Gift Grub - Not funny anymore?

dulpit

Hey, I've been subscribed to the Today FM Breakfast Show podcast for ages, and i've noticed that the quality of the gift grub sketches has been getting very poor in recent times, the boyzone sketches and rafa benitez sketches especially are not funny at all...

Has it become irrelevant? What do ye all think? The one thing i will say about it is that it is still streets ahead of that knob nation muck on 2fm..

Green Giant

Well Gift Grub has been excellent for so long and is still coming up with the goods, although I think the whole 'Rafa using Irish colloquialisms' thing has run its course. And can we please get rid of Daniel and his crappy soap updates? Other than that it is genius

Still infinity times better than knobhead nation

Badabing

' Are you starting bud' Great stuff:D But your right they shouldn't do it every week maybe once in a while, as for knob nation like Gerry Ryan time for the bin.

Fozzie Bear

dulpit wrote: »

Hey, I've been subscribed to the Today FM Breakfast Show podcast for ages, and i've noticed that the quality of the gift grub sketches has been getting very poor in recent times, the boyzone sketches and rafa benitez sketches especially are not funny at all...

Has it become irrelevant? What do ye all think? The one thing i will say about it is that it is still streets ahead of that knob nation muck on 2fm..

I heard Mario/DO'D say the other morning that he did not think Rafa would be back on air so i take it he has binned that character. He was a bit one dimensional and did not have the flair or scope for new stuff as Jose the special one.

Bit hit and miss with the odd sketch but i still find it as good as every overall.

IRISHSPORTSGUY

Green Giant wrote: »

Well Gift Grub has been excellent for so long and is still coming up with the goods, although I think the whole 'Rafa using Irish colloquialisms' thing has run its course. And can we please get rid of Daniel and his crappy soap updates? Other than that it is genius

Still infinity times better than knobhead nation

I quite like Daniel's 'soap updates' but I hate the gift grub character apart from that. It is only funny on the lead-up and aftermath of a soccer/rugby international or a major international event, eg: Bertie resigning. The contrast between Paul O'Connell and Brian O'Driscoll is canny.

pauro 76

I've subscribed to the Gift Grub podcast over the last few months. Very hit and mess with the odd gem. Not mad on the Ben and Ronan jokes thing, why has Ben Dunne become a regular all of a sudden, not funny.. And what is the Inbox all about? Seems self-indulgent and rather in-jokey to me.

john concannon

It was **** in 2007 so this thread is nearly 2 years too late

josh59

john concannon wrote: »

It was **** in 2007 so this thread is nearly 2 years too late

Is it my imagination or is it a fact that any show Ian Dempsey has ever presented always had to have some "comedy" element that ended up being flogged to death - I'm thinking of the Jimmy sketches that Simon Young used to do on Dempseys brekkie show on too eff em in the old days - dragged on and on forever - I think they only stopped after Simon young became ill and couldn't work.

Me thinks the Ian Dempsey breakfast show should be re-christened the Mario Rosenstock breakfast show.

CtrlSource

Was Tom Dunne really the voice of Bill Cullen? Only learned that recently. Was genius! Never liked the Ronan Keating character. Not funny

josh59

CtrlSource wrote: »

Was Tom Dunne really the voice of Bill Cullen? Only learned that recently. Was genius! Never liked the Ronan Keating character. Not funny

Tom Dunne was Dr. Bill alright and if I'm correct Paul McGlone used to do some of the voices (Gary Barlow for one) when he worked as Dempsey's producer.

CtrlSource

Ah jayyyyyysus!

kellsum

I totally agree it has gone downhill recently plus I hate the pat on the back texts after the sketch has been aired when it was so obviously crap!

djsupreme

Is there anything else to the Ian Dempsey Breakfast show apart from Gift Grub though?

heybaby

Whatever people may think about gift grub, it is still, a million times better than its exceptionally unfunny relation on rte, knob nation..

mcscrub

I don't know, Gift Grub can be sh*te sometimes, but considering how long it has been on the air it still seems good enough to me.

Some of the characters are a bit stale, like D O' Donnell and Ronan....but I can't find any fault with the Keano slots.

Maybe they just need some new characters - good characters.

I will say however that I'll never buy a Gift Grub CD

Quint

josh59 wrote: »

Me thinks the Ian Dempsey breakfast show should be re-christened the Mario Rosenstock breakfast show.

Ever notice how every ad for Ian Dempseys show is just GG clips?

Koloman

Mario is spreading himself too thin these days with both the Dempsey show plus the sketches he is doing for Setanta Sports. He seems to be running out of ideas. If he is not careful he will burn out pretty quick.

komodosp

There was only so many times Mrs. Doyle was going to say "Go on!" and they knew it. Mario Rosenstock hasn't copped on to this yet!

And really I've never heard Roy Keane laugh like "Hogh hogh hogh hogh!", and Keith Duffy and his word-explanation bit? By which I mean thing, as opposed to a binary digit in a computer.

And the Fair City thing is funny, but why hav Daniel O'Donnell doing it? He does the country a great service by makingfun of Daniel O'Donnell, and even more so to mock Fair City, but Daniel O'Donnell doing impressions of Fair City characters? It doesn't make sense! Daniel has become just a normal presenter on the programme!

And it makes no sense to use the "out of ideas" defense... Real life throws new material at him every day!

Koloman

komodosp wrote: »

There was only so many times Mrs. Doyle was going to say "Go on!" and they knew it. Mario Rosenstock hasn't copped on to this yet!

And really I've never heard Roy Keane laugh like "Hogh hogh hogh hogh!", and Keith Duffy and his word-explanation bit? By which I mean thing, as opposed to a binary digit in a computer.

And the Fair City thing is funny, but why hav Daniel O'Donnell doing it? He does the country a great service by makingfun of Daniel O'Donnell, and even more so to mock Fair City, but Daniel O'Donnell doing impressions of Fair City characters? It doesn't make sense! Daniel has become just a normal presenter on the programme!

And it makes no sense to use the "out of ideas" defense... Real life throws new material at him every day!

If you had seen Duffy on TV3's The Box you would understand his word-explanation bit!

jor el

CtrlSource wrote: »

Was Tom Dunne really the voice of Bill Cullen? Only learned that recently. Was genius! Never liked the Ronan Keating character. Not funny

Him, and the Ben Dunne character, annoy the hole off me. Too much shouting.

The rest of it can be good, but it goes on a bit with the same thing, over and over, sometimes. Daniel is one, especially when he did his CSI Miami bit, though that did need to be said.

The short skits tend to be the best. Like the Rugby Ads done at the last World Cup (Butterfingers!), or the ads that have often featured on Radio Roy. Less is more.

Utopia Parkway

Yeah I've been downloading the podcasts for years and the quality has definitely gone down especially in the last 6-9 months. Still the odd gem seeps through every now and then.

Trouser_Press

Koloman wrote: »

Mario is spreading himself too thin these days with both the Dempsey show plus the sketches he is doing for Setanta Sports.

Read tonight that the Setanta/Jose thing is ending. Is this true? Feck, I liked it!

robo

I love when Daniel does Fair City and other TV programmes. It is hilarious!
I have only started to watch him on Setanta - shame if it is stopped!

Mr E

The problem with Gift Grub is the format of the sketches. More and more, they're taking the lazy route of having Mario in character in the studio in an interview format with Ian. In the good old days, the majority of the best sketches were topical pre-recorded 4 minute segments which were joke after joke after joke. Radio Roy/Jay, the Bertie sketches (in the Dáil, on the road etc. with Joe), the "You're on Sky Sports" bits, I could go on.

The interview format (where it looks like Ian is given a prompt sheet with keywords to bring up) is very lazy, too short, and hit & miss.

The Monday Jokes with Ben and Ronan are terrible too..... waste of time. And Friday is wasted with the requests format. Bring back Michael D's poetry yoke.

Hiya buddies. They way to fix Gift Grub is eeeeassssyyy. Go back to doing more pre-recorded sketches, that is, comedy nuggets that are actually funny and not relying on Ian Dempsey's bad comic timing or annoying laugh that drowns out the jokes. As opposed to a quick drawing done by an artist with a pencil.

robo

Agrre with you Mr E - I don't like the Friday show. And the jokes are usually woeful. They do need to go back to the sketches. I would like them to keep one show with Ian interviewing Daniel about TV. But more sketches in sport, politics, TV etc would be good - mixing characters that don't mix in real life. I usually switch between Newstalk and TodayFM in the morning and more so I am staying with Newstalk.

I think a new breakfast show is needed on our airwaves with new people and ideas!

Utopia Parkway

Mr E wrote: »

The Monday Jokes with Ben and Ronan are terrible too..... waste of time. And Friday is wasted with the requests format. Bring back Michael D's poetry yoke.

The Monday jokes are woeful alright. Don't think I've laughed at that segment once.

pauro 76

What's with the Andrea Roche thing? She just says the same things over and over again...

Sizzler

pauro 76 wrote: »

What's with the Andrea Roche thing? She just says the same things over and over again...

Can we do that again?

I think Mario has captured her Z list 'talent' brilliantly.

That_Guy

I prefer the Gift Grub of old. Last good one I heard was the Munster skit.

Skid

pauro 76 wrote: »

What's with the Andrea Roche thing? She just says the same things over and over again...

Think this was the inspiration ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VBONbHDOoo

coopersgreen

SkidMark wrote: »

Think this was the inspiration ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VBONbHDOoo

She's as dumb as a stump.

allgirlz

coopersgreen wrote: »

She's as dumb as a stump.

Priceless, didnt know what the reference was on GG, god bless her she is certainly not the brightest!!

Sizzler

SkidMark wrote: »

Think this was the inspiration ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VBONbHDOoo

PMSL !

Unbelievable.

Shes a real catch isnt she

coopersgreen

So Andrea, what was it that attracted you to multi-millionaire Jim Mansfield's son?

/Mrs Merton

JonathanAnon

Agree with most of what was said here already. Some of the sketches are past their sell by date.

1. Andrea Roche... "Can you ask me something easier?".
2. Keith Duffy explanation thing.
3. ROG advertising everything and anything.
4. Ronan Keating is only on the radio with his program. Past it as well.

I think the problem is that not enough major, distinguishable and hugely popular or well known characters have emerged in the last few years. One major example being when he lost Bertie to Brian Cowen. Cowen is as dull as dishwater in comparison compared to Bertie.

The Fair City stuff is still great. I think he should pick on more RTE programs, lord knows there's enough stupid ones. Brides Of Franc, Diarmuid Gavin (that silly bint on the other night calling him god would have made for a good sketch), any of our arrogant chefs, those interior decorator/architecture programs, Dragon's Den (which he did do). I mean some of it writes itself, imagine having a progam like Not Enough Hours when the country is going through the biggest period of economic turmoil in our history and everyone is losing their jobs.

keefg

Gift grub not funny anymore?

I never thought it was funny to start with to be honest. Poo of the highest order.

Skid

Anytime I've heard Gift Grub in the last few months they unsually contrive a reference to Anton Savage desperately seeking more holiday cover work at the station.

It might be a hilarious in-joke to everyone at Today FM but how many times do we need to hear it? It really shows that Gift Grub has outstayed it's welcome.

Skid

Anytime I've heard Gift Grub in the last few months they unsually contrive a reference to Anton Savage desperately seeking more holiday cover work at the station.

It might be a hilarious in-joke to everyone at Today FM but how many times do we need to hear it? It really shows that Gift Grub has outstayed it's welcome.

Ruu_Old

Sir Alex in the dressing room. Posh and Becks (during the Rebecca Loos thing). I think they are all from the first or second cd. I haven't heard much of the recent stuff. Daniel was okay for a while (giving about regarding "big feckin' brother") but got boring.

squonk

Agree with mostly everything. The Monday Jokes slot is, to put it succintly, SHOITE! They should at least ditch Ben Dunne. 'Are you listening <insert demographic>'. Who can even remember those ads anymoe.. 'Are you listening Jackie Skelly', christ the man has moved on himself at this stage. The jokes aren't funny. There is one sketch a week now. The Daniel commenting on TV rarely raises a smile with me. Even the sketches are mediocre. Too much Daniel, he's even there for the quizes. God almighty! It'd actually be better at this stage if they just hired the real Daniel O'Donnell as a co-presenter for Ian.

I will say the recent NAMA sketch was an absolute high point of GG from any vintage. Trully brilliant, but god knows when was the last tiem you could have said that about GG!