HBO renews The Ricky Gervais Show; gifts the world more of Karl Pilkington’s brain and Ricky’s laugh

We spend a lot of time on this blog talking about Teen Mom, Real Housewives, pop stars, and plastic surgery. That’s fun and all, but here’s a post about something that really gives me a tingle.

Ricky Gervais doesn’t believe in god, but there is evidence that if there is one, s/he’s a loving one, because HBO has renewed Ricky’s hilarious animated show The Ricky Gervais featuring the transcendent Karl Pilkington for two more seasons!

What exactly this show is takes some explaining. You can dive straight into and fall in love with the “little round headed buffoon” that is Karl Pilkington, but there’s kind of a complicated back story to how this exquisite cartoon curiosity came about.

This all started back in 1998 when an unknown Ricky Gervais got a job at a small radio station in London, Xfm soon after working for a long stretch in a . . . office. Besides the office experience, and working as an events planner, Gervais also had a failed pop career and a philosophy degree under his belt. At Xfm Ricky did a show for a couple of years with the first guy he hired to be his assistant, in Ricky’s words a “big lanky goggle–eyed freak” named Stephen Merchant. They made a short film together called “Seedy Boss” which laid the groundwork for The Office. So far I’ve given you a pretty concise story of how The Office was born, but how does the Secret Ingredient Karl Pilkington fit into all this?

In 2001, The Office turned out to be a game changer for Ricky and Steve, and once they had achieved some success in the U.K. the new celebrities were offered another radio show at Xfm,. As luck would have it, Karl Pilkington was their producer. Mr. Pilkington would pontificate on his various views about life with Ricky and Steve while the music played, and they were so char med with Karl’s unique take on the world that they asked him to talk when they were on air. Karl had been fired from a previous radio announcer gig, so he was reluctant, but thankfully for the human race he decided to “give it a go.” The audience just couldn’t get enough of Karl Pilkington, Ricky and Stephen poking at him, and Ricky’s infectious, high-pitched cackle.

But things soon got too busy for Ricky and Stephen with other various gigs like bringing The Office to the U.S. and making a new sitcom Extras. They decided to meet irregularly and post what they recorded on the internet via this new thing called podcasts. The podcasts spread like a pleasant virus, and became the most downloaded podcast ever. Most podcasts suck, really, it’s like radio’s version of blogging. 99.999999% of what’s out there, nobody cares about. I didn’t catch any of the podcasts the first time around because I just couldn’t believe that they could be any good. But there was something different about The Ricky Gervais Show podcasts. It’s a brilliant chance mix of characters that form a wicked witches’ brew of hilarity. They also must have thrown in some crack in the mix, because it’s also maddeningly addictive.

Karl Pilkington is a wonder of a human being. He’s got major holes missing in his general education, and a logic that is actually pretty sound, but seems to have been formed in an alternate universe. To add to the mix, Karl’s got an insatiable thirst for knowledge about the world, especially in regard to things that stray from his norm, like “freaks,” insects, monkeys, and the natural world in general. The facts and stories that he learns are retold in a reconstructed fashion that often has no great link to the original information. Almost more insatiable than his curiosity for learning is his annoyance with everything that isn’t familiar to him. He constructs wild theories to explain some of the mysteries of life, and predict the future, and has difficulty understanding common phrases built on metaphor and analogy. For example, when asked to explain “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” Karl interprets “Don’t chuck stuff about because you’ll break it.” After a bit of exegisis and analysis, he comes up with a different meaning: “People who live in glass houses have to answer the door.”

Some people think that Karl is a character written by Ricky, but while I think Ricky is a genius about realistically writing absurd characters, I don’t think he, or anyone is good enough to construct Karl Pilkington out of thin air. The way Karl encounters the world is utterly fascinating, and it’s made even better by the fact that Karl  is never phased by Ricky, or anyone ribbing him about they way he thinks.

Even though they stopped recording the podcasts several years ago, they’ve been working with an animator to form the best bits into a tearjerkingly funny TV show that airs on HBO in the U.S. and BBC, or whatever, in the U.K. I caught up with all my episodes on the convenient HBOGO website, which plays magnificently on an ipad. You can purchase the DVD and On Demand of the first season here.

Here’s a little taste:

Karl and Ricky, in the flesh, discussing The Christmas Story:

Honestly, I don’t who I’m more obsessed with, Karl Pilkington or Ricky Gervais (I like you too, Stephen, I promise.) I can’t get enough of them. I think Ricky puts crack in his laugh, because it’s highly addictive. Ricky, who has found the secret to delivering drugs via digital sound and video, knows I want more, and hasn’t let all the inane backlash in the U.S. for making a few jokes about our royalty (Angelia Jolie, Johnny Depp, John Travolta, and Tom Cruise) stop him from working on about a million projects, which he keeps us up to date with on his blog. One of those projects, An Idiot Abroad, airs on the less available Science Channel, and it involves effing Karl Pilkington traveling around the world. I hate myself for missing the first season, but now there’s a second season of that lovely monster coming.

If you’re as addicted to Ricky as I am, here’s a little something to keep you going during any lulls:

Actually, he’s actually too thin and “Hollywood” in that pic. Here’s the Ricky I know and love (Just kidding! It’s great to see Ricky focusing on his health):