Song of the Day

My Own Worst Enemy by Lit

Word of the Day

Gelastic - Syndrome or symptom marked by laughter or humor

I recently ordered the complete first season of DVDs for BBC's Nighty Night. Perhaps the darkest, funniest comedy I've ever seen. Written by / starring Julia Davis (no relation that I know of, although my family does go back to Sussex, England in 1404, so who knows), Nighty Night restored my faith in the term "comedic genius". Why? Because almost everything we see pulls punches. Wears kid gloves. Most TV comedy is engineered to deaden our senses rather than sharpen them. And those that do dive into the dank catacombs of our consciousness aren't often that funny. Nighty Night performs a kind of autopsy on our awfulness.

Because let's face it; Civilization is a Jenga tower teetering its way through ever-increasing altitudes. It's wobbly, and still experimental. We haven't yet figured out how to keep making Obamas and stop making Osamas. What's more, we regularly succumb to the temptation of disowning our demons. We just can't admit that impulse to conquer, abuse, and rule the World is still alive and well in some fetid corner of our heart. That's an aberration, right? Someone *else* wants to bludgeon their way to the top. Not *me*. Thankfully, Nighty Night is here to remind us of parts of ourselves we may have displaced. Think of it as comedic Shadow Work.

Julia Davis has written (and depicted with stunning genius) what is surely one of the most disturbing and disturbed characters in history of hilarity. Jill. In the hands of someone less gifted, this material would end up a blunt caricature, as in Andrew Dice Clay. It could easily turn into Anne Coulter's idea of comedy. But with Julia Davis in the center, it becomes a hypnotic mandala of dark jewels too peculiar to deny.

But is Nighty Night for YOU?

If the laughing gas administered during a root canal makes you ponder the psycho-circuitry of despots and tyrants, Nighty Night is for you. If you had a bad fall as a child, and your funny bone punctured your conscience, Nighty Night is your show. If your ethics and empathy have ever been sodomized by your Kosmic Narcissism, Nighty Night will spark nostalgia. If you've ever wanted to save someone so you could torture them...

It could be said there are two kinds of people; Those who give in to their innate Sadism, and those who don't. Similarly, you're either willing to admit theres' a bit of Nighty Night in you, or you're not.

Like most of my all time favorite comedies (Smack The Pony, Extras, Curb Your Enthusiasm, the UK version of The Office, The Sarah Silverman Program, Upright Citizen's Brigade, Absolutely Fabulous), the chemistry of Nighty Night is inextricably linked to its creator and star(s). These safaris through the disowned parts of our collective psyche require a special kind of guide. No offense, but this is not a job for Jeff Foxworthy. Every vile duplicity in the Carnival of Guile bounces to life in Nighty Night. It's a symphony of pathology, only because it's under the miraculously deft conducting of Julia Davis.

I remember watching Nighty Night back when it used to air on Oxygen and thinking "I can't believe this is on TV." Almost as soon as I'd said it, it wasn't. I was afraid to love it as much as my heart wanted to, knowing it would be stolen away by the great common de-numb-inator.

They made two seasons of Nighty Night for BBC. I believe season two becomes available on DVD in March of 2008.

When season one arrives, count on me disappearing for a full day of frolicking in the Basement of Being. I'll be over-dosing on Nighty Night, my Opiate of Ontology. If you need me, follow the cackles.

There are a bunch of snippets of Nighty Night on YouTube.