Saturday 5 July 2008

Channel 4 idents...

Yup, I hate the terribly annoying bits that the channel that sits so nicely between itv and Channel 5 use to remind us of which channel we are watching. The fact that the channel sits between itv, which everyone I know over the age of 20 calls three and the channel so usefully named 5, which kind of gives the game away, seems to have passed them by may be odd, but it stands as true.

These idents take two forms, both annoying, but let us first take the lesser of two evils, the ones I shall call the logo reveals. In these an executive, director or art department who is/are entirely too clever for their own good has found a way to hide the logo in an everyday sight until some kind of a pan/camera move makes the disparate parts come together into the logo we know and love. I think these are quite good really but they have one glaring flaw, they go on for what can, at times, seem like weeks. Oh it's all very good the first time you see it, but the second time, well you know what's coming and having to wait half your lifespan to see the end result gets kind of wearing.

The second, and worse kind, is based on the superstars of channel 4 answering a series of inane questions... their first car, how they'd do things differently and other such meaningless bon mots. Now these I liked at first, a quick insight into how the mind of the person you enjoy watching works. That was then, this is now. Of course there are some clever people at work over at 4 towers, and those people thought they could make the idents funny. In this attempt at humor they thought that it would be a good idea to extend one of the interviews. Well, it wasn't. We get to see the man who will forever be Jim Robinson from neighbours identified as such (like we needed reminding), we get to see the man who stars in spaced launched on a catapult and worst of all we get to see Jamie Oliver play table tennis while making spurious claims to his ability. Now everyone taking part in these has the good grace to look mildly embarrassed by taking part in these shenanigans with one exception, Mr Oliver please step forward. No, our Jamie, saviour of school dinners, hallowed be his expanding waistline, looks really into his, as if he thinks it's genuinely amusing. Well it's not, Jamie's acting is as good as my ballroom dancing, which is shit, it's as believable as, well, I don't think anything is that unbelievable, so, it's as believable as Jamie Oliver's acting, it's painful, and quite frankly should come with a government health warning. 

I really can't get over how much I could do without seeing these things again...

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