GagSlag gossip round-up

• ‘It's not a plus that makes you a comedian, it's a genetic flaw.’ Jay Leno.

• South Park is under fire again, for showing Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin attending a party in Hell with a stingray barb protruding from his chest. But Irwin, who died eight weeks ago, is kicked out by Satan because he's not in costume. British clean-up TV campaigner John Beyer said: ‘Steve's family are still grieving. To lampoon somebody's death like that is unacceptable and so soon after the event is grossly insensitive.’ Would it also be grossly insensitive to say you can view the offending clip on YouTube here.

• As an interviewer, he likes to ambush his victims – but it looks like Borat doesn’t like to be on the receiving end. He’s asked reporters covering his press conference in Sydney to submit questions in advance, causing journalists on the city’s Morning Herald to sniff: ‘Maybe Borat isn't as funny off the cuff as he his on camera’.’

• It’s not quite in the same league as the classic Top Of The Pops Jocky Wilson/Jackie Wilson debacle, but someone’s got the wrong Wright here: http://www.playfuls.com/news_0002903_Comic_Steve_Wright_Ends_Long_TV_Hiatus.html

• Roseanne Barr reckons her career dried up because she was too working-class, claiming: ‘I felt for a long time they censored me because of the people that I spoke for. They didn't want to hear anything about working class people in this country because they don't want to hear anything about class or minimum wage.’ Nothing to do with her proudly working-class sitcom character becoming a multi-millionaire, then…

• The first single Ross Noble ever bought was Frank Sidebottom’s Oh Blimey, It’s Christmas in 1985 – and he saw it performed live at the Manchester Comedy Festival this week, in a bit of Sidebottom’s show specially dedicated to him.

• Richard Pryor’s daughter Elizabeth has filed a lawsuit claiming his widow Jennifer forged his will. She wants an earlier one, in which the bulk of his fortune went to his children, rather than Jennifer, reinstated

• Cardiff students campaigning against top-up fees are rallying round a re-recorded version of Freelove Freeway, the song David Brent sang in The Office, with lyrics changed to fit the cause. It’s at stusoc.cf.ac.uk/suon/downloads/FreeloveFeeway.mp3 if you really want to hear it.

SOURCES:Miami Herald; Daily Telegraph, Australia; Sydney Morning Herald; Playfuls; WTOP Washington; Chortle; National Enquirer; Cardiff students

Published: 27 Oct 2006