“Right, I’m just going to add to the list of people we’ve offended: Sorry to Jewish people, sorry to Chinese people, sorry to Welsh people, fat women, Elvis fans, animal lovers, lovers of great radio…” – XFM
In the early 1990s, Ricky did various odd jobs including a stint as Events Manager at the University of London Union. He assisted British band Suede in booking gigs and gaining recognition. By his own admission, he was a bit-part player in the bands’ early success, as he handed their first demo tape to Saul Galphern of Nude Records, with whom Suede signed. Gervais, along with the two other managers, were fired by Suede after they hired a full-time manager. Gervais was not bitter, and cited the firing as “business, innit”. After this, he took a job at London radio station XFM.
Upon starting the job at XFM, Gervais insisted he have an assistant. He jokes that he took the top CV on the pile, which happened to be Stephen Merchant‘s. Ricky invited Steve for an interview, took him to a pub around the corner from XFM offices and told Steve that if Steve did all the work he’d make sure he’d have a good time. Steve was hired but soon quit when he realized Gervais was going to get them both sacked through his incompetence. Steve moved to a producer’s course at the BBC, while Ricky stayed on, only to be made redundant when the station was taken over by the Capital Radio group in 1998. But it was in that short time working together that their friendship and the foundations of The Office were laid. When Steve needed a subject for a film he was making on his BBC course, he returned to XFM and made a short film of Gervais as ‘Seedy Boss’. This film would later be used to pitch The Office to the BBC.
In September 2001, following the success of The Office, Ricky and Steve returned to XFM for a Saturday afternoon radio show. This time they insisted they have a producer. The man who “pushed the buttons” was Karl Pilkington, and they discovered his genius. The new show ran intermittently until January 2004 with breaks ranging between one and three months to allow for Ricky and Steve to work on other projects like The Office and Extras.
In December 2005, Gervais, along with Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington, took their radio show chemistry to a new venture in podcasting. The first series of The Ricky Gervais Show was placed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the most downloaded Podcast of all time. Now with more than 200 million downloads and still counting, it’s the most irreverent bullocks you could ever imagine.
OOOHH!!! CHIMPANZEE THAT!!! MONKEY NEWS!
To hear Ricky’s laugh (pretty much throughout) brings on such warm welcoming feeling that life is really meant just to humor us. It’s the best time I have ever spent doing anything. That may sound sad to some, but when life has got you down in the dumps, turn on Ricky, Stephen and Karl have a laugh. The series of audio shows have now been picked up by HBO and turned into a fantastic animated show. More on that coming up.
Tags: karl pilkington, podfather, ricky gervais, stephen merchant, xfm
