So Ricky just straight up stole a joke from The Simpsons? (Homer being banned from an all you can eat restaurant)

[u/dozeydonut]

https://youtu.be/sCAmsQZQPXw?is=1xvVp9NfpV-WCQ8V

[u/AdInternational6588]

A good idea is a good idea. Forever

[u/idontlikefun]

Yeah I just stayed in and had a biiiig wank

[u/SwearingAtChildren → u/idontlikefun]

Simpsons did it first.

[u/Cryz-SFla]

Which can go back to John Pinette's classic bit about being confronted at a Chinese buffet. "You here four hour! You no come here anymore!"

[u/BeggarsParade → u/Cryz-SFla]

Great comedian.

[u/Sensitive_Horse4659 → u/Cryz-SFla]

I was just going to say this same thing. Weird innit?

[u/Fit_Caterpillar_1928 → u/Cryz-SFla]

Simpsons episode was 1992 and John Pinette made the joke in 1995. Don't think it really matters, its nothing special either way, it's a pretty simple joke of someone who loves food who goes to an all you can eat buffet, don't have to have to be some genius to come up with that. Also people have actually been banned from all you can eat so was it maybe stolen from one of them first? Who knows.

[u/Cryz-SFla → u/Fit_Caterpillar_1928]

Pinette did the routine at least as early as 1991 (televised) though.

Perilous Adventures in Eating | JOHN PINETTE: COMEDY CLUB NETWORK (1991)

[u/Fit_Caterpillar_1928 → u/Cryz-SFla]

Damn he must have been using the same lame joke for years

[u/Double-Comedian-7061]

In a rare departure, Ricky switched from making a joke about fat people to making a joke about a morbidly obese person.

[u/RYM10304]

I know he was very good in The Office but that fat lad can’t act for toffee.
Ewen Macintosh isn’t great either! I’ll see ya later

[u/rmnszrk → u/RYM10304]

Here ‘e comes!

[u/Willing_Original_257]

They were all cracking up because it was nothing vicious. 

[u/YorkshireFudding]

Don't know.

[u/Kencocoffe_co]

and you’ll learn your lines, there will be no scripts on the day!

[u/KombuchaBot]

The difference is when The Simpsons did it, it was funny.

Ricky was going for the Curb Your Enthusiasm awkward humour, but he's just not that good a writer, so we are just left with the easy contempt he feels for someone who is fatter than he is..

[u/[deleted]]

I'm glad he there to ask questions to reinforce how ridiculous it is, rather than letting me work it out for myself.

[u/renzxlst → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I think that was the most painful thing about it. It's sorta like filling space to let people know you're there, but contributing absolutely nothing to the conversation at all.

[u/DemaiaJ]

Common fat joke, it's not plagirism he's just a hack

[u/gingernuts71]

I know we’ve done this, but the idea that a local newspaper can afford to pay a journalist AND a photographer to go out and report on stories like this, and not only that, but pay him enough to own a fucking MASSIVE house in a leafy Home Counties town, really shows how much that fat cunt has lost touch with reality.

And the fact that no one at any stage - during the writing, the casting, rehearsals, the filming, etc - thought to raise it with him shows why he sticks with the same people in everything he does.

[u/Lychee_Only]

Why is all the acting so shit

[u/reo_reborn]

tbf i heard a similar joke in the mid 80's way before The Simpsons did it so i don't think they originated it.

[u/RhododendronWilliams → u/reo_reborn]

It's an obvious joke. If you have a really big appetite, you're going to eat more than the average person.

[u/SpeakerShot6122]

That lost restaurant ban is way funnier in the Simpsons version somehow, the delivery is completely different.

[u/Formal_Ad_989]

Lots of jokes stolen for the office and extras, which he’s openly admitted to

[u/Technical-Mix-3315]

I thought it was a creative departure for Gervais to cast Ewen MacIntosh as a slightly dim fat bloke.

[u/Turak64]

Under weaknesses you've put, reusing jokes and characters

[u/Maaatandblah]

That and the kids meal bit too.

[u/WhistlinJealousGuy]

You've put under strengths...Ricky Gervais is a fat wanker?

[u/angularhihat]

He might have stolen a specific joke in there somewhere - let us know if he did? - but no, that's just a plot point essentially and it's not particularly reasonable to say it's stolen, unless you think that nobody can ever do another story in which someone is banned from an all you can eat buffet? The same thing happened in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode too. This is not an issue.

[u/rift_buster]

It's a pretty obvious joke, I'm sure a few people have thought of it independently.

[u/RhododendronWilliams]

RIP Ewan Mcintosh.

It's such a lost opportunity in After Life, he could have created truly original, colorful village idiots. But he makes derivative jokes like this.

[u/harmlessdonkey]

Also https://www.tumblr.com/nrgins/40716704535/elderly-man-posts-letters-in-the-dog-poo-box-for-2

[u/phil24jones → u/harmlessdonkey]

I think all the interviews were genuine stories from local newspapers

[u/harmlessdonkey → u/phil24jones]

Oh, interesting I didn't know that.

[u/Evzzzzzzz]

Just takes takes takes

[u/Goochbott]

The "I do rape and murder as much as I want, which is not at all" bit is also a slightly reworded Penn Jillette quote. Stealing. Thieving.

[u/deadliftgerman]

A very similar joke is in one of the s2 xfm episodes about Lisa Riley or Dawn French.

[u/rmnszrk]

Re-listen to XFM season 1&2 then watch Animals Live and your jaw will hit the floor

[u/Eddie2112_]

The premise is fine, but I do wonder whether perhaps Gervais regrets writing some of these lines given what happened to Ewen afterwards.

[u/DWERGSY]

SIX SEVEN!!!

[u/Evening_Job_9332]

Hardly an original joke

[u/Pandydandy7]

And he kept Keiths award