Clips from the animated show. Warning: contains rude stuff
The Ricky Gervais Show, in which the comedian’s popular podcasts are brought to visual life with animation, comes to British TV next month.
The HBO show, which features Stephen Merchant, co-creator of The Office, and Karl Pilkington, their friend and former producer from the duo’s days at XFM, will be screened on Channel 4 from April 23.
The animation style is clearly a nod to the cartoons of the Hanna-Barbera studio, with Gervais himself bearing more than a passing resemblance to Fred Flintstone.
The idea of setting animation to existing comic material has been around for some time. Readers with long memories may remember the same thing being done with Jasper Carrott’s I’ve Got This Mole routine. The combination produces something that is very different, sitting halfway between live comedy and regular animated cartoons.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports that the Ricky Gervais Show is to get a second series on US TV.