Goldfinger!

Peter Serafinowicz's sketch show has been on for a few weeks now — as the Admiral explained earlier, our damnable semi-broken Sky+ box (the closest you can get to TiVo in this country) deleted the second episode on a whim (and yet has kept several movies the Admiral keeps trying to get me to watch even though I don't want to — why have you turned against me so, Sky+ box?). We attempted to get the second episode from the equally-damnable-but-not-redeemably-awesome BBC iPlayer, but that failed too, and apparently it's not worth repeating a brilliant sketch show when you can show Car Booty on an endless loop instead (I found out through hard experience that that show is not nearly as interesting as the title suggests).

Anyway...the show is full of very funny sketches (amid a few real clunkers) and tons of brilliant impressions, including Michael Caine, Kevin Spacey (couldn't find any YouTube clips, I'm afraid, though this is a pretty meta impression, as Spacey is a genius impressionist himself) and Alan Alda, the latter so eerily accurate it's not even really funny so much as like actually listening to Alan Alda. If you're not in the UK, it's definitely worth seeking out (though it's hard to find whole episodes online, there are quite a few sketches on YouTube -- the Butterfield and Darth Vader sketches are particularly worth watching).

During the latest episode, there was a song parody that made the Admiral laugh so hard that his forehead turned red and some scary veins stood out on his temple. Come to think of it, he may have been having a stroke. I give you Ringo Starr's "Goldfinger":



And speaking of excellent song parodies, I can't go without mentioning Chris Morris's dead-on Jarvis Cocker impression. If you, like me, were largely ignorant of Pulp, because your pathetically inept musical education in the mid-90s consisted of hastily learning the lyrics to "Motown Philly" so you could know a "cool" band's songs, I invite you to watch this video of the insanely catchy and altogether wonderful "Common People", to know and love Jarvis Cocker like a proper British muso.



So now you're familiar with Jarvis Cocker's strangely charming Elaine Benes-esque dancing, as well as his propensity for overly literal hand gestures (the fallback of many a bad male dancer) and writhing around in large novelty shopping carts. But though it seems impossible to love anyone more than Jarvis Cocker after that, I give you Chris Morris's parody from Brass Eye, a groundbreaking news-parody show. If you don't know who Myra Hindley is, Wikipedia is happy to provide you with some of their usual conspiracy-theory-based liberal claptrap.



Come back, Chris Morris, and we'll even forgive you Nathan Barley. Not the part where a cat got a pair of scissors stuck in its head, though. Thanks for searing that image into my brain for the next 50 years. If you're not satisfied with that Pulp reimagining, though, I leave you with the unholy alliance of William Shatner, Ben Folds, and Joe Jackson. You're welcome.