Hello and welcome to sitcom gigs, I'm James Carey, you'll hear Dave in a moment, this is episode 103 and it's something we recorded a little while back, an interview with Moose Allen and we'll tell you more about him in due course. Our Patreon subscribers have had access to this audio for a little while, with loads of other audio content, that's one of the perks of subscribing. The interview was grabbed in a bit of a hurry, to be honest and the sound quality isn't brilliant, but you can hear it, but we're still sorry anyway. We're trying to improve the quality all the time here, which is why your support is so crucial and most things get better with time and money, as in life, as in writing, as in podcast.
Before we go into that interview, I just wanted to mention that Dave and I are at the Chortle Funnybook Festival at the British Library this coming Sunday. That's the 13th of January 2019 and we'll be talking to novelist and huge sitcom fan, Johnathon Coe, and I'm reading his book The Rottis Club at the moment and I'm really enjoying it. And that's because it has lots of dialogue that has a real sitcom rhythm to it, so it'll be really interesting to talk to him about that and his favourite sitcoms as well and all that other stuff too. We can probably geek out together, I hope you can join us there.
If you want to see me do a thing, I'll be at Nick's Church in Bathampton, talking about my book The Sacred Art of Choking and I'll be doing that on Saturday the 19th of January, so that's coming up quite soon. And look on my website for details of that and my visits to Carlisle, Dumbfreece, Edinburgh and Leicester in the coming few months. So look at JamesCarry.co.uk, KerrystartsCarry and I will be recording a sitcom geeks at the Leicester Comedy Festival on Thursday the 14th of February. I deal for a hot date coming to a sitcom geeks recording and I'm actually, we're on at 6, so plenty of time to get back to your love nest afterwards for your valentines evening.
Anyway, find out more on Twitter, Facebook and Patreon plus Dave's website, DaveCohen.org.uk. Anyway, enough from me, over to me and Dave and Moose, yes, Moose, here we go. Hello and welcome to sitcom geeks, I'm JamesCarry. I'm Dave Cohen.
And we are joined by a special guest who masquerades on Twitter as Moose Allain. Is that how you would say it? That's right. Is that your actual name?
I wasn't christened, Moose. That's everybody calls me Moose. Okay, that's just like a nickname. Okay, it wasn't some cryptic, pseudonym kind of...
Why would you be called Moose? That's a name that stuck. I looked like a moose. Okay, my sister started calling me Moose and then it went to my role.
Okay, it's not the old days where they've still done that. I've been told that's all names. So we talked about sitcom and sitcom writing, but we often talk about getting into comedy. How do you make a living at comedy?
From what I can tell, I don't know really. But Moose, you seem to spend a lot of time on Twitter. Is that correct? I think that's fair.
I mean, I'll be in full tonight because of the evidence is there. And for many people, that's an absence of work and a distraction. But for you, this seems to be part of your business plan. I'm going to say, I mean, plan makes me sound like something I don't know what to do.
I think there was a fantastic epiphany. I mean, I joined in 2009 to really do much for the first year or so and then started sort of getting the hang of it. And I think, I definitely got to face with it, because I'm not going to stop spending so much time on Twitter. But then I had an epiphany that actually, because I'm an artist, illustrator, cartoonist, that I could kind of mesh it in with my work.
And what I was actually finding was that I was beginning to write short stories and things, live on Twitter, something I never done before. I was writing jokes every day, you know, several jokes. So I feel consistently started drawing things to put up online. So having an audience there was an encouragement to put my work out there.
And as soon as I realized that actually it was a creative tool, then I had all the guilt about, no, I should be working. And that was coupled with talking to people, getting to know people, having a laugh with people, and then various kind of bits of work that came out of those kind of relationships. You're one of the few people who says, I'm not spending enough time on Twitter. I do feel guilty about it.
I don't spend more time on it. What were you doing before adding up Twitter? It's so hard to remember, isn't it? Maybe I hobby.
I was in my hobby. I, for a job, I was an architect and then gave that up to do some art, really. And that was in about 2006. And we moved out of London, down to Devon, and kind of just decided to win it.
That's me and my wife. So we're going to work together. So I think, you know, I was doing that and we were going to our fairs and that kind of thing, trying to sell the work. But then Twitter sort of came along and it just seemed to be a perfect medium for the way I work, because I do lots of different bits and pieces.
And that kind of bitty nature of it. You know, I could be drawing something. What normally happens is I'm drawing away. And when you're drawing, the kind of verbal parts of your brain is kind of free to wander around.
And I'd be playing around with words and things. And then they would turn jokes or things would just pop into my head. And I'd go, right, I'll get up and tweet it. And it just sort of meshed in perfectly with what I was doing.
And kind of good outlet for those kind of things. And so you are now aware that a considerable portion of your income now has, sort of in dire years it will come through Twitter and people will go on to your website. And then I could read the figure on it. My wife probably has a lot more idea that she probably looks at what the people come from to get to our website.
It was never something very comfortable doing some hard sell in latter years. I'm a bit more likely just to tweet links to my website or drawing some things. But I never really liked it. I never really liked it.
One of your details, as we said. I sold it on the line. It's moved the CTAS slightly to the left. So yeah, it's suited.
Yes, it's right. If we don't need to see the picture. It was never really hard sell, but it was there as an opportunity. I can't quite remember your question.
The question was about the percentage of your income that is now because how many followers do you have on Twitter? I'm sort of 90,000 plus. That's putting in a fairly big high category of... Yeah, I mean that's not as hard as somebody who doesn't come with an audience.
If someone is not on telly. Yes, exactly. No, it's not. No, it's not.
Exactly. I said for the first year it was 50 or so. I started joining in. I think that was the kind of epiphany that you could have already had on a epiphany.
So I was thinking about the kind of realise, this is fun. You know, this is enjoyable. I'm starting following people who... I think Trinity is after epiphany in a church calendar.
I can know. How many epiphany is from one person? I'm having more than two. It's definitely frowned upon in the end of his tradition anyway.
It's not that he can say frowned on much to be honest. It's like a pifter than I treated him. Yeah. So would you say that for your business as an artist, as it were, has definitely been enhanced by your Twitter.
How did this joke line as it were? I think so. And what's happened really is austerity came to take. I think we felt that in terms of going to Arthas and people just weren't buying so much.
I think Karen who really did most of his work. Sorry, she was working as well. I would be talking about the kids and things. But she categorised it or described it as, whereas before people would be finding excuses to buy something.
I like that. I don't know if there's some trees or something. People would be finding excuses not to buy things. I really like that.
But I've got to pay for this next meeting. I think we felt that. So was that declined? Social media and the website and things.
And that started to grow. And it had the advantage of it. It's a kind of global marketing. You're not just, you're not just dependent on the covering of people walking past your stand over at rainy weekend in November.
You've got the whole world. And we do sell around the world. So, yeah. And not just sales, but also invitations to do things.
Exactly. And that kind of thing. Definitely. So I get lots of private commissions and lots of registration commissions and book work and things like that.
So that's been, I think if you treat Twitter in a certain way, it can be just a way of putting your work out there. And for people to say, I write jokes, I draw cartoons, I do art. I've got lots of different things I can put up there, which people seem to find interesting. Yeah.
And we became aware that you were a fan of the show. In fact, I'll be very excited about that. Have you ever considered writing sitcom? I've considered it.
But I've never put the work in. The thing I have to do is make a living from what I'm doing. And I'm not being very specific. I don't really have an opportunity to do something very speculative.
It's kind of slightly hand to mouth in as much as my time has to play for itself. Definitely, it's not a land of just ambrosia cusses. It's not. It's not for free.
I wish I had that before. I wish I had that before we moved back to the other. No, it's great. It's lovely to bring the kids up there and everything.
But how do you keep saying that? I'm not reading Twitter. I spend quite a lot of time just looking at my own people, looking at my replies and digging with people who are talking to me. And when I think brave, I'll dip it.
I mean, I've found more than 2,000 people. And the most time when I thought, oh goodness, I've followed 500 people. That's not too much. It's doing my head.
But realize actually the more you follow, the more various it is, the more connections you see, which is very interesting, which people talk to each other. And actually, you can just ignore those tweets. You can just get past them. So following lots of people isn't problematic.
And you find home and other people you find interesting and things that catch your eye. You kind of skim reading rather than reading everything. Yeah. And actually, I'm sure you've noticed that pictures are now much more, I mean, the numbers will say that your tweets might be read or linked to be clicked on.
If there's a picture in the tweet. Yes. But having said that, you do lots of tweets with no pictures, obviously, which is surprising given the joke speech for itself, I suppose. Yes.
That's an interesting thing. I do, you know, do visual artists, but I do lots of cartooning. So there's lots of languages in the board and I've always really enjoyed wordplay. And I see what I put on Twitter, more as wordplay than jokes per se, from, I mean, it's kind of just playing around with language.
I was just trying to be funny, but it's almost like the humour is a byproduct of, isn't it wonderful? What you can do with an amazing, valuable language. And do you have an editing process to your tweeting? No, I just had an idea for Jake, time to type, bang.
As I said earlier, lots of it is kind of composing it in my head while I'm drawing it. Right. When I've kind of mentally got it right, then I'll tweet it. So there's that process.
And then of course there's an inevitable typo that some people put that out to you. So that's nice. It is annoying that you can't change them. I don't know.
I've been trying to write them out. Well, did they correctly type those? I mean, I guess the one's the hero of rewrite history, I guess, is the worry. That's one worry.
And also, I also think it just doesn't matter. For me, it's a conversation. And I always think it's like the equivalent of picking somebody up on every slip of the tongue, if they've got a speech impediment. Lots of people aren't necessarily that great at written English for all sorts of reasons.
I just wish people would let it go and let the conversation flow, rather than I think you went there, not there. No, that's not a classic. But it's time it's nothing good coming through it really. And those things were quite often when people try to take people down.
You'll see something or something that you don't agree with. And somebody else will quote us, tweet it with comments about their spelling mistakes. And they always think that it's slightly slightly to the like, that's not your best take down really. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Engage with the idea of the information of it. It always seems like, well, you know, people have all sorts of difficulties. Yes, why answer them? Yeah.
Okay. Do you think people who want to try to get on in comedy, do you have any advice for people who are about Twitter, knowledge jokes? I think it's a good place to write jokes. I think if I were a comedian, I might be reluctant to put them out there.
I know people who stand up, you know, some people write jokes all the users, a place of putting stuff that's not going to work on live conditions. But I think I'd be a bit reluctant about putting my material. I mean, it doesn't really matter for me. That's my medium.
If I don't decide to turn it into a cartoon or it crops up in some other form, it doesn't really matter. I think if you're a performer, I would be a little bit more resistant to putting it out there. Because jokes get taken, you know, shared around. I don't have quite such a problem with that as some people do.
I think if you're going to be aware of that they're not quite so integral to your business model. I think Tim Viner's different feelings about that. Having his own jokes is sent to him when he mail memes used to do the rounds. He had his own jokes sent to him as a Tommy Cooper.
He was 20 classic Tommy Cooper jokes. Yeah, they were all Tim Viner. But I guess because it's not, if people start ripping off your art, that's slightly different, isn't it? No, not so likely.
But actually if somebody sort of claims your joke. I don't think they earn money from jokes. I sort of earn money. I own money sort of by proxy.
It almost is the right phrase. It kind of comes on the back of trying to be entertaining in some way or Twitter and then hoping that then people go and look at my website and buy a work or commission something. And I think there's enough weight behind that way of doing things that it's not like, I wouldn't put something that's precious. I don't put my images up there at high enough resolution that people could turn them into a book.
I don't think people print them out sometimes and they're just on the desk. So, you know, if they were sort of making them into prints and something, that would be a different issue and I'd be worried about it. That would take quite a lot of effort really, I think. Making a joke and very honest age.
And I think people genuinely like to share jokes around and they don't quite understand this idea of authorship. But there's a part of me, and I do completely understand this, that people work really hard on Twitter and write jokes and use it for all sorts of things. There's lots of original ideas. I don't agree with this idea.
There's nothing new in the world or all the jokes we've done. Every day I'm astonished by, there's certainly brilliant people out there coming up with original ideas all the time. And I find that very exciting. But, you know, there's a way in which it does get shared and people want to share those things and sometimes they'll copy and paste it into their own feed rather than just retweeting somebody.
I can't understand that's not great for us people. I don't really mind that much. People come to me and say, well, what's somebody's turn your tweet and then I feel like I have to say something about it. But generally, if I say somebody, and the other thing is I know that somebody else has already come up with that.
And people tell me that, but I think we're fair enough. We're all, it's something like things will be original, nobody else would think of that. But other things I think are a bit obvious and that's the price you pay if somebody's already done it. I just want to ask a question.
Do you have any followers who are very unusual, like a pope or a novel person? I don't have any unusual followers. They're all very unusual. I sometimes am surprised.
I don't really keep tabs on who's following me. I'm not fairly ill, not to get too excited if somebody likes to be a visual check a week later and they've dissipated. Have you had any noticeable spikes after a particular, well, things happen. And then there'll be a spike or somebody who's prominent will say, oh, you're going in front of this guy.
He's got something. And there'll be a spike. Yeah. Are you going to have a party when he had £100,000?
No. No. If somebody threw a surprise party for me, then it might be like, yes, it's not for me. It's not for me.
It's not for me. It's for me. It's for me. It's for me.
It's for me. It's for me. It's for me. It's for me.
It's for me. It's for me. It's for me. It's for me.
And I have a safe journey back to Devon. Thank you very much. And thank you for having me. Yes, of course.