I caught all 3 seasons of An Idiot Abroad presented by (starring) Karl Pilkington and created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Even though I caught all of it on Netflix, I like it enough to own it on DVD. Just saying. So the whole show is about Ricky and Stephen sending their friend, whom they consider to be a moron or some sort of twonk, abroad on different adventures around the world. We get to go along with Karl and get his perspective on these diverse cultures and environments.
In the beginning I thought he was just this really negative bloke (yeah, I said it... hard not to after saturating my brain with Karlisms all weekend long) who had nothing but shite to share about these amazing experiences! As the episodes go on I'm realizing more and more that Karl is actually more of a realist (not to say I agree with all of his thoughts, but he's not completely off on many things) who calls it like it is. He says out loud what many people are already thinking. He just doesn't have a brain-mouth filter.
Watching the way he interacts with people (of all cultures), he treats them all the same. He doesn't speak louder or slower and, in fact, never changes his tone or expressions. He's very social. I often thought Ricky and Stephen told Karl to really play up his antics for sake of viewership. I wouldn't put it past them as savvy entertainers and producers, but Karl is so consistent that it can't NOT be who he really is (that was a double negative in case you missed it). He's a bit closed-minded, but ultimately I find him funny and when you watch his eyes while he's listening to someone, he means take it all in. He tends to over-analyze everything. And I mean everything!
During this quite daft and very funny interview between Ricky, Karl, and Warwick Davis (Willow, among many of the characters in his film career), he mentions that Ricky makes things seem worse so whenever he says something Ricky makes it seem more harsh. One night while watching the show I thought the same thing. I was fully entertained by this video.
I should be clear that I'm a fan of Ricky Gervais and I'm sure he's intentional in his exploitation of Karl's thoughts. In the video below is a better example of Ricky taking something Karl says and making it seem idiotic. It's linked to exactly where this transpires in the clip so just click to watch. Granted, Karl's said some pretty idiotic things during his adventures but let's be fair... we all have in our lifetimes. And there's always some bloke who'll use it to their advantage for a laugh. People were accusing Ricky of bullying Karl but even Karl himself dismissed that as bollocks.
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| Karl on how he gets opportunities |
♠♥u
