Funny, how?

Comedy is a tricky business. As the career of Jim Davidson has effectively proved, there's no rhyme or reason to the things that some people will find amusing.

Even so, Evan Emory must be kicking himself for trying to share his own unique take on musical comedy with the world. He's now facing 60 days in jail and 200 hours of community service, plus fines and court costs. Originally charged with manufacturing child pornography, Emory ended up pleading guilty to the lesser charge of “unlawful posting of an Internet message with aggravating circumstances.”

His crime, if you can call it that, was to create a video of himself performing a sexually explicit song to a classroom full of elementary school kids. In fact, the video was carefully spliced together from two separate performances, so the children never actually heard him singing "C’mon, girl…See how long it takes to make your panties mine…I’ll add some foreplay in just to make it fun. I want to stick my index finger in your anus.” If the kids want to listen to that kind of filth, they'll just have to tune into one of the many music video channels.

The video has been taken down, with the judge presiding over the case labeling it 'contraband', so it's hard to judge exactly what Emory's intentions were. Though it's not too hard to imagine that he was poking a satirical finger at the sexual content of modern music and the fact that children have unlimited access to it. It's just a shame that the lawmakers didn't see the funny side. I guess, if you have to explain a joke, it wasn't that great to begin with.

It's also a joke that Friends tried years ago, back when the writers were still getting plenty of mileage out of Phoebe's endearingly awful coffee shop singing. Hoping to score a date with handsome classroom entertainer Chris Isaak, Phoebe brought her idiosyncratic song-writing to a group of kindergarteners. The kids seemed to enjoy the chirpy tunes about dying grandparents and sexual bargaining, but the grown-ups were less than impressed.

And that's exactly what played out with Evan, as the parents of the students at Beechnau Elementary claimed “An innocence was taken, something we as parents try very hard to keep, something we hold sacred and dear was taken from the kids.” But was it really? The entire project was predicated on the seamless merging of two unconnected events, thereby ensuring that the children were never exposed to any unsuitable content. 

Chalk this one up as another victimless crime. In which case, the sentencing seems unnecessarily harsh. With 60 days in the slammer ahead of him, Evan may find himself on the receiving end of more than just an index finger.

Could it BE more over?

It's the end of an era.

After what seems like an eternity, Channel 4 (and its multiple offshoots) have ended their fifteen year deal with Warner Bros to exclusively air Friends.

Even though the show ended five years ago, it's become such a staple of the media landscape that it's hard to turn on the TV without seeing the giant porcelain greyhound, the peephole picture-frame, or a thin Matthew Perry spitting a spray of water out of his mouth.

In fact, Friends has become so ubiquitous, that it's hard to remember that, for the best part of a decade, it was the best comedy show on TV. Maybe we take it for granted, like a moving version of the test card picture of the girl with the terrifying clown ragdoll.

Even now, the show manages to drum up daily viewing figures of around 400,000, despite the fact that the majority of the population must have committed all 236 episodes to memory.

The E4 schedulers must be flicking through page after page of blank diary sheets, wondering how they're ever going to fill all that space without Monica's OCD, Rachel's amazing hair or Ross's borderline paedophilia.

As for The Rembrandts, who performed the show's nosebleed-inducing theme tune, they're going to take a massive hit on their royalties now that it's not going to be broadcast around the clock.

Head of Channel 4 acquisitions Gill Hay says "It's time to say goodbye to old Friends and welcome new ones, in the form of more comedy, drama and entertainment from the US and UK. We are incredibly proud to have been the home of Friends for so long, but at a point when the channel is undergoing a period of creative renewal it felt like the right time to part company."

It's a sad time for anyone who's grown accustomed to their daily fix of Central Perk. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that BBC takes note and follows suit by finally putting 'Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps' out of its misery. At least Friends had the decency to be funny.