Soupy Norman

January 8, 2008 12:01 AM

If you don't live in Ireland, you may be missing out on the inimitable Soupy Norman. YT, with more of the series here.

The premise is simple. For each episode, take more or less the same inane clips from a virtually lifeless Polish soap opera, re-voice using actors from Cork and Dublin. The result is, to my feeble mind, remarkable.

posted by fcummins (23 comments total)

I clicked on the first link without reading your "more inside (I'm from Cork), and spent a bizarre 2 minutes looking at the house interiors, physical body types, trying to work out the nationality. When I saw the cross over an internal door I decided Polish. Kerching. I love that they've at least taken the trouble to splice in shots of Dublin.

Once the bizarro factor is over though I'm not finding the writing that good, to be honest. Will watch more after work, but it's great to be able to keep up with the best (God Spare Us!) of Irish Television.
posted by Wilder at 12:17 AM on January 8, 2008

Fookin' Brilliant!
posted by Skygazer at 12:18 AM on January 8, 2008

/runs to bittorrent
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 12:27 AM on January 8, 2008

What's Up, Celtic Tiger Lily?
posted by Bromius at 12:28 AM on January 8, 2008

First one I was a bit unimpressed, but I'm fair pissing myself by episode three. Thanks, fcummins.
posted by Abiezer at 12:36 AM on January 8, 2008

I think I'm scaring the neighbors with my howls of laughter. I'm gonna be fucked if I don't go to sleep soon. Thx fcummins, ye bastard.
posted by Skygazer at 12:44 AM on January 8, 2008

That is extremely funny! It passes the "I can't fookin' stop laughing" test with flying colours. Thanks!
posted by Turtles all the way down at 1:11 AM on January 8, 2008

I loved the first few episodes of this. Couldn't find it on YT back then though, cheers for the link.
posted by Fence at 2:11 AM on January 8, 2008

Like a lot of comedy (eg. Ali G and Borat) Australia was there years ago (Norman Gunston).

Bargearse

A 70s Aussie cops+robbers TV series, starring a really fat dude who kicks... erm... ass, redubbed. Lots of brown suits.

nb: Bargeass = Barge Ass = Wobble Bottom = Large Person
posted by uncanny hengeman at 3:08 AM on January 8, 2008

Preceding Bargeass was Hercules Returns. This was done live before it was made into a movie. The actors literally sat in the back row of the cinema and did the voice overs.

The original movie was an B grade Italian swords+sandals deal.

Some good reviews in the above link. Never seen it myself, apart from various shorts. I remember it being a big deal at the time.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 3:29 AM on January 8, 2008

Sorry. Could have done all this in one post. Here's a 26 second clip of Hercules Returns.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 3:32 AM on January 8, 2008

I spent last year (academic year 2006-07) living in Dolphin's Barn in Dublin. What I watched of this was quite funny. I'll have to watch more of this later. I understood the woman "from Dublin" in the first link better than the other voice actors, so this also reminded me of how even after nine months I'd run into people I couldn't understand at all (and sometimes they couldn't understand me).
posted by Slothrop at 4:53 AM on January 8, 2008

Saw Hercules Returns live. Very funny.


I can.not.find a single torrent of this tv show anywhere, which is a great pity, as it is exactly the sort of humour my Aunt, who is fighting cancer at the moment, really likes, and she has no access to YouTube. I suppose I could download the YT versions, convert and burn to disk, but I expect the quality to be horrible.

LG&LG I guess
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 5:57 AM on January 8, 2008

I clicked on the second link, having dutifully read the "more inside" (I'm from Galway).

Hillarious, thanks.
posted by Sk4n at 6:41 AM on January 8, 2008

I clicked on the first link without reading your "more inside (I'm from Cork), and spent a bizarre 2 minutes looking at the house interiors, physical body types, trying to work out the nationality. When I saw the cross over an internal door I decided Polish. Kerching. I love that they've at least taken the trouble to splice in shots of Dublin.

OK, that had me confused for a moment. I was all like -- how is this Poland? Those street scenes are unquestionably Dublin.

Also: Poland looks nicer than I'd imagined. Given the numbers of Polish emigrants here, I'd assumed that they were still queuing for a potato and selling their bodies for a pair of tights or a packet of cigarettes.

Also also: Imagine how the producer/director of this show must feel:

'We've just sold your show into the international market.'
'Yahoo!'
'They want to take the piss out of it.'
'Wahhhh!'
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:29 AM on January 8, 2008

Also, also, also: The Late Late Show does a Soupy Norman Xmas Special.

(Where's Gay Byrne? Has the old bastard finally died?)
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:35 AM on January 8, 2008

Peter - Gaybo was replaced by Pat Kenny years ago - I think he's now some sort of Road Safety Supremo (I refuse to use the term Czar) but I may be wrong - I'm way out of touch.
posted by Sk4n at 9:00 AM on January 8, 2008

Gay hasn't presented the Late Late in yonks! Late 1990's I think. But thanks for the link.

.........and the biggest shock here is that Slothrop lived in Dolphin's Barn and survived! For Dublin Police that's the untamed world! (well, Southside anyway).
I lived in Clanbrassil Street, in fact you can just see my first real home in that spliced-in shot of Dublin 8 from the first episode! Homesick :(
posted by Wilder at 9:00 AM on January 8, 2008

Well... I never knew what to call it really. Some people said it was Dolphin's Barn, some said The Liberties (or The Tenters), and we were closest to Rialto in my opinion. My wife and I lived on Dufferin Avenue. It's the street that faced the mosque on South Circular. Actually, there's some historical drama with Cillian Murphy or some dude that they were filming on our street around Christmas time. But, really, most of our neighbors were Malaysian and (presumably) Pakistani, so they were largely quiet, relatively religious Muslims. Our street was pretty quiet - there was one car break-in one night, but that was it.

When I went running, I ran along the canal to the West. This turned out to be the more dangerous portion of the canal, but I didn't know that for months. I did have some scangers throw food at me on rare occasions, but it was no biggie. I grew up in a pretty rural area of the US, so I'm used to gawkers and such.

Probably the most dangerous thing I did was drink at the Royal Oak up by IMMA. Then I'd walk home, lacking money for a cab, all the way down through Rialto, Dolphin's Barn, etc. at 2am. One night I could tell a woman was approaching me and I tried to look more sober and in control in case it was some grift, but it turned out to be a student from NCAD, where I was doing some research.

Really it seems like I've discovered the Irish MeFites after moving back to the States!

PS - Yes, now Gay Byrne is mostly into road safety, presenting on the radio. Or at least that was where I heard him last year.
posted by Slothrop at 9:19 AM on January 8, 2008

In 1980, I remember seeing LA Connection dub "Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman" this way in a live show. That was their shtick, they used to go to high schools and then for a while they even had a tv show where they'd dub stuff. My friends and I actually thought they were pretty hysterical. We got so inspired that we started turning the sound off on tv to do the same things ourselves... we did that a lot, actually. It was more fun than watching tv with sound most of the time.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:18 PM on January 8, 2008

Sounds cool. There's a related series on Paramount Comedy (in Ireland/Europe?) called Badly Dubbed Porn. Barely safe enough to go out on cable, but very very funny at the right moment.
posted by fcummins at 2:25 PM on January 8, 2008

What was this originally aired on? RTE2, TV3, etc?
posted by conch soup at 2:05 AM on January 9, 2008

I can.not.find a single torrent of this tv show anywhere, which is a great pity, as it is exactly the sort of humour my Aunt, who is fighting cancer at the moment, really likes, and she has no access to YouTube.

Henry C. Mabuse, this Google search brings back torrents for Soupy Norman on the Pirate Bay and elsewhere.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:46 PM on January 9, 2008