Whatever happened to the funny Comic Relief song?

com·ic (kŏm'ĭk) - adj. Amusing; Humorous; Witty; Nothing to do with Girls Aloud and/or The Sugababes.

For starters, let me just state my support and affection for Comic Relief. It's a good thing, a pleasant way of fundraising and I'll be doing my bit etc etc. But very concept of the Comic Relief song - when did it stop being funny? Or even trying to be?

As discussed in further detail in this week's video deconstrution, I'm not one to hark back to the comedy heyday of Hale and Pace, or gaze misty-eyed on the novelty-musical-ouvre of Bananarama, but when the concept of Comic Relief singles started, they paired a musical 'talent' with some 'comedy' ones, and ran riot over an old song. Well and good. But for the last few years, the focus has shifted away from the comedy and onto the 'talent', leading to this year's appalling Sugababes/Girls Aloud cover of Walk This Way. The choice of bands doesn't make sense. The choice of song doesn't make sense. The song itself is an insert-swearword-here travesty - but the pinnacle of it all is the video, which could at least TRY to tickle the innards of the charity-loving public, but doesn't even seem to want to be funny. Not even slightly. Not even a bit.

But maybe my memory is failing. Maybe there were no good Comic Relief songs. Maybe this new effort is good after all. If not, though, someone get Joe Pasquale on the phone and ask him if he can mime.