h a l f b a k e r yCogito, ergo sumthin'
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You are at a meeting, or in a crowd somewhere and everyone is tense. Everyone is waiting and the time needs to be filled. Sure would be nice to have a clever interlocutor to put everyone at ease. Somebody needs to break the ice! Quick! Press the "Amusing Scripts" feature on your cellphone. Don't
worry about it! The phone rings, you answer in a stage voice--and simply repeat the lines being played to you into your ear! Do a classic Bob Newhart routine (royalties, of course)! Put everyone at ease! Be the life of the party! Or get moshed like a stiff Ayatollah!
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I don't get the part about the phone. |
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This appears to be a 'Dial-a-helpful-something-to-say' service, whereby you dial a (premium rate) number and fight your way through a menu to enter your required topic. The service then calls you back with your prompts. Hence the phone. |
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Bob Newhart was/is moderately famous for comedy bits involving phone conversations where the humor came from imagining what the other (inaudible) person on the other phone was saying. entremature's idea would actually be an intriguing implementation of one of these routines in a setting where it would not necessarily be obvious that it was fiction. |
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My point was if you're the one who called the meeting, well, start it. If you're not the one who called the meeting, but you know the person who did is perpetually late, prepare some jokes ahead of time. If you're the entertainment for the gathering, I'd hope you had more up your sleeve than subcontracting a dial-a-joke service. |
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Oh, and if everyone is tense it's probably because someone's going to get fired and jokes are appropriate. |
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deadpan Bob Newhart + timing + phone = Comedy |
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Not a particularly useful idea, but a plate of crumbs for 'moshed like a stiff Ayatollah'... |
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I really like this idea. It'd take someone with a flair for comedic delivery to pull it off, but the idea is funny, and good, and pastriable. (btw, is a guy who runs a family bakery a "pastriarch?") |
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Ha! Glad you liked it--but I didn't maybe explain it in enough detail. The phone would actually contain recorded scripts, like those tiny voice recorders now available that hold up to an hour or so, digital, encoded on a chip (no tape). So this would be strictly a fun feature. I hear that Marlon Brando does all his acting this way, although via an earphone. Someone reads his lines to him and he simply repeats what he has heard. Great for adding spontenaity to the presentation, I guess. |
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It is at least a gag, but could be enthralling if done correctly. Sort of like the group presentation trick where the presenter goes in to the room beforehand and draws, in pencil, using a template, a very well-done drawing of a whatever, say, a recognizable celebrity or celebrity characiture, on the green board (back when there was chalk). Unless you look closely, you can't see the pencil lines. At the appropriate moment in the presentation, the presenter begins tracing over the pencil lines in an apparently amazing demonstration of sketching ability. Good for about one lecture. |
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So the phone could be used in a similar fashion, and only the presenter would know that no one is on the other end of the phone. Simply repeat what is heard. Could be trouble! Especially if the performer is doing it to be disruptive--is not the one who has the floor, or is just having some fun with a captive audience (on a subway, etc.). |
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I get the feeling that the negative votes here are from people that haven't heard Bob Newhart do a phone sketch. |
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I haven't heard Bob Newhart do much of anything...he keeps putting me to sleep... |
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I would have to say that Jutta is our Pastriarch... |
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