Peter Dickson and The Shakettes – Shake It

“Shoddily produced, cynically designed rubbish.” – Tom / “Fantastic.” – Tim

Tim: The X Factor started up again last week. Question: when you think ‘X Factor’, what are the next two words that pop into your head?

Tom: “Not again”?

Tim: That’s right: ‘Voiceover Man’. Because the show would be NOTHING without his ‘IT’S TIME. TO FACE. THE MUSIC.’ and various other shouty bits. But did you know that voiceover work isn’t all he does? Oh, no.

Tom: Well, he’s done a comedy bit: IT’S TIME. TO TASTE. THE MUESLI. I mean, he’s got one shtick, but he does it well.

Tim: He also makes milkshakes in his spare time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUKs9KjdRe8

Tom: Oh no. No, no, no. No, I’m not watching that.

Tim: Now first off it should be pointed out that this is very definitely not a bringing-all-the-boys-to-the-yard milkshake – it’s a nice tasty innocent frothy milkshake, with fruit or chocolate or some other yummy stuff in it. But, well, we’ve got to shake it. And shake it we will.

Tom: I can’t even get past one second of this. Why? Because it’s wrong on several levels. And I don’t mean that in a laughing, ‘ha ha this is wrong’ way, I mean in a ‘this is contributing to the decline of civilisation’ way. It’s a jingle, a commercial radio jingle, three soul-destroying minutes long. Every second of this is an advert, and you’re willingly listening to it.

Tim: The thing (that shouldn’t really need saying) about this is that it’s not really a music track that they’ve come up with a dance for. It’s a collection of dance moves with music added later. That’s definitely not a bad thing – YMCA, the Cha-Cha Slide and the Macarena were all very enjoyable, and we all look forward to the wedding DJ putting on the Timewarp. So: what’s the dance like?

Tom: I don’t care. Every viewer we send their way is contributing to some despicable advertising executive going ‘ha ha, look at all the people who’ve watched this, we should do this again.’ It’s shoddily produced, cynically designed rubbish.

Tim: It’s fantastic. Lengthy, but that’s not a problem – part of the fun of knowing the Saturday Night routine is smirking quietly at the people that don’t, but decide to have a go anyway and then desperately try to work out why the hell they seem to be a beat out of time with everyone else. Especially since, in this song, he tells you what to do for most of it, so you’ll be able to get together with others in the know and laugh at how everyone else must be real morons.

Tom: “Hello, this is Peter Dickson. I’m not in at the moment, but whatever it is I’ll do it.”

Tim: Best of all: it also teaches you how to make a milkshake! So we have smugness and cookery tips all in one – what else do you need?

Tom: A Molotov cocktail and the address of whichever PR company put this abomination together.

Tim: IT’S TIME. TO DANCE. AND I WILL BE…

Tom: Laughing merrily as Advertising, fifth horsemen of the apocalypse, rides over the blood-soaked hillside with his Scythe-o-Matic 6000 glistening in the red, swollen sunlight of the end times?

Tim: …DANCING. You know, you’ve really developed a snarky side recently.