Karl Pilkington

Karl Pilkington, from the Ricky Gervais Live: Politics DVD Interview.

Karl Pilkington (born September 23, 1972 in Manchester, England) is an English radio producer previously best known for producing The Ricky Gervais Show on the radio station Xfm. After leaving Xfm, Pilkington reached an international audience through his appearances with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant on The Ricky Gervais Podcast.

Childhood

Karl lived in Manchester for most of his life. His descriptions of his childhood suggest that his was an unconventional upbringing. Growing up on a council estate, he was educated at Ashton-on-Mersey School, but was regularly absent due to family holidays. These were arranged by his parents during term-time (when it was cheaper to do so). He claims that during his school years, he was given two attendance awards in an attempt to persuade him to remain in school. This strategy failed, and Karl continued his absenteeism. He now contends that he was never encouraged by his teachers, and that they said he would "never be a high flyer." Moreover, he disliked school because all of his teachers were 'profiting' from his education, and complains that in class he was regularly given menial and pointless tasks, such as attaching as many stickers to Thomson brochures as possible in 30 minutes.

He had a number of near-death experiences as a child. These include: nearly choking to death on a Freeze-pop, almost plummeting to his death when climbing out of an upstairs window to do his paper round (it was blizzard conditions and Karl's mother had locked the door to stop him doing his round in such dangerous conditions), the time he tried to 'kick his height' and the 'bad cream incident', when Karl had eaten too many cream doughnuts which were discarded at the back of a local baker's shop.

Karl left school without collecting his exam results - live on air (on Xfm) Ricky Gervais revealed that he had attained a single "E" GCSE grade in History. This came as something of a surprise to Karl as he had no recollection of actually taking the exam. The excitement of this news was tempered somewhat by the discovery that he had not received grades for any of the GCSEs he actually does remember sitting as unfortunately he never registered for the exams.

Pilkington went through a number of jobs, his favourite being his paper round. Karl claims to this day that his paper round is his best ever job, as he was his own boss. When Ricky pointed out that the newsagent was his boss, Karl replied with "nah".

Karl's school and its catchment area were near a power plant. This could explain his inherent fascination with 'freaks' ("I just like odd stuff"), as the school contained a couple of (unrelated) pupils who had "big heads", webbed hands and feet, together with a boy with a 'pigeon chest'.

Karl's family, it would seem, are almost as strange as he is. He recalls the story of his father and uncle impersonating policemen in order to sort out a woman who mistreats her husband by carrying him around in the basket of her tricycle, and somewhat gives the game away on his dad who apparently regularly steals groceries from a phonebox in the small village where he lives. Karl also claims that when one of his budgies died, his mother took one of its feathers and stuck it to a rock in order to make some company for the surviving bird. Her strange actions towards pets run deeper, as Karl tells the tale of the time their cat was ill and kept being sick, so his mother shaved it, thus creating the world's first dry-wipe feline.

Karl's most infamous family member, however, has to be his Auntie Nora. On one occaission, when she was "drugged up" ("her bedside cabinet's like Boots") she phoned Karl's mother complaining that she had been breaking wind for five minutes. Karl also remarks that her "female parts" resemble "a split tennis ball" after inadvertently glancing up her skirt as she sat down. Her other antics include wanting an astro-turf lawn ("she likes to have grass and that, but doesn't want the headaches that come with it") and the fact that "all her food is mashed up... she's got teeth, but she don't need 'em".

Career

Karl briefly worked as a printer after leaving school at 15, where he was made to work a 24-hour shift pressing CD's for the band Smokey. He partly attributes his baldness to this incident. He then moved on to work for 10 years as a Head of Production at London radio station XFM where he met long-time girlfriend Suzanne, who for some reason still puts up with his nonsense after 11 years. It was also here that he met Ricky and Steve in their second stint at the station when he was given the job of producing their new run of shows. Pilkington was initially an off-air producer of the show, but his antics and opinions soon led to him joining Merchant and Gervais on-air.

Karl's idiolect

"Karlisms", or "Pilkisms" are a regular feature of Karl's speech. He uses at least one of the following phrases in almost every sentence:

• "Alright?"
• "Weird Innit"
• "I just like odd things"
• "...and that" / "...and stuff"
• "There was this monkey, right..."
• "I'm not havin' a go..."
• "This little gay fella"
• "There was this little chinese fella"
• "knocking about"
• "Effin' and jeffin'" - used regularly as slang for swearing
• "Bungled" - presumably a mispronunciation of the word "bundled", meaning to be grouped together ("I don't want to be bungled in...")
• "Grippage" - an adjective to describe a wall or surface that has a good grip (it would be said to have "good grippage")
• "Squoze" (Past tense of the verb to squeeze) - "he squoze me 'ead"
• "Wroted" (Past tense of the verb to write) - "I wroted"

Quotes and Opinions

Karl has expressed several opinions which most people would find unusual (and sometimes offensive). It has been said by Steve Merchant that Karl tends to believe things that are interesting or weird rather than have any basis in fact or logic. His opinions include:

• He learnt at school that Jaffa cakes go some way to cure cancer (not fully).
• If you eat seven bananas in a row (but not if they're all spaced out over the day) it will kill you
• Fascinated with freaks and a supplement from FHM that contains "the 50 best freaks ever". Featured are a pillow man (i.e without arms or legs), a three legged juggler (not using the gift he has been given), a bloke with a tiny head that ages fast (he has a birthday every other week. See Progeria) and the hairy Chinese kid.
• Karl also feels that when you die (at 78), you should have "something" injected into your temple, which will then, somehow, bring you back to life. Additionally, when you've been resurrected by this miracle cure injection you then begin to get younger. So, by the time you're 9 months, people won't be "sad and that" by the fact you're going to die and in turn, you won't be depressed because you're too young to realise your imminent death. This theory was elaborated from his theory that all people should automatically die at 78 and a small person, or baby, should then be born at the moment they die to prevent over population, similar to reincarnation but physically. Karls main concern if we dont control the population well enough is that "rents just gonna keep going up".
• Karl had an idea about a watch that counts down your life. If it had three days left on it you could "go to the doctor's". When questioned as to how exactly this would work he explained quite simply "you just pop it on your wrist".
• "You never see a homeless Chinese person". Karl also believes that Chinese people "age worse" than other races.
• Homosexuals are "always tired" as they "stay out late".
• British judges wear wigs to conceal their identity.
• Karl isn't a huge fan of charities after being misled about helping the aged. He initially thought he was assisting an old lady called Edna by sending her donations for her heating bill. A few months later, Karl received a letter from Edna with an attached photograph revealing that she had a sun tan
• "You'll never see an old person eating a Twix, but they always buy ornaments".
• Karl also has a fear of doctors and a hatred of nudists. It should be said that this hatred of nudists did not prevent Karl from "showin' a bit of arse-cheek" whilst doing the washing-up to a woman Karl saw nude in order to "give a bit back" from the kitchen window. His fear of doctors is based on the assertion that "they're bound to find something wrong with you" and, more specifically, the need for a doctor to insert a finger up a rectum to check for prostate cancer.
• Scientists spend too much time "messin' about with things we don't need," and that when it comes to modern science, there is "a lot of faffing." Karl cites the attempt by scientists to piece together a mammoth as potentially dangerous, because the planet is running out of space to accommodate such creatures; "Elephants are good enough in my eyes."
• Some bacteria have better lives than Inuits.
• The legendary Christmas Day football match on no-man's land during World War I never happened, primarily because the situation raises the question of why they brought a football with them into battle.
• There is too much choice in "toffee shops", and two types of toffee are probably enough.
• If Karl could be anyone in the world, he would be Bruce Willis.
• If Karl could have one superpower it would be invisibility so he could sneak into HMV before it shut and then sneak back out once the shop opened again in the morning.
• His least favourite noise is the sound of a fire engine siren - "it's a bit un-necessary"
• The Biblical account of Noah's Ark is probably true, since "it's out there in book form". Though Noah did double up some animals, and should have had a "clear-out."
• Karl once mentioned 'footage' exists of cave-men wearing underwear, also called "bear pants".
• Snails can sleep for thirteen years, although "only the tired ones".
• If we didn't invent the aeroplane "we'd probably have grown wings by now".
• Mars would be a bad planet to live on because it is a "tip". This is evidenced by the fact that "scientists" found a dishwasher on Mars.
• Karl's parenting advice is to "sort of look after it [the child], feed it, make sure it's got shoes and that, but let it roam about".
• If Karl turned into a slug, he would throw himself into the salt pot to end it all.
• He would be able to know if anyone was a nudist, because if they were going on holiday, they would not have much luggage.
• He once read a book which had its chapters arranged in the wrong order. He stopped reading it after he ended up at chapter 1.
• According to Karl, fish have more rights than humans because there are more of them.
• He would not like to meet his doppelganger because "how would I know which one I was?".
• Has stated that cameras shouldn't have been invented if we have realistic paintings; "One or the other", "Stop looking at the walls and look out the window".
• He thought the diaries of Anne Frank were "an Adrian Mole sort of thing".
• That there are too many words and too many animals; "Do we need 'em?".
• Karl believes that autism should not be considered a mental illness, but a super power instead, because they can remember everything.
• If vampires have no reflection in a mirror, why is Dracula's centre-parting always so neat?
• Karl believes that because jellyfish are 97% water, we should "give 'em another three percent and make 'em water - it's more useful".
• Had an uncle growing up named Tattoo Stan, who did all of his own tattoos himself. Consequently, because he was right handed, all of the tattoos on his left arm were brilliant. The ones on his right...rubbish.
• Karl Pilkington doesn't know why we've got beetles.
• With identical twins, there is always "a little snidey one".
• We are going backwards as a people, mainly because people spend time in the sea, where we came from, and the Gadget Shop now sells a clock powered by a potato.
• There are dogs which have been trained to sense when their owner is about to have a fit. The dog will then wrap itself around the owner's head as protection should he or she fall during the fit. It should be noted that the dogs are "the right size for the job, not Alsations or anything like that".
• Seals would probably not be missed if they became extinct, because they are "already between a fish and a dog". He also fails to see why seals continue to "hang about" in the Arctic - "Why aren't seals going 'Do you know what - it's cold, I'm sick of it here, it's windy all the time and whathaveyou... and I'm getting a club on the head'?"
• Believes dinosaurs and man co-existed because "there must've been a cross-over point."
• Pavlov used to keep hitting his dog on the head with a stick until one day, the dog said "I'm sick of this" and left.
• Karl thinks the human digestive system should go "from the throat, to the belly, straight line down, out me arse", and believes the intestines are "miles long" because ages ago we were eating dinosaur meat which is quite tough. Now we are eating yoghurt, so don't need them.
• Karl would give the following advice to chameleons: "Stay green, stay in the woods, stay safe."
• Old people wouldn't be happy if they had to move to Mars because they're already "set in their ways".
• Karl believes global warming is just a case of the Earth getting older and going bald; "treat the Earth like a head..."
• "Out of all the people in the world... to 'ave a chat with", Karl would like to talk to both Professor Stephen Hawking ("about the Universe and stuff, cos I can't get my head 'round it") and someone he calls "Guns Traven". It can only be assumed he means Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the doctor who "cuts people up and that on telly".