Karl Pilkington: Satisfied Fool

Karl Pilkington: Satisfied Fool
Satisfied Fool title card.
Genre	Documentary
Running time	24 mins.
Starring	Karl Pilkington, David Icke, Will Self, Germaine Greer, Heinz Wolff, Ricky Gervais
Country	UK
Network	Channel 4
Tx. Date	22 October 2007
No. of episodes	1

Karl Pilkington: Satisfied Fool is a one-off documentary by Karl Pilkington, shown as part of Channel 4's 'Comedy Lab' series.

Plot

Karl Pilkington is an unassuming, unsophisticated man from Manchester who has little formal education and is known to his close friends (not to mention his many fans) as a fool, an idiot, a buffoon. In this Channel 4 documentary, he is on a quest to determine whether he would be happier if he was more intelligent. To find the answer, he seeks the counsel of scholars, philosophers and David Icke.

Reviews

TV Guide, The Times, 20 October 2007:

Karl Pilkington kicks off a new week-long season of Comedy Lab, the wildly erratic series showcasing comic talent that discovered the likes of Peter Kay, Jimmy Carr, Dom Joly and Russell Brand.

Karl Pilkington himself was the producer of The Ricky Gervais Show on the radio station Xfm and developed a cult following when he appeared on Gervais's podcasts. His comic speciality is pretending to be thick, a role that he is able to play with immense assurance. In this amiable programme, he meets a bunch of brainy people -including Germaine Greer and Will Self - to find out if life would be better if he were more intelligent. But, in the end, he decides there's no point in trying because, even if it worked, he wouldn't be the same vaguely endearing idiot.[1]

Caitlin Moran, The Times, 20 October 2007:

For those who haven’t yet come across him, Karl Pilkington is a sometime collaborator of Ricky Gervais – an eccentric Rainman-type character. Gervais, with his typical “edginess”, is either doing his bit for mental health charities by helping him, or doing his bit for the postPC movement by taking the piss out of him; but no one can be quite sure which.

In Comedy Lab’s Karl Pilkington: Satisfied Fool, Pilkington has finally been given a solo pilot in the format of a Louis Theroux-type documentary. The subject here is “Cleverness – will it make you happy?” and the presenter is – well, the presenter is, in contrast to Theroux’s hateful faux naivety, genuinely naive.

He looks baffled as Germaine Greer tries to explain the difference between intelligence and cleverness, and almost bursts into tears when Will Self roars, “You’re just a satisfied pig! Get out of my house!!

There’s a winning unartfulness to it. It almost feels like a new kind of TV.[2], [3]

Music

	Artist	Album	Song Title	Start/Stop
	I Am Kloot	I Am Kloot	Proof	00:00 - 02:19
	Plays intermittently in the first few minutes.
	I Am Kloot	I Am Kloot	3 Feet Tall	03:01 - 03:30
	3 feet tall with a head like a bowling ball - Karl travels from the Mensa test to Germaine Greer's house.
	Candidate	Tiger Flies	This is The Way	08:01 - 08:36
	Karl meets Prof. Heinz Wolff and his tea-making assistant.
	Elbow	Cast of Thousands	Crawling With Idiot	10:14 - 10:35
	Karl leaves Prof. Heinz Wolff, song plays up until the advert break. **Also features in the trailer
	Stephen Fretwell	Magpie	Do You Want To Come With Me?	10:36 - 11:07
	Karl gets the ferry to the Isle of Wight and meets David Icke.
	Joy Division	Substance	Atmosphere	16:07 - 16:24
	Karl reflects on his meeting with David Icke on the ferry home.
	Brian Eno	Music for Airports: Ambient 1	1/1	22:50 - 23:11
	Karl talks about his meeting with Will Self and reads Wittgenstein on the park.
	I Am Kloot	I Am Kloot	Proof	23:30 - 24:02
	Karl walking down Gower St., London while the end credits roll.

External Links

• Caitlin Morris' review in The Times