The Ricky Gervais Show (partially found XFM shows; 2001)

'The Ricky Gervais Show' XFM Series 2 cover.

Status: Partially Found

The Ricky Gervais Show is a comedy radio show featuring Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington. It was later adapted into a series of podcasts and TV shows, both with the same title.

Most of the XFM radio shows featuring Karl are recorded and available, however episodes that aired from September 2001 – 10 November 2001 (part of a period dubbed 'Series 1') are lost. Most episodes from the original show (dubbed Series 0) are lost, airing from January – August 1998. These episodes do not feature Karl. A mashup track created by Karl called "Whitneylicker", aired 2 January 2002 on XFM, is also lost.

Series 0

Series 0 is the unofficial name for the original XFM shows featuring Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. They aired from January – August 1998, before XFM was bought by Capital. Partial recordings of some of the shows were uploaded to Pilkipedia by user Jezoc. Most of the shows remain lost.

Series 1

Series 1 is the unofficial name for the radio shows broadcast September 2001 – May 2002, when XFM was owned by Capital. These episodes are thought to contain Ricky and Steve's first encounters with Karl. Episodes broadcast from 10 November onwards were recorded by Richard Hare, James Answer, Ian Pile, and/or John Steel, and were circulated via Soulseek. Remastered versions of these shows have since been uploaded to various streaming services. Assuming the show began on 1 September 2001 and continued weekly, as it did after 10 November, a maximum of 10 shows remain lost.

On 25 February 2024, Reddit user u/Complete_Salt_880 made a post to r/RickyGervais containing a screenshot of a supposed email between himself and a Global (the current owners of Capital) employee. In the screenshot, the employee states they "don't think [Global] do have full archives from the XFM era". The post goes on to say that u/Complete_Salt_880 "followed up to specifically mention the Ricky Gervais show and they definitely don't have anything that far back".

Whitneylicker

Ricky Gervais archivist Richard Hare mentioned two mashup tracks created by Karl on his FAQ page, one called 'the unknown, baby (one more time)' with a linked mp3 file, and another called 'Whitneylicker' . The FAQ links to a tracklist for an XFM show presented by Eddy Temple-Morris called "The Remix", broadcast on 2002-01-02 . A partial recording of this show exists and matches the tracklist. However, this recording is only of the "FUN>DA>MENTAL "AUDIO SHRAPNEL" SUPERCHUNK" part of the show. According to the tracklist, Whitneylicker was the first track played after this recorded section. The track is speculated to be a mashup of Aphex Twin's 'Windowlicker' and a Whitney Houston song.