When will they ever learn? Tim Minchin did a new song for a television show, and when the director, Peter Fincham, saw it, he presumably freaked out and demanded it be cut. This wasn’t The Pope Song — it was a very friendly and cheerful song about Jesus. But he had it cut anyway, and now everyone is featuring it on their blogs.
I have decided that Peter Fincham has to be the most cunning Jesus-hating atheist ever, because it was an absolutely brilliant move guaranteed to get the song promoted all over the place.
Thank you Tim Minchin for another lovely song, and here’s to you, Peter Fincham, you magnificent devious blaspheming bastard.
That explains why Jesus always agrees with me.
I think Peter Fincham is actually Director of Television for the ITV Network… not just the director of this show, but director of all of TV!
Pre-warned, I can see how it might make someone timid nervous, but the director of a TV channel? In Britain? Tim should have sung it on the BBC. The worst they would have done would have been to bump it until after the New Year. Or possibly broadcast it New Year’s Day at one in the morning when no-one would be watching. At least, not sober.
“Geeks would hit him with a shovel”
Hahahahahahaha. Oh, most excellent.
Ah, Fincham is no stranger to controversy – he resigned as Controller of BBC One in 2007 after hyping some dubious editing of footage of the Queen. So they gave him a job at ITV, commonly known as “the other channel” over here (from the days before 1982 when the only choice of UK TV channels was the BBC or ITV).
Don’t tell anyone about this clip. Someone might be offended. Best make it an Internet secret. That way the only people in the whole world to miss it will be the TV audience. At least not everyone will know.
Peter Fincham is the slimeball who was forced out of the BBC after he presided over footage for an advert, which was edited to look like the Queen stormed out of a photo shoot by Anne Leibowitz. In fact the Queen was heading into the photo shoot and they chose not to show the parts where the Queen was chatting to her as if they were old friends.
In short, he’s not above fakery and quote-mining, and his bias against atheists shouldn’t be much of a surprise. They so often go hand-in-hand.
…I love this so much…
HaHa!
loved that one. So many good points for Magic, Woody Allen, Superman, snail, ….. Jesus.
Yes, a new Tim Minchin song.
I’m going to steal it and make it my Christmas post. The Komodo Dragon will fit in with my Non-Praying Mantis motif.
/geek mode
“With great power comes great responsibility” is a line from Spider-Man, not Superman.
When I saw this story and watched the vid this morning, it had ~300 views. It’s nearly 5000 now. Can’t wait to see what Pharyngulation does to it. :)
But yeah, really lame to drop this song. Someone’s being a little overly paranoid about avoiding any more scandals involving Ross, methinks. I mean, it’s not exactly building a model of the LHC out of sex toys, is it?
The best part of the link was Minchin’s Bonus Material about his realtionship with his daughter and the Santa Claus myth.
bow before the power of the Streisand Effect.
I read a few of the comments at Tim’s site, and it doesn’t take long for the fatwa envy to pop up. Oh yeah, you’ll satirise Jesus but not Mohammed, derp derp… I guess they aren’t familiar with the 10-foot cock and a few hundred virgins song.
Way before coal and iron ore he is our one of our best exports!
And yet, the Jonathan Ross show was okay with Tim singing a song about how bad he wanted to nail Ross’ wife…
So who in the UK wants to get together a caroling group to show up on Peter Fincham’s doorstep Saturday night singing “Pope Song”? Early enough for the neighbors to enjoy, of course.
Art Vandelay: What was Jane Ross’s reaction to that? (“Celebrity shag concession”…. lolz.)
Peter fincham started out doing production for comedy here in independent tv. He also used to work with Douglas Adams. He seemed to be a decent bloke up until he became a multi millionaire with the sale of his company and went from being on the side of subversive comedy to being an establishment figure. I just spoke to one of the editors on the Jonathan Ross show and they literally had no idea this cut was coming until fincham and the compliance lawyers freaked out well after the final edit was done for airing. Jonathan Ross has his show watched very carefully as ITV only has a tiny fraction of the cash the BBC has to offset any controversy but this still smacks of fincham covering his arse following his 2007 BBC scandal.
It’s sad the UK tv stations are acting like US ones. Normally tim minchin wouldn’t have any problem getting broadcast.
The Daily Heil is already fanning the flames: “Jonathan Ross show forced to scrap comedian’s appearance after bizarre mocking of Jesus”. I count two lies in just that headline alone! Oddly, the article itself is better. The Torygraph is likewise accusing Minchin of “mocking Christ.”
Am I the last person to notice the snowflake button on Youtube?
Totally freaking epic, thanks for sharing!
What snowflake button?
Brilliant.
The YouTube snowflake “button” isn’t a button, it’s the slider on the timeline on the videos. HTH!
It always seems like Christians operate under the assumption that Jesus was one of the most humorless people who ever lived. What sort of lame enlightened person doesn’t enjoy people joking with them? Seriously.
Minchin’s song seems disingenuous, narrow, shallow, worn-out and self serving.
Jesus is just too EASY a target. Yeah, spit on Jesus and get instant spotlight.
But historically, no one really knows what Jesus THOUGHT or SAID about himself. Historically, many, if not all of the theological claims and supernatural occurrences attributed to Jesus (miracles, resurrection, etc.) were made, not by Jesus, but by others who came after him.
I’d rather Minchin use his bandwidth to ridicule the horrible and FILTHY Paul of Tarsus, as well as ridiculing all the other ‘holy’ people that came after Jesus.
@ 28. I think you missed the point. The song seems to be about how Jesus is whatever you want him to be.
@manymistakes, “many, if not all of the theological claims and supernatural occurrences attributed to Jesus (miracles, resurrection, etc.) were made” by people who lived before him. (Also, for many centuries afterwards.)
Sorry about that.
That’s it? That crappy song generates controversy?
We has a TV horrors over Woody Jeebus?
That was pretty mild.
Apparently, the ridicule needs to be cranked up or the jeebusites aren’t going to feel ridiculed, only offended.
Ah, one longs for Tom Lehrer, but takes what one can get.
Tim doesn’t claim it’s his best song ever, but yeah, massive overreaction.
Tom fucking Cruise liked it. Tom fucking Cruise.
Maybe this song was cut for not being funny. But, how do we explain all of the other not funny shit? Guess it was cut for other, far more stupid reasons.
According to the BBC, Tim is FUMING. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16307450
Fucking sensationalism. They get more and more like the Daily fucking Mail.
That. Song. Was. Classic!
Tim Minchin may not be Jesus (or whatever you grok it) but he sure is a genius.
Just watched it again – on a front page headline link from ‘The Age’, the major newspaper here in Melbourne :)
The only let down from that was that when it finished it didn’t show a link on to the Pope song.
Wow. Rumtopf’s link to BBC. Title is “Tim Minchin fumes over song cut from Jonathan Ross show”. Yet the actual text of the article referring to Minchin only gives us
Truly, those are the words of an enraged man, frothing at the mouth. It’s simply amazing, the distorted perceptions of a person your average Religionaut can cobble together when the person they are trying to perceive happens to be speaking of religion without giving it “proper” respect. It’s almost like some sort of bias or prejudice!
159,883 views – 19 hours ago
No, it’s a button. Looks like a snowflake. Right next to the caption button. Video has to be playing or loading to see it. Push it. Makes things all wintery. Kind of like Googling “Let it snow”.
Strangely I’m not in the dungeon yet. I guess I can drop my bombshell without creating a new identity. And I promise it will be nothing but the truth about PZ. But should I do it before of after Christmas?
poke
grow some gonads
do “it” now
Unless he turns out to be a serial killer, i doubt it will have much effect. How about you tell us, then we mock you and rate how little your “truth” matters to whether we read an internet blog or not.
Tim played this song at some of the “Night of 200 Billion Stars” shows. Certainly on the 2nd London show, the day after the clip was filmed, asked very nicely that people not record and put the song on the internet as it was supposed to “go public” on the TV show.
All rather ironic, really, with Tim now having to leak it himself!
Brilliant!
andyo,
Really?
(Time for the Xenu song, methinks)
I think Tim’s music is like cheese: It’s an acquired taste.
I take little nibbles here and there. This song I was able to listen through to the end. Progress.
Actually, “fume” is not a bad description of the way Tim feels about this decision. He rarely posts anything himself on this blog, (it’s usually just stuff about Tim’s upcoming appearances posted by his staff), and he did say “But I have to admit I’m really fucking disappointed.”
There is also a difference between “fuming” and “frothing at the mouth.” Thus, overall, fuming is a pretty good description of how he feels.
Spiderman is the one with great responsibility and great power, not Superman. GRRRRRR…
*shakes nerd fist at Tim Minchin aka Jeebus*
I assumed he threw the spiderman reference in there on purpose – he was adding to the list of Jesus characteristics, not just having one verse per topic.
“-Mr Fincham, Minchin claims, “demanded that I be cut from the show… because he’s scared of the ranty… right-wing press.”-”
So they pulled the song and the ranty right wing press ranted anyway. Still, we have the internet now so censorship is futile, and all the kinds of people who get all upset about this kind of thing don’t have to watch it.
“fume (fjuːm) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
— vb
1. ( intr ) to be overcome with anger or fury; rage”
I dunnnoooo
Was that Scully at 3:50? Someone please tell me that was Scully.
And both tidbits (the fact that he rarely posts such things, the fact that he used the word “fucking” or any other such expression of frustration) were nowhere to be seen in that article. Even if I grant that those are sufficient to establish that his tone could be called “fuming”, the article did a piss-poor job of showing that Minchin was, in fact, “fuming” by leaving the key details that would allow people to actually come to that conclusion out of the article.
I sent a mail to ITV, complaining about the pulling of the clip. They responded within two minutes, so either they have some super-efficient viewer support or they have prepared an answer mail that they are sending to everyone. Here’s the reply:
“Dear [my name]
Thank you for your email regarding Tim Minchin appearing on THE JONATHAN
ROSS SHOW.
We often make changes to programmes before transmission and on this
occasion we felt that the song didn’t quite work editorially.
May I take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to contact
us here at ITV Viewer Services.
If we can be of further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards
[name]”
The email is as nondescript as you can get. However, I was surprised that they answered me at all. Since writing lots and lots of complaints worked out well for the Christian right (see Superbowl’s nipplegate), we should start to use that tactic, too. You may consider sending your own complaint to
viewerservices@itv.com
I am shocked, I tell you! Tim Minchin should apologize to Woody Allen fans everywhere!
“Schrodinger’s Feline!”
Love it!