Ough, I feel you, brother. My old lady won't allow me to spend a mere couple years with my pals at the flamingo bar without bringing up how I haven't helped raise the kids anymore. So needy...
They had one with Maggie Thatcher Ronald Reagan having sex transplants with each disguised as the other but the censors told them that was going a bit too far...
@@animatiz well yeah. I think we can both agree that not only making a sketch where "the punchline is that a father abandons his family to live on the banks of a river with men dressed in pink, to wear a pink tuxedo and drink daiqiris" requires to take some artistic risks. But also getting this close to flamingos for a TV skit, is also quite dangerous. Some people could've ended up trapped there
@@marcantoinelab12321 Jesus yeah after you just spelled out the whole sketch to me I can see how riskayyy it must of been for them to touch on taboooooo.
@@animatiz oh I mean, it could be a metaphor for homosexuality 🤔 But I think the whole thing is just made to be surreal, more than anything, which is quite nice. And usually, show exec and networks won't like risks because it might not be as profitable.
Hope I'm not reading to much into it but perhaps it's unsettling because the devoted Dad and husband so readily chose to give up his family to indulge in fulfilling his own desires? Like it was there all along and he just needed the right environment and isolation. Like the enticing mistress a family man might chose for temporary pleasure over lasting fulfillment?
I've always attributed it to a form of class-based societal control. Keep the lower classes permanently in a state of low grade misery, and they'll never strive for anything better, and will become so indoctrinated they'll actively hate it if you try to do something to improve their lot. It's the only feasible explanation tion for the continued popularity of so many things in British life, such as Carling Black Label or Eastenders.
It is eerie for the same reason all faerie stories are eerie. It is about crossing over from one world to another, being unable to fully communicate between the two worlds. The only way for them to talk to the husband (or the other two “flamingos”) would be to row across that dividing body of water themselves, but then they too would be on the other side. Also eerie that the boat is just there, waiting to be used. Like faerie circles, DMT and death, you can never fully grasp the experience of the other side from over here, and even if you go there and come back, you can’t take the true memory of that experience back this way.
Marc Geerlings Well, depends on how you interpret the lyrics. Its creepy as fuck regardless unless he was 15 when he wrote it in the way you seem to interpret it.
@@Buckblacket My tooth hurts.. "wHeRe'S yOuR dEnTiStRy DoCtOrAtE??" Time to trim my lawn.. "WhErE's YoUr LaNdScApInG lIsCeNcE??" Ooh I dont think they cooked my food long enough.. "sO yOu'Re a ChEf NoW??" You bellend
What makes this sketch more than simply being interpretive or “something random” is that it manages to give strong feelings of familiarity and relatability without giving much to directly point to. The plot isn’t the only weird thing going on in this sketch. Everything is off, many details exist purely to cause discomfort. One that really stands out to me is how there isn’t a clear path to this extravagant (£35) “flamingo world” and the heavily pregnant wife is forced to maneuver over a fallen tree. Somehow you can tell this is one of those forced outings you’d have as a kid because “we haven’t gone out as a family in a while” or it was one of the rare times mom & dad had off and you weren’t at school.
Yeah, from how you put it, it doesn’t sound like a gay euphemism. Just like that of a man who wants to escape his boring life. Like Reggie Perrin or something.
No you bruce wrote the song ”streets of philadelphia” that was the main title of movie philadelphia that was about gay folks. So the reference is there...
No you they act like exaggerated versions of women here. Catty and fake. This is my opinion, from Central Illinois, United States of amerikka, corperate entity, minus any soul :)
Hey I know you made this comment 10 months ago, but you should definitely watch Twin Peaks if you haven't before. Fall into the rabbit hole and see how far it goes!
This is one of my favourite M&W sketches, just because its so confusing and weird. Most of the others are satires or running gags but this one is just there. I love it,
David Mitchell never disappoints in his non-standard characters, It's the bizarre sketches that always stick with me the most, even if I didn't love them the first time, they're the ones I can't stop coming back to.
This is like a window into what a David Mitchell produced version of "The Twilight Zone" would be like. Now I realize what's been missing in my life for all these years.
I can never workout if the season ticket is so the family can now visit their father who lives there or if it means that the father has been sucked in and will want to keep returning. Both pretty sinister but I like the first more
You see all the other fatherless families there at the beginning. Several mothers try to stop him from going. The season ticket is definitely for the children to visit their fathers.
I like to scroll through the comments for every Mitchell and Webb youtube clip that has Olivia Colman in it until I find the comment from the twat who tells everyone that she won an Oscar. It's aaaaaaaaalllllwaaaaays there. They don't do it for anyone else, like Emma Thompson, Miranda Richardson, Felicity Jones, Sacha Baron Cohen, Maggie Smith or any of the 50 others.....
Yep, it's now entrenched in Christmas tradition for the press to run a story of heartbroken families complaining about being thoroughly ripped off by some shithouse version of Lapland somewhere in the country. The photos are always hilarious.
I actually work here. I work at this lake and I live in a small prefabricated building near the lake. I live in flamingo land. I work on the trees and help keep the lake clean.
this is the saddest fucking thing to watch. I actually knew a guy who was pondering taking the boat over to the other side and leave his family. I don't know what happened in the end, but he had two kids...
In Italy (and Germany and probably somewhere else) "reaching the opposite shore" is an euphemism for "turning gay". These guys seriously know their subtle visual metaphors........
question is, two husband, two wives, two kids before Robb joined them. But who attracted the first husband over? :o who is really the flamingo the first guy went to see.
haha very clever sketch and kinda creepy as well, seeing as you realise at the end that the other people are there waiting for their men to come back, lol
I think it's supposed to be a joke about men escaping their responsibilities to drink and talk about music. What we're witnessing the most surreal "lads night out" there has ever been. The pink suits are a uniform and the bar is some kind of promised land. That's about the most I can get from it.
Much like everyone else's opinion, this is definitely their eeariest sketch ever. I don't know why but it creeps me out and gives me a very melancholic feeling. It can be read in so many ways. I wonder who the original flamingo was.
Probably the ticket seller. He has supernatural ability to appear in different places, you know. It is that or he got one of his lads as the first for a favour
@buttersyrupnpancakes I think Flamingo Land is just such a nice place to live with it's daquiris and Bruce Springsteens that no one ever chooses to leave. It's seductive and once you step foot there you'll forget the outside world even exists.
Kory Fredrick okay.. so it’s pretty much just any childhood day trip out in England. When then they get there it’s just people sitting around bored and it turns out they were pretty much just conned out of 30 odd quid. There’s really not much to understand as it’s mostly just random humour mixed with depressing English comedy and the bleak reality that dads gone now. He left the family to go and drink with his friends and talk about music. What is kind of most disturbing about this sketch is that when the dad gets over there he quickly gets distracted and forgets about his family, opting for the easy way out of his troubles, while pregnant mum is left to fend for herself... It might seem like I’m pulling at nothing but I’m literally not.. Me and almost everyone I know’s parents have had this happen..... and that’s the joke. Or at least one of them. There’s also the fact he shouts “OF COURSE THEY’RE REAL FLAMINGOS!” At the very beginning, the music, the fact it’s just men in pink suits, the fact he says “No binoculars!” And snatches them away, the acting and persecution of the actors is hilarious and complements the drab depressing English day out.. I could go on.... The reason I list stuff is because the original commenter said “I don’t think I totally understand this sketch.” Implying the commenter has seen other That Mitchell and Webb look sketches and has previously understood all of it (I find it very implausible that s/he would comment this if they felt this way with every sketch), whereas with this sketch they are unsure of some of it. That Mitchell and Webb look (and most other sketch comedies) is largely based around random humour, I’m almost certain the original commenter knows this and is familiar with this, therefore I come to the conclusion that s/he just doesn’t get the drab depressing English family outing reference (as everything else there is to get is random comedy). Now this is not to say they for sure are not English, it’d just be unusual for them not to have experienced something that is _very_ much like this a few times growing up if they weren’t. Anyway I don’t really care I’m just procrastinating from studying for my A-levels. So good day :)
@Sam I am, you missed the best part of the sketch... "The season ticket is £500".. he mentions it is very popular earlier on because once the men go over they never come back, the only way for their families to see them is to head back to flamingo land every week!
See, the flamingos not being real flamingos actually symbolizes how the sketchy tourist trap guy is a sham. The river and boat symbolizes the dad's journey across a river on a boat. The joke is that he makes a lot of money because the families stay there waiting for the dads to come back. It's fine to read further into it, I guess, but sometimes surreal stuff is creepy and funny just for the sake of it and that's valuable too.
nah you wouldn't be left with a disturbed feeling if it was just a joke about tourist trap/shams. It touches on middle aged family men feeling angry and lost and the excitement and guilt of leaving his family behind and also the shame, confusion and loneliness the family is left with. Even a bit of deciding you're gay with the "special club" and pink suits.
@@Its3am they are wearing pink so people across the river think they are flamingos, because no binoculars. The joke is that it's a scam. Its that simple.
