website, the long absence and falling out of love
You may or may not have noticed that I have been very poor at updating the website. There was a time when it was a source of pride to have every new edition of JAM added within hours so it's obviously very slack to have fallen so far behind.
There's a few things in play here. As a practical thing - the website was created a long time ago in another era. In fact it celebrates its 20th birthday next month.
It was originally created using a Geocities website maker... if you can now even remember what Geocities was, you have a remarkably good memory. The tools involved have long since passed on, and now every time I update the site, it involves a lot of boring time-consuming pain-staking work, copying chunks of code from place to place, and page to page. The size of the site is a factor too - every show involves amendments to dozens of pages. So amendments take a long time to do and are not much fun any more.
Then there's the personal factor that 2018 was a tough year for me. My father was ill for most of the year and in November, he died. This has been a difficult time.
Another personal factor is that I have been genuinely struggling with what seems like a small point - how to deal with the 50th anniversary documentary broadcast at the beginning of 2018. There's the issue of whether to include the chat show programme as a genuine edition of JAM. This may seem a minor matter, and of course it is. However at some point soon JAM will broadcast its 1000th show and at that point there will be interest in which show that is. I think my site will have some influence on which show is listed as the 1000th.
A factor in this - although I guess it shouldn't be - is how to deal with my own involvement in the documentary. There seems something, well, boastful to include my name alongside so many great comedians and entertainers. If It had been anyone else, it would be far less of a problem.
But perhaps most interestingly I am slowly falling out of love with JAM. There was a time when I would have been desperate to talk about such a major development as Nicholas missing shows and Gyles Brandreth chairing in his place. I find myself thinking about things like this, but not getting on to writing about it at the blog.
Some of the things I used to love about JAM have gone. Kenneth Williams obviously, but what used to make JAM stand out, even when Kenneth wasn't there, were the challenges to the chairman, the arguments over the rules, the straight out abuse of the chairman. Nicholas is now almost always referred to now as a living saint. Of course he deserves this, but the jokes about his age, his incompetence and so on were part of what made JAM fun and different. The idea of the audience as a participant has also slowly died, in part I think because the hall where JAM is now recorded has the audience some distance from the panel. The best improvisation feeds off the audience and I think it is harder to do this if you're not among them.
So where to from here?
Well I have a few weeks off and so I am going to try and get the site up to date. Once I've done that I will try to pen a few thoughts on JAM in 2018 and the chairing of Gyles. I'll try to be better at keeping up to date, and hope you'll forgive me when I cannot.
There's a few things in play here. As a practical thing - the website was created a long time ago in another era. In fact it celebrates its 20th birthday next month.
It was originally created using a Geocities website maker... if you can now even remember what Geocities was, you have a remarkably good memory. The tools involved have long since passed on, and now every time I update the site, it involves a lot of boring time-consuming pain-staking work, copying chunks of code from place to place, and page to page. The size of the site is a factor too - every show involves amendments to dozens of pages. So amendments take a long time to do and are not much fun any more.
Then there's the personal factor that 2018 was a tough year for me. My father was ill for most of the year and in November, he died. This has been a difficult time.
Another personal factor is that I have been genuinely struggling with what seems like a small point - how to deal with the 50th anniversary documentary broadcast at the beginning of 2018. There's the issue of whether to include the chat show programme as a genuine edition of JAM. This may seem a minor matter, and of course it is. However at some point soon JAM will broadcast its 1000th show and at that point there will be interest in which show that is. I think my site will have some influence on which show is listed as the 1000th.
A factor in this - although I guess it shouldn't be - is how to deal with my own involvement in the documentary. There seems something, well, boastful to include my name alongside so many great comedians and entertainers. If It had been anyone else, it would be far less of a problem.
But perhaps most interestingly I am slowly falling out of love with JAM. There was a time when I would have been desperate to talk about such a major development as Nicholas missing shows and Gyles Brandreth chairing in his place. I find myself thinking about things like this, but not getting on to writing about it at the blog.
Some of the things I used to love about JAM have gone. Kenneth Williams obviously, but what used to make JAM stand out, even when Kenneth wasn't there, were the challenges to the chairman, the arguments over the rules, the straight out abuse of the chairman. Nicholas is now almost always referred to now as a living saint. Of course he deserves this, but the jokes about his age, his incompetence and so on were part of what made JAM fun and different. The idea of the audience as a participant has also slowly died, in part I think because the hall where JAM is now recorded has the audience some distance from the panel. The best improvisation feeds off the audience and I think it is harder to do this if you're not among them.
So where to from here?
Well I have a few weeks off and so I am going to try and get the site up to date. Once I've done that I will try to pen a few thoughts on JAM in 2018 and the chairing of Gyles. I'll try to be better at keeping up to date, and hope you'll forgive me when I cannot.
posted by Dean | 8:48 am
12 Comments:
Interesting blog, Dean.
I think I am also less interested in JAM than I once was. There was a time when I listened to it live on radio in the 1970s and 1980s. In the UK, radio 4 on Mondays at 6.30pm. There were no podcasts, no streaming & no (easy) way of sharing recordings among friends. There were only 5 radio stations and only 3 TV stations. There were only a handful of comedies on TV or radio every week. JAM stood out. I looked forward to every new episode.
There is now so much more competition. I would definitely prefer to watch Would I Lie to You or Cats Does Countdown (to name just two). I could probably list a dozen comedy formats that are funnier than JAM. It doesn't mean to say that I don't still like JAM, just that it doesn't stand out like it once did.
Tastes change too. New generations of audience want both different things and more diverse set of offerings. Using the analogy of test cricket (of which, I know you are a fan), the new generation favours a different - less subtle - form of entertainment. Although the game can change a bit, perhaps not as much as it needs to in order to really captures a new generation of audience. When I used to attend shows in the 1990s, there was a wide age range in the theatre audience. I wonder if that is still the case today.
I think the (deserved) demise of Clement's reputation also has taken the shine of JAM's history. He appeared in most of its episodes. Somehow, JAM is cheapened because of his actions.
I hope you do continue to update the site. Once upon a time, I did read (or even print off) the transcripts. I don't do read them now. It's interesting to see the statistics though.
G'day, Dean. I feel your pain with the big, old website that becomes so intricate and cross-linked that any small addition takes an hour to make sure all the cross-references are updated and no duplicates have been added. My Sabrina site started 20 years ago with Netscape Navigator and has had at least 3 rebirths and complete rebuilds as software has come and gone. I remember agonising about adding a 6MB movie clip because - how could the public possibly cope with such a massive download? Now I can grab an HD movie in the time in the time it takes to sneeze.
Please let me know if you need any help with transcriptions etc. Maybe others in the Yahoo group can join in and get them all done quicksmart?
Cheers
Mark Kelly, Jam Jar master.
Hi Dean,
I found your post interesting and well written, although a little sad too.
I'm still listening to JAM but I agree that the show is not what it was or at least my enjoyment of it isn't quite like it used to be.
I wonder whether BBC should consider retiring JAM when it reaches episode 1000 and tie this into the retirement of Nicolas. Surely it's better to go out on a high...and then one day, with new panel members and chairman JAM can return and be revitalised. Like Dr Who :-)
David
I seem to be one of the few who never much liked Kenneth Williams, for the most part because he kept making the same jokes every week. And listening to the JAMmer or other streams of the shows. if it's one of those with him I sometimes switch to another radio show for a while. (sorry.) When I tell other people about the show, I usually tell them to try the shows from 1995-2000 first. I do regret a bit that subjects are now rarely concentrated on instead of making sure the audience keeps laughing continuously, but I still enjoy the show in general.
I love JAM. I was happy to find the database. Simply because I was wanting more knowledge about it. I think Nicholas is amazing, and Gyles is the best guest.
I would like to be an audience member, but the BBC are very hard to work with on that front.
Hopefully you can update this site in the time you have. It's a tough task I'm sure. But be assured there are plenty of us out here who would appreciate it.
I too, have fallen out of love with JAM over the last year, I think they have tried too many guests which are new to it and 'most' of them haven't took off...
I will continue to listen but probably through the best of compilation cds which get released each year...
Some of the guests lack character voices, I love Pam Ayres and Ross noble along with Paul and Tony Hawkes (and others), they have some character to their voices and comedy whereas I find some of the newer ones are cut and paste and generally unfunny and find it hard to improvise.....
anyway good luck to you and sympathies with your Father....
I can understand how updating the site would be tedious and time consuming. So... unlike others commenting, I'd say this: stop updating it. It shouldn't be a chore and make you unhappy.
There's nothing wrong with stopping and you're not letting people down. Maybe you pick it up again later, maybe not.
Try to enjoy the show, write a blog post sometimes and share your thoughts and opinions, and most importantly, relax.
Hi Dean,
Even though you have not updated things in a while, I am sure you have heard todays sad news and I can imagine being such a fan it will be quite difficult. I hope that you are okay and wanted to take a chance to thank you for providing this resource over the past however many years. You got me back into JAM a large number of years ago and I will be grateful for that.
Paul
Well said Porochaz.
Thinking about you Dean.
Thank you for all the work you have done. In regard to your last post, as much as I appreciate this site, You come first. If you leave it as it is now no one can complain
Hi Dean, I just wondered if you've listened to the first two new JAM's with guest hosts. Have these piqued your interests in the programme again? It would be great to know your thoughts on what I hope marks to be a brand new era in this classic comedy.
David
Thanks a lot for sharing this amazing knowledge with us. This site is fantastic. I always find great knowledge from it.
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I too have fallen out of love with Just a Minute for some of the same reasons you have stated. I had a great love for this show and loved discovering unheard episodes and trying to find ways to emphasize the humor of things and disregard episodes that seemed mired in tedium. Much as I enjoyed hearing new people being brought onto the program, it seemed that there were far too many of them that didn't really click or vibe with the show. In addition, the notion of Nicholas being treated as some sort of living saint kinda rubbed me the wrong way at times. I mean i understand that as he was getting older and was pretty much the elder statesman of the program, the idea of pulling back on the abuse was warranted. but it did seem like this weird free for all at times, where no one argues over points or the rules, etc. plus, the stuff with the audience just really annoyed me in that no longer were they ever included as part of the experience. In addition, I used to part of a fantastic Yahoo discussion group and it provided an amazing outlet for discussion, and I also felt a great place for a lot of my writing. I poured over various aspects of the program, even came up with various categories in order to discuss the various people that have come and gone on the program over the show's long history. I've even had quite a few rants against Nicholas Parsons as it he seemed to grow more and more insufferable with every episode and every passing year. Ultimately, i got kicked out of the Yahoo group because of the anti-Nicholas rants, I lost access to the audio files that contained a vast plethora of material, including the latest JAM episodes. When my access to new episodes got cut off, I did some self reflection and figured it was time to move on to other things. The show wasn't as good as it was, the humor wasn't allowed to flow naturally, there weren't as many laugh out loud moments caused by the panelists, many of the new people coming onboard just weren't terribly interesting or terribly good at the game, it just seemed like JAM was merely a hollow shell of its former greatness.
When I heard that Nicholas Parsons had passed away... I thought I'd be happy. I thought I'd celebrate. I thought I would dance and say 'ding dong the witch is dead', since I tended to feel that he was what was wrong with the show. But I didn't cheer, I didn't celebrate. I mourned the passing of a legend, because despite how I once felt about Mr. Parsons, he was a stalwart of the program. He was someone that wasn't just there at the start, but was there to see many changes not only in the program, but in the world around him.
This website is an amazing website. its without a doubt the most comprehensive compendium of this program, the various people that have come and gone and also charted the history of the program for many years. Its an amazing achievement, and I do understand that something has to be fun and engaging in order to be invested. The moment something you once enjoyed feels like a chore to do... does seem like the moment to pack it in.
Hope you are well, Dean. God Bless.
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