'The Ricky Gervais Show'

The animated comedy The Ricky Gervais Show premiered on HBO February 19, 2010. The cartoon was created by using the original podcasts and putting animation to the audio track. What began as an Internet fan homage to the podcasts became a pitch for a cartoon on HBO.

Before Ricky Gervais skyrocketed to fame with his BBC series The Office, he had a radio talk show with his writing partner, Stephen Merchant. After The Office ended, they returned to radio, having acquired a producer named Karl Pilkington. Though Pilkington was only there to push buttons, he quickly became the star of the show when Merchant and Gervais began asking for his thoughts. The radio show then became a podcast, which entered into the Guiness Book of World Records 2007 for the most downloaded podcast.

Anything Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have put out into the world has been brilliant, so I expect nothing less from this cartoon. Though I didn't listen to the podcasts, my husband did so religiously. And I mean religiously, as he felt it was some sort of epiphanous experience. I'm sure the series will be a hoot, even for fans who have already listened to the podcasts.

My favorite quote from an interview about The Ricky Gervais Show comes from Film Review Online. Ricky Gervais talks about the genius of Karl Pilkington: "We did a podcast in December 2006, and I said, ‘What was the highlight of this year for you?’ And he said, ‘Well, I was eating a biscuit and I put it on the windowsill, I looked around and there was a grub eating it.’ I went, ‘Why was that an event?’ He went, ‘I never thought I would see that this year, and it made me think we couldn’t be more different, us and the grub, but we both like biscuits.’" Can't wait!