Be careful not to spoil anything for Ron James if you’re up to date on Game of Thrones.
In the first episode of the fifth season of The Ron James Show, airing Monday, Feb. 24 on CBC, one of the skits has a Game of Thrones theme.
James plays a man working in an office who hasn’t yet watched the previous night’s episode. He encounters various people who begin the conversation with something along the lines of, “Wow, did you sees last night‘s Game of Thrones?” Every time, he pleads with them to keep quiet. Then the begging turns to warning.
How far would you go to avoid a TV “spoiler?” Well, let’s just say James takes it to the extreme.
Similarly, James’ style of humour through the years often has been comfortable on the surface but with a deft dose of deceptive subversiveness. He’s good at mixing traditional or familiar joke patterns with observations about modern things.
For example, in one of the standup bits in the first episode of the new season, James says, “Our smart phones are making us lazy and stupid. Take bar bets, for instance. Thanks to Google, they’re a thing of the past. My buddies and I have nothing to talk about any more when we go for pints, because we can’t argue for an hour and a half whether it was Ursula Andress or Elke Sommer getting out of the water in Dr. No.”
That’s a funny line, because it’s so true. The internet has all of us reassessing our drinking companions.
The format of The Ron James Show has been tweaked somewhat for season five. The pacing is faster as each episode bounces between James’ standup bits, sketches, graphics pieces and comedic songs.
Uh-oh … I hope Ron James doesn’t consider that previous paragraph to be a “spoiler.” Given the Game of Thrones incident, I know he tends to be a bit prickly about those.
Bill.harris@sunmedia.ca
@billharris_tv