How To with John Wilson

what a journey

it’s like what if adam curtis except better

It's impressive to me that he even put three of these together, considering how many months or years must have spent getting all this footage, and the cataloging sorting etc.

― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Saturday, November 14, 2020 10:20 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yea this. ep 4 i finally had the galaxy brain dawning of how these are prob assembled

t/s TLC Tugger vs TC Tuggers

"but they still let the pigs go whoever they want"

that shot was so brilliant

how in the world did he get that

let me tell you I hooted and hollered at that shot

Holy shit at that episode. I liked the last one a little better, but this was wild.

how in the world did he get that

I'm assuming when you are filming nearly all of your waking hours in NYC you are going to get some things.

one of the most explosively funny and deeply disturbing episodes of tv, i've ever seen. more please.

t/s TLC Tugger vs TC Tuggers

right?? i have so many questions

The guy must have a few years of video files stored with pretty intense metadata. There's definitely more than one moment showing "Before and after" shots from the same location that look like they're least a year apart from each other.

yeah that occurred to me with the shot of the lawyer's office and its "great view"

will never think of parasite in the same light again

https://filmmakermagazine.com/110494-i-dont-have-the-prosthetics-team-sacha-baron-cohen-does-john-wilson-on-his-hbo-show-how-to-with-john-wilson/#.X7LlBxY8aEc

no one:
absolutely no one:
the daughter of the foreskin guy in the other room trying desperately to stay out of camera range:
foreskin guy: who wants grapefruit seltzer

haha that moment was excellent, that poor girl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Y3WFWoSP8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgkdmSm721Q

there's like two dozen videos on the TLCTugger YouTube page, including ten "song parodies," a Downfall meme, an alex jones clip and two "Andrew Yang for a Better Wang" clips

also this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzKjvxS5QfA

http://i.imgur.com/R0x0YkA.png
http://i.imgur.com/XG8masN.png

i watched and enjoyed the first episode of this but it is very much "take three dashes of nathan fielder and add one dash of joe pera, blend and serve." i like both of those things but the vibe seems uncomfortably close. the visual jokes are the one unique element.

I don't know how intentional the similarities to Joe Pera are but yeah I thought the same

Those three definitely stand apart in my mind as a new wave of a certain kind of comedic voice, really the only three TV comedy people I'm interested in at this point tbh.

yeah that plus On Cinema

Fielder and Wilson have some overlap, Pera and On Cinema are their own things entirely imho

I don't know if I'm reading too much into the past few posts but in case anyone thinks Wilson is ripping off Pera, Wilson's been doing this for almost a decade now (link to his non-HBO material in the OP)

think it's more that this is the first era where a comedian like that could land a TV show on a major network

The Mandela people reminded me of the characters in slacker and waking life

the part where he uses a "memory trick" to recall his shopping list was brilliant

I don't know that I'd necessarily comfortably slot Wilson into "comedy," feels to me more borne out of a Les Blank path if anything. Think there's a lot of genuine humanity and lack of judgement in what he's doing, certainly more so than Fielder. I think the Joe Pera maybe holds on grounds of kindness

Not that it's not funny, it's incredibly funny, but I'd doubt that's his primary intent

xp yeah the more freewheeling Linklater seems like a good touchstone too

Damn this is good

This has brought my household great joy in a time that's low on joy

i don't think anyone is ripping anyone off. and i agree "how to" is much more fielder than pera. i just see similarities in the halting speech patterns representing intense social awkwardness and the narration explaining things to the viewer.

i feel like fielder, wilson and pera all seem linked to me bc they all have a comedic persona thats based on some level of naivete, where the comedy comes not necessarily from making fun of things per se but from just sort of looking at the world with fresh eyes

nathan for you is obv darker than the other two, but as has been often pointed out a lot of the time the comedy comes from people being nicer than we expect them to be, being too nice or overly accommodating of nathans horrible actions. theyre not necessarily an antidote to cynicism or whatever, but i feel like theres definitely a relationship to irony and cynicism in these shows that feels very different from a lot of other comedy in recent years

Something about last night's ep felt like it was more influenced by Nathan Fielder than the past few eps

Anyway loved it, loved the income tax neon sign, loved him showing up to the Long Island referee meeting in the wrong sport referee uniform, loved the shot of the little kid eating his own snot as John was talking about organic food

I was dying laughing at pretty much every second of the ref meeting sequence, incredible stuff.

I had very vivid feelings bringing back a lot of childhood memories of being in rooms like that and groups of adults like that, having to tag along with my dad to some boring meeting or potluck or something, having the general idea of "adults" demystified for me, learning that for the most part they were usually not interesting or cool or even very nice, pretty much the same as the kids I already knew in my elementary school class, just much larger. Amazing stuff. They even stole his whistle.

covering your furniture hasa new meaning or is that new.
Finally getting to see last week's one or the week before's

okay the thing he does where he records someone wincing and looking distraught and then does a voiceover claiming they're upset because the check was split unfairly is really funny to me

one of my favorite parts was the "2 guys...3 guys....4 guys...two three four" bit, mostly because that's a joke you'd never see on any other show

I died at “a reffle”

one of my favorite parts was the "2 guys...3 guys....4 guys...two three four" bit, mostly because that's a joke you'd never see on any other show

i was really hoping it was going to somehow lead up to "three cousins, a deli slicer, and a buncha bagels" in coney island

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBt5PAeWsAAMYbl.jpg

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/hbos-how-to-with-john-wilson-captures-the-weird-wondrous-new-york-city-thats-never-on-tv

a reffle

one of the reasons this couldn't work in the UK (most places in the west?) is that you have to get a waiver signed to broadcast someone's image on TV or at least you mostly do. I do find myself wondering about the logistics/legality and even the morality of some of the shots playing alongside the narration. I know I'd feel pretty humiliated and annoyed if I was, for example, the clearly exasperated guy in the baseball cap giving his friends the side-eye at the restaurant table while John's talking about resentments w/r/t splitting the bill.

I think all those people signed releases! Check that interview link upthread.

Attempts to watch the very gross first two episodes of the new season during during dinner have been unsuccessful.

The third episode (with the giant pumpkins) was a welcome relief, it's always a respite from grossness when he gets out of the city, lol.

I've just caught up with s2 after getting over my toilet risotto hissy fit described upthread. too many highlights to detail but the avatar fan club/support group was incredible (and not punching down as suggested above). s3 not on bbc yet.

I've only seen the first two s3 eps so far, but I'm really enjoying it.

It gets better every episode this season

one thing i cant shake is how john wilson kinda looks like terry richardson :(

pleased to have confirmed my suspicions, based on his accent, that Bruce Beveridge is originally from the Chicago area (he used to live in the suburb where my mom now lives)

Last episode was a bit Baby's First F For Fake but still good. Very strong season in general.

Attempts to watch the very gross first two episodes of the new season during during dinner have been unsuccessful.

― Chris L, Monday, August 28, 2023 9:33 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

second episode isn't very gross after the first 2 minutes

crazy how utterly unappealing this show makes NYC look sometimes. that episode was neat because it then shows a place which is basically the polar opposite of NYC and hey, that looks pretty unappealing too. but it all speaks to the wide variety of bullshit people can learn to live with and there's something beautiful in that. also a good example of how funny this show can be, particularly when he's interviewing those basement ravers with the kid and the kid is just constantly banging on shit the entire time

The silo bit reminded me of the crazier Grand Designs episodes, where you get the sense that the family dream home the husband is building is being inflicted on said family, rather than a shared desire.

NYC is faithfully represented here, but the difference is that usually those ugly details are not lingered on especially in a show.

🫡

what an end

3rd episode was a trip, love the ones that explore what doors having an HBO show will and won't open. scene with the party girls was pretty funny - "come on, you're not from HBO, this isn't gonna be on TV..."

was a bit bummed that they never caught the camera thief at the cat show, I guess the fact that the show doesn't always have perfect endings makes it real

UK ppl this is on bbc2/iPlayer right now
at least I think it is, I've not started watching it yet, saving it for a treat