The hilarious pair constitutes the one new comic bright spot on the listings.
By ARYEH DEAN COHENmitchell and web 88(photo credit: )
It's sooooooo hot. You come home from work with your brain fried, try to put together some kind of dinner and collapse in front of the TV. Go ahead, you say, make me laugh.
The options are getting slimmer and slimmer. The Bip Channel seems to believe that sticking weird hairdressers or groups of wannabe comedians together to make obnoxious comments about the news or whatever is entertaining. It's not.
There hasn't been a decent comedy on HOT's Channel 3 for ages. Perhaps word that a new company will be taking control of HOT's content will improve things.
YES, on the other hand, seems to have found a winner with its new That Mitchell and Webb Look, once again grabbing great comedy before its cable competitors can get to it.
Robert Webb and David Mitchell are probably familiar to viewers from their previous series, Peep Show, and from the movie Confetti, both proving they'll do just about anything for a laugh, including in Webb's case playing one half of a nudist couple trying to plan a nude wedding. They've performed together for years, both on stage, TV and now in a new movie called Magicians. Webb's the tall blonde one and Mitchell the dumpy one, with their co-star Olivia Coleman along for the ride.
Basically a series of comedy vignettes, a format that seems to be leading the way in the UK of late, the pair is nothing short of hysterical, and well worth catching on YES Stars 3 on Tuesday nights at 22:30.
A sample disc we received featured a very cute intro, with a group of cartoon beasties putting together portraits of the two and then laughing at how ridiculous they look. The hilarious opening bit had the two as SS officers at the Russian front, with Mitchell's character wondering about the unit's image. "Have you looked at our caps lately?" he asks. "They've got SKULLS on them. Hans...are we the baddies?"
With the unending glut of quiz shows on our local channels, it was also a riot to see Webb hosting something called "NumberWang", a game show in which the competitors just yell out numbers at random, with everyone behaving as though something was actually happening.
Our favorite, however, was "How Not What to Look Like," featuring Webb and Coleman spoofing all the British wardrobe-fix-up shows, but faced with a rather stiff challenge: a woman wearing a burka.
Taking a shot at ER and Gray's Anatomy, the pair created havoc in a hospital room, with Mitchell applying paddles to a dying patient, then observing "He was fine. Now he's doing poorly from too much electric."
Finally there was the man from Dreamy Pastures Insurance, where instead of getting money when your spouse or husband dies, they "replace your loved one with someone sexier and kinder. Because no one's irreplaceable."
To wrap, Webb did a banana dance that needs to be seen to be believed. Suffice it to say we laughed our socks off.
So yes, there is hope - we can be amused. Those who don't have YES should search for the series at their local video store, and the cable folks should do something fast to boost their stock of good comedies.
Meanwhile, we hope to catch a peek of what's headed this way during a quick visit to the Old Country, Histadrut permitting. See you in September.
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