenues (what were they thinking?) and This Life (currently on SABC3); and ‘clever plots and unexpected twists’ have been eclipsed by sex, violence and shock TV.

There are some great shows on TV but let’s have more that tell really good stories. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently not. TV and movies seem to be coming full circle.

According to new studies in the US, sex no longer sells in Hollywood. Films with explicit sex and nudity are now earning around 40% less than wholesome movies. It’s family films like Finding Nemo, and genre-busting movies like The Passion of the Christ, that are unexpectedly ‘cleaning up’ at the box office. Effects movies are also not performing like they used to. And people are no longer willing to shell out just to see their favourite star’s boobs, bum or willy.

People want substance, and it seems they want the kind of substance they can take the whole family to see. I can understand that. The only breasts and thighs I want to ogle at dinnertime must belong to a chicken!

• Republished courtesy of Screen Africa.