About Comedybox.tv
Let me explain. The idea behind Comedybox is that there ought to be a place on the web where you can get a damn good laugh any time of day or night, no matter what mood you're in.
We want to make it the home of comedy on the Internet.
Here you'll find hours of classic clips from your favourite comedians as well as many great new ones you've probably never have heard of. There are also dozens of specially created new comedy videos, some from established names; many more from untried experimental talent.
There are comprehensive gig listings, facilities to buy tickets, books and DVD's, and we’re a growing international comedy community.
For comedians and new acts it's a place to meet contacts, sharpen your skills, share your ideas and get noticed. For everyone else, it's a chance to hone your couch-potato skills in the company some of the finest and funniest material online anywhere.
We believe the Internet is the future of comedy. Television offers massively more choice but depressingly less variety. Particularly in comedy, it has lost its ability to attract the mass audiences of the past. As advertising revenues fall, so budgets fall with them. Comedy is a risky and expensive business. Broadcasters prefer to scrape by with something safe and cheap. Once 'entertainment' used to mean something that cheered you up; now it mostly means watching members of the public or obscure 'celebrities' being made to look like idiots in quizzes, competitions and 'reality' shows.
Comedybox is the 7th Cavalry of comedy. We're here to change all that. We like taking risks. Here comedians, producers and young talent have a space to try anything they want, however barking mad or risqué.
And best of all, we'll put our money where our mouth is. We've got the cash and the clout to encourage new talent and develop your ideas into live acts, DVDs, television programmes and movies.
Join us! Start now. Create your own clips and upload them to your profile. Our commissioning team are always on the look out for rising stars and we'll often give paid-commissions to the best clips.
Or just hang out and look around. There's lots to enjoy.
So, who's idea was it..?
Veteran British comedy producer John Lloyd
John has worked in a wide variety of media. His speciality is inventing and starting enduring new formats.
The BBC radio shows that he started in the mid-seventies, Quote...Unquote and The News Quiz (the model for BBC TV's Have I Got News For You), are both still running today, more than 30 years later.
He co-wrote the original radio versions of both The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy and To The Manor Born before they tranferred to television.
In the 80s, John moved to television himself, where he created Spitting Image, Not the Nine O'Clock News and Blackadder.
At its peak during the third series (the last that John produced) Spitting Image was No 3 in the ratings, with an audience regularly attaining 15 million. BBC2's Not the Nine O'Clock News was shown only once on BBC1. It got an audience of 17million. To the Manor Born was at the time the most highly rated show on British television ever. It peaked at 27 million viewers.
Blackadder has been repeated many times, the videos have sold some 4 million units.
The Not The Nine O'Clock News stage show Not in Front of the Audience which John co-directed, co-produced and co-wrote sold out for every night of its runs in Oxford and at the Theatre Royal, Drury Land.
Have I Got News For You is based on the News Quiz. John helped devise it and was the chairman of the pilot.
Mr. Bean was John's idea.It sells in upwards of 80 countries. The first Bean movie made more than $300m. When John devised the format, it was with precisiely this kind of trans-national success in mind. He has never earned a cent from its success but he is not bitter or twisted. Indeed, he is jolly.
In 2002, John created QI, BBC2's comedy panel game starring Stephen Fry and Alan Davies, now running up toward its sixth series. It is by far the most popular TV programme on both BBC4 and the digital channel Dave.
John has co-written or edited the following books:
Not, Not 1982, Not 1983, Not the Royal Wedding, Not the General Election, The Appallingly Disrespectful Spitting Image Book, Spitting Images, Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty, The Meaning of Liff, The Deeper Meaning of Liff, The Book of General Ignorance, The Book of Animal Ignorance and The QI Annual 2007.
These books have sold between them in the region of 5 million copies. The Book of General Ignorance is published in 25 countries and The Meaning of Liff has been continuously in print for 25 years.
John has won countless awards all over the world including ten BAFTA awards, four International Emmies and a Grammy. He has also won 'lifetime' awards from both BAFTA and the Royal Television Society. At the Ace Awards (the principal US cable TV awards) the rules had to be changed because Blackadder kept winning in the US domestic category despite being a foreign import.
Both Not the Nine O'Clock News and Spitting Image have run on US television in 'changed format' versions. At its height, Spitting Image was licensed to half a dozen countries round the world who made their own versions.
John has written and directed one pop promo: Genesis "Land of Confusion". It won many awards (including the Grammy mentioned above) and was voted on MTV as Best Pop Video of All Time.
In his spare time, John has been directing commercials for the last 20 years. The Barclaycard ads with Rowan Atkinson which John devised, co-wrote and directed were recently voted the most effective series in the history of British television.
Despite all this, John is an incredibly modest fellow. Possibly the most modest fellow in Europe, he has been nominated an incredible 128 times for the Modest Fellow of the Year Awards. Modestly, however he has declined to accept.
*And slightly unhinged.