Not the best couple of weeks for James, really…
Ricky Gervais has called out James Corden after the television host repeated one of the comedian’s jokes pretty much word for word on his show.
On Monday night’s episode of ‘The Late Late Show’, Corden was delivering a monologue to camera about Elon Musk and his takeover of Twitter.
During the monologue, he mentioned Musk’s idea to charge verified users $20 a month to keep their blue ticks.
Corden continued: “When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter, he does this thing where he goes, ‘It’s the town square.’
“But it isn’t, because if someone puts up a poster in a town square that says ‘guitar lessons available’, you don’t get people in the town going, ‘I don’t want to play the guitar! I wanna play the piano you piece of s**t!’
He finished: “But that sign wasn’t for you, it was for somebody else, you don’t have to get mad at all of it.”
Cue laughter and applause from the delighted audience at this razor-sharp piece of satire.
Except some of you may already have recognised this particular joke, as it appears to be a complete copy of one that Ricky Gervais made in his stand-up show Humanity, which was released on Netflix in 2018.
You can see just how similar they are below.
Plagiarism? I don’t know what people are talking about, these two jokes by @JKCorden and @rickygervais are barely similar pic.twitter.com/9kYOHiOiLj
— Paul Anthony (@PaulFI9) November 1, 2022
Never one to shy away from a bit of confrontation, Gervais decided to address this in a post on ‘the town square’ itself.
In a now-deleted tweet sharing the clip from Corden’s show, Gervais wrote: “The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant.”
Gervais, however, appeared to offer a defence of Corden in a reply to a Twitter user who asked if Corden asked for permission in advance to use the gag.
“No,” said Gervais. “I reckon one of the writers ‘came up with it’ for him. I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that.”
No. I reckon one of the writers 'came up with it' for him. I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that.
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) November 1, 2022
Many more noticed that Corden had nicked the witty summary of Twitter from the Extras comedian, and decided to call him out as well.
One person wrote: “You could’ve at least credited @rickygervais when using his jokes @JKCorden…”
Another said it was “absolutely shameless” behaviour from Corden. A third said it was a “new low” for him.
Stealing jokes is a new low….
— Matthew Keen (@keenbutcher1981) November 1, 2022
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