A Bit Of Fry And Laurie Friday

17 Comments

1. CleverManka +32 January 23, 2015 7:08 pm

   Oh sweet jesus, it’s every faculty conversation I’ve heard in the hallway outside my office door. At least those that aren’t about college basketball.

2. perianwen +42 January 23, 2015 7:08 pm

   Why, hello there, favourite skit. *sidles up next to it*

3. dakimel +10 January 23, 2015 7:23 pm

   I love that man’s patter.

4. Ronit +14 January 23, 2015 7:34 pm

   This is my very favorite bit from the show! Hugh Laurie’s reactions are gold.

5. GreenGrasses +37 January 23, 2015 7:53 pm

   Uuuugggh this one is so good. Sometimes I think that this is how Stephen Fry’s true self talks, and that the rest of the time he’s just slowing himself down for the benefit of the rest of us.

6. writingortyping +34 January 23, 2015 8:07 pm

   My. Favorite. Sketch. Ever.

   And yet, oh and yet, all of us spend our days saying the same things to each other, time after weary time, living by clichaic, learned response: “I love you,” “Don’t go in there,” “You have no right to say that,” “Shut up,” “I’m hungry,” “That hurt,” “Why should I?” “It’s not my fault,” “Help,” “Marjorie is dead.” You see? That surely is a thought to take out for a cream tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

7. Yarnybarny +13 January 23, 2015 8:15 pm

   Ah! This just made me the best Friday afternoon IM partner in the world. Here is what we were talking about:

   me: A group of ferrets is called a business. I just learned that from Tumblr. now you know
   Sent at 1:28 PM on Friday
   Friend: is a truefact or just a truth
   Sent at 1:30 PM on Friday
   me: it is a fact in web comic form http://www.1111comics.me/
   Sent at 1:31 PM on Friday
   Friend: confirmed truefact http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/about/faqs/animals/name…
   me: i feel like we can go home
   Friend: pack it up!
   me: we wrapped up a mystery, learned something new, and had fun. good job, gang
   Friend: and we uncovered a whole bunch of information we didn’t even know we wanted to know. A group of Magpies is called a tiding, gulp, murder, or charm.
   me: a group of crows is also called a murder
   Friend: this I knew
   me: yeah a group of librarians is sometimes called a “Shhhhh”
   Friend: haha A smack of Jellyfish I’m going to bookmark this page
   me: yep we should make it a goal to use one of these a day in our writing or speech
   Friend: good idea
   me: a group of locusts is always a plague. that is tough on a couple of locusts that are just trying to be more social
   Friend: Yeah, and really it’s like pretty extreme like a group of like a thousand locusts, say is hardly a PLAGUE
   me: it mostly indicates that these group names really tell you more about the namers than the named. mm-hmm
   Friend: 🙂 language is a living thing, man
   me: Being a pompous college professor must be the most fun
   Friend: I think so

8. tubatoothpaste +16 January 23, 2015 8:28 pm

   Ughhh yes, this sounds like the conversations at every “party” we had in grad school.

9. Es_Petal +19 January 23, 2015 8:39 pm

   Speaking of the ‘ca-pa-ble’ – I once spent about 20 minutes in a linguistics tutorial with a professor trying to get us to hear the difference between him saying ‘cake’ normally and ‘cake’ in the style of Stephen Fry saying capable in this sketch. We were all utterly bemused.

10. Alexandra +15 January 23, 2015 8:48 pm

    THIS IS MY FAVOURITE FRY AND LAURIE BIT!!!! Ex-trinsically, ex-trinsically.

11. Gretchen +8 January 23, 2015 9:05 pm

    This is has always been, hands down, my favorite Stephen Fry-centric Fry & Laurie sketch of all time. Stephen at his utter best.

12. wallpaperori +14 January 23, 2015 10:14 pm

    I’m pretty sure I can quote this entire sketch. It does feel like the conflation of comedy and real personalities.

    I also love Laurie’s summations of the conversation. “We’ve moved onto chess.”

    Also, there’s a sequel that I am looking for and can’t find, so I instead want to post a video of Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, etc. talking about safe sex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F02ZdwUTBec

    1. Hushtishvibble +2 January 24, 2015 5:57 am

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSyIhapMdI8

       The sequel’s in here — at 3:57. There are not enough words to contain my love of Fry’s enunciation of the word “extrinsic.”

       And yes, quoting this entire sketch has long been one of my life ambitions. I would also very gladly join a cult dedicated to Stephen Fry worship on the basis of this sketch alone.

13. HarrietVane January 23, 2015 10:14 pm

    I'm pretty sure I can quote this entire sketch. It does feel like the conflation of comedy and real personalities.

    I also love Laurie's summations of the conversation. "We've moved onto chess."

    Also, there's a sequel that I am looking for and can't find, so I instead want to post a video of Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, etc. talking about safe sex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F02ZdwUTBec

14. bearnuckle +37 January 24, 2015 12:11 am

    From memory, in the book of ABOFL sketch scripts, the stage direction at the start of this sketch reads “Hugh is Hugh. Stephen is Stephen, only more so.”

    <3

15. Scarlet_Flight +7 January 24, 2015 4:24 am

    Echoing that this is my favorite Fry & Laurie sketch.

    And also, it is one of my greatest fears (or greatest triumphs) that I sometimes sound like Stephen Fry to my friends. I’m afraid if I shared this on Facebook their reactions would be very Laurie-ish. [see what I did there with the self-compliment? she’s modest, too!]

16. Loony_Lovegood +4 January 25, 2015 10:43 pm

    Speaking as a speech-language pathologist, someone who minored in linguistics, and a general Language Nerd who is constantly trying to explain to people the difference between speech and language, this is my favorite sketch from Fry & Laurie. =D