Peter Moore on Rare, Piss-Taking And Monty Python

And Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Oh, and the NEW Banjo-Kazooie!

Posted by Staff
Senior Microsoft games exec' Peter Moore has just gone up in our estimation by around fourteen respect points today, after giving a wonderfully frank account of why Rare’s edgy, politically-incorrect, British sense of humour – inspired by classics such as Monty Python, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and, more recently, The Office – is sure to be the key to the mega-developer’s ongoing success.

Talking to Newsweek about the roots of Rare’s unique sensibility, Moore said:
“I love Intelligent humour [as in Rare's soon-to-be-resurrected Banjo Kazooie game] - I mean, I don't want to be disrespectful; I've lived here a long time, but I liken it to the BBC version of "The Office" and the NBC version of The Office.

You can take that TV program and encapsulate the difference between British sense of humour: the wryness, the sarcasm and the sense of irony - which, without being disrespectful, is rooted in intellectualism and all goes back to Monty Python, where you've got a bunch of highly educated people who can talk about the Spanish Inquisition, right? For better or worse, the great majority of Brits in those days knew what the Spanish Inquisition was. That doesn't play in Peoria. You can't use the Spanish Inquisition as a comedy line in a [U.S.] sitcom. You could do on the BBC.

“Many of us, and Chris and Tim (Stamper) are a little younger than me, but so many of us grew up in the '70s in the U.K. with that whole sensibility. Whether it was Peter Cook and Dudley Moore - again, London School of Economics-educated people - or whether it was Monty Python. Then there was all of the BBC sense of humour, which is wry, intellectual, sarcastic and irreverent - we call it piss-taking; giving each other stick; picking on each other's physical deformities - that's very politically incorrect in America, which tends to vanilla everything. So you get the [U.S.] sitcom mentality, which has to appeal to everyone from the East Coast to the Midwest to the West Coast. As a result it loses its edge.”


And despite Rare’s founders Chris and Tim Stamper recently leaving the company, Moore adds that,"their legacy will live on with Banjo-Kazooie.”

SPOnG should be getting some time in front of the guys at Rare and a look-see at the new version of N64 classic Banjo-Kazooie at E3 in July.


† Corporate Vice President, Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division (phew)

Comments

RiseFromYourGrave 19 May 2007 17:37
1/1
that was quite a good observation there, peteypoohs
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