Karl Pilkington

Karl Pilkington and his "perfectly round little bald Manc head!"

Karl Pilkington (born September 23, 1972 in Manchester, England) is an English radio producer best known for producing the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant podcasts and radio show on Xfm.

Biography

Childhood

For the majority of his life, Karl has remained in Manchester. He was educated locally, but regularly missed school due to holidays planned by his parents. He claims that during his school years, he was given 2 awards as an attempt to persuade him to remain in school, but unfortunately continued his periods of absenteeism claiming that he was never encouraged by his teachers, citing his teachers’ claims that he "will never be a high flyer".

Through the way Karl has described his childhood, it seems that he has had a somewhat "different" upbringing. He noted that one Christmas at about the age of 8, he wanted a ZX Spectrum, but was given a ZX81. He tried loading up the first game, but it wouldn't work due to the absence of RAM pack. After having to wait weeks for the pack to arrive, he notes that he vomited in his sink due to stress; one of the factors he attributes towards his baldness.

For a short time he had a pet magpie, named Maggie, which sometimes pecked at his head and the tyres on his bicycle. The magpie flew away when Karl took it to school to show his class and never returned. Karl's family also went through several cats, because they "lived on a main road".

Karl puts his baldness down to one of two possibilities. It was either caused by the fact that he once worked a 24-hour shift overseeing the production of audio cassettes, or that it was due to the negligence of a Manchester barber who cut the young Pilkington's hair in a shack near the local train station. He claims it never really bothers him, except for the time when he was on jury duty and felt exposed.

Adolescence

Pilkington left school without collecting his exam results - live on air (on Xfm) Ricky Gervais revealed that he had attained a single "E" GCSE grade in History. Pilkington went through a number of jobs, his favourite being his paper round. Karl's school and its catchment area were near a power plant. This could explain his inherent fascination with 'freaks' ("I just like odd stuff"), as the school contained a couple of (unrelated) pupils who had "big heads", webbed hands and feet, together with a boy with a 'pigeon chest'.

Apparently Karl's neighbourhood contained other strange and eccentric personalities, such as a woman who rode around on a tricycle with her husband sitting in a basket attached to the end of it, a family who kept a horse in their front room, an elderly witch with a penchant for dishwashers and a woman who pushed a pram around a council estate - the pram contained a bucket with a face drawn on it, instead of a real baby.

Adulthood

Karl's anecdotes about his family are often a source of much amusement to Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais. His father once crashed a train into Manchester Central Station; his mother shaved one of their cats after it kept being sick, his uncle slept in a dinghy instead of a bed. His auntie Nora's feminine parts were "like a split tennis ball" after a young Karl accidentally and inadvertently looked up her dress and his brother was thrown out of the Army for driving to the shops in a tank to buy a packet of cigarettes.

Pilkington was initially an off-air producer of the show, which was broadcast on Xfm, but his antics and opinions soon led to him joining Merchant and Gervais on-air. Some of Pilkington's most popular contributions to the show include Monkey News (news which is supposed to be about monkeys, but is almost always about chimpanzees), Rockbusters (which is nothing like Blockbusters (game show) despite punning on its title) and Knob News (a spin off of Monkey News, with the feature containing "knob-related news", such as "a man who grew a knob on his arm"). Other features normally tie in with Karl's eccentric interests and theories, like Do We Need Them?, normally about Karl's irritation of animals deemed to be irrelevant and have no purpose (see 'Views, beliefs and philosophies'), Cheeky Freak of the Week, (a rundown of Karl's favourite freaks), and Songs With A Story (Karl only likes songs "with a little story goin' on and that", such as Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight, which is supposedly about "a little fella in a wheelchair"), to name a few.

Future career

In December 2005, Karl left his producing job at Xfm after 10 years of loyal service. When asked by his colleagues what he would like for a leaving gift, Karl requested a digital camera. When he was presented with the gift at his leaving party, he refused to open the gift-wrapped box as he intended to give the camera to his girlfriend of eleven years, Susanne, for Christmas. He was castigated by Ricky and Steve for this as being mean, however this can be seen as an improvement in Karl's Christmas presents to Susanne as he once gave her a bumper pack of condoms that was on special offer at Boots. Karl is considering two prospective offers of employment - a paper round and dog walking (only if it doesn't rain). They may not pay as much money as working as Head of Production at Xfm, but according to Karl, "it’s about being happy, innit?"

In January 2006 Karl started writing a diary (as mentioned on The Ricky Gervais Show podcast) about his daily adventures and information he's learnt along the way. He compares his diary to that of Anne Frank's.

Some excerpts from Karl's diary:

"Going on holiday to Gran Canaria today, woke up to the news that Tony Banks had died. There was a piece on the news about how everyone was shocked. Got me thinking about an invention of a watch that counted down your life. If it says you've got three days left, go to the doctors. Told Susanne about invention: she said she wouldn't buy one. But she said that about the iPod...

"The hotel's a bit odd. I've never seen so many cross-eyed people in one location... Whilst I was listening to the Kinks on my iPod, I wondered if everybody thinks in their accent. I know I do... Had lunch inside hotel... Sat next to an old fella. Old men's ears and noses carry on growing as they get older. Susanne noticed his fingers were fat too. Maybe they continued to grow. Susanne didn't laugh when I said that her arse had the same problem."

Personality

"The funniest man alive in Britain today"

Pilkington is sometimes mentioned in Ricky Gervais interviews, and is often on the receiving end of Gervais's practical jokes. When asked who was the funniest person he knew, Gervais said Karl Pilkington, which he mentioned was "the funniest man alive in Britain today". In addition, Pilkington appears in a twenty minute interview on Ricky Gervais's live stand-up comedy DVD, Politics.

Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington were reunited for a six-week weekend slot on Xfm that ended on July 2, 2005.

Karl is frequently referred to by Ricky Gervais as 'a little baldy Manc'. It should be noted that Ricky has a particular obsession with squeezing Karl's head - a habit Ricky developed on the skull of comedian Robin Ince. Stephen Merchant and Karl have a difficult relationship, primarily because Ricky enjoys provoking Karl into expressing his opinions on Steve's being "a bit odd-looking" and "like a cartoon".

Karl believes most of his stories to be fact, despite reading about them on the Internet, only reading the headlines and not the whole article. He always forgets important details, substitutes dates with phrases such as "In the olden days, right, there was a short hairy fella...” Ricky and Steve insult and enjoy Karl with equal vigour, mainly for his earnest conviction while telling his far-fetched stories and spurious theories as though they are fact.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Karl is that he never laughs, despite being in the same room with two of the funniest people on Earth. At first, this suggests that Karl really is as dense as he seems -- or maybe it belies a greater intellect at work, one which cannot fathom and participate in the mundane art of humor.

Fictional character?

Chris Campling, a journalist writing for the The Times has speculated that Karl Pilkington is not a real person, but an actor portraying the role of a scripted character created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Campling pointed towards the fact that Pilkington's views on Chinese people had been stated on Gervais' radio show, before he stated the same thing on his interview with Gervais, on the Politics DVD, which Campling found suspicious. Merchant and Gervais have denied claims that Pilkington is a creation of theirs, claiming that Gervais encouraged him to bring up his view on Chinese people because it has comedic value. Merchant also stated that he would be ashamed if the radio show was scripted. Ricky agreed, stating, "We spend 3 months on a half-hour script, how could we script a two-hour show every week?" Merchant added: "If we came up with a character as good as Karl, we would never use him on a crappy little radio station like this one (Xfm London)".

It should be stated that whilst to many people Karl's views, theories and stories seem pretty unbelievable and quite weird, he is indeed a real person.

Views, beliefs and philosophies

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The infamous Hairy chinese kid

Pilkington has expressed several opinions which most people would find unusual (and sometimes offensive). These include:

He learnt at school that Jaffa cakes go some way to cure cancer (not fully). Apprently it's the orangey bit.
'Squoze' is a word... e.g. 'Last night Ricky squoze my little round bald manc head'.
In addition to 'Squoze', Karl has also added 'Grippage', for walls or surfaces with a lot of grip.
Fascinated with 'Freaks' and a supplement from FHM that contains the 50 best freaks ever. Featured are a pillow man, a three legged juggler (not using the gift he has been given), a bloke with a tiny head that ages fast (he has a birthday every other week) and the hairy Chinese kid.
A solution to population growth is to have everyone drop dead at 78 and have a baby grow out of them.
In addition to his solution on population growth, Karl feels that when you die (at 78), you should have "something" injected into your temple, which will then, somehow, bring you back to life. Additionally, when you've been resurrected by this miracle cure injection, your next birthday won't be 79, it will be, amazingly, 77. Yes, that's right, you get younger. So, by the time you're 9 months, people won't be "sad and that" by the fact you're going to die and in turn, you won't be depressed because you're too young to realise.
You never see a homeless Chinese person. Karl also believes that Chinese people "age worse" than other races.
Homosexuals are "always tired" as they "stay out late".
British Judges wear wigs to conceal their identity.
Karl isn't a huge fan of charities after being misled about helping the aged. He initially thought he was assisting an old lady called "Gladys" by sending her donations for heating. A few months later, Karl got a letter through from Gladys with an attached photo she was sitting there and that "with a tan".

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Karl and his treasured FHM supplement of the "World's Top 50 Freaks"

You'll never see an old person eating a Twix, but they always buy ornaments.
Karl also has a fear of doctors and a hatred of nudists. It should be said that this hatred of nudists did not prevent Karl from "showin' a bit of arse-cheek" whilst doing the washing-up to a women Karl saw nude in order to "give a bit back" from the kitchen window. His fear of doctors is based on the assertion that "they're bound to find something wrong with you" and, more specifically, the need for a doctor to insert a finger up a rectum to check for prostate cancer.
Scientists spend too much time "messin' about with things we don't need". Karl cites the attempt by scientists to piece together a mammoth as potentially dangerous, because the planet is running out of space to accommodate such creatures.
Some bacteria have better lives than Inuits.
The legendary Christmas Day football match on no-man's land during World War I never happened, primarily because the situation raises the question of why they brought a football with them into battle.
There is too much choice in "toffee shops", and one type of toffee is enough. Or maybe two.
If Karl could be anyone in the world, he would be Bruce Willis.
If Karl could have one superpower it would be invisibility so he could sneak into HMV before it shut and then sneak back out once the shop opened again in the morning.
Karl's idea of perfect happiness is "fish fingers, potato cakes and baked beans for tea ".

Creations

Monkey news

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Oliver, the "Humanzee".

Monkey News is a popular feature that has been running since the early XFM days, which involves "[A story] where a monkey's been involved. Good little story and that". It's usually followed by some absolute nonsense tale that Karl has made up or extrapolated out of all recognition from a news headline. Monkey News is an easy way to anger Ricky, who often disrupts the show due to being so wound up with disbelief.

Monkey News examples:

About a monkey called Marty, it's in some science lab and it's wandering about out of its cage. The "lab fella" is busy on the phone "or something" and doesn't notice that the monkey has escaped. The monkey then goes to a PC in the corner and types "My name is Marty". The "fella" got off the phone and saw what had been typed he then asked his assistant "Have you done this?" his assistant said "No" and they have a "right little argument". During this time, Marty had written "This is not a practical joke, my name is Marty". Apparently you can have a web chat with him.

A monkey was able to carry out a space mission solo, whilst obeying commands such as "Push the green button" which launches the rocket, much to Ricky's disgust "No! They would not make the monkey launch the rocket! You are living in a cartoon world". "Press the left button" and wearing headphones connecting it to mission control. He also adds, "it does whatever it does, hit reverse, it comes back..." It's also been conditioned so that every time he hits the correct button it's associated with a banana coming out of a 'banana dispenser'. The story has a sad ending because the monkey was on such a high after being up in space it couldn't do anything that special again and got depressed. We know that the monkey was sad because "of the way it looked". Not even going on tour could reach the peak of self-actualisation for this monkey and it ended up killing itself.

In South America, there is a monkey football team. The goal keeper of this team holds a Ph.D in physics. Ricky refused to believe this, although he said he believed the monkey has better qualifications than Karl.

A group of monkeys were able to learn the value of money and go shopping, one of them even managing to pick out particular deals to save cash, showing a preference for slightly older veg.
One particular monkey was sad that everyday the zookeeper would leave and go home, so eventually the zookeeper started taking the monkey home at night. After a while, the monkey decided it didn't want to go back to "work," and instead stayed home to hit on the zookeeper's wife. This would appear to be about Oliver the chimpanzee, although there are some major inaccuracies.

Rockbusters

Rockbusters was conceived by Pilkington and was played on Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's long running XFM radio show in between 2002-4 and brought back in 2005. It debuted on 12th October 2002 as a phone-in but converted to a e-mail competition the following week. Despite punning in its title, the game has very little in common with Blockbusters (game show). It is played by Karl giving three clues, which he considers 'cryptic' but are in reality convoluted colloquialisms which often depend on the answer being mispronounced. Along with the 'clue', Karl includes the initials of the answer.

Some typical examples include

"I was in Texas last week - I tripped and landed on me knees in a puddle" - WH

(Answer: Whitney Houston; wet knee, Houston)

"We were sharing out the male sheep and you got the best one" - DG

(Answer: Delta Goodrem; dealt a good Ram)

"Why are them Jamaican fellas swinging fish around their heads?" - DS

(Answer The Detroit Spinners; said in a Jamaican accent "de trout spinners")

External links