Jack Govier
4 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2015–2023
2:17 · 2.2M views · Jul 21, 2010
A That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch in which a customer tries to buy a gift for his aunt in a shop that keeps pushing him toward extras.
Invoked as a joke when discussing ad creep, second screens and overbearing commercial or online experiences.
4 comments from Hacker News
[I know you feel that this technique is helpful and you want to save the world. That's double plus good of you.] [For me, I think that] all the padding makes the conversation diluted, watered down and boring. It's similar to 'The Gift Shop Sketch' [1]. [I feel] this is very disrespectful of my time. [In my opinion] it would be great to use another model to strip all the feely words, condense the meaning and generally un-fuckify all the AI waffle. [What are your thoughts about that?] [1] this video
Aside from being about a quarter commercials, TV shows often feature quite a bit of filler/padding content. It'd be odd if people didn't pick up on some of it and play with their phone when they have the option. I always think to this Mitchell and Webb gift shop sketch that parodies the worst of this: this video
> TV shows try and adapt by regularly recapping what has happened before the last ad break This Mitchell and Webb sketch shows this off perfectly this video When they do this they ruin the experience watching it later on DVR/Netflix/DVD/etc.
The Gift Shop Sketch this video I used to love watching Myth Busters but it became so much like that it was ridiculous. There was a time you could download torrents of Myth Busters episodes with all the recaps removed.