Stephen Merchant is one of my favourite people. He’s up there on the top floor having a pint with David Mitchell and Andrea Pirlo. To give you an idea of just how much I want to be mates with Stephen Merchant, when I bookmarked the YouTube vid earlier, I titled it simply “Steve”.

So when I stumbled upon this absolute gem it just went ahead and made my day.

It’s a double whammy as well, because, firstly, there’s the fantastic discovery that Steve was on Blockbusters before he was famous, looking all nervous and lost in his massive round glasses. It’s quite perfect, the way he swiftly takes a solid lead and then completely bottles it and ends up getting his pants pulled down by the two women he’s battling. There’s also a brilliant moment when the host begrudgingly turns to this nobody Steve to ‘get to know him’ because his producer has told him he has to fill up some time and Steve says that he’s doing some comedy writing and film scripts but ultimately wants to become a DJ. Brilliant. DJ Smerch. Love it.

But then, secondly, there’s the commentary that Steve gives over the top, describing the whole process in immense and hilarious detail. Steve didn’t actually intend it to be a commentary – he was just talking about it on the radio after learning that the original video had been put on YouTube, but Rufus (off the radio show) came up with the idea of dubbing Steve’s commentary over the original video and daysofthebuddha did it and it works a treat. He also has a radio telephone chat with his main “nemesis” on the show and all of his burning questions are answered.

I don’t want to describe too much of what he says because I want you to watch the whole thing, but if your life is really that hectic that you only have specifically 45 seconds in which to watch a video today, then skip to 11:00 and wait for Steve to deliver one of the greatest burns I’ve ever heard.

Here’s the original: (5:1o for the aspiring DJ) / (9.00 for a ‘Steve vs. host back-to-back’) / (don’t watch the rest)

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdNP53mu4jg’]

Here’s Steve’s commentary: (11:00 for build-up to *oh snap!*) / (but watch it all)

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEYHMX3V5c0′]