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400,744 | 7,743,887 | 83,459 | 1 | A Comedy Classic ? Or the P . I . T . T . S . ? | Originally to have been called ' Big Tis ' , ' O . T . T . ' ( ' Over The Top ' ) was an unsuccessful attempt to transfer the anarchic humour of the Saturday morning children's show ' Tiswas ' to a late-night slot . All the cast ( with the exception of Sally James ) signed on . The level of humour was epitomised by its title sequence , featuring an animated nude woman . Critics blasted it as ' juvenile ' . The problem with the show was that once the novelty of seeing ex-kids presenters showing their bums and using bad language had worn off , there was nowhere for it to go . Alexei Sayle must have realised this - he jumped ship mid-season . ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' parodied ' O . T . T . ' in ' The Radio Times ' as ' Only Too Terrible - The Adult Version Of ' Play Away ' ' . In reply to the user who claimed that I did not understand the humour , let me point out that I did - I just did not care for it . For me the only really funny moments came from Bob Godfrey's animations . The show had some surprising celebrity fans , though . Victoria Wood defended it to the hilt on the B . B . C . - 2 discussion show ' Did You See ? ' . As the series progressed , various new ideas were tried out , such as the infamous nude men dancing with balloons . But when it ended Central Television announced that it would not be coming back . Tarrant produced as well as starred , and afterwards expressed doubt as to whether he would ever work again ( nowadays the bad publicity would be enough to keep it on air for years ) . I agree with the user who claimed that ' O . T . T . ' was ahead of its time . Unfortunately , that does not make it a good thing . All television series have their supporters and detractors . If some people fondly remember this show , that's fine by me . I personally wish that Tarrant and co . had stayed with ' Tiswas ' for another year instead of making ' O . T . T . ' . |
401,644 | 7,743,887 | 83,458 | 1 | The Simon Dee Of The ' 80's ? | ' The Noel Edmonds Late Late Breakfast Show ' had a difficult birthing period ; the early shows began with a title sequence reminiscent of the old Simon Dee show ' Dee Time ' , depicting Noel racing to the B . B . C . T . V . Centre in various forms of transport . The late D . J . John Peel figured prominently , as did the Scottish comedian Leni Harper ( whatever happened to her ? ) . Poor ratings necessitated a rethink . Noel decided his co-presenters were to blame and , ditching them , brought in fellow D . J . Mike Smith . There was also a lawsuit threatened by Peter Dulay , ex-producer of the British version of ' Candid Camera ' . Dulay claimed that a ' Gotcha ' stunt involving a conveyor belt was a steal of one of his ideas . The case was letter settled out of court , with Dulay receiving a credit as ' Consultant ' . Despite these troubles , ' Late Late ' caught on with viewers , and would have run years had not viewer Michael Lush died whilst rehearsing a stunt . Noel later commented : " It nearly ruined my career . " . Didn't do Michael much good either , Noel . |
401,147 | 7,743,887 | 299,309 | 1 | Hi ! I'm Roy ! " And I'm Linda ! " | Thanks to those killjoys at H . T . V . Wales and their insane policy of regional scheduling ( English programmes everyone watched displaced by Welsh language shows no-one watched ) , I had to visit my auntie's house to see this show . Because she lived high on a hill , her set could pick up stations mine could not , such as Westward ( as it was then called ) . I watched once whilst chomping on a Birds Eye meat and onion pie , and afterwards suffered terrible indigestion . To this day , I'm not sure what caused it - the pie or the programme . ' Get It Together ' was the creation of Muriel Young , a former actor who'd become a producer of children's television programmes at Granada , where , amongst other things , she had masterminded the long-running film review show ' Clapperboard ' ( hosted by Chris Kelly ) , ' Shang-a-Lang ' which helped propel ' The Bay City Rollers ' to stardom , and ' Arrows ' ( remember their one and only hit - ' A Touch Too Much ' ? ) which didn't . ' Together ' was an attempt at a generic pop show , with groups miming to whatever they had in the charts at that time . None of the big hitters , such as ' Abba ' and ' The Bee Gees ' , were visible in the studio . Viewers had to make do instead with ' Brotherhood Of Man ' and ' The Jags ' ( I'm sure you've got got their C . D . ' s in your collection ) . Oh , and Sir Cliff Richard turned up at least once . As did ' Slade ' ! In 1977 , punk ruled and anarchy was in the air . ' The Sex Pistols ' was what the kids wanted . You would never have known it from ' Together ' , which boasted Arthur Mullard and Hylda Baker murdering ' You're The One That I Want ' on a ferris wheel . Even now , I can remember how dated the show looked . The set was like the ' Dr . Who ' production team's idea of an alien city , with plastic walls , garish colours , and strobe lighting . I'm sure I even spotted dry ice lurking about the place . You half expected Tom Baker and K9 to appear . Nothing had moved on since ' Lift Off With Ayshea ' a few years earlier . Even the title - ' Get It Together ' - had a smell of patchouli oil about it . What was Young thinking ? The presenters were Linda Fletcher ( whatever happened to her ? ) and Roy North , newly divorced from ' Basil Brush ' . I have a soft spot for Roy ; after all , he was a pretty good straight man for The Foxy One and , if you think that does not sound like much of an achievement , just check out the presenters on Basil's current B . B . C . series . Roy and Linda opened each show by singing ( badly ) the ' Get It Together ' theme , which I have only managed to erase from my memory after years of psychiatric therapy and drugs . Roy , in flimsy disco shirt and flares , welcomed the audience by jumping up and down and exclaiming " Hi ! " in a pseudo-Presley manner . As well as the bands , there was a regular dance group known as ' Him & Us ' , consisting of a pair of stunning twins called Teri and Lisa Scoble ( who played clones in the classic children's sci-fi series ' Timeslip ' ) and a handsome bloke whose name I never found out . They gyrated nicely enough , often to backgrounds provided by a zoetrope . ' Him & Us ' originally appeared on ' Shang-a-Lang ' , then progressed to ' Arrows ' , before winding up here . By that time , they had acquired a new member , and changed their name to ' Him & Us Plus One ' . I often wondered why they didn't think to rename themselves ' Them & Us ' . Perhaps it sounded too much like an incitement to class warfare . The kids present were quizzed , with Roy shoving a stick microphone down their throats . Often they got the answers right but the researchers had messed up the questions . An exception was the lad who , after hearing Billy Ocean's ' Red Light Spells Danger ' was asked to identify the colour in the title of the song . He said : " Green " . The nadir of the show , though , came when Roy tried to sing a hit of the day . One week , it was David Soul's ' Don't Give Up On Us Baby ' and , believe me when I say Owen Wilson's version in the ' Starsky & Hutch ' movie was Pavarotti by comparison . As Roy enunciated each syllable his teeth made rumba movements . Whoever his dentist was , he should have gotten an award for his services to his craft . Throughout the song , kids in jumpers could be seen nervously edging their way off the set . A few years back , Granada Plus brought back ' Shang-a-Lang ' and ' Supersonic ' ( now there was a cool show ! ) , but strangely omitted ' Get It Together ' . No justice , is there ? |
401,544 | 7,743,887 | 299,301 | 1 | Slaughterhouse More Like | Freddie Starr was , and still is , known as the ' wild man of comedy ' . He shot to stardom in the ' 70's after appearing on ' Opportunity Knocks ' , went on to headline L . W . T . ' s ' Who Do You Do ? ' , had a chart hit ( the soppy ' Its You ' ) and starred ( pardon the pun ) in several one-off specials . By far and away the worst thing he ever did , however , was this dreadful series , which looked as though it were televised live from a seedy Northern workingmen's club . The endless stream of tenth-rate gags was poorly delivered , though it didn't stop the studio audience from sounding as though they were on laughing gas . When Freddie , in the first episode , shrieked : " Ow ! My Nipple ! " , a woman could be heard expiring from hilarity . The poor quality of the show was all the more surprising because of the talent involved ; as well as Freddie , there was Russ Abbot , Bella Emberg , Toni Palmer , Norman Collier and Mike Newman . After one series , Freddie quit , and the show was relaunched as the much funnier ' Russ Abbot's Saturday Madhouse ' . |
401,361 | 7,743,887 | 260,601 | 1 | Harry Does A Hancock | One minute , you're up , the next , you're down . Tony Hancock quit the B . B . C . at the height of his popularity to do an inferior show for I . T . V . , an experience from which he never recovered professionally . Harry Enfield , alas , didn't learn from this , quitting the B . B . C . to make this horrible Sky One production , which , apparently , even he didn't bother to watch . Enfield is an amazingly talented comedian , but alas was let down by the atrocious material , shoddy production values and mediocre supporting cast . Paul Whitehouse and Kathy Burke were sadly missed . Some of Harry's new characters - such as James Bond's idiot brother , and the sex-mad fisherman - look and sound like rejects from ' The Fast Show ' . One sketch consists almost entirely of profanity . Unlike Hancock , Harry is thankfully still with us , and one hopes he gets his career back on track one day . ' Brand Spanking New Show ' was a criminal waste of his talent , an insult to Harry's many fans , for which the people behind it deserve a good spanking . |
400,675 | 7,743,887 | 931,335 | 1 | People In Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones | I never thought I'd find myself feeling sorry for Britney Spears , Lindsay Lohan , Tom Cruise , Kevin Federline , Heather Mills , Geri Halliwell , George Michael , Jamie Oliver et al . This programme listed 100 celebrities ( movie and pop stars , presenters , comedians , footballers , and politicians ) who have in some way or other teed off the nation in the last year . Except for me , because I do not read tacky tabloids , gossip magazines nor watch soap operas , sport or reality shows . What I found really annoying , however , were the presenters / showbiz journalists / comedians / gossip columnists presiding over this trial by television , amongst them Carole Malone , Kevin O'Sullivan , Gina Yashere , Ian Hyland and Polly Graham , all of whom were clucking like mother hens . You have never seen a more aggressive , rude and pompous bunch in your life . So what if Britney chooses not to wear panties when she goes nightclubbing ? Its a free world , isn't it ? ( Being a man , I must defend this habit ! ) Does it really matter whether or not Jade Goody has made a career out of being a simpleton ? Aren't there more urgent problems facing the world right now ? As someone who used to be a journalist ( albeit only for a local paper with a circulation confined to doctor's surgeries ) , I can safely say that your average news hound - male or female - drunk out of his / her mind is a more repellent sight than a rock star misbehaving at an awards show . One of my colleagues used to take delight in dropping her underwear whenever intoxicated . Another had a serious gambling addiction . They should be the last people on Earth to condemn others . Interestingly , the narrator was ex-'Blue Peter ' presenter Richard Bacon , himself no stranger to controversy . Besides , without Britney et al , how would they sell their rags ? Showbiz scandals are the lifeblood of tabloid journalism . They would be the first to complain if George Michael ' kept it in his pants ' and thus deprived them of good copy . The programme was little more than an excuse for a lot of untalented nobodies to vent their frustration on air at not being invited to more parties . |
400,761 | 7,743,887 | 78,675 | 1 | A Crime Thriller That Went Lame And Had To Be Shot | Basing a television series on a popular author's works is no guarantee of success . Yorkshire Television learnt this the hard way when in 1979 they bought the rights to the books credited to Dick Francis , three of which were broadcast under the collective title ' The Racing Game ' . Mike Gwilym was Sid Halley , a former jockey turned private eye following an accident in which he lost his right hand , only to have it replaced by an artificial one . Gwilym suffered from an acute lack of charisma ( and looked like one of the bad guys ) while Mick Ford ( who played the irritating Chico Barnes ) made me think of a horse's arse whenever he was on screen . For six weeks , this less-than dynamic duo charged about the countryside , foiling nefarious plots to fix races , usually by the same methods - blackmail , kidnapping riders or doping horses . Yorkshire Television threw money at the show , but to no avail . Violent , sexist , far-fetched and repetitious , it was quickly carted off to the knackers yard . |
401,635 | 7,743,887 | 124,809 | 1 | The End Of The Road For Eric And Ernie | In 1977 , Morecambe and Wise were at the top of their game . Their Christmas Show of that year was watched by a staggering 28 million people . They had become a national institution . So what made them quit the B . B . C . ? Money ? No , there was more to it than that . Thames Television had a feature film division - Euston Films - and Eric and Ernie , unhappy with their earlier big screen offerings , wanted a second bite of the celluloid cherry . The result was ' Night Train To Murder ' which , astonishingly , was made on videotape . Set in 1946 , it stars our heroes as two down on their luck entertainers . Catherine , Eric's niece , turns up at the theatre where they are performing . Hiding in the wings is a masked assassin . . . Sensing a chance to make some money , the lads appoint themselves her ' guardians ' . Sinister lawyer Mackay goes with them to Scotland and here we get one of the film's few funny scenes as Eric and Ernie's Poker hands change each time their train enters a tunnel . At Austin Hall , they encounter a cast of likely victims / suspects , amongst them battle axe Lady Flora , Velda the vamp , a Lurch-style butler and Kenneth Haigh in a variety of roles . Before you can say ' Cluedo ' , bodies fall out of closets , windows fly open , lightning flashes across the sky , and rats scurry in the basement . On paper this all must have looked good . Alas , instead of being another ' The Cat And The Canary ' , it has more in common with Gene Wilder's 1986 turkey ' Haunted Honeymoon ' . Eric and Ernie ( who co-wrote the script with director Joe McGrath ) made a mistake in trying a parody a genre exhausted through over parody . Everyone from The Two Ronnies to Frankie Howerd and Michael Palin has had a go at this subject matter at one time or another . With mostly greater success . Besides , Eric and Ernie were getting a bit long in the tooth by 1983 ; Eric in particular looks tired , which isn't surprising as he had recently undergone a heart operation . But what really sinks the film is Joe McGrath's inept direction . His misjudges the mood of every scene ; the scary bits don't scare , the funny bits . . . well , work it out for yourself . Despite the odd amusing moment , this misfires on all levels . Eric thought so too ; it wasn't screened until well after his death . It was only sympathy for the loss of a great comedian that stopped this from being torn to pieces by the critics and public . |
400,927 | 7,743,887 | 396,983 | 1 | Defective Commentaries | In theory , ' Director's Commentary ' should have worked . The talented Rob Bryden plays Peter DeLane , a former television director recounting his experiences behind the camera . Amongst the programmes he is alleged to have worked on are ' Bonanza ' , ' Flambards ' , ' The Duchess Of Duke Street ' , and ' The Bounder ' . His commentaries are not the least bit informative , due to his habit of wandering off the point . But in practice , it failed dismally . It is a one-joke show , and the joke is not particularly funny . The scripts are completely lacking in wit , and Bryden fails to convince as an old man . Whenever stuck for anything amusing to say , which is like every five seconds , he issues a hissing laugh . Rather than being amused by DeLane , you want to shoot him . If senile old men strike you as hilarious , then this is for you . It didn't help that the shows mocked were , with the exceptions of ' Mr & Mrs ' and ' Crossroads ' , rather good . For the joke to work , they needed to be really dreadful such as ' Charlie's Angels ' , ' O . T . T . ' , ' Telly Addicts ' , ' Neighbours ' , and ' New Faces ' . The show tanked big time , so thankfully we are spared the horror of future editions . Wouldn't it be deliciously ironic if ' Director's Commentary ' were someday itself the subject of a spoof ? |
401,115 | 7,743,887 | 810,762 | 1 | An Audience With The Woodentops Would've Been More Fun | When I heard about this , I thought it sounded interesting . How , I wondered , would they fit a street inside a small television studio to face an audience of D-listers ? Then I watched and realised my mistake . It was the cast of ' Coronation Street ' , not the street itself . Silly me ! With L . W . T . now part of Granada , I suppose a programme like this was inevitable . In terms of sheer inanity , it almost beat ' Russell Harty Meets Upstairs , Downstairs ' from way back in the ' 70's . Isn't it bad enough that we have to endure the ' Coronation Street ' gang doing whatever it is they get paid huge sums for ( it sure ain't called acting ) most week-nights , without this bilge being inflicted on us ? If I want bad singing , dancing , jokes etc . , I'll go to my local workingmen's club , not stay at home and watch the telly . At least there you get the privilege of heckling . The reverential tone displayed towards ' Coronation Street ' is disturbing to say the least . Its like watching a bizarre religious cult at work , preparing to hand over their cash and lay down their lives in a futile cause . ' Star Trek ' fans are often the butts of media sneers , yet soap opera addicts are regarded as nice , normal people indulging in a healthy obsession . Well , take it from me , there's nothing healthy about being obsessed whether or not Emily Bishop's remembered to put roses on Ernie's grave on the anniversary of his shooting . |
401,094 | 7,743,887 | 267,212 | 1 | Highly Questionable Time | Under the chairmanship of the late Sir Robin Day in the ' 80's , ' Question Time ' was a lively , stimulating political debate show . These days , however , it resembles ' The Muppet Show ' . We are told each week by David Dimbleby that the studio audience is composed of members of the public , yet I spotted the Chairman of the Young Conservatives ( as it was then called ) on one edition and he unsurprisingly agreed with the Tory Minister's line on Europe . It got me wondering just how many in that theatre are ordinary people , and how many are rabid Tory activists . Practically every question is anti-Labour . Apart from being grossly unfair it makes for dull , repetitive viewing . The quality of the quests is not what it was either , whereas we would once get John Smith , Roy Jenkins and Denis Healey , we now have to make do with Z-list celebrities Shilpa Shetty , Davina McCall , and that - boy - who - used - to - play - Nicky Tilsley-in-'Coronation Street ' . Basil Brush has not been on it yet , but one day he surely will . Probably the speaker who got up my nose the most was Ann Widdecombe , a rude , pushy woman disinterested in the views of others . The guests never miss a chance to play to the gallery . I found this out one week when the question was " Should a 16 year old be allowed to win the National Lottery ? " . A female S . N . P . councillor replied that the winner could use his / her winnings to pay for school tuition fees . As no-one laughed , she repeated the comment in a louder voice , until she got the desired effect . Occasionally someone makes a right twit of himself on the show . During a debate on whether the age of consent for gays should be reduced from 21 to 16 , a man in the audience commented : " I don't hold with it as it is defying God ! " to which Dimbleby responded : " So its alright to defy God at 21 ? " . The man was speechless . Then there was the subject of Colonel Qaddafi's chemical weapons factories - should they be bombed ? The questioner was adamant they should not be on the grounds that it was unsafe , but then proposed an alternative : " Send in commandos and get them to blow the place up ! " . Oh yeah , that would have been much safer , wouldn't it . A gimmick has recently been added - text messages flashing up on the screen . These witty comments range from ' Don't like his tie ' to ' what a funny looking woman ' . You come away no wiser about many of the issues being debated . Watch ' Newsnight ' instead . |
401,474 | 7,743,887 | 227,919 | 1 | Ma-Na-Ma-Na ! | Shameful Confession Time : I used to find Little & Large hilarious . Already I can hear the sound of jaws dropping in amazement . That time , dear friends , was in 1970 when I was eight years old , and Syd and Eddie were to be found each week on the long-running kids ' variety show ' Crackerjack ! ' . Michael Aspel did the quiz show section , but Little & Large ( supported by Stuart Sherwin ) got to do the funny stuff , as successors to the golden team of Leslie Crowther and Peter Glaze ( I recall them in a ' Star Trek ' spoof with Eddie as ' Mr . Spock ' ) . For the uninitiated , Little & Large were a comedy double-act who came to public prominence on ' Opportunity Knocks ! ' and who basically consisted of Eddie Large and . . . Eddie Large . There was another guy in glasses and white hair , but I forget his name . Oh yes ! I remember now ! John Major ! Had John ( sorry , Syd ) and Eddie stuck to amusing us tots , all would have been well . But in 1976 , Thames unwisely gave them a peak-time extravaganza , wittily entitled ' The Little & Large Telly Show ' . Frankly , it stunk . As Clive James pointed out at the time , the boys had one act between them which they flogged to death , namely ' Supersonic ' Syd attempting to sing a song while Eddie interrupted him with ( admittedly good ) impersonations of Cliff Richard , Deputy Dawg , Benny from ' Crossroads ' , Hylda Baker , Oliver Hardy , and others . They were still using this basic routine in 1991 when they got fired from the B . B . C . Tony Hatch conducted the orchestra and occasionally was the butt of the lads ' jokes . He later commented : " When I watch , I think ' oh God , how can I go on ' New Faces ' again after this ? ' . He was right to be embarrassed . The show only had one basic set . In addition to Syd , Eddie , and Tony , there was also a gaggle of female backing singers , who trilled the names of the stars by way of a theme tune . If ' Telly Show ' deserves to be remembered at all , its for putting the horrendous novelty single ' Ma-Na-Ma-Na ' back in the pop charts . That should tell you how bad it was . Thankfully , only one season was made , but Syd and Eddie did not need to worry as they were snapped up by the B . B . C . where their show became a Saturday night fixture for years , along with ' All Creatures & Small ' and ' Jim'll Fix It ' . I am not averse to childish comedy ( I rather like Norman Wisdom , The Grumbleweeds , and Don Knotts ) but Syd and Eddie's seeming inability to develop their comedy made them for me about as amusing as having teeth drilled . I also hate double-acts where one man does all the work . Interviewed some years back on ' Who Killed Saturday Night T . V . ? ' , Eddie Large made the following interesting observation : " You put two men hitting each other with frying pans on B . B . C . - 1 on a Saturday night , and people think its stupid . Show the same thing on Channel 4 at 11 P . M . and people think its cutting-edge comedy . " . He never said a truer word in his life . |
400,923 | 7,743,887 | 462,212 | 1 | Why Reward Rubbish ? | With so many award shows around now you'd be forgiven for wondering why there isn't a ' British Award Show Awards ' . It would be more fun than ' The British Soap Awards ' , an annual nightmare in which the worst programmes on British television battle it out for trophies which , rather appropriately , are made of plastic . The problem is that the soaps look and sound alike , with wobbly sets , lousy scripts , bad music and acting that makes the cast of ' Thunderbirds ' look good . They have one storyline between them , which they flog to death , namely the adulterous affair . Have you noticed how nobody ever dies of old age in these shows ? What criteria do the judges use to pick the winners ? Does someone put on a blindfold and stick a pin in a list of the nominees ? How nice it would be if one of the winners used his / her acceptance speech to denounce the genre as ' utter crap ' ! Whatever next ? ' The British Dustbin Awards ' ? |
401,459 | 7,743,887 | 94,074 | 1 | Super Flop ! | One of the most eagerly awaited movies of 1987 was ' Superman 4 : The Quest For Peace ' . Christopher Reeve claimed it would be a throwback to the epic style of the original , with Gene Hackman back as Lex Luthor and Margot Kidder returning as Lois Lane despite her earlier threat to quit , it certainly looked that way . But it was not to be . Alexander Salkind , producer of the first three movies , had sold the rights to The Cannon Group , a production company specialising in mostly forgettable , low budget fare such as ' King Solomon's Mines ' . They were bound to mess it up - and did . Derivative storyline , ham acting , atrocious S . F . X . , and poor direction , it had all these . The scene where Mariel Hemingway's character survives being in outer space without oxygen had me goggling in disbelief . Christopher Reeve later attacked the movie on the B . B . C . ' s ' Wogan ' show , without referring to the producers by name . We can only give thanks that Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus never got round to making ' Spider-Man ' ! |
401,114 | 7,743,887 | 68,069 | 1 | A Right Load Of Manure | The accepted myth is that from 1972-89 , ' Emmerdale Farm ' consisted entirely of Annie Sugden brewing tea in the kitchen while Matt and Joe ate doorstep sandwiches and discussed the best way to fix a broken tractor . Even I . T . V . - 1 allowed the myth to fester in their ' Emmerdale Family Album ' programmes . But it was never like that . Had it been so , it would have gotten cancelled - and rightly so . User ' mathewowen ' describes ' Emmerdale Farm ' as ' having shed its image as a boring drama ' . It never had one . I think he has confused ' boring ' with ' believable ' . From 1972-89 , ' Emmerdale Farm ' was a natural , true-to-life series with interesting characters ( ' Amos Brierly ' and ' Mr . Wilkes ' spring to mind ) and it didn't insult the intelligence of its audience . Then something dreadful happened . ' Brookside ' maestro Phil Redmond was brought in to fix something that wasn't broken . Like a film of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis played in reverse , ' Emmerdale Farm ' was reborn as . . . wait for it . . . ' EMMERDALE ' ! In one of the most tasteless soap story lines of all time , a plane crashed on the village of Beckendale , mirroring the real-life Lockerbie disaster of the previous year . More than just a few minor characters died . So did the show's spirit , its soul , its individuality . These days , ' Emmerdale ' rivals ' Eastenders ' for sheer stupidity , with shouting in lieu of acting , and formulaic plots about adultery , adultery , and , oh yes , adultery . Don't get me started on the Dingles ! There're like something out of ' Viz ' ! The ridiculous title sequence sets the tone for the show , featuring an over-orchestrated arrangement of Tony Hatch's theme , and pictures of people not in the actual programme , as ' Harry Hill's T . V . Burp ' cynically pointed out . I've recently submitted a script to the ' Emmerdale ' production office . It begins with a nuclear explosion in ' The Woolpack ' and the radiation it unleashes causes the beer in the pumps to mutate into a sentient life form . Think they'll use it ? |
401,388 | 7,743,887 | 317,200 | 1 | The British Tragedy Awards , More Like | I look forward to ' The British Comedy Awards ' each year because it provides me with an excellent excuse to go out for the evening . This annual jamboree has got it all ; talentless , big headed ' comedians ' winning awards despite their shows being absolute rubbish ; incoherent , rambling ' thank you ' speeches ; endless close-ups of grinning nobodies in tuxedos , obnoxious behaviour from Jonathan Ross ( his belittling of Rod Hull was inexcusable ) was and , of course , loads of swearing . Wa-hay , lads ! Why do these people still think swear words have any shock value left ? I wasn't offended by Julian Clary's ' fisting ' comment because it was mild compared to what you normally hear at this non-event . Worse , the occasion lends a veneer of respectability to the most appalling shows . Dare to venture a mildly derogatory comment about , say , ' Little Britain ' and you'll get the reply : " How come it won a ' Comedy Award ' then ? " . I would love to know the criteria used to pick the winners . It would seem that the awards are handed out on the basis of how much publicity the winner's private life has attracted . Which explains why Michael Barrymore was so successful for so long . And as for ' Mr . Blobby ' winning an award , well it speaks for itself , doesn't it ? |
401,310 | 7,743,887 | 261,106 | 1 | Night Of A Thousand Knives More Like ! | As the twenty-first century dawned , the B . B . C . decided to put out a special programme commemorating its finest achievements . Michael Parkinson hosted , and the studio was packed with celebrities . I tuned in hoping to see clips of long forgotten shows , maybe learn something of how they came to be made . What we got instead though was less of a celebration , more of a cremation . The rot started with an odd black and white clip of a man dancing energetically outside the B . B . C . T . V . Centre . Parky failed to tell us what show it came from . It looked like Michael Bentine's ' Its A Square World ' to me ( the ex-Goon was forever using the Centre as a venue for elaborate gags ) . Parky's only comment was " the next time anyone mentions the golden age of television , remind them of that ! " . Hang on mate . You should have done your homework . That clip might have been intentionally funny . Not that the audience gave a monkey's . The director then treated us to a close up of some chinless wonder in a tuxedo braying like a donkey . Either he had imbibed too much brandy or his sense of humour was seriously underdeveloped . I presumed he must be the Commissioning Editor of B . B . C . - 3's Comedy Department . Next up was Jeremy Irons , chatting about his time as a presenter on the children's show ' Play Away ! ' . He was clearly embarrassed . Why , I wondered , was it here at all . ' Play Away ! ' was a charming show ( Tony Robinson also featured on it ) in its day , but hardly one of Auntie's masterpieces . Ernest Maxin , ex-producer of ' The Morecambe & Wise Show ' , was mocked for referring to his stars ' faces as ' gorgeous ' . I think he meant it in the sense that they were funny , rather than ' sexy ' , but the audience seemed not to grasp this . Among the classic drama series featured was ' Dr . Who ' . Now I like the show , but do not think it should be compared with ' I Claudius ' , ' The Forsyte Saga ' and ' Edge Of Darkness ' . The audience laughed maniacally as the Cyber-Leader menaced a curly-headed Tom Baker . It hailed from a 1975 adventure entitled ' Revenge Of The Cybermen ' , not generally held in high esteem by Whovians . It dawned on me . This was the latest in a long line of shows designed to rebuff criticism of present day B . B . C . programmes by subjecting its past output to public ridicule . Other examples of the genre include ' I Can't Believe I Watched that ! ' and ' I Love The ' 70's / ' 80's / ' 90's ' . An out-of-context clip will be shown , followed by some would-be comedian making a smart aleck remark . A few of the items were generally amusing , such as Parky reading aloud an internal B . B . C . memo predicting that ' Fawlty Towers ' would flop . How wrong can you be ? The exploding B . B . C . T . V . Centre from the ' Goodies ' episode ' Sex And Violence ' was aired , much to Bill Oddie's obvious delight . But the nadir of the whole evening came when Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer attempted to recreate a classic Morecambe and Wise sketch . Alongside Tom Jones , they mimed ( ' yeh ! yeh ! yeh ! ' ) to ' Exactly Like You ' . Now I know that Reeves and Mortimer have often been likened to Eric and Ernie ( put Vic in glasses and a hat and the resemblance to the former is uncanny ) , but you would think they would have the good sense not to copy one of their most famous musical numbers . It would be as sacrilegious as them putting on bowlers and trying to be Laurel and Hardy . One person in the audience unamused by the routine was Ronnie Barker . He asked the B . B . C . to edit it out of the broadcast . They refused . Well intentioned it may have been , but as the original sketch still exists it was hard to see why they bothered . Parky wrapped things up by stating that the B . B . C . had ' made the popular good , and the good popular ' . I agree , but why devote seventy minutes on a Saturday night to making the good look ludicrous ? As an archive T . V . enthusiast , shindigs like this make me despair . Its like going into a public library and tearing up old books simply because they were produced differently to modern day editions . Why not just show the programmes and allow us to make up our own minds as to whether they were bad or not ? Or is that too much to ask ? |
401,496 | 7,743,887 | 327,162 | 1 | Easily The Worst And Most Unnecessary Remake Ever ! | Its disturbing to note the number of classic ' 70's films that have had their reputations trashed by ' remakes ' - ' The Wicker Man ' , ' The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ' , ' The Omen ' , ' Assault On Precinct 13 ' and now this . Ira Levin's novel was not a laugh-out-loud comedy , and neither was Bryan Forbes ' 1975 movie , but this Frank Oz-directed film tries to be - and fails dismally . The screenplay adheres closely to the original story , but over-eggs the pudding with ' funny ' one-liners , and a ludicrous ' happy ' ending which makes the finale of the 1980 ' Revenge Of The Stepford Wives ' T . V . movie seem believable by comparison . The story was intended as a darkly humorous comment on the women's lib movement , as the male population of a small American town tries to reverse the tide of feminism by murdering their wives and replacing them with robot doubles , replicas both obedient and beautiful . But the tone of the original has been allowed to leak away ; this lumbering travesty has the look and feel of a 1960's sitcom . About the only thing missing is a laugh track . As for the performances , Nicole Kidman is so wooden that when she first appeared I thought she had already been ' replaced ' . Bette Midler , is as always , terrible . Glenn Close , Christopher Walken and Matthew Broderick could have phoned in their performances . The exact nature of the duplications is confused - are the women being replaced by robots , or simply brainwashed ? For most of the picture , it appears to be the former , but when Broderick shuts down the control centre at the climax , the wives regain their personalities , suggesting the latter . What a cop-out . I have heard complaints that the 1975 movie was ' cheesy ' . Well , let me put the record straight . Fashions , hairstyles , technology etc . may have changed dramatically since the 70's , but the fact remains that Bryan Forbes ' movie is a far better picture than this one . William Goldman's script did not insult the intelligence of the audience , and Katherine Ross and Paula Prentiss outclass Kidman and Midler . On the cheeseometer , the remake registers as pure Stilton . I wonder which sci-fi classic will be next in line for the same treatment . John Frankenheimer's ' Seconds ' ? Will the remake end with ' Tony Wilson ' ( the Rock Hudson character in the original ) cracking lame gags as a Company doctor drills his skull ? |
401,196 | 7,743,887 | 824,182 | 1 | Why Mel & Griff Are The Real Two Ninnies | In the final ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' , Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones famously put the boot into ' The Two Ronnies ' with ' The Two Ninnies ' . It wasn't an affectionate parody , more a savage attack . They cruelly berated Barker and Corbett for doing the same sort of jokes twenty years later ( inaccurate as ' The Two Ronnies ' had only been on for ten years at that point ) . How hypocritical for Smith and Jones then to front this show , which features them doing exactly the same thing ! ' Alas Smith & Jones ' was one of the best sketch shows of the ' 80's , but this ' tribute ' series did it no favours . ' The Two Ronnies ' compilations featured uncut material , here we got only excerpts interspersed with weak links . Are today's viewers so dim they need to have a joke explained before they see it ? Even Mel and Griff looked embarrassed , as well they might . Fortunately , the ' head-to-head ' sketches stand up well even now . After ' Morons From Outer Space ' and now this , a little humility from Mel and Griff would not go amiss . |
401,240 | 7,743,887 | 1,093,829 | 1 | Happy Birthday - Now Get Lost ! | If ever there was a prime example of a television show running well beyond its natural lifespan , its surely ' Coronation Street ' . This , the granddaddy of British soaps , appears to have been on our screens since The Pleistocene Era , and shows no signs whatever of ending . I envy its writers for being able to churn out any old rubbish on a weekly basis and still get that B . A . F . T . A . every year for ' Best Soap ' . In 1990 , the show celebrated its thirtieth anniversary , providing yet another excuse for back-slapping and masturbatory retrospectives . What made this one worse than most was that it took the form of an entertainment show , a sort of ' This Is Your Life ' with cobblestones , hosted by the doyen of bad entertainment shows Cilla Black . It opened with about a dozen or so camp-looking young men in tight trousers and flimsy shirts prancing about a replica Street to the sound of Alyn Ainsworth-style big band music . I thought for one moment I'd accidentally tuned into a previously unseen Stanley Baxter sketch , but no such luck . It set the tone for what followed . Cilla then appeared and welcomed the studio audience , which strangely was made up entirely of the show's cast , past and present . Could they not find any members of the public willing to watch this slop ? A few , such as Peter Baldwin and Sherrie Hewson , were sacked soon afterwards by incoming producer Brian Park , so despite the jollity there was a funereal air to the extravaganza , like watching an anthill before a farmer puts his foot on it . Celebrities of the calibre of Joanna Lumley and Gorden Kaye were wheeled out to tell us how they got on in life by doing cough-and-spit roles in the show , and grainy clips shown to gasps of amazement from the audience . Stars from other soaps including Todd Carty and Letitia Dean gushed about what a wonderful show ' The Street ' was , and dear old Ronnie Corbett cracked jokes with a soap theme . Whenever he reached a punchline , the cameraman focused on a laughing Johnny Briggs . The reverential attitude Cilla displayed towards ' Coronation Street ' put one in mind of Burt Lancaster in ' Elmer Gantry ' , the programme had the air of a gathering of fervent religious types . You expected the audience to get to its feet en masse and begin swaying and clapping while chanting : " Happy Birthday ! Happy Birthday ! Happy Birthday To The Street ! . Had The Pope been brought in to say what a great fan he was , I would not have been remotely surprised . The ultimate horror , though , was when kids were shown imitating ' Street ' cast members . One girl did such a good impression of gravel-voiced pensioner Phyllis Pearce ( Jill Summers ) that her clip was shown three times before the end titles rolled . I lost the will to live at this point and slipped on ' The Best Of Little & Large ' video . Though I . T . V . have never done anything quite as bad as this since , they have come remarkably close . A recent ' Emmerdale ' tribute was equally sick making , with old-timers such as Frazer Hines telling us how rubbish the show was when he was in it and how brilliant it is now . As for ' Coronation Street ' , I would welcome a storyline in which aliens from the planet Zorb blasted the place to smithereens with lasers - if only to save us from fatuous twaddle such as this . ( In case you think I have been too hard here , let me point out that ' Daily Mirror ' critic and soap lover Hilary Kingsley also hated this ' tribute ' with a vengeance . She titled her review ' Black Night For The Street ' ) . |
401,610 | 7,743,887 | 217,211 | 1 | Loose Teeth ! | I have a theory as to why ' Loose Women ' exists . The Government have been making a lot of noise recently about how disabled people should be made to look for work . ' Loose ' is obviously intended to get the ' slackers ' out of their wheelchairs and into the Job Centres . It is so stupid and mind-numbingly boring as to defy description . Its a simple recipe : take four middle-aged has-beens ( one a failed soap actress , one an over-the-hill pop singer , one whose only claim to fame is that her husband ditched her as soon as he got famous , and one of whom I've never heard ) , give them a glass of gin each , and put them on air . As one would expect , the main topic of conversation is sex . If none of these women were famous , odds are they'd be hard pressed to get any . Every time the word ' sex ' is mentioned , the studio audience - mostly made up of hysterical grandmothers - goes into hyper drive . The guests consist mainly of thespians plugging their latest film / play / T . V . show . But the highlight of each show is a phone-in quiz which taxes the viewer's intellect with such difficult questions as ' In which street is ' Coronation Street ' set ? ' . Kaye is bossy , Colleen bland , Sherrie ( when she's there ) is loud , as is Denise , and Carol can't utter a sentence without blaming The Government for something or other . They tried Lesley Garrett on the show , without much success . She was too much of a lady to fit in with this dreary bunch . One final thought : we live in an age of so-called ' sexual equality ' , so why isn't there a show called ' Loose Men ' ? |
401,095 | 7,743,887 | 268,862 | 1 | The Reekest Stink | This has all the entertainment value of having teeth pulled without anaesthetic . When I first saw it , I thought I'd tuned into an old war film by mistake , with Anne Robinson playing a Nazi interrogator . The lady was once a ' Daily Mirror ' columnist and when Robert Maxwell fell off the ' Lady Ghislaine ' in 1991 she penned a grovelling eulogy that ended with ; " He enriched many lives . Mine was one of them . " . Oh dear ! Why do the contestants on the receiving end of her sharp tongue not remind her of this ? Not to mention her obvious face lifts . If she has one more she'll float away . I fail to see why people waste their time watching this tripe . When you've seen one episode you've seen them all . The American people are with me on this . Where do they get the contestants from ? A home for the terminally charmless ? Many look and sound as though they've been doped . The main prize isn't worth the effort . With this , we're one step closer to the kind of ' torture game show ' as depicted in the Schwartzenegger movie ' The Running Man ' . As you may have gathered from the above , I'm Welsh and proud of it and have a big chip on my shoulder when it comes to Anne ! |
401,003 | 7,743,887 | 1,068,700 | 1 | Old McDonald Had A Show . . . | Alistair Campbell wrote in his diaries that he once contemplated suicide . After reading fifteen pages , I know just how he feels . . That was the best ' gag ' in a recent edition of ' News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald ' . After fifteen seconds of the first show , I too felt like doing away with myself . Proof if any were needed that satire is dead in the 21st century , ' News Knight ' tries hard to be another ' Have I Got News For You ' - a host presides over a panel of three guests , and invites them to make sharp , witty comments on the week's news . Unfortunately , none of them do . The rivalry that made ' H . I . G . N . F . Y . ' so much fun is conspicuously missing . Among the panel is Marcus Brigstocke , described ( but not by me ) as one of ' Britain's youngest , brightest comedians ' . He's appeared on so many similar shows one imagines he has ' Satire Show Guest ' written on his passport . He might be hilarious after a few drinks down at the pub , but on television he comes across as a smug so-and-so without a funny bone in his body . Invited to make fun of the Alistair Campbell book , he couldn't do so and instead resorted to cheap insult . Frankie Boyle was better , but the worst thing about this programme is Sir Trevor himself , who these days bears an uncomfortable resemblance to his ' Spitting Image ' puppet . Sir Trev's delivery is so bad one wonders if he thinks he's auditioning for the job of a speak your weight machine . Hot on the heels of Ben Elton's dud ' Get A Grip ' , ' News Knight ' is marginally less amusing than its namesake - ' Newsnight ' - on B . B . C . - 2 . At least Jeremy Paxman knows how to be both funny and intelligent . |
401,383 | 7,743,887 | 90,323 | 1 | Wild Cheese 2 | ' The Wild Geese ' ( 1978 ) , by no means a classic , was Oscar winning stuff compared to this stinker . Edward Fox plays the brother of the Richard Burton character ; the dialogue at the start tries to imply that Eddie was out there alongside Richard in the African veldt . Oh no he wasn't ! Based on Daniel Carney's ' The Square Circle ' , this is rubbish as adventure , lacking in action , being a compendium of the worst spy movie clichés of all time . At one point , someone even says : " We ask the questions ! " . Roger Moore had the good sense to turn it down , instead we get Scott Glenn looking as though he's stepped off the set of ' Westworld ' , and Barbara Carrera as the token crumpet . The plot concerns a publicity seeking U . S . news network hiring mercenaries to free Rudolf Hess from Spandau prison . Whilst it was possible to root for the original Wild Geese as they rescued a democratically-elected Prime Minister , its impossible to care if Glenn , Fox and Carrera spring Hess . Luckily for us , Euan Lloyd retired not long afterwards . |
401,137 | 7,743,887 | 257,295 | 1 | A Human Pigsty | Television producers are notorious for their lack of irony . Peter Weir's ' The Truman Show ' warned of the dangers of taking reality television too far . Those geniuses at Endemol U . K . couldn't have paid heed because each summer ' Big Brother ' stinks up Channel 4's schedules like an overflowing dustbin in a heatwave . Its odd now to look back at that first series and see how normal the contestants were compared with those of recent years . Now the show's rules are being deliberately ignored so that ' voted-out ' contestants can be brought back , resulting in understandable viewer fury . Why have rules if they can't be bothered to obey them ? ' B . B . ' deserves to be pilloried for giving undeserved media exposure to obnoxious , arrogant , foul-mouthed types who clearly belong in a mental home . With any luck it will one day be consigned to the same fate as ' The Black & White Minstrel Show ' - unloved and forgotten , a relic of a shameful era when the lowest common denominator reigned supreme on British television . |
401,343 | 7,743,887 | 77,040 | 1 | Leave It ! | The history of television is strewn with bad programmes with ' Charlie ' in the title - ' Charlie's Angels ' , ' Father Charlie ' , ' Charlie's Garden Army ' , and this . ' Leave It To Charlie ' was originally a short-lived 1975 Granada sitcom entitled ' The Life Of Riley ' , starring Bill Maynard as Frank Riley , a happy-go-lucky agent for The Lancastrian Assurance Company . Someone at Granada must have liked it because back it came in 1978 , starring ' The Cuckoo Waltz's ' David Roper as Charlie Fisher , a happy-go-lucky agent for The Lancastrian Insurance Company . Roper was every bit as annoying here as he was in ' Waltz ' . Peter Sallis was wasted as dithering Arthur Simister , Gwen Cherrell played his forgetful wife , Sally Kinghorn the scatterbrained secretary , and Jean Heywood as Charlie's easily amused landlady . Oh yes , there was also a bloke played by David Ross whose teeth fell out whenever he spoke . H . V . Kershaw , who created and wrote this , was a staff writer on ' Coronation Street ' - an immeasurably funnier show in my view . |
400,937 | 7,743,887 | 86,819 | 1 | Supermarket From Hell | We shall never know what made Leonard Rossiter agree to star in this feeble Thames sitcom . It certainly couldn't have been the quality of the scripts . Though penned by Brian Cooke , one half of the writing team behind ' Man About The House ' and ' George & Mildred ' , they proved about as funny as anthrax . The show cast Rossiter as ' Norman Tripper ' , the permanently harassed manager of a supermarket whose staff are either lazy or incompetent . Typical of the show's level of humour is the fact that two characters are named ' Laurel ' and ' Hardy ' so that Tripper can make a reference to ' Laurel & Hardy ' the comedy duo . As Tripper , its easily Rossiter's least distinguished comedy performance , though this is not his fault . Tripper comes across as a weak ' Basil Fawlty ' clone , constantly shouting his not very funny lines to no avail . Midway through the transmission of this series , Rossiter passed away , making ' Tripper's Day ' his last ever work for television . Shame . He deserved a better epitaph than this . |
401,494 | 7,743,887 | 94,517 | 1 | A Mystery How It Lasted So Long | Though it began in 1988 , ' M . S . T . 3 . K . ' didn't arrive in the U . K . until the late ' 90's , when Season 9 was shown by The Sci-Fi Channel . I was given to understand it had a cult following among American teenagers , presumably the sort who chew gum a lot and wear ear-plugs to bed to stop their brains spilling out on to the pillows . The first edition I saw featured Jack Arnold's ' Revenge Of The Creature ' , a mediocre film to be sure , but no turkey . I enjoyed the film as much as I could , but the segments involving Mike Nelson , Mary Jo Pehl , the robots and apes were so painfully unfunny I wanted to brain the writers and cast with that cheap-looking Airfix model that's supposed to represent a spaceship . And Bridget Jones should stick to sliding down fireman's poles . We were not allowed to view the films properly as they were continually talked over and interrupted by the dumb stuff . Some , such as ' Riding With Death ' and ' Cosmic Princess ' , were not movies at all ( a fact the cast conveniently neglected to mention ) , but compilations of old T . V . shows ( ' The Gemini Man ' and ' Space : 1999 ' to be exact ) and therefore should not have been included . One of the earlier editions had ' Revenge Of The Mysterons ' , made up of four episodes from ' Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons ' , a 1967 children's sci-fi show which is rightly regarded in the U . K . as a classic ( its recently been remade ) . To see the country that gave the world ' Galactica 1980 ' and the second season of ' Buck Rogers ' ( the one with ' Hawk ' ) sneering at this wonderfully imaginative show made me want to puke . An outrageous insult to Gerry and Sylvia Anderson . Its possible that ' M . S . T . ' was a good show in the early days , but there was no sign of quality in the episodes I viewed . Nelson had all the charm of a lavatory brush , while the tacky sets and tin-bath robots appeared to be left-overs from a bad kiddies show circa 1970 . Some of the movies , such as ' Agent For H . A . R . M . ' . and ' The Horror Of Party Beach ' deserved ridicule , but this was not the place to do it . The net effect was akin to a bald man laughing at one with a receding hairline . I have noticed that a number of I . M . D . B . reviewers have based their strong views of the films not on the originals , but on the ' M . S . T . 3 . K . ' versions . This isn't right . In Britain , ' M . S . T . 3 . K ' proved a ratings loser ( another triumph for British good taste ! ) . Seasons 10 and 11 were never shown here . I do not think we missed anything special . Thankfully , it is no longer with us . I hope that one day the show itself comes under fire from the comedians of the future , who regard the spectacle of a bad television show mocking bad movies as an act of hypocrisy . |
401,278 | 7,743,887 | 358,856 | 1 | Little Things Please Little Minds | No other show epitomises the decline of television comedy more than ' Little Britain ' . Its telling that its main audience are kids , the sort easily amused by swearing , vomiting and farting . If it keeps the little dears happy , that's fine by me . What I find odd though is how the nation seems to have clasped it to its collective bosom , almost as though its the best thing to happen to British comedy since Mrs . Chaplin gave birth to Charlie . Even ' The South Bank Show ' devoted an edition to it . What the hell is going on ? ' Little Britain ' is the creation of David Walliams and Matt Lucas , a double act who made Dailey & Wayne ( never heard of them ? I'm not surprised ! ) look good . Its main targets are the obese , incontinent and elderly . The contempt Lucas and Walliams has for these unfortunates has to be seen to be believed . Hitler would have adored this show . Lucas once did an advert for Cadbury's creme eggs in which his head spun round . It remains the highpoint of his career to date . ' I'm the only gay in this village ' wasn't funny the first time he said it . It must rank as the most banal comic catchphrase of all time . Why are this appalling pair allowed to make fun of black people when old shows like ' Curry & Chips ' and ' Love Thy Neighbour ' dare not be repeated for fear of giving offence ? What Tom Baker is doing associated with this swill is a mystery . I look forward to 2200 A . D . when ' Little Britain ' is mercilessly ridiculed by a ' Time Trumpet ' style show . In the meantime , give this abomination a wide berth . |
401,415 | 7,743,887 | 88,625 | 1 | Addicted to Noel ? No way ! | ' Telly Addicts ' started at roughly the same time as the second season of L . W . T . ' s ' We Love T . V . ' , hosted by Gloria Hunniford . Glo's show was inexplicably axed after only two seasons , despite being the superior of the two , while The Bearded Wonder's feeble effort dragged on for what seemed an eternity . Neither was an original idea ; I . T . V . ' s ' Those Wonderful T . V . Times ' beat them to the airwaves by a decade . The ' Telly Addicts ' set resembled a doss house in Croydon , with two sets of contestants facing one another , perched on moth-eaten sofas . Had anyone fallen asleep on air as a result of meths fumes inhalation , it would not have been surprising . The contestants had to answer questions about old television shows . Some of the answers were truly mind boggling ; for instance , replying to ' What was the premise of ' The Time Tunnel ' ? ' , an idiot said : " N . A . S . A . Control . " . Another round had contestants making berks of themselves by singing theme tunes while another required the identification of shows through old props . Particularly good were the Pain ( sic ) family who won every edition of the first season . They seemed pleasant enough but a number of ' Points Of View ' correspondents claimed their questions were easier than anybody else's . Really ! How cynical can you get ! What made ' Telly Addicts ' a turn-off for me personally was Noel himself , tightly clutching his ' hoofer-doofer ' , and bestriding the set like ' Talos ' from ' Jason & The Argonauts ' . He never missed a chance to rubbish old programmes - particularly old sci-fi shows such as ' Twilight Zone ' and the Irwin Allen series . I got the impression that sci-fi is not Noel's favourite viewing . Yet these were vastly superior to the majority of his television output . In a moment of madness , some fool at the B . B . C . sold the rights to Noel , meaning that if say Outer Mongolian T . V . wanted to put on a telly quiz , they first had to pay him a king's ransom . A ' Telly Addicts ' board game was later issued . I never bought it , but I bet it was more fun than watching the show . At least you could use the cardboard lid ( bearing Noel's grinning chops ) as a dartboard . |
401,290 | 7,743,887 | 127,369 | 1 | We'll Be Right Back After The Break ! | ' 3-2-1 ' is one of television's greatest enigmas . Though it ended two decades ago , even now I wonder from time-to-time : " Why ? " . Made by Yorkshire Television , it consisted basically of various formats bolted together ; game show , variety show , children's show ( Dusty Bin ) , all linked by a finger-twisting Ted Rogers . Poor Ted . Having made a name for himself on programmes such as ' Jokers Wild ' as a quick-witted comic , he then had the misfortune to find himself in this slop ( he later admitted that the early editions made him cringe ) . Ditto Fiona Curzon , who prior to becoming a ' 3-2-1 ' beauty had appeared in Granada's popular I . T . V . thriller show ' The X-Y-Y Man ' . And what of poor Caroline Munro , a one-time Hammer Horror starlet who had been in Bond and Sinbad movies , reduced to playing second fiddle to a dustbin ? Originating from Spain ( Margaret Forwood of The Sun said ' it was the most undesirable thing to come out of that country since bullfighting ' ) , it ran for nearly a decade . So someone must have liked it . What was its appeal ? Well , it had razzmatazzz by the bucketload ( Johnny Pearson's theme was the most bombastic ever written for the box ) , glamour ( a gang of Continental beauties called ' The Gentle Secs ' , one of whom - Mireille Allonville - had appeared in soft porn films ) , intrigue ( those cryptic clues would have baffled Sherlock Holmes ) , and the ever present threat of ' Dusty Bin ' . Initially , the bin was inert , but then they made him move . The sight of a grinning bin gliding across the floor of the studio sent a collective shiver up the spines of the nation . ' Dr . Who ' could not have done it better . One or two poor souls won it from time to time , and to compound their humiliation Ted then asked them to smile and wave at the camera . The worst thing about the show were the sketches , many of which seemed to have been originally written for ' Crackerjack ' . Some nights the cast looked genuinely embarrassed at having to perform them . The first episode had as a contestant a pre-Radio 1 Janice Long , who curiously neglected to mention that she was Keith Chegwin's sister ( this was years before ' Naked Jungle ' ) . The early shows featured Mike Newman , Chris Emmett , and Debbie Arnold making lame quips inbetween the questions . Emmett wheeled out his impression of then-Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan practically every week , but when Margaret Thatcher moved into 10 , Downing Street , political humour suddenly became noticeably absent . The show carried the credit : ' Production Associate Michael Sullivan ' . The late Mr . Sullivan was a top showbiz agent , meaning that a lot of the ' 3-2-1 ' guest-stars came straight off his books . A young Mark Heap appeared in one edition ( I'm sure he's proud to have it on his C . V . ) . Easy to be cynical now , but ' 3-2-1 ' was huge in its day . They could not get away with it today though . Could they ? |
401,513 | 7,743,887 | 44,563 | 1 | Down Among The B-Movie Men ! | Imagine if , in the early ' 70's , the ' Monty Python ' gang had been hired to make a movie , but then the producer entrusted the writing duties to others , brought in an attractive female lead , dancers and unrelated novelty acts ? The resulting film would have been a disaster . Yet , in 1952 , producer E . J . Fancey did just that with what was then the hottest new comedy team in Britain - ' The Goons ' . I got into ' The Goon Show ' in the summer of 1982 , when classic episodes were being repeated on Radio 4 as part of the ' Smash Of The Day ' series . I knew a little about ' Goon ' humour , but nothing prepared me for for my first experience of it . The episode was ' Rommel's Treasure ' and , by the end of it , I was in pain from laughter . I went out and bought the cassettes , a book of scripts from a second-hand shop , and even had a go at writing my own . I was hooked . ' Down ' represents the first - and sadly , last - time all four of the original ' Goons ' were simultaneously captured on film , and the result is a bit of a mess . For one thing , the script was written neither by Spike Milligan or Larry Stephens , but by Jimmy Grafton and Francis Charles . The plot - such as it is - revolves around a couple of spies after a top secret formula invented by the eccentric scientist Professor Osrick Pureheart ( Bentine ) . Harry Secombe plays ' Harry Jones ' ( not ' Neddie Seagoon ' , you'll notice ) , a grocer's assistant who fancies himself as a private eye . Peter Sellers reprises his role as ' Bloodnok ' ( now a Colonel , not a Major ) and Spike Milligan is ' Private Eccles ' . With the exception of the latter , the characters are unrecognisable from their radio counterparts . How could they have left out ' Bluebottle ' ? Carole Carr wafts around as ' Carole Gayley ' , and The Television Toppers do their usual high-kicking dance stuff . Maclean Rogers ' other credits include one of the ' Old Mother Riley ' pictures , and that's where he should have stayed . The irrelevant musical numbers would have been acceptable had the comedy scenes been strong enough to balance them out , but they're not . Apart from a couple of moments , there's little genuine ' Goon ' humour on display here . One such moment is when Private Eccles turns up for parade wearing a chestful of medals . " Do you know how I got these medals ? " , he asks Jones . " Ten bob the lot ! " . The cast are required to do little more than mug . Even Peter Sellers displays little of the talent which , only a few years later , made him one of the biggest movie-stars in the world . Given a director of the calibre of Leo McCarey , as well as a better script , ' The Goons ' could conceivably have made a comedy to rival those Marx Brothers classics such as ' Duck Soup ' . Unfortunately , it didn't happen . If you want to know what made ' The Goon Show ' great , listen to the radio show instead . |
400,883 | 7,743,887 | 1,212,972 | 1 | God help us . . . | In the early 1990's , I . T . V . abolished the ' God slot ' , meaning that religious programmes could no longer be broadcast in the early part of Sunday evening , instead viewers would have to make do with family movies and game shows of the ' Family Fortunes ' variety . It was quite a jump from Sir Cliff Richard singing ' Abide With Me ' to ' Honey I Shrunk The Kids ' . ' Stars On Sunday ' , made by Yorkshire Television , was a religiously themed variety show , a sort of ' Sunday Night At The London Palladium ' with hymn books . Internationally famous stars of the calibre of Kenneth McKellar , Moira Anderson , Eartha Kitt , James Mason , Harry Secombe and Christopher Lee ( yes , you read that correctly ! Old Count Dracula himself used to read extracts from The Bible on this show ) appeared . Normally such talent did not come cheap , but producer and presenter Jess Yates had a knack for persuading stars to work for next to nothing . Perhaps they thought it a worthy cause , like the bands who went on Live Aid in 1985 . Perhaps they thought that by going on the show it would greatly increase their chances of reaching Heaven . We shall never know . Millions tuned in each week to see Sir Harry and co . performing spiritually uplifting songs against a background of cardboard cut-out sheep and tinsel . It was the complete opposite of his later show ' Highway ' ( how I miss that ! ) which took him around the country . Not all the ' turns ' were stars . There was The Poole Family , Britain's answer to The Osmonds , who grinned their way through the hymn back catalogue . I forget how many there were ( it seemed like a new member joined each week ) . The youngest member was chirpy Glyn , whom a T . V . Times reader likened to actor Kenneth Haigh , star of I . T . V . ' s sleazy drama ' Man At The Top ' . I never found out whether that was intended as a complement or not . Linking the acts was , of course , Jess Yates , seated before an organ ( a musical one , so don't worry ) which he would then play a la Terry Jones in ' Monty Python's Flying Circus ' ( only fully clothed ) . Yates was known as ' The Bishop ' on account of his oh-so solemn delivery . Watching him you would think you had tuned into a funeral service by mistake . Viewers used to send in requests for hymns . One night , he introduced ' When The Saints Go Marching In ' and made it sound as though Judgement Day had arrived . Stanley Baxter did a splendid spoof on his ' Picture Show ' called ' Scars On Sunday ' in which he caught to a tee Yates ' sepulchral manner . ' Stars On Sunday ' used to go out ahead of sitcoms such as ' On The Buses ' and ' Doctor In Charge ' which meant that one minute you were watching David Frost reciting the parable of The Good Samaritan , the next Reg Varney and Bob Grant were insulting Stephen Lewis . Alas , it came to pass that Yates had been having it off with a woman half his age , and Yorkshire T . V . did thus cast him out into the wilderness forevermore , much to the amusement no doubt of his long-term rival Hughie Green . The show carried on without The Bishop for a good few years , finally ending in 1979 . Other shows moved into the ' God slot ' , thankfully none quite as stuffy or pretentious . This show did more to promote atheism in Britain than any other , before or since . |
400,739 | 7,743,887 | 57,741 | 1 | When Meg Married Hugh | Hardly a week used to go by in the ' 70's without some comedian taking a pot shot at ' Crossroads ' . Ernie Wise said the soap opera had all the entertainment value of ' a cemetery with lights ' , and Benny Hill did a very funny lampoon with himself both as ' Benny ' and ' Meg Richardson ' . Noele Gordon publicly complained that the show was the target of ' destructive , rather than constructive criticism ' . She was right , but was this hostility deserved ? It was a terrible show , no doubt about it , but I think most of its fans probably knew that already . It seemed to exist in some strange parallel universe with its own laws . To give an example , in 1975 , Meg Richardson ( Noele Gordon ) married Hugh Mortimer ( John Bentley ) . A . T . V . milked maximum publicity from the occasion ; hundreds of people lined the streets of Birmingham to get a glimpse of the happy couple . It was like a Soap version of a Royal Wedding . Even Larry Grayson acted as chauffeur ! Watching this , I remember thinking : " Why would an entire city grind to a halt just because a motel owner marries a businessman ? " . The marriage was short-lived ; poor Hugh was later kidnapped and killed by international terrorists ( ! ) . Other outrageous plots included Benny ( Paul Henry ) being suspected of murder , and Arthur Brownlow ( Peter Hill ) suspected of being a sex pest , an allegation he endured without once managing to change his expression . Then there were grotesque characters including the legendary ' Amy Turtle ' ( Ann George ) and ' Wilf Harvey ' ( Morris Parsons ) . On the plus side , the show did have some decent performers , such as the late Roger Tonge ( who played Meg's crippled son Sandy ) . I also liked the guy who played ' Vince Parker ' the postman . My grandmother was a huge ' Crossroads ' fan , and was the first in line when in 1971 ' The T . V . Times ' brought out a souvenir tie-in magazine . She had a crush on the late Ronald Allen ( David Hunter ) , an actor so wooden you could smell Cuprinol every time he was on screen . When Noele got the sack in the early ' 80's , the writing was on the wall for the motel . Incoming producer Phil Bowman tried to make it more upmarket by bringing in sexy Gabrielle Drake to play ' Nicola Freeman ' , but it did not work out , and when in 1985 , Victoria Wood savagely lampooned it on her ' As Seen On T . V . ' show , that was it . It ended in 1988 , but was revived a few years back on I . T . V . The new-look show initially attracted good reviews and ratings , but then interest waned and - after a shake-up in which Jane Asher was brought in as the motel's new owner - the doors were closed once again . I very much doubt whether ' Crossroads ' will be revived a second time . With soap operas clogging up channels like cholesterol in the arteries , there just is no room for it to stand out . I will leave the last word to Jane Rossington , who as ' Jill ' closed the last edition of the original series by saying : " Crossroads ! What a great name for a motel ! " . |
401,572 | 7,743,887 | 662,519 | 1 | Time's Up For ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' | Following a gap year , ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' returned in 1982 for a fourth and final series . Unfortunately , as happened with ' Monty Python ' , it lost its edge completely , and disappointed the fans . Knowing fully well there was unlikely to be a fifth season , the team decided to go for broke with their very last show . It managed to be more offensive than the earlier editions combined , containing just about every dirty joke imaginable . Following filmed shots ( presumably taken from a wildlife programme ) of animals copulating , we were treated to the sight of Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones as ' The Two Ninnies ' , obviously based on ' The Two Ronnies ' . This was no affectionate send-up ; genuine hatred for the Barker and Corbett show was on display here . The opening mock news item was guyed , as was the closing song . Dressed as beefeaters , the Ninnies sang a crass ditty that included references to female genitalia . It now seems ironic that Smith and Jones once sneered at other comics for sticking to tried and tested routines , as they did the same thing when they resurrected their famous head-to-head skits in 2006's ' The Smith & Jones Sketchbook ' . Ronnie Barker was allegedly upset by the item , and it is not surprising . Aside from being unfair , it was not particularly original ( Jasper Carrott did a much better spoof on ' Carrott's Lib ' , called ' The Two Normans ' ) or funny . Next up was a pub sketch in which Mel Smith orders a salad and is shocked to find a caterpillar amongst the lettuce . When he complains to landlord Griff Rhys Jones , he gets the reply : " Well , you did order the pub grub ! " . That kind of joke is funny only after a few beers . Worse was to come . The series bowed out with a song allegedly entitled ' Kinda Lingers ' , but you did not need to be a lip reader to see that what they were actually singing was ' cunnilingus ' . Shocking stuff at the time . Afterwards , a light was switched off , and the ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' universe was plunged into eternal darkness . There was outrage when this first went out . Not just because of the smutty humour , but that desperation was all-too evident , as though the producers were openly admitting the rest of the fourth series had been a failure . Compare this to the finale of the first season of ' Spitting Image ' ( it concluded with the superb ' Every Job You Take ' ) , and you will see the difference . As a fan of this series , I felt that this was not the best way for it to end . It was as though they had gathered together all the rejected ideas from the earlier shows and stuffed them in one programme . Fortunately , the end of ' Not ' left the cast free to do other ( better ) things , namely ' Alas Smith & Jones ' and ' The Black Adder ' . |
400,921 | 7,743,887 | 421,005 | 1 | Viewing The Past Through Blue-Tinted Glasses | When she was Leader Of Her Majesty's Opposition , Margaret Thatcher ( remember her ? ) vowed to rollback ' The Permissive Society ' on becoming P . M . It was a promise that predictably resonated with the Tory faithful , but alas proved impossible to keep because it did not exist , and never had . Unfortunately , no-one seems to have told her acolytes , many of whom to this day huff and puff about the ' 60's , denouncing it as an era of ' moral decay ' . Well , I suppose if you were around during Profumo it must have seemed that way . Broadcast as part of the ' Summer Of The Sixties ' festival on B . B . C . - 4 , this ludicrously one-sided programme was intended presumably as a corrective to the usual accusations that go hand-in-hand with retrospectives , namely that the past is being ' viewed through rose-tinted glasses ' . It crassly inferred that everything about the decade stank , such as ' Please Release Me ' by Engelbert Humperdinck ( What ? Worse than ' Agadoo ' by Black Lace ? ) , and that we should have bypassed it and the ' 70's altogether and moved onto the caring , sharing ' 80's . Complaints were made about beautiful architecture being demolished to make way for ugly eyesores . Excuse me ? That did not only happen in the ' 60's . Mick Jagger being questioned about his political beliefs is hardly as embarrassing as the spectacle of Davina McCall on ' Question Time ' . It was even intimated that England's victory in the 1966 World Cup was undeserved . I half-expected Ann Leslie to pop up to tell us ' The Sound Of Music ' was a turkey . It is the easiest thing in the world to cherry pick the worst bits of the past , string them together to create a fundamentally distorted picture of how things were , and this programme did just that . In that respect it was no different from those tacky ' I Love The ' 70's ' type programmes that clog up the arteries of late-night Channel 4 schedules . It might have been possible to take it half-seriously had the contributors not consisted of ex-'Daily Mail ' hacks and noted Tory sympathisers . What a grumpy lot they were . I felt sorry for them . While the world was enjoying its new-found sexual liberation , they were stuck at home watching Malcolm Muggeridge . |
400,777 | 7,743,887 | 563,107 | 1 | Who Stole Our Monkey ? | While the St . Swithins students watch Paul down a yard of ale , a bunch of Highcross students steal their mascot - a stuffed gorilla in a flat cap who rejoices in the name of ' Muriel ' . ' The rape of the ape ' as Dick calls it . Upton and co . are not about to let the matter rest , and so dressed as nurses , they invade Highcross and steal theirs . The Dean receives a strongly worded letter of complaint , and decides to take disciplinary action . . . One of the worst episodes of ' House ' , with a script that seems more appropriate for ' The Bash Street Kids ' . We expect better from Graham Chapman and Barry Cryer . A condom makes an unexpected appearance in one scene . The cast go through the whole episode shouting their lines , Martin Shaw being the worst offender . ' Muriel ' gives the funniest performance . |
401,346 | 7,743,887 | 103,927 | 1 | Carry On Clunkers ! | Having managed to destroy traditional British comedy by the early ' 90's , the alternative comedy brigade then made complete fools of themselves by signing up for ' Carry On Columbus ' . Why , exactly ? Alexei Sayle was a vociferous critic of ' old school ' comics such as Les Dawson , so what's he doing here ? Actually , neither he , Rik Mayall , Julian Clary , Keith Allen and co . can be blamed for the film turning out a stinker . Sid James , Kenneth Williams and the original gang would have had a tough time making this dreadful script funny . It plays like a bad ' Carry On ' spoof done by ' The Comic Strip Presents ' team . Clary manages a few guffaws as a Hawtrey-substitute , but the only person to emerge with any credit is Jim Dale . Old-timers Jack Douglas , Leslie Phillips , June Whitfield and Jon Pertwee feature in so few scenes as to be barely noticeable . I pity anyone who paid to see it on its original release ; on television you can always change channels , or better still put on a ' Carry On Screaming ' D . V . D . |
400,666 | 7,743,887 | 159,206 | 1 | Women Behaving As Badly As Men ! | In 1970 , feminists invaded the ' Miss World ' beauty contest in London and brought the occasion to a halt by pelting the stage with flour and eggs . Why ? Because , rightly or wrongly , they felt the event to be demeaning and degrading to women . I offer no criticism of their actions . Its a free world we live in . What I want to know is : why don't their modern-day equivalents invade the studios where shows such as this are made and do likewise ? ' Sex & The City ' is all about four self-absorbed women from New York : Carrie is a slave to fashion who turns into a pussycat when a man so much as claps eyes on her , Charlotte yearns to find the perfect man ( they don't exist , love ) so she can use sex to ensnare the poor devil , lawyer Miranda scares men away by wittering nonsense like ' out of touch with my emotions ' , and lastly we have Samantha , the living embodiment of the old Martini ad ' anytime , anyplace , anywhere ' . Feminists hold up these characters - particularly Samantha - as a shining example of modern-day womanhood . Well , if shouting rude words in busy restaurants is progress , I think the feminists should take a long hard look at themselves and what they're supposed to represent . Had ' Sex & The City ' been the creation of a man , it would have been pulled from the airwaves for being sexist . Instead , like ' Charlie's Angels ' before it , it has conned supposedly intelligent women into thinking it has acted as a positive force for good . There's something very clinical and cold-blooded about the show . ' The Benny Hill Show ' was sexist too , but at least it was funny . |
401,118 | 7,743,887 | 80,303 | 2 | What's Off ? Wogan ! | ' What's On Wogan ' has been seemingly wiped from the national consciousness , possibly as a result of ' Manchurian Candidate ' style brainwashing , or just possibly because it wasn't very good . It was Tel's first attempt at a peak-time Saturday night talk show , a forerunner to the more successful ( and equally bland ) thrice-weekly one he'd front a few years later . The guests were a mixed bunch ; Vincent Price proved about as lively as some of the characters in his horror movies , the ones on the mortuary slab . The highlight of that groundbreaking premiere show was Vince showing viewers how to cook fish in a washing machine . Later shows included Kelly Monteith , Penelope Keith , Paul Daniels , Kenny Everett ( who caused a storm by saying a rude word that rhymes with ' scollops ' ) , and a rare and unexpectedly delightful ( and alas , final ) appearance from Arthur Askey and Richard ' Stinker ' Murdoch . The ' Band Waggon ' boys showed they still had a few gags left in them . A pair of lovely Scottish girls in tartan , Fran and Anna , wiggled their way through every other episode , much to Tel's obvious embarrassment . ' What's On Wogan ' was one of those shows where everything gets thrown into the pot in the hope that everyone finds something to like . In this case , no-one did . |
401,258 | 7,743,887 | 80,250 | 2 | The Nesbitts Came & Went ! | Firstly , let me state for the record that ' The Nesbitts Are Coming ' has no connection whatever with ' Rab C . Nesbitt ' ( wasn't the 2008 Christmas Special hilarious , by the way ? ) . Rab made his debut on BBC-2's ' Naked Video ' a good six years after this Yorkshire T . V . series ended . It was written by Dick Sharples , responsible for the charming undertaker sitcom ' In Loving Memory ' with Thora Hird and Christopher Beeny . It had a good cast including Clive Swift ( ' Richard ' of ' Keeping Up Appearances ' ) , Maggie Jones ( ' Blanche ' from ' Coronation Street ' ) , Deirdre Costello ( ' Linda Preston ' from ' I Didn't Know You Cared ' ) , Ken Jones ( ' Ives ' from ' Porridge ' ) , and the always reliable Tony Melody and Patsy Rowlands . The Nesbitts were what might today be termed a problem family ; they roamed the North-East in an open-topped van , terrorising communities either by conning or stealing from them . Had Asbos existed then , they would have been a dead cert to get them . Swift was ' Ernie ' , the perpetually coughing father who rarely spoke except make requests to be taken to the loo . Jones was his loud wife , about whom a policeman once remarked : " if she wasn't Northern , I'd swear she was Sicillian ' . John Price's ' Len ' was like ' Tucker ' from ' Citizen Smith ' in that he dressed at all times like a cowboy . Costello's ' Marlene ' threw herself at anything in trousers , while ' Tom ' ( Christian Rodska ) was a dead ringer for ' Vyvian ' from ' The Young Ones ' . Their arch-nemesis was the incompetent ' Det . Sgt . Arnold Nixon ' ( Ken Jones ) who wanted nothing more than to see this scurrilous gang put behind bars for good . To this end , he assigned W . P . C . Kitty Naylor ( Patsy Rowlands ) to go undercover , and pretend to fall in love with Len to find out what the family were up to . The problem was that she really had fallen in love , and was torn between her personal feelings and duties as a policewoman . . . ' The Nesbitts ' had originally appeared in a May 1967 episode of the B . B . C . ' s crime drama ' Z-Cars ' , entitled ' ' The Nesbitts Are Back ' . Hylda Baker played ' Mrs . Nesbitt ' , with a young Lynda La Plante as ' Marlene ' ! But the family's move into comedy was ill-advised - they proved about as funny as typhoid . For reasons best known to himself , Sharples had the characters burst into song every now and then , causing the comedy to grind to a halt . Songs such as the slushy ' I'm Not Getting My Share Of Life ' , sung by Patsy Rowlands . Its chorus went as follows : " I'm not getting my share / of living , loving , its not fair / I'm not getting my share of life . " . It was like watching a third-rate West End musical . The show was not getting its share of viewers either . Most were put-off by the intrusive music . As far as I know , only ' The Mighty Boosh ' has done anything similar recently , and that should give you some idea how truly bad it was . |
401,227 | 7,743,887 | 80,226 | 2 | Grumpy More Like | What do Richard Beckinsale , Leonard Rossiter and Harry H . Corbett have in common ? Aside from being brilliant comedy actors ( and all sadly dying within a few years of one another ) , they had the misfortune to end their television careers by starring in sub-standard sitcoms . Beckinsale in the thankfully forgotten ' Bloomers ' ( set in a flower shop ) , Rossiter in the even worse ' Tripper's Day ' ( in which he played a supermarket manager who shouted non-stop ) , and Corbett in the Thames-made ' Grundy ' , scripted by the brilliant Ken Hoare , co-writer ( with Mike Sharland ) of ' Mr . Digby Darling ' starring Peter Jones and Sheila Hancock , and author of the award-winning L . W . T . Stanley Baxter shows . His wit sadly deserted him here though . ' Grundy ' was a chore to sit through . Corbett had high hopes for the show . Interviewed by ' The News Of The World ' prior to its screening , he said : " I hope to bury Steptoe for good . " . This proved to be wildly optimistic . ' Grundy ' was a newsagent whom Mary Whitehouse would have gotten along with famously . He too despised the so-called ' permissive society ' and attacked it at every opportunity . The first episode opened with him leaving a court , having successfully divorced his wife on the grounds of adultery ( she ran off with a bookmaker ) . The experience has made him so unhappy he covers his face with his jacket to prevent anyone from recognising him . Boarding a train , he finds himself sharing a compartment with the attractive and earthy Beryl Loomis ( Lynda Baron of ' Open All Hours ' ) who , wouldn't you know it , is the wife of the very bookmaker Mrs . Grundy ran off with . He opens up to her . " I got my load of legal rubbish out of The Yellow Pages . " , says Grundy , sadly : " The firm of Pratt , Pratt , Pratt and Malone . I got Malone . He was the biggest pratt of them all ! " ( and that was the funniest line in the entire series , believe me ) . Beryl is strangely attracted to Grundy and begins pursuing him . It is hard to see why as he is a miserable , self-pitying old git . Harold Steptoe has suddenly become Albert . Each week , Beryl would hound him no matter where he went , including a library . Today this would be called ' stalking ' . Her infatuation with Grundy is mirrored by her son Murray's ( Get Some In's David Janson ) lust for Grundy's pretty daughter Sharon ( Julie Dawn Cole ) . I remember thinking the casting was slightly awry . Cole looked like Lynda Baron , while Janson could easily have passed for a young Harry H . Corbett . Oh well . I have no idea how the series was resolved as I gave up on it well before the end . Grundy was such a misery-guts you felt like giving him a good shaking . ' Victor Meldrew ' of ' One Foot In The Grave ' was like that too , but then David Renwick always gave him a good reason for being so . You felt for him . It was impossible to feel the same about Grundy . He had no redeeming qualities whatever . The show was not helped by the fact that Corbett suffered a heart attack prior to recording and thus his performance seemed unnaturally tired . The really sad thing was that it was just not worth the effort . Corbett died two years later , and the ' Divided We Stand ' episode of ' Steptoe & Son ' was shown on B . B . C . - 1 as a tribute . I . T . V . could have paid its respects by showing an edition of ' Grundy ' , but chose not to . Wise decision . |
400,654 | 7,743,887 | 220,134 | 2 | You Need A New Sound ! | I saw this on B . B . C . - 2 one Saturday afternoon back in 1977 . Its not been on since . So bizarre is it I would not be at all surprised to learn it has a cult following someplace . Frank Ifield plays Dave Kelly , an Australian singer seeking fame and fortune in Swinging London . No sooner has he gotten off the boat than he falls in love with a beautiful girl ( Suzy Kendall a . k . a . Mrs . Dudley Moore ) whose face he sees on a billboard , so he tries to track her down . Like you do . What follows next is a confusing mishmash of styles , as though Christopher Miles couldn't make up his mind what sort of film this was . With bewildering speed , it goes from being a love story to a cynical look at the British pop scene of the ' 60's to a ' fish-out-of-water ' comedy to a caper movie ( a gang of inept crooks want to tunnel through the floor of Dave's flat and into the vault below ) . Like ' Casino Royale ' ( which was in production at the same time ) , everything is thrown into the pot . Near the end , Dave is shot at by a bald heavy in dark glasses straight out of James Bond . My jaw dropped at this point . I half expected Graham Chapman's Monty Python ' Colonel ' to appear and say : " Stop this . Its too silly ! " . Frank Ifield is no actor , but that does not really matter . Pop musicals of the era generally required artists to be themselves , you only have to remember Cliff Richard in ' The Young Ones ' , Billy Fury in ' I've Gotta Horse ' , and Joe Brown in ' Three Hats For Lisa ' . Anyway , Frank has a nice personality , and that's enough . Lewis Greifer went on to write for ' The Prisoner ' . Interestingly , his episode - ' The General ' - also cocked a snook at contemporary art . Interviewed for I . T . V . ' s ' After They Were Famous ' a few years back , Frank said that when he read the script he could not make head not tail of it , and even after viewing the completed film was none the wiser . Richard Wattis , Annette Andre , Ronald Radd et al do their best , and the songs are rather pleasant , but the whole thing rings about as hollow as an empty billy can . A film that tried ( and failed ) to be all things to all people . Loved the ' Teenage Tester ' though ! |
401,184 | 7,743,887 | 68,188 | 2 | The ' Alf Baked Saga , More Like ! | The second film based on the hit B . B . C . show ' Till Death Us Do Part ' picks up where the first movie left off , with Alf Garnett and his family turfed out of their Wapping home and installed in a block of high-rise flats . Alf can't get used to living in the sky , having to ride elevators ( which frequently break down due to power cuts caused by the miners ' strike ) and walk long distances to the nearest pub . For many in the ' 60's and ' 70's , this situation was only too real . Old people who'd survived the war with their homes intact lost them a decade or so later in the name of urban redevelopment . Una Stubbs and Anthony Booth ( who played Alf's daughter ' Rita ' and son-in-law ' Mike ' in both the T . V . series and first movie ) were inexplicably absent . Presumably they'd read the script . I greatly respect Johnny Speight , but here his talent seems to have deserted him . As the film plods on , the humour grows increasingly desperate , culminating in a horribly embarrassing sequence in which Alf has an L . S . D . ' trip ' . Paul Angelis and Adrienne Posta do their best , but the characters of ' Rita ' and ' Mike ' have been changed ; ' Mike ' is depicted here as a womanising drug addict , while ' Rita ' sets out to shock her family by pretending to spend the night with Kenny Lynch . Guest appearances by Arthur Askey , Max Bygraves , Eric Sykes and George Best don't improve things . The best moment is at the end when Alf accidentally sets his bed alight . The first ' Till Death ' film turns up on television often , but this has been completely forgotten , and with very good reason . |
401,539 | 7,743,887 | 63,372 | 2 | Welcome To Espana , Senor Vine ! | The Charles Vine trilogy spluttered to a halt with this feeble offering , made entirely in Spain , featuring a ( nearly ) all Spanish cast , most of whom appear never to have acted before in their lives . The first two films were Poverty Row productions , this is more like Death Row . Adams seems like a tourist on a cheap package holiday , rather than a secret agent on a perilous mission . Tim Barrett ( from ' Where The Bullets Fly ' ) returns as a different character , Major Milo Kovacs , and , most unforgivably , the excellent John Arnatt has been replaced as Rockwell . Jose Luis Madrid and Michael Pittock's script is rubbish , lacking both originality and humour , Madrid's flat direction fails to drum up an iota of suspense . The climax is a rip off of the helicopter scene in ' From Russia With Love ' . Vine deserved a far better send-off . Ten years later , Lindsay Shonteff resurrected Vine ( with a slight name change to ' Bind ' ) for ' No . 1 Of The Secret Service ' starring Nicky Henson . |
401,093 | 7,743,887 | 243,155 | 2 | Bridget Owes Benny ! | ' Bridget Jones ' struck a chord with millions of single women all over the world . She's kooky , blonde , has a weight problem , a man problem , and is British . If she were the creation of a man , she'd have been banned by now . I loved the moment in this film when Bridget slides down a fireman's pole and we see her big knickers close up . But then I laughed at the same gag when it was done on ' The Benny Hill Show ' on / 70 . This is supposed to be feminist comedy , yet when its only memorable gag comes from an old television show derided and pilloried for its so-called ' sexism ' , you know something is wrong somewhere . Benny Hill , rest in peace . Your legacy is intact . Renee Zellweger is your natural heir . |
400,743 | 7,743,887 | 85,087 | 2 | Tarrant's Comeback | You have to give Chris Tarrant credit for nerve . After flopping big time with the vile ' O . T . T . ' , what did he give us next ? More of the same ! ' Saturday Stayback ' could have been called ' Son Of O . T . T . ' . It gave a break to the then-unknown Phil Cool and Tony Slattery , and had the novelty of being recorded not in a studio , but in various British pubs . I got a perverse laugh out of seeing the bemused faces of hardened drinkers as their local hostelries were invaded by Tarrant and co . You half-expected someone to turn nasty and give Chris a good hiding . Canned laughter was employed liberally to spare the cast's blushes . Most of the sketches were amateurishly written and indifferently performed , usually ending with Chris getting kneed in the groin by the lovely Helen Atkinson-Wood . It was a step up from ' O . T . T . ' but that's not saying much . After it was scrapped , Chris did various jobs on radio and breakfast television before finally hitting the big time as host of ' Who Wants To Be A Millionaire ' . |
401,445 | 7,743,887 | 85,076 | 2 | I Could Be The Real Me ! | Its difficult to see how this show could have failed . It was based on the B . B . C . ' s ' The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin ' , and starred the brilliant Richard Mulligan ( ' Burt Campbell ' of ' Soap ' ) as rebellious commuter Reggie Potter . The scripts closely followed the David Nobbs originals , so what went wrong ? Perhaps it was the fact that there was never a given starting point for Reggie's madness . The first episode of the B . B . C . version opened with a normal day in Reggie's life . Then he asks Elisabeth , his wife : " Are we going to see the hippotamus on Sunday ? " . Here Potter starts out crazy , we never see just what he is rebelling against , hence the viewers had no sympathy for him . Some of the supporting cast were badly chosen , particularly ' C . J . ' , here played by a young , good-looking guy . Another mistake was making Reggie's layabout son Mark into a regular . He appeared only briefly in the B . B . C . series . The horrible song used to open the show didn't help matters either . ' Reggie ' was an unqualified disaster . Fortunately , we have the original to remind us what a great comedy show is supposed to look like . |
401,515 | 7,743,887 | 956,745 | 2 | For Pete's Sake | Peter Craven seems to have fallen on his feet . Flash car , new suits , pretty girls for the asking . What is his new job ? He's a ' gofer ' ( ' go for this , go for that ' ) for the East End gangster Stanley Bowler . When Craven invites Duffy to join him at the Henley Regetta , Duffy refuses as he is currently saving for his wedding to Sharon . But , after Craven makes fun of him , he agrees to go . At the Regetta , Craven tries to impress a couple of girls by blowing a hundred pounds on the roulette table . He loses . And it wasn't his money . Bowler gives him twenty-four hours to replace the £100 . Or else Craven will receive a little visit from his minders . . . One of the weakest episodes of the whole series , its main source of humour is the sight of Dennis shelling peas in Duffy's living room . I always found ' Peter Craven ' the least interesting of the gang , being much too cocky and unlikeable . Not the fault of the late Malcolm McFee , the writers should have made him a little less one-dimensional . So I didn't really care whether or not he found the money to pay off his boss . The way his dilemma is resolved is unbelievable too . ' Stanley Bowler ' , the crime boss who fancies himself as an English gentlemen , proved so popular that he eventually landed his own show . ' Rona ' is played by the stunning Patricia Quinn , later to develop a cult following for her role as ' Magenta ' in ' The Rocky Horror Picture Show ' ( 1976 ) . |
401,167 | 7,743,887 | 1,184,044 | 2 | Down The Pan More Like | This is the earliest surviving episode of ' Down The ' Gate ' , the sitcom that effectively killed Reg Varney's television career . A new manager is taking over at Billingsgate - Mr . Preston ( Percy Herbert ) . He has a bit of a reputation as a stickler for efficiency so Reg Furnell ( Reg Varney ) naturally wants to create a good impression . Things go wrong immediately . Distracted by the sight of a young woman dressing across the road , Reg becomes late ( and lands himself in hot water with wife Irene into the bargain ) . Reg is in such a hurry to get to the market he falls down some spiral stairs , landing on Preston's back . So now his reputation for good time-keeping is gone , and he has hurt the new manager . Later , in the canteen , he foolishly boasts that he can climb a local war memorial carrying three fish crates . His mates challenge him to do so . . . Right away you can see what this was trying to be : ' Down The Buses ' or ' On The ' Gate ' . It failed because the scripts were not good ( the obvious laugh-track did not help ) , and there was an insufficient mix of strong comedy characters . Percy Herbert's ' Mr . Preston ' cannot hold a fish slice to Stephen Lewis ' ' Blakey ' , and it was a shame he was ever made to try . Reg Lye's ' Old Wol ' likewise is no ' Jack Harper ' . There's a busty blonde serving in the canteen ( Helen Keating ) , and like ' Stan ' Reg gets intro trouble whenever he looks at a pretty girl , but these similarities did not help the show gain anything like the popularity ' Buses ' enjoyed . Funniest moment - Reg simultaneously attempting to shave using an electric razor and put on his tie . My copy of this episode has commercials in , and these were far more enjoyable than the actual programme . |
401,669 | 7,743,887 | 956,731 | 2 | Ignominious End For Mr . Hedges | Fed up at being unemployed , Hedges takes a job at an escort agency . His first client is the lovely Elinor , wife of German businessman Ernst . Tired of being ignored , Elinor wishes to make her husband jealous , hence she pretends to flirt with the ex-schoolteacher . At a posh restaurant , they get better acquainted . Ernst arrives in an angry mood . To complicate matters further still , Penny is there too . . . An unusual episode this ; not one ' Gang ' member appears , instead John Esmonde and Bob Larbey's script focuses entirely on Bernard and Penny Hedges . Nothing wrong with that , but the plot is an inversion of ' Leave It To Me , Darling ' . Instead of Bernard suspecting his wife of going on the game , Penny thinks that of her husband . The almost total absence of humour leads one to suspect the script of an entirely different series has somehow strayed into the wrong show . The lovely Wanda Ventham had recently been seen as ' Colonel Virginia Lake ' in Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's cult sci-fi show ' U . F . O ' . One wonders whether this episode , and the earlier ' Fenn Streets ' to feature Hedges were intended as a try-out for a proposed second spin-off , one in which he landed a new job each week , rather like Charlie Drake in ' The Worker ' . In the final event , this was to be the last time John Alderton played him , making this a dismal exit for the character . He deserved a better send-off . |
401,134 | 7,743,887 | 496,592 | 2 | Post Mortem For A Dead Television Genre | Rightly or wrongly , the perception exists among the general public that situation comedies are no longer funny . What has caused this ? The programmes themselves , or are people being misled into thinking there was ever a golden age of television comedy ? ' Who Killed The Sitcom ? ' was less of an investigation into why this perception exists , and more a lame excuse to trot out a lot of tired , unfunny clips , most of them of recent vintage , interspersed with talking head stuff from writers , comedians and television executives . The way they continue to insist there is nothing wrong with today's comedies , despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary , was itself amusing , reminiscent of the ' Black Knight ' scene from ' Monty Python & The Holy Grail ' . The only half-decent one I have seen lately has been Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker's ' Nathan Barley ' . ' The Office ' was held up as a shining example of the ' brilliant ' stuff around now , despite it being a spoof documentary , not a sitcom . I believe personally that sitcoms have declined - as well as being fewer in number , those we do get are mostly pitched at the same audience - teenagers . Put a couple of lads and girls in a flat and have them argue about sex for thirty minutes each week and you have a modern sitcom . It would be nice for a change to see something written by and aimed at adults . I would also love to see a show that gets laughs without relying too much on catchphrases . Surely the fact that this programme exists at all must tell the T . V . bosses something ? I don't remember there being a ' Who Killed The Sitcom ? ' - type programme thirty years ago . Programme makers were too busy making funny shows , not analysing what went wrong with the genre . Public taste has changed , of that there's no doubt . For the worse , alas . People have been conditioned to accept bad language and body function jokes as the norm when it comes to comedy . Put on something subtle and it goes over their heads . So that's the sitcom dealt with . I look forward to ' Who Killed Reality T . V . ? ' in the not-too distant future . |
401,402 | 7,743,887 | 591,053 | 2 | That Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady | Appalled by Tim and Graeme's boorish displays of sexism , Bill summons ' Women's Libber ' Barbara . To show them what women have to endure , she puts them to work for her father - a chauvinistic aristocrat who treats women like dirt . Graeme has an easy life as the butler , but poor Tim is put through hell as the maid . He emerges a better man for the experience . In the meantime , Bill gets engaged to Barbara , whilst Graeme begins dating . . . wait for it . . . his computer ! The longer run of season 2 resulted in several episodes which should not have been made , and this is one of them . Its ammunition for those smug critics who claim ' 70's comedy is hopelessly sexist . It begins as it means to go on with Tim being horrid to his date , Debbie . There's some good gags later on as Tim is treated appallingly by Barbara's father , and Graeme romping through the woods in slow motion with his computer , but the whole thing collapses at the end . Pretending to be a feminist protester , Tim shows up at the church where Bill and Graeme are to be married , and persuades his friends to abandon their wedding plans . Bill casually dumping Barbara got no laugh from the audience - nor from me . If the intention was to ridicule male chauvinistic attitudes , it failed because Garden and Oddie make fun of the alternative too . They were to repeat this blunder in their equally reprehensible ' Doctor In Charge ' episode ' The Black & White Medical Show ' . Chalk this down as an interesting failure . Funniest moment - the spoof advertisement for ' Honest Holidays ' which looks like the inspiration for ' Carry On Abroad ' ! |
401,419 | 7,743,887 | 81,851 | 2 | Doing What Their Daddies Do ! | You can see how ' Doctors ' Daughters ' came to be made . It was the creation of Richard Gordon , whose book ' Doctor In The House ' gave birth to a string of hit movies and a long-running television series . When he approached A . T . V . with the concept , Lord Grade probably could not get out his cheque book fast enough . Gordon did not write the show alone though ; he teamed up with Ralph Thomas , director of the ' Doctor ' movies . It was basically a generation gap comedy ; set in the cathedral city of Mitrebury , three elderly G . P . ' s - Richard Murdoch , Bill Fraser , and Jack Watling - are so overworked they plan on retiring after 35 years . Remembering that two of their fellow medical students - ' Loony ' Liston and ' Rubberduck ' Drake - have fathered young doctors , they agree to hand over , believing their replacements to be male . But , when they turn up , the aged doctors are aghast to find that they are female - and right little ravers to boot . ' Dr . Lucy Drake ' ( Lesley Duff ) and ' Dr . Fay Liston ' ( Victoria Burgoyne ) are the female equivalents of ' Dr . Duncan Waring ' and ' Dr . Dick Stuart-Clark ' . Both dress provocatively , particularly the latter , who only wears a bra for exams and inquests , and are free with their sexual favours . Liston's attitude is : " why get married and keep one man happy , when I can stay single and keep dozens ? " . The first episode ended with her going topless ( we only saw her from the back ) when her friend tore off her top to make bandages for an injured patient . Along with Liz Arkdale ( Bridget Armstrong ) , gynaecologist and obstetrician ( also the world's worst driver ) , they set about modernising the practice , often in the face of strong opposition . Watching this at the time I was reminded of the early ' Doctor At Large ' episodes in which Mike Upton ( Barry Evans ) and Paul Collier ( George Layton ) shared a practice with Dr . Maxwell ( Arthur Lowe ) . But those were a thousand times funnier . Richard Gordon never wrote directly for the ' Doctor ' series . He wisely left the job to the likes of John Cleese , Graham Chapman , Graeme Garden , and Bill Oddie among others . Likewise Ralph Thomas did not write any of the scripts to the ' Doctor ' movies . It showed . Both men were clearly out of their depth here . The ' Doctors ' Daughters ' scripts were predictable , lacking in wit , and often downright amateurish . Despite a good cast made up of reliable British character actors as Norman Chappell and Patrick Newell , the show never gelled . Like all A . T . V . sitcoms , it was plagued by obvious ( and irritating ) canned laughter . You would hear some poor woman having hysterics when nothing funny was happening on screen ( which was 100 % of the time ) . Victoria Burgoyne , who played ' Fay ' , was popular tabloid fodder at the time , forever being photographed in revealing clothes and giving interviews in which she bragged that she was going to be a big star . It was not to be . ' Doctors ' Daughters ' was hopelessly outdated , particularly with regards to its treatment of women . Its main source of humour was the looks of exasperation on the faces of the the fusty G . P . ' s as these liberated women ran amok . It was more sexist than all the ' Doctor ' episodes combined , and nowhere near as funny . I . T . V . , perhaps thinking it had another ratings winner on its hands , screened it in the old ' Doctor ' slot of at 7 . 15 on Sunday evenings , but the uniformly hostile reviews and indifferent audience response caused it to ( in the London region ) be pulled from prime-time and moved to a graveyard slot , where it was quietly forgotten . The line quoted above came from the show's theme tune , performed by Burgoyne and Duff . It was the best thing about the show . |
400,683 | 7,743,887 | 706,331 | 2 | The Menace Of Magus ! | Strange psychedelic patterns swirl across the Big Screen at Command Center . A tall , gentle-looking man with long hair and in robes materialises in front of Commander Koenig , and proclaims : " I am your creator ! " . Surely it can't be ? To back up his claim , he does a few conjuring tricks ( not quite up to the standard of David Nixon but more impressive than those of Paul Daniels ) . Magus - for it is he - has prepared a new world - New Earth - for the Alphans to inhabit . Or four of them at least . Koenig is paired off with Maya ( lucky him ) while Tony gets Helena ( an appropriate match seeing how she is every bit as wooden ) . Other strange creatures are around , the result of earlier failed experiments by Magus . To defeat him , Koenig must first find out the secret of his power . . . If any episode summed up what was wrong with Year 2 , it is this one . The plot is derivative of an old ' Star Trek ' episode called ' Who Mourns For Adonais ? ' ( with a chunk of ' Requiem For Methuselah ' - produced by Fred Freiburger incidentally - thrown in for good measure ) . As Leonard Nimoy pointed out in his book ' I am Spock ' , the trouble with a storyline like this is you immediately know the ' god ' is going to turn out to be an impostor ( pity Bill Shatner did not know this before embarking on ' Star Trek 5 : The Final Frontier ' ) . Magus is ' the last in a race of cosmic magicians ' who just happens to share The Good Lord's taste in clothes . The role is played by the late Guy Rolfe , who was ' Mr . Sardonicus ' for William Castle . Rolfe probably had a similar grin on his chops when he read Terence Feely's script . Feely also worked on ' The Avengers ' , ' The Prisoner ' and ' U . F . O . ' and it is sad to see him churning out drivel like this . Magus ' Achilles Heel - he hates the dark ! What ? A being who can transport himself through space without the aid of a ship , conjure up objects from nowhere , and project a giant version of himself ( with laser beams flashing from his eyes ) in the sky and yet cannot free himself from a hole in the ground ? No wonder his race died out ! Most interesting aspect is Koenig getting off with Maya while Tony makes fish-eyes at Helena . This was a development they should have expanded in future episodes . |
401,370 | 7,743,887 | 590,993 | 2 | Around The World In Thirty Minutes | The Goodies want to raise money for charity , and approach Mr . Sparklipegs , head of the ' Sparklipegs ' toothpaste company - whose employees boast pearly-white teeth - and offer to walk from London to Brighton if he sponsors them £10 per mile . Sensing a good publicity opportunity , he accepts , provided that they do the walk wearing toothpaste tube costumes , and on space-hoppers . To his amazement , they agree . Instead of stopping at Brighton , they bounce around the world . Sparklipegs worries he will soon be made bankrupt . . . Easily the second worst ' Goodies ' episode , the first being ' Women's Lib ' . There's hardly any interaction between Tim , Graeme and Bill , most of the laughs come from Freddie Jones as the Scrooge-like toothpaste tycoon , and Jonathan Cecil as his ' Yes Man ' - ' Arthur Minion ' . Gilly McIver steals the show as the constantly grinning Miss Simpkin . Episode adopts a nicely cynical attitude to the apparently benevolent motives of the organisers of sponsored charity events , but the sight of three grown men bouncing around the world in toothpaste tubes soon grows tiresome . Funniest moment - in South Africa , we see a man playing a piano where the white and black keys have been segregated . Crude political satire , but stunningly effective . |
401,182 | 7,743,887 | 377,251 | 2 | A ' Big Train ' For The Older Generation ? | One can only wonder how this show came about . Was the B . B . C . ' s Head Of Comedy so stung by complaints of the ' today's comedies are not as funny as the old ones ' type that he commissioned a show intended to prove the opposite ? ' Revolver ' had a great cast , but alas didn't provide them with decent material . Many of the sketches look like offcuts from ' Big Train ' . To give an example : Roy Barraclough looks out of a window and sees a nude man bouncing on a trampoline in his garden . Enraged , he tells his wife to phone the police while he goes out to have a word with the man . No sooner has his wife got through to the police than she hears giggling . Looking out of the window , she sees her husband - also naked - is with the man on the trampoline . Now this would have worked for Mark Heap , but not Roy Barraclough . The final result was a strange combination of the best of yesterday's comedy combined with the worst of today's . Don't blame the cast - the scriptwriters should have been shot with a revolver ! |
401,152 | 7,743,887 | 121,026 | 2 | Alf Garnett Joins The Police | Following Alan Simpson's retirement , Ray Galton teamed up with ' Till Death Us Do Part ' creator Johnny Speight . Their first collaboration was ' Tealadies ' for the B . B . C . ; in which a pair of mischievous tea ladies - played by Dandy Nichols and Patricia Hayes - waited on M . P . ' s in the House Of Commons . It was to have been recorded close to transmission to enable topicality ( as was later the case with ' Drop The Dead Donkey ' ) , but never got past the pilot stage . Crossing channels , they next gave the world ' Spooner's Patch ' . A hybrid of ' Till Death Us Do Part ' and the 1931 Will Hay classic ' Ask A Policeman ' , it was set in a country police station where everyone was on the take , and starred Ronald Fraser as the constantly spluttering Inspector Spooner , with ' Please Sir ! ' ' s Peter Cleall as T . V . detective-imitating Detective Con . Bulsover , Norman Rossington as the fascistic P . C . Goatman , and John Lyons as P . C . Killick , the show's only normal character . In the first episode , Goatman arrests an Irish tramp ( Dermot Kelly ) and absent-mindedly locks him in the cell where Spooner keeps his wine collection . Before you know it , the corks are flying as the tramp embarks on what would today be termed ' binge drinking ' . To make matters worse , Spooner cannot stop him as Goatman has lost the key . They put their thinking caps on : GOATMAN : Why don't we hang him ? SPOONER : Don't be stupid . He'll be missed . GOATMAN : No-one will miss him , sir . He's an Irishman . Oddly , the comedy writing styles of Galton and Speight never seemed to mesh . The ' Alf Garnett ' style attitudes of some of the characters sat uneasily alongside the show's slapstick approach . It drew complaints from viewers for being screened in peak-viewing time soon after the Brixton and Toxteth riots . After one season , Fraser departed ( as did Rossington ) . Donald Churchill replaced him as ' Spooner ' and while he did not splutter quite so repulsively as his predecessor , his performance was not one of which he could have been proud . The first episode he did was a parody of the Western ' High Noon ' . The marvellous Patricia Hayes also came aboard as traffic warden Mrs . Cantaford . Speight himself made the occasional guest appearance . Despite the talent involved in its making , ' Spooner's Patch ' never amounted to anything more than a misfire . How it ran to three seasons is a mystery . |
401,077 | 7,743,887 | 675,782 | 2 | An Inspector Calls ! | An Inspector visits Fenn Street School , so 5C set out to destroy what little reputation it has . Though now part of Fenn Street , the Weaver Street gang see it as their duty to make as much trouble as possible . Nude pin-up's of Raquel Welch are prominently displayed in Cromwell's office , empty gin bottles turn up in Miss Ewell's desk , an dummy hurled out of an upstairs window , and alcohol put in Potter's stomach medicine . As if this wasn't bad enough , Miss Ewell's senile old mother mistakes the Inspector for Mr . Sibley , and gives him a string of complaints about her daughter . A terrible Geoff Rowley and Andy Baker episode , notable mainly for the sight of Miss Ewell's mother chatting to her budgie Georgie , and a paralytic Potter staggering around Fenn Street . The film ' Carry On Teacher ' seems to have inspired 5C's campaign to discredit Cromwell . Peter Rogers and co . did it better . James Bree , who played the inspector , was well known to cult television fans because of his roles in ' The Prisoner ' and ' Dr . Who ' . ' Dodo ' , incidentally , is Mother Ewell's nickname for Doris . Spot the mistake : when the dummy falls past Cromwell's window , the photographic back-drop visibly wobbles ! |
400,692 | 7,743,887 | 675,778 | 2 | Life Without Price ! | Fed up with constant abuse from pupils , Mr . Price decides to jack in teaching and get a job with a pharmaceutical company . The interview is a disaster ; Price disparages the firm's products , and his dishevelled appearance and Welsh accent do him no favours . The kids are overjoyed at the thought of him leaving , while the other teachers cannot do enough to help him in his search for work . Convinced he has blown it , he decides to stay , but then , an unexpected phone call from the drug company gives him renewed hope . . . Oh dear . This has ' misfire ' written all over it . Tony Bilbow's script rehashes ' Life Without Doris ' from the previous series , only with Price threatening to leave rather than Miss Ewell . Unlike Joan Sanderson in that earlier episode , Richard Davies is denied the opportunity to play his character in a sympathetic key , when not drunk he's angry most of the time . Given a better script , he could have been brilliant . The main source of humour here seems to be the sight of Smithy convulsed with laughter at the thought of Price going after a job he has no chance of getting . The studio audience is silent for about 99 % of the episode , and I can understand why . |
400,667 | 7,743,887 | 563,088 | 2 | Upton Goes On A Blind Date | Upton is frustrated at being the only student at St . Swithins not to have a girlfriend , so Dick arranges a date with Nurse Pat Mortlake , otherwise known as ' Rigor Mortis ' . He assures his friend that the nurse is a push-over . But things do not go according to plan . . . According to ' The Monty Python Encyclopadia ' by Robert Ross , London Weekend Television wanted to cancel ' Doctor In The House ' after the first series , and after viewing episodes like this its not hard to see why . It never moves out of first gear . Upton takes ' Rigor ' back to the flat , plies her with drink , makes a move and - she leaves . We don't see her again . A new plot takes over as Duncan confesses to Upton that he proposed to a nurse the night before whilst drunk . Angharad Rees , who plays ' Frances ' , would reappear in ' Doctor In Charge ' , as ' Annabel ' . ' Rigor ' is portrayed by the charming Helen Fraser , who would also go on to ' Doctor In Charge ' , as ' Dr . Mary Parsons ' . Michael Mackenzie , who has a non-speaking role , became a hero of children's television the following year in ' Ace Of Wands ' . The most interesting scene is when Upton and Duncan both confess to being 20-year old virgins . This at the height of the so-called Permissive Society ! Shocking indeed ! |
401,329 | 7,743,887 | 563,083 | 2 | Oh dear . . . | A delegation of twenty-eight Chinese men and women visit St . Swithins . Duncan and Dick are entrusted with looking after them , the former does the job so well Bingham suspects he may secretly may be a Communist . When some of the party goes missing , the doctors go frantic trying to locate them . Bingham thinks that the delegation are after the blueprint for the hospital's new cobalt laser , so they can build bombs with which to threaten world peace . . . Another episode ' they couldn't possibly make now ' , made at a time when the West was deeply suspicious of the East . The delegation members are dressed in identical denim suits with caps , their command of English is virtually non-existent , and they are surly , demanding to be shown something of medical importance else they will walk out . The use of stereotypes in comedy is not in itself a bad thing , its what's done with them that matters . When ' The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin ' featured a ' thick ' Irishman ( Seamus Finnegan ) , he was actually shown to have had more sense than his so-called superiors . Here , however , Graham Chapman and Bernard McKenna use crude racial stereotypes without bothering to make them likable or even interesting . Still , there's some fun to be had out of watching Bingham constructing foolish conspiracy theories based on the flimsiest of evidence . At the climax , Duncan and the others realise they've misjudged the visitors completely . Fine . But as the credits roll a Chinese man appears in Loftus ' office and begins taking photographs , thereby undermining whatever noble intentions the episode may have had . |
401,507 | 7,743,887 | 563,016 | 2 | What Do We Do With The Drunken Nurse ? | Upton and Paul are back at St . Swithins , while Dick now works as a rep for a major pharmaceutical company . Acting on information supplied by Bingham , Paul lands a top job at the hospital , much to Upton's disgust . They fall out . Upton misses a date with a pretty nurse named Beryl , and she is so depressed she gets paralytic . Dick takes her to Upton's room to have his wicked way with her , but then an argument breaks out between Upton and Paul . When Beryl passes out , they take her to casualty , and download her onto Bingham . . . The best joke here is in the title , I'm afraid . The return of Bingham is welcome , but the lads ' treatment of Beryl is utterly despiccable , even by their standards , especially as she seems to be a nice girl . Phillppa Markham , who plays ' Beryl ' , had appeared in the ' Doctor In The House ' episode ' Hot Off The Presses ' as ' Mary ' . Funniest moment - Bingham tries to examine Beryl , and she pulls him roughly on top of her ! |
400,704 | 7,743,887 | 665,488 | 3 | Ticket To Nowhere | When Olive accidentally destroys a number of expensive items - tea-set , guitar and dress - on approval from a home shopping company , Stan is in desperate need of £50 . Blakey refuses to pay him his efficiency bonus , so Stan and Jack use a stolen ticket machine to make themselves a bit of money . All goes well until Blakey pays the Butler household an unexpected visit . . . Written by Bob Grant and Stephen Lewis , this is a retread of ' Cover-Up ' from Season 4 , as once again Stan makes personal use of bus company property , and then goes frantic trying to hide the crime . The scene where Blakey forces Stan to grovel on his knees before the whole depot is dreadfully embarrassing and unfunny . Funniest moment - Stan attempting to stop Blakey from sitting down , knowing full well that the machine he is looking for is beneath the chair's cushion . |
401,358 | 7,743,887 | 665,437 | 3 | The No . 11 Bus Makes A Final Trip To The Cemetery Gates | Blakey and Jack compete to see which bus man has the best garden . Dirty tricks come into play , such as the tipping of rubbish , the chopping down of trees , and cats doing their business on the lawn . But the winner is not whom either expects . . . ' On The Buses ' juddered to a halt with this feeble Bob Grant and Stephen Lewis penned offering , which looks like a rejected ' Love Thy Neighbour ' script . Why is Blakey eligible to enter the contest , the house he lives in isn't his . Larry Martyn returns as ' Fred ' , but despite the actor's resemblance to Reg Varney , no attempt was made to give him a similar ( nor indeed any ) personality . Bob Grant's real-life cat ( credited as ' Tiberius Grant ' ) was called on to portray Jack's pet ' Tibbles ' . The animal gives the best performance in the episode . Pity Reg Varney did not stay to the very end . ' Goodbye Stan ' would have made for a stronger finale . And so , ' On The Buses ' was over . Well , not quite . ' Holiday On The Buses ' came out on 26th December , reuniting the entire cast . The following year , ' Don't Drink The Water ' had Blakey moving to Spain with his sister . But without Stan Butler to boss about , the character didn't seem so amusing . In 1975 , the first ' Buses ' film was shown on I . T . V . , with the others receiving premieres over the next few years . They contradict the series in that they depict Olive and Arthur with a child . As little Arthur never appeared on television , we must assume they are set sometime after the series , with Stan back home , and Olive having remarried Arthur . Olive reappeared in Wolfe and Chesney's revival of ' The Rag Trade ' . In the late ' 80's , rumours of a new series began to circulate . Doris Hare and Stephen Lewis went on the B . B . C . ' s ' Open Air ' to answer viewers ' queries . The new show would have brought back Stan , this time as the manager of the Luxton bus company , but it was never made . Thanks to satellite repeats and D . V . D . releases , ' On The Buses ' remains as popular as ever . In that cathode ray phantom zone where all cancelled shows dwell , Blakey is still urging Stan and Jack to ' get that bus out ' . |
400,663 | 7,743,887 | 665,459 | 3 | Three Tings A Tinkle ! | A new clippie joins the Luxton bus company - bespectacled feminist Jessie , who immediately protests against the lack of an allowance for clippies needing to use toilets . She gets her way , but then Blakey is spying on the clippies to make sure they don't try and abuse the new system . . . A pretty boring episode this , written by Myles Rudge . Yootha Joyce was a few months away from the first series of ' Man About The House ' in which she played Mildred Roper . Jack's new driver , Sid , is played by Michael Coles , also to be seen that year battling Christopher Lee in ' The Satanic Rites Of Dracula ' , made by Hammer Films . Coincidentally , Hammer produced the three ' On The Buses ' movies . |
401,191 | 7,743,887 | 120,053 | 3 | This Sure Ain't ' The Saint ' ! | ' The Saint ' came out a year before the ' Avengers ' movie , and likewise also proved a critical and commercial disaster . Of the two movies , I prefer ' The Avengers ' because , whether you like it or not , it at least resembles the television series on which it is based . ' The Saint ' tries to be ' Mission : Impossible ' meets ' Goldeneye ' , and fails dismally . As soon as Kilmer's casting was announced , I knew it was doomed . Simon Templar should never be played by an American . Kilmer was fine as ' Batman ' , but all wrong for ' The Saint ' . I wasn't convinced by the romance with the Elisabeth Shue character . Templar's disguises are so patently unconvincing you wonder why no-one sees through them . Jonathan Hensleigh's script is mediocre compared to the John Kruse T . V . episodes ' The Fiction Makers ' and ' The Death Game ' . It didn't help that the original ending was deleted , and a lame new one substituted . Best thing about the movie was Orbital's pulse-pounding arrangement of Edwin Astley's theme . |
401,229 | 7,743,887 | 501,338 | 3 | The Year That Everyone Talked Non-Stop | In 1977 , there was a unpopular Labour Government in power , the economy was in bad shape , the Tories had a charismatic new leader , and Bruce Forsyth was to be found on Saturday night television . Funny how things change , eh ? ' 1990 ' was a B . B . C . - 2 drama set in a Britain where freedom is a myth and bureaucracy rules . Identity Cards are carried by citizens , and The Public Control Department ( P . C . D . ) watches us at all times . It was the creation of Wilfrid Greatorex , a writer for whom I have a lot of respect , as he wrote episodes of ' Danger Man ' and ' Man In A Suitcase ' ( two of my all-time favourite shows ) . Edward Woodward starred as ' Jim Kyle ' , a crusading newspaper man out to undermine the authority of the P . C . D . He is alas smitten by ' Delly Lomas ' ( the stunning Barbara Kellerman ) , second-in-command at the P . C . D . Its chairman is Herbert Skardon ( Robert Lang ) , a sneering villain who , if not quite ' Big Brother ' , certainly qualifies as ' Big Stepson ' . This episode - the second broadcast - continues a storyline begun in the first - ' Creed Of Slaves ' . Dr . Vickers ( Donald Gee ) wants to leave Britain to take up a job in Arizona , but the Government rejects his application for an exit visa . Desperate , he turns to dissidents for help . You would think that this could easily have been resolved in a single fifty-minute instalment , but Wilfrid strings it out to two . By the middle of the second , I had lost caring whether Dr . Vickers would ever get to sip Coca-Cola in the Arizona sunshine . He tells the authorities he wants to go because of his asthmatic daughter , but at the end only he and his wife escape , leaving the girl behind . It could not possibly be that the new job is better paid ? Oh no , that would put him in a bad light . We never find out which party is in Government , but mention of a ' wealth tax ' leads me to suspect it must be Labour . Of course taxing the rich and ensuring they pay their dues is just not on is it ? In today's world , immigration is regarded as a problem , but here its emigration that the writer gets steamed up about . Words fail me as to how boring this is . It consists entirely of long , drawn-out scenes in offices where everyone talks constantly , without a trace of wit or anything resembling character development . You have not seen such a bunch of po-faced people in your life . Take it from me - ' Newsnight ' is more fun . When Kyle takes Delly ( what an odd name that is . Is it short for something , like ' Delphine ' of ' Delbert ' ? ) out to dinner , and they go back to his place , you think " Great ! We're going to get some naughty business ! " but it never happens . Modern drama series cannot get the main characters into bed fast enough , so it comes as a shock to see an old one which has them behaving as though they live on Caldey Island ( a monastery off the coast of Tenby , South Wales ) . The sight of Babs Kellerman in the buff would have gone some way towards making this interesting . Woodward gives a solid performance , a bit too solid methinks . At times he looks as though he wishes he were back inside ' The Wicker Man ' . Kellerman's Delly Bird is beautiful and haughty , but that's about it . Robert Lang's ' Skardon ' is a clone of ' Number Two ' from ' The Prisoner ' T . V . series . I have no objections to the political sermonising , it is just that I wish it had been done in a more subtle manner . George Orwell's ' Nineteen Eighty-Four ' covered similar ground , but he told his story in an entertaining manner , unlike this . ' Author's Message ' is plastered across every frame . After two seasons , the show ended . Margaret Thatcher won the General Election in 1979 and as we all know Britain became a land of peace , prosperity and freedom . Interestingly , in the real 1990 , 471 people were injured and 341 arrested in the poll tax riots , arguably the single greatest demonstration of public feeling the country has ever seen . Thatcher became so unpopular her own party booted her out later that year . Paul Chapman , an excellent actor from ' Colditz ' and ' A Bit Of A Do ' , is ' Randall ' , in charge of public surveillance , which basically consists of him staring at television screens . I hope he fired his agent soon after doing this . The excellent theme music was by John Cameron ( no relation to David ! ) . |
401,400 | 7,743,887 | 424,063 | 3 | Benny In Love | Eddie is one of nature's losers . One day , he meets and falls in love with the lovely Kathy , and sets about trying to woo her . He buys a car from a shady second-hand dealer , but it breaks down as he drives home . His attempts to impress her with his tennis playing technique go awry - he cannot keep up with his much-younger opponent . As attempt after attempt fails , the only place where Eddie can be confidant of any success is his imagination . . . As part of Benny Hill's deal with Thames T . V . following his defection from the B . B . C . , he got to write , star , compose the music and co-direct ( with John Robins ) this short comedy film . Its been unseen for years , until it resurfaced recently as an extra on one of ' The Benny Hill Annual ' D . V . D's . One would dearly love to describe it as a neglected comedy gem ; sadly , it is not . ' Eddie In August ' was clearly influenced by the work of Jacques Tati and Charlie Chaplin . The storyline provides the ideal framework for a comedy , but inexplicably Hill fails to deliver much by the way of gags . It doesn't even come to life during Eddie's ' Billy Liar ' type daydreams . The result is decidedly flat and tedious . It did not do well in the ratings when first broadcast , and Hill soon returned to his regular show . |
400,827 | 7,743,887 | 71,804 | 3 | Robin Tripp Vs . Captain Mainwaring | One year after its launch , ' Man About The House ' was filmed by Hammer . All the original cast were present and correct , and at least the characters stayed on home territory rather than flying off to Spain . But the ' opening out ' of the format to encompass new characters such as the nymphomaniac Miss Bird ( Andrea Lawrence ) and the gay couple played by Michael Ward and Melvyn Hayes diluted the premise . The plot about the unscrupulous property developer was old hat even in 1974 . The production designer seems not to have seen the show , as his sets don't resemble the television versions . The Ropers ' sitting room is located on the left of the front door , not the right . The finale in the Thames Television building is silly and looks like an lame attempt to publicise the company's other shows . Nice cameo from Spike Milligan , though . The only redeeming features are Arthur Lowe as the tycoon and Peter Cellier as his slimy sidekick . Get a D . V . D . of the T . V . show instead . |
401,164 | 7,743,887 | 900,493 | 3 | More Plain Than Pearl | Reg and Old Wol are stuffing themselves with oysters when the former finds a pearl in his . Convinced it might be valuable , he hides it from his workmates ' beady eyes , before taking it to a jewellers ' . That night , he offers it as a gift to Irene , who accepts . But when the jeweller phones to tell them it is worth £1000 she becomes worried , fearing ( somewhat unbelievably ) that it is technically stolen property . Reg says it is a perk of the job . To placate her fears , Reg nervously approaches Mr . Preston and attempts to purchase oysters , so he can pretend he found the pearl in one . Preston tells him the oyster batch was a one-off , and that no more will be coming into the market . So what must he do ? The final ' Down The ' Gate ' bears more than a passing resemblance to the ' On The Buses ' episode ' Lost Property ' . It may seem strange to say this but watching these episodes made me realise just how important to the success of ' Buses ' Bob Grant was . Here Varney has no-one to bounce his humour off . ' Reg Furnell ' seems to enjoy a higher standard of living than ' Stan Butler ' - nice home , nice wife , and nice suits . Not bad for a Billingsgate fish porter . One of the programme's few good points is Dilys Laye ( who sadly passed on in February of this year ) as Reg's wife Irene . The domestic scenes are funnier than those set in the market itself . Funniest moment - in the canteen , Reg lets Old Wol handle the pearl . Seeing someone coming , the latter quickly drops it in a bottle of brown sauce . Reg's horrified expression says it all . I used to watch each week not because I thought it was good , but because it was the nearest thing to ' On The Buses ' on the box at that time . I was acutely aware it was not as funny . Fortunately , we now have the entire run of ' Buses ' on D . V . D . to enjoy whenever we want , hence there is no real need for this show to be seen by anyone ever again . |
401,192 | 7,743,887 | 235,734 | 3 | Simon In The ' 80's | A decade after the Ian Ogilvy version , ' The Saint ' was back on our screens , this time played by Simon Dutton . We were promised a tougher , grittier take on the character , but the series failed to deliver . Dutton was handsome but lacked the charm required for the role . Once again , there was expensive location filming , but with no noticeable benefit . The old Moore episodes were more entertaining even though they rarely strayed beyond Elstree . This ' Saint ' resembled those cheap Continental Bond knock-offs of the ' 60's . The decision to upgrade the show from one hour to two hour episodes proved disastrous . ' The Saint ' isn't ' Inspector Morse ' . It also suffered from the absence of writer John Kruse . ' The Software Murders ' was the best episode by far , one wonders why it wasn't used to open the series . After the second episode - the atrocious ' Blue Dulac ' - went out , L . W . T . yanked ' The Saint ' from its prime-time Saturday evening slot , and the rest went out the following summer to nobody's great pleasure . |
401,071 | 7,743,887 | 803,386 | 3 | Not Very Hot | Cleaning Mr . Cromwell's office , Potter sucks the headmaster's pet mouse up his vacuum cleaner . It is not the only disaster that day . Tidying up the science lab , Godber thoughtlessly puts a bottle of nitric acid in a box of rubbish bound for the incinerator . When Price realises this , he panics . The school is evacuated . But two pupils are missing - Daisy and Celia . They are in the incinerator room with Smithy , and all are unaware of the danger they are in . . . The title is recognisable to ' Nearest & Dearest ' fans as one of Hylda Baker's numerous catchphrases . An appearance by Hylda herself would have saved this boring Rowley and Baker episode . Once again Charles Bolton's ' Godber ' is given unwarranted screen time . What on earth made the writers think his ' Gumby'-style character was more interesting than the other 5C pupils ? Poor Miss Petting is clearly heading for a nervous breakdown . In the short time she's been in the show , she's shed more tears than Maureen Bullock managed in the first three years . Mr . Hurst gets to play the hero at the end by going back to rescue Smithy and the girls , the sort of thing Hedges might have done . Funniest moment - Potter trying to do karate on Godber ! |
401,585 | 7,743,887 | 706,351 | 3 | Percy Thrower Never Said It Would Be Like This | Koenig and Maya are exploring a world covered in lush , semi-tropical vegetation . Casually picking a flower , he is startled when a voice booms out of nowhere : " Cannibals ! Murderers ! You will be punished as cannibals and murderers deserve to be ! " . This is a world where evolution has taken a different turn and plants are the dominant life-form . Koenig has accidentally committed murder . He and Maya are both sentenced to death . The Rulers of Luton conjure up three grotesque aliens from nothingness - ' Alien Strong ' ( David Jackson ) who is powerful , ' Alien Transporter ' ( Godfrey James ) able to teleport at will and ' Alien Invisible ' ( Roy Marsden ) who can . . well , guess . Despite attempts by the Commander to make peace with them , they pay no heed . A battle for survival ensues . . . This was one of three Year 2 episodes penned by producer Fred Freiberger under the alias ' Charles Woodgrove ' . Actually , ' Charles Woodworm ' would have been more apt . Fred was about as good a writer as he was a producer ; that is to say , not good at all . His episodes are far and away the worst the show ever produced . ' The Rules Of Luton ' is a rip-off of an old ' Star Trek ' plot entitled ' Arena ' , itself a rip-off of an ' Outer Limits ' story called ' Fun & Games ' , loosely based on Fredric Brown's story ' Arena ' , in which an Earthman is forced to fight to the death an alien for the gratification of a higher intelligence . The problem with ' Luton ' is not that it is derivative , but simply that it is not remotely exciting . Just people and aliens larking about in a field . The unconvincing monsters don't help . While one can forgive the threadbare creatures that shuffled their way through Classic ' Dr . Who ' and ' Blake's Seven ' on the grounds that those were low budget B . B . C . series , in a well funded show like ' 1999 ' such shoddiness is inexcusable . The legend goes that Fred got the name ' Luton ' from a road sign he spotted while driving on the M1 motorway . We can only give thanks he was not driving through North Wales , otherwise the episode might have been titled ' The Rules Of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogery etc . ' . Did he give any consideration as to how his naming a planet ' Luton ' would be received in Britain ? I never saw this when it went out but I bet there were more than a few giggles going round the school playgrounds the morning after it was first broadcast . In fairness , I should point out the plants pronounce the name ' Loo-tarn ' , rather like Hyacinth Bucket's insistence on being called ' Mrs . Bouquet ' . How can plants talk in any case ? What are they using for vocal chords ? Just think if anyone wanted to take over the planet they would not need ray guns and space ships - a few hundred gallons of weed killer would do the job nicely . Roy Marsden - the future star of ' The Sandbaggers ' and ' Inspector Dalgleish ' - is virtually unrecognisable as ' Alien Invisible ' ( probably why he took the part ) . David Jackson ( Dave Prowse must have been busy that week ) - ' Alien Strong ' - went on to play ' Gan ' in ' Blake's Seven ' . There's a nice scene where Koenig and Maya talk about their home worlds , and he mentions his late wife . But we are long , long away from the heights of Year 1 with this . And things would get worse . |
401,679 | 7,743,887 | 641,227 | 3 | Who Cares Who Killed Nolan ? | Tom Nolan ( Sam Kydd ) , a small-time private detective , has been hired by Mrs . Arnoldson ( Ursula Howells ) to spy on her husband ( Griffith Jones ) , whom she suspects of having an affair . She is absolutely correct on that score . He is seeing the lovely Angela ( Nike Arrighi ) and plans on running off with her to the Bahamas . Nolan becomes suspicious of Mrs . Arnoldson ; something about her face strikes him as familiar . While taking photos of her at her country home , he is spotted by the Arnoldsons ' chauffeur ( Duncan Lamont ) , who gives chase and tries to shoot him . Fortunately for Nolan , a jogger happens to be passing , and he is able to make it back to his car . Terrified , Nolan calls on McGill for help . He refuses to disclose why he is running , he just wants Mac to help him flee the country . Mac returns from the bank ( where he had just cashed one of Nolan's cheques ) only to find the chauffeur in wait for him . Nolan is murdered , a crime for which McGill is framed . . . This is , to my mind , one of the worst episodes of the series . Donald Jonson ( who also wrote ' The Girl Who Never Was ' ) has come up with a plot that has more holes than a colander . Why does the chauffeur allow Nolan to escape so easily ? He could have shot the jogger in cold blood too . Nolan's terror is hard to fathom . You would think that he has just uncovered a ' Watergate ' style conspiracy , but no , its just a couple of old robbers hiding out . In the original series ' outline , Mac's first name was given as ' John ' - it was never used . In most episodes this was not a problem but here it is . The police issuing radio warnings about a ' murderer ' whose full name they do not know sounds comical . The Arnoldsons have pulled off an airport robbery and faked their own deaths . Mr . Arnoldson had sensibly undergone plastic surgery but his wife refused it ( which is how Nolan was able to recognise her ) . Presumably she liked the way she looked ? Her hiring of Nolan is daft behaviour coming from one supposed to be officially deceased . Sam Kydd and Ursula Howells are credited as guest stars , even though the former is only on screen for the first ten minutes , and the latter gets bumped off twenty minutes after that . Kydd was , of course , a familiar figure in British films and television series . When this was made , he was starring as ' Orlando ' in the I . T . V . children's ' series of the name . Howells went on to co-star with Patrick Cargill in the sitcom ' Father Dear Father ' . Also on view is a very young Trevor Peacock ( ' Jim ' from ' The Vicar Of Dibley ' ) as a ' lodger ' . Denise Buckley and Nike Arrighi both appeared in episodes of ' The Prisoner ' . If the taxi driver looks familiar , that's because he is played by Harold Goodwin , who was ' Foley ' in ' The Girl Who Never Was ' . It is impossible to imagine a middle-aged couple like the Arnoldsons committing a daring robbery . They look as if they would be more at home in the lounge of a Royal British Legion . So yes , this is absolute tosh , but watchable . Charles Crichton pulls off an impressive climax in the Arnoldsons ' house , with Mac creeping around in the dark , gun in hand . Very Hitchcockian scene , but spoilt slightly by Albert Elms ' intrusive incidental music . |
400,615 | 7,743,887 | 563,127 | 3 | A Moving Experience ! | Duncan , Dick , Andy , Kate and Gascoigne are fed up with having to share the same office , so they complain . The Hospital Secretary proposes they exchange offices with Loftus . But the doctors are still unhappy as they now have to walk longer distances to the operating theatre , while Loftus no longer has access to his private lavatory . Duncan hatches a plan to get Loftus to agree to change back . . . The late dancer and actress Wei Wei Wong appeared in numerous variety and comedy shows in the early ' 70's , as well as a small role in the Bond film ' The Man With The Golden Gun ' . Here she makes the first of two appearances in ' Doctor On The Go ' as a nurse . Its the only notable thing about this episode , which must have been written as a ' filler ' . Practically nothing funny happens in the entire half-hour , apart from Kate's " Mahogany ! Your hogany ! Anybody's hogany ! " , and that's not saying much . Derek Deadman crops again as a porter . ' Never The Twain ' fans will recall that he played the role of ' Ringo ' . |
400,691 | 7,743,887 | 675,766 | 3 | Potter Loses it ! | Potter has an assistant - a young black man named Sidney Noakes . Sidney can fix anything , whether it be a broken door-knob , leaking radiator or David's sports car . Initially distrusting the newcomer , Potter proudly introduces him to the whole school . Even 4C cheer when they first clap eyes on him . Then two malicious 4C boys put the poison in , telling Potter the younger man wants his job because he is part of a black militant conspiracy to take-over the country . Potter is not normally one for believing anything the kids tell him , but the boys get him sufficiently worried to try and test Sidney's mettle . . . I suppose it was inevitable that someone of Potter's character should turn out to be a racist . Thankfully , we are spared any long-winded ' they shouldn't let them in the country ' speeches , but even so , there's little amusement to be had from the sorry spectacle of Potter trying to frighten Sidney by invoking the name of Stokely Carmichael ( a real-life Trinidanian-American activist active in the 1960's U . S . civil rights movement ) , getting it wrong and confusing him with Ian . Derek Griffiths , who plays ' Sidney ' , was a familiar face to ' 70's viewers ; as well as sitcoms such as ' Till Death Us Do Part ' and Public Information films ( ' A Thief Would Like Your Bike ' ) he was also to be found on ' Play School ' . This talented actor brings a welcome breath of fresh air to what had become a stale sitcom ; unfortunately , this was his one and only appearance . Convinced that Potter is a raving lunatic , Sidney leaves . He should have become a regular cast member . Not necessarily as ' Sidney ' . It would have been interesting to see what Griffiths would have made of the job of John Alderton's replacement . At the end of the episode , Potter is still a racist , while the boys who lied about Sidney have not been punished . Today this would be branded ' politically incorrect ' . I call it not funny . Written ( surprisingly ) by Tony Bilbow . |
401,378 | 7,743,887 | 81,431 | 3 | Rising Damp , Its Climbing Up The Wall ! | The film version of ' Rising Damp ' came out two years after the television series ended . Like many fans I duly went along to the cinema when it opened . I came away bitterly disappointed . Eric Chappell could not have spent very much time writing the script ; most of it is rehashed ideas from old episodes . At the time of the film's release , the ' Rising Damp ' series was still being repeated regularly on I . T . V . so the public was being asked to pay to see something they'd seen already . At least the ' On The Buses ' movies boasted original screenplays . Secondly , Richard Beckinsale had died the year before , so they eliminated the character of ' Alan ' as a mark of respect , substituting art student ' John ' , played by Christopher Strauli of ' Only When I Laugh ' fame . It simply wasn't the same . As another poster has pointed out , Rigsby's boarding house looked nothing like the one used in the series , being bigger and altogether cleaner . Director Joe McGrath was one of the directors who worked on the original ' Casino Royale ' , a film steeped in surreal humour . ' Rising Damp ' also has its share of ' Walter Mitty ' style fantasy sequences , such as the ' Saturday Night Fever ' parody . Personally , I found them horribly out of place . A case of ' over-egging the pudding ' . On the plus side , Leonard Rossiter is as magnificent as ever as the seedy ' Rigsby ' , as are Frances De La Tour as ' Ruth ' and Don Warrington as ' Philip . Its just a shame the film isn't worthy of their talents . When Rossiter died in 1984 , it was shown by I . T . V . as a tribute , with its final scene - showing Rigsby laying prostrate at the foot of the stairs - removed in the interests of good taste . |
400,678 | 7,743,887 | 80,259 | 4 | When Paul Squire Made A Good Impression ! | Its funny how some people can go from ' rising star ' to total obscurity without managing to become a success somewhere along the way . This , alas , was the fate of Paul Squire , a gifted , fresh-faced young impressionist who'd made a big splash on The Royal Variety Show ( B . B . C . - 1 , 23 November 1980 ) . Amongst his repertoire were Les Dawson , John Inman , Frank Spencer and Tom Baker's ' Dr . Who ' . His talent for mimicry was quite extraordinary . A . T . V . snapped him up , and put him in a show which was all about its own making . Each week , we'd see Paul at his ( mock-up ) flat , where he'd be constantly badgered by his producer , writer , and musical director , as well as a bimbo of a secretary . Just before the closing credits rolled we'd be treated to the show-within-a-show's title sequence - ' P . S . Its Paul Squire ' . The format didn't do him justice . It was too limiting . Despite some funny work by the star , and a talented support cast , the end result was a bit flat . After two seasons , Squire went to the B . B . C . to make ' Paul Squire Esq . ' which was absolutely ghastly , a pale imitation of the Mike Yarwood show . It flopped . He returned to I . T . V . in 1983 for one last series - screened at 5 . 15 P . M . on Mondays - and then it was goodbye forever from Paul Squire . He returned to the cabaret circuit . He would not be the first comic to fail to find the right television format ; Fogswell Flax and Jessica Martin also spring to mind . Despite his youth , Paul was perhaps a little too ' old school ' at a time when British television comedy was in the midst of the alternative revolution , as epitomised by ' The Young Ones ' and ' The Comic Strip Presents ' . Had Squire caught on , of course , its likely that he would have been extinguished in the same early ' 90's purge that rid the airwaves of Russ Abbot , Little & Large and Bobby Davro . We shall never know for sure . A shocking waste of talent , all the same . |
401,065 | 7,743,887 | 959,712 | 4 | But that was twenty years ago ! | Time has marched on since Doctors Paul Collier , Dick Stuart-Clark and Duncan Waring first met as students at St . Swithins . In 1991 , Paul is a consultant with his own Harley Street practice , Dick has taken over Loftus ' old job as Professor of Surgery ( a position he obtained after his rich wife Emma made a large donation to the hospital ) , and paediatrician Duncan married Loftus ' daughter Geraldine , and fathered five kids . Dick's daughter Rebecca has joined the students union , much to his disgust , and a very militant figure she cuts too , leading protests against rumoured ward closures . Emma and Dick decide to organise a gala dinner in honour of Geoffrey Loftus ' 75th birthday . Geraldine suspects the Stuart-Clarks of wishing to hijack the event to further Dick's chances of getting a knighthood . . . The idea to do a new chapter in the lives of ' the terrible trio ' came from actor George Layton , last seen in the ' Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot ? ' episode of ' Doctor In Charge ' in 1973 . L . W . T . turned the revival down , so he took it to the B . B . C . , who were undergoing something of a craze for exhuming old sitcoms , such as ' Agony ' ( another L . W . T . show ) , ' The Liver Birds ' , and ' The Legacy Of Reginald Perrin ' ( without Leonard Rossiter , of course ) . Trying to pretend it was still 1973 would have been a waste of time . Hence the main characters had to be shown as older men with social and family responsibilities ( save for Collier , who was still single ) . Interviewed by Terry Wogan prior to the screening of the first episode , Geoffrey Davies admitted to making the change an important condition of his return to the role . The gang have never been away , it seems . Which is a pity as in one fell swoop the audience is deprived of the chance of an emotional reunion akin to the ' Auf Wiedershen Pet ' clan's gathering at Oz's ' funeral ' in 2002 . No mention is made of Collier's departure nor Duncan and Dick's adventures at sea and down under . Mike Upton is referred to briefly , now a G . P . in Dundee . Waring is said to have been married for twenty years , a piece of unnecessary revisionism which unfortunately invalidates every episode made after ' Doctor In The House ' . Loftus ' daughter has undergone a name change from ' Valerie ' to ' Geraldine ' . Yes , the gang are all here but the passing of time has made them a lot less amusing , particularly Duncan . The fault for this show's failure must lie on the shoulders of Layton , whose script for the opening episode was so lame it caused long-time fans to switch off in droves . It was like tuning into a new ' On The Buses ' only to find Stan and Jack discussing bowel cancer instead of trying to chat up clippies . The main ' joke ' here is that the lads , while swapping memories , find that they all slept with the same nurse , one Dorothy Sheridan . As no-one of that name appeared in the previous series , we must take it as granted they they are really referring to Nurse Dottie Grace , who appeared in several episodes of ' Charge ' . Layton clearly hadn't done his homework . The best part features the welcome return of Ernest Clark , once more ' the ogre of St . Swithins ' - Professor Sir Geoffrey Loftus . Frail though he was at the same of filming ( he died three years later ) , he is still able to steal what little show there is . |
400,713 | 7,743,887 | 96,666 | 4 | Straight Down The Middle ! | One of Johnny Speight's lesser creations , ' The Nineteenth Hole ' was set in a posh golf club where chauvinism and bigotry are rife among the well-heeled members . Speight was a golf lover and knew what went on in these places . Eric Sykes , kitted out in flat cap and long johns , played the club's harassed secretary , and was chiefly responsible for what few laughs there were . Like Speight's earlier ' Spooner's Patch ' , the main problem was that , with the exception of the Secretary , almost every character was a carbon-copy of Alf Garnett . There was no-one to provide a counterbalance to the non-stop parade of prejudiced and ill-informed tirades . The end result was tiresome rather than funny , akin to watching the B . B . C . ' s ' Question Time ' . The show squandered the talents of such fine actors as Garfield Morgan , John Quayle , Derek Newark , Norman Rossington ( essentially reprising his ' Spooner's Patch ' role ) , and Brian Glover . In one episode , a club member ( played by Ken Campbell ) named Mr . Johnson underwent a sex change operation and the committee debated whether or not to permit her to use the men's bar . When it was finally agreed she be allowed to use it , other members underwent the same operation and crowded the bar . One I . T . V . station ( T . S . W . ) was so embarrassed by the show they cancelled it in mid-run . Apart from some U . K . Gold repeats in the late ' 90's , it has not been seen anywhere since . The idea probably looked good on paper , but even the normally brilliant Speight could not get out of this particular hole . |
401,460 | 7,743,887 | 69,616 | 4 | When Norman Was Nobody | Norman Wisdom's film career seemed to be well and truly over by 1970 ( his last cinematic outing being 1969's ' What's Good For The Goose ' ) , so he accepted an offer from A . T . V . to do a sitcom . ' Norman ' was penned by Ray Cooney and John Chapman , and cast him as ' Norman Wilkins ' , an Inland Revenue man who hates taking money . With Sally Bazely and David Lodge ( both of whom had appeared with him in ' Goose ' ) , it was a modest success . His next show was not for another three years , and a strange beast it turned out to be . No laugh track , for one thing . And little of the slapstick for which Norman was renowned and loved . Norman played ' Nobody ' , a loser with no personality of his own . But when he put on a hat , he suddenly adopted the characteristics of its owner . Were he to don a policeman's helmet , for example , he'd suddenly start bending his knees and whistling the ' Dixon Of Dock Green ' theme . If he put on a schoolboy's cap , he would begin acting like Just William . Give him a deerstalker and he'd become Sherlock Holmes . The show was basically ' Mr . Benn ' without the fancy dress shop . ' Nobody ' lived with his domineering old trout of a mother ( Natalie Kent ) , whom his girlfriend Grace ( Priscilla Morgan ) tried to get him away from . Each week ' Nobody ' found himself in a different situation , playing a variation on his character . One episode had him doing a brilliant impersonation of Peter Falk's ' Columbo ' , but another had him roughed up by gangsters , and his Stan Laurel-like cries were pathetic rather than amusing . Though a reasonable ratings success , ' Nobody ' wasn't seen again , and Norman went on to do the more successful ' A Little Bit Of Wisdom ' . |
401,520 | 7,743,887 | 81,876 | 4 | Not Worth A Tanner | ' The Incredible Mister Tanner ' was an episode of ' The Ronnie Barker Playhouse ' , written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke , and broadcast on / 1968 . Barker played ' Cyril Tanner ' , a useless escapologist whose main audience are people in cinema and theatre queues and who has unrealistic aspirations to be the new Harry Houdini . Also in the cast were Richard O'Sullivan ( as Cyril's younger brother Arthur ) and Doris Hare . It eventually became a series , or rather two , but Ronnie was involved in neither . The first attempt was called ' Kindly Leave The Kerb ' , and went out in 1971 . Peter Butterworth took over the role of ' Cyril ' ( now renamed ' Ernest ' ) with the equally sublime Peter Jones as his sidekick ' Sidney Rochester ' . Welsh actor Meredith Edwards was seedy café owner ' Archie ' . The show was about losers , people who wanted fame and fortune but lacked any real talent . This being the pre-reality television era , they had no hope of being even remotely successful . Their only home was a basement flat , and they barely made enough money from the act to stay alive . ' Kerb ' was perhaps a bit too depressing to be a hit . It did not have a laugh track - essential for a sitcom in those days - and was swiftly forgotten . However , it returned a decade later as ' The Incredible Mister Tanner ' ( which was the title of the original ' Ronnie Barker Playhouse ' presentation , and not - as I . M . D . B . user Theo Robertson seems to believe - a steal from the hit U . S . series ' The Incredible Hulk ' ) . The circumstances under which the new show came to be made was rather sad . Yootha Joyce , Brian Murphy's co-star in ' George & Mildred ' , had sadly passed away the year before , just prior to the recording of a sixth and final series of the hit show . Thames decided to team Murphy with his occasional ' Man About The House / George & Mildred ' co-star ( he played the incompetent workman ' Jerry ' ) Roy Kinnear . Rather than just call the new show ' George & Jerry ' ( as I am sure it must have been tempting to do ) , Mortimer and Cooke instead chose to revive the characters of ' Ernest Tanner ' and ' Sidney Rochester ' ( now renamed ' Pratt ' ) . The scripts were updated ( there was a reference to the notoriously steamy I . T . V . drama ' Bouquet Of Barbed Wire ' , and we saw Ernest watching the latest version of ' Dr . Who ' on television instead of ' Pinky & Perky ' ) . The late Tony Melody was cast as ' Archie ' and the gorgeous Rosie Collins played his innocent daughter ' Prudence ' . Unlike the previous show , this one was made to look upbeat , with a catchy theme tune and better-dressed sets . However , a major flaw remained - just how do you make an escapologist funny ? Well , if he is pretty hapless , then every time he puts on the old chains and handcuffs and gets in a sack etc . , then he will have difficulty in escaping , won't he ? And Ernest did . But you can only make that idea funny so many times . Another problem for the show was that it went out not long after a lengthy season of ' George & Mildred ' repeats , shown by way of a tribute to Yootha Joyce . Public affection for the Ropers was so strong that viewers were not ready to accept Murphy in another role , not at that time anyway . The unconvincing posh voice he affected did not help matters either . I do not recall ' Tanner ' being particularly bad , but have no fond memories of it either . Even an escapologist like Tanner could not have foreseen just how impossible it would be for Murphy to escape from the role of ' George Roper ' . |
401,176 | 7,743,887 | 803,369 | 4 | Up For The Cup ! | Football mania infects Fenn Street School . Even Smithy is caught up in it . One of the 5C boys - the would-be protest singer Des Ridley - is found to have a natural aptitude for the game . During Miss Ewell's music class , he calls her an ' old boiler ' , so she puts him in detention . Without Des on their team , Fenn Street's chances of winning the cup look doomed . Miss Ewell suddenly finds herself socially ostracized . . . I have never been interested in football , and this Esmonde and Larbey episode did nothing to change my view . We don't even get to see any actual football , just the prelude and aftermath of the matches . Joan Sanderson carries most of the episode and , as you'd expect , she is great , even though the material is not really up to par . Funniest moment - the music class scene . Miss Ewell ropes in Potter to bang a drum , and Mr . Cromwell to play the triangle , and they can't even do those simple jobs properly . |
400,875 | 7,743,887 | 66,564 | 4 | Jerry Gets His Marching Orders | As Ben Elton once observed , nothing goes quicker out of style than comedy . Steve Martin's latest offering - ' The Pink Panther 2 ' - recently opened to bad reviews and dismal box-office grosses , while Mike Myers ' ' The Love Guru ' seems to have won few admirers . In 1970 , it was Jerry Lewis ' turn to feel the pain of rejection ( ironically , his character in this film experiences a funny turn whenever anyone uses that word in his presence ) when ' Which Way To The Front ? ' effectively drove him off the big screen for almost a decade . In this World War Two comedy , he plays ' Brendan Byers 111 ' , the richest man in the world , who wants to join the army to do his patriotic duty ( and also because he is bored with being successful ) but is rejected as he is medically unfit . He then decides to start his own privately funded army , recruiting other 4-F's . Decked out with ludicrous uniforms that look like those worn by ' International Rescue ' in ' Thunderbirds ' , they go into training . Some good visual gags here . When they fire rocket launchers , they look pleased with themselves , until they learn they have just destroyed a Texaco oil station ! Wishing to learn German , Brendan plays a long-playing record called ' Songs To Mein Kampf By ' . When this army sits down to eat , instead of being in a draughty mess hall , they are in an opulent room decked out with a chandelier . John Wood is very funny as ' Finkel ' , Byers ' ever-so English butler . His best scene is when he blackmails a Mafia-type gangster into teaching Byers ' brigade to kill . The script was not by Jerry himself , but by Gerald Gardiner and Dee Caruso , author of a number of episodes of ' The Monkees ' . ' Front ' often has the look and feel of a television sitcom , indeed at times you almost expect to hear a laugh-track . Where it goes badly wrong is in the last thirty minutes when Byers replaces a top Nazi commander and , after ordering the Germans to withdraw from the front , gets involved in the plot to kill Hitler ( and Tom Cruise is nowhere in sight ! ) . As the commander , Jerry delivers a performance of such mind-numbing ineptitude as to defy description . He gives Brian Blessed a run for his money in the ' loudest man alive ' stakes . It comes as a relief when the end credits appear . Perhaps the timing was just wrong - bringing out a war comedy when the Vietnam conflict was raging was not a good idea . Or the public simply had had enough of Jerry ( that beard probably did not help ! ) . What he needed here was a good producer , someone to take him in hand and say : " That gag stinks . Throw it out ! " . ' Don't Raise The Bridge , Lower The River ' is a masterpiece by comparison with this picture . As the ' 70's got underway , the new comedy icons would be Woody Allen , Mel Brooks , and Monty Python - fresher , more biting and in Allen's case , more human styles of comedy replaced Jerry's brand of slapstick . It would not be until 1982 that he would make anything like a successful comeback - as the conceited talk-show host ' Jerry Langford ' in Martin Scorcese's brilliant ' The King Of Comedy ' . |
401,371 | 7,743,887 | 591,013 | 4 | You didn't tell us your surname was ' Nuts ' , Hazel ! | The Goodies are nearly broke and freezing to death in their office . Then a sexy young woman named Hazel hires the lads to search for her explorer father , who went missing twenty years ago whilst searching for the lost tribe of the Orinoco . Using his diary , they recreate his journey step for step - and find themselves in Sevenoaks , Kent . . . Disappointing episode , boasting few film sequences . Bridget Armstrong would later play one of Patrick Cargill's ex-spouses in ' The Many Wives Of Patrick ' , whilst Roy Kinnear was famous thanks to ' That Was The Week That Was ' , ' Till Death Us Do Part ' , and many other shows . His character - Professor Nuts - has lived with the tribe for so long because they are the only people left in the world who laugh at his jokes ! The depiction of black people as grunting savages probably wouldn't go down well today , but attempting to impose today's standards on the past is totally pointless . You've just got to see it in the context of its time period . Funniest moment - Graeme's impersonation of Graham Kerr , the Galloping Gourmet , here renamed ' The Galloping Cannibal ' ! |
401,546 | 7,743,887 | 266,119 | 4 | Bang ! Bang ! The Mighty Fall ! | Scottish singer Brian ( B . A . ) Robertson was a familiar face on British television in the early ' 80's , having racked up Top Ten hits such as ' Bang ! Bang ! ' and ' Knocked It Off ' . A regular guest on ' Pop Quiz ' and ' Saturday Superstore ' , he came across as an engaging , likable character with a zany sense of humour . So it came as no surprise when , in 1982 , the B . B . C . gave him a late-night talk show devoted to music , wittily entitled ' B . A . In Music ' . It was fairly humdrum , save for one memorable moment . Interviewing Annabelle Lwin , lead singer of ' Bow Wow Wow ' , Robertson accidentally offended her . " You know what ? I think this is a ( expletive deleted ) show ! " , she snapped . Robertson responded : " Why don't you go then ! " . So she did , leaving the host fuming and the studio audience shrieking in delight . The show ended after one season , and Robertson has hardly been on television since . The Lwin incident was well remembered though ; it was chosen by Channel 4 viewers as one of ' The 100 Greatest T . V . Moments From Hell ' ( 2000 ) . |
401,156 | 7,743,887 | 75,538 | 4 | Not One Of Mary's Favourites | No , this wasn't a spin-off from ' Rising Damp ' . This Miss Jones was a young mum from London , played by Paula Wilcox , bringing up her child alone after the father , a Fleet Street journalist , does a runner ( the swine ! ) . Richard Waring specialised in forgettable , middle-of-the-road domestic sitcoms , such as ' Not In Front Of The Children ' , and this was more of the same . Miss Jones was middle-class , had a trendy flat , wall-to-wall friends , and a sympathetic neighbour ( Christopher Beeny ) who carried a torch for her . It was twee , sickly , unreal . Yet , amazingly , it attracted the wrath of Mary Whitehouse ! The Great Mary ( who'd also railed against that other sinful show ' Robin's Nest ' ) thought that single parenthood was not a fit subject for comedy and publicly complained before it went on air . After only two seasons , the show ended and the world got back to normal . The theme tune by the late Roger Webb was identical to one he'd written for a 1974 soft-porn film called ' The Amorous Milkman ' ) ! |
401,510 | 7,743,887 | 675,773 | 4 | The Final Term Begins . . . | En route to Fenn Street , Hedges happens across a mother trying to discipline her unruly son . The boy does not want to go to school , so the teacher offers to take him . On arrival , however , he discovers the boy belongs at Weaver Street . No sooner has he taken the boy there than he runs off . Hedges finally begins lessons with new class 4C , but badly misses 5C , and reacts angrily when one of his new pupils makes a disparaging remark about Eric Duffy . The police look for Hedges , because the boy has not turned up for lessons , and show Potter an Identikit picture , based on details provided by the boy's mother , but the forgetful caretaker fails to recognise it . . . The day after the first episode of ' The Fenn Street Gang ' went out in Britain , its parent show was back . Alas , with most of the original cast gone , it was not the same . The fourth series of ' Please Sir ! ' is much like the seventh series of ' On The Buses ' in that respect . Even a brief appearance by Liz Gebhardt as ' Maureen Bullock ' at the start of ' Identitwit ' cannot conceal the fact that it feels more like an episode of ' Grange Hill ' . Interestingly , the new titles depict pupils blowing bubble gum , reading horror comics , playing leap frog etc . Shame they are not in the actual show . That running blonde in hot pants would have sent the ratings soaring ! Kate Williams appears as the boy's mother . She was soon to be seen in ' Love Thy Neighbour ' as ' Joan Booth ' , while Brinsley Forde , who plays ' Herman ' , was ' Wesley ' in the ' Please Sir ! ' movie . Funniest moment - Maureen making Hedges ' bed and finding his pyjama bottoms under Penny's pillow ! |
401,559 | 7,743,887 | 563,027 | 4 | But I've had mumps ! | Examining one of Collier's patients ( an obstinate old woman demanding a second opinion ) , Upton keels over . He has the symptoms of mumps , and is admitted to St . Swithins as a patient . Unfortunately , he is on Bingham's ward , and finds himself next to Mr . Gilbert , an annoying man who fancies he knows more about medicine than the doctors . Gilbert's brother Jimbo is just as bad . Upton takes a shine to nurse Allison , and begins chatting her up . Bingham fancies her too , and sets about trying to break the pair up . . . In a sitcom with a run of twenty-nine episodes , there was bound to be at least one major clunker , and this is it . Too much time is given over to ghastly Mr . Gilbert and his brother , not enough on the regulars . Gilbert seems to have been based on the ' Wendover ' character ( played by Arthur Haynes ) from the 1966 film ' Doctor In Clover ' , but James Bree ( a fine support actor ) isn't capable of making him remotely amusing or likable . Even Richard O'Sullivan's ' Bingham ' grates here . Notable mainly for the appearance of Angela Douglas as ' Allison ' . She was the wife of Kenneth More , who played ' Richard Grimsdyke ' in the original ' Doctor In The House ' movie . Funniest moment - Bingham realising he has mumps ! |
401,334 | 7,743,887 | 80,261 | 5 | Noel - Honestly ! | In 1980 , Noel Edmonds stunned the world by declaring that he was in love with a television programme . It was , of course , ' Pig In The Middle ' , scripted by the talented husband-and-wife writing team of Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham , also responsible for the wonderful ' No-Honestly ' . The premise was this ; a bespectacled , middle-aged bore by the name of Barty Wade falls in love with the attractive and flighty Nellie ( Penelope ) Bligh . Thing is , he can't marry her because he's happily married to the equally attractive Susan . For three seasons Barty dithered and dallied from woman to woman , refusing to make up his mind one way or the other , until finally the viewers gave up caring . I couldn't believe in this set-up at all . Middle-aged bores such as Barty don't marry women like Susan , much less carry on with girls like Nellie . In true Carla Lane fashion , sex didn't enter the equation . With Liza Goddard involved ? Oh come on ! What about the Noel connection , I hear you ask ? Well , The Bearded Wonder was recruited by that bastion of journalistic integrity - ' The Sun ' newspaper - to fill in for its resident television critic , Margaret Forwood . Noel had the unenviable task of reviewing two Liza Goddard sitcoms that week ; this one and a long-forgotten Ronald Wolfe / Ronald Chesney B . B . C . series set in the world of advertising . " ' Watch This Space " is so chronic it taints the brilliance of " Pig In The Middle " . " , gushed Noel , " I am actually love with the programme . Its script is intoxicating . " . One can only give thanks pocket tellies weren't around then , as Noel driving his Jag whilst under the influence of this show could conceivably have resulted in a most nasty accident . ' Pig In The Middle ' saw a major cast change when , after one season , Dinsdale Landen left , and the role of Barty went to none other than Terence Brady himself ! It would be nice to report that the show picked up at this point , but alas no . The funniest moments were when Barty , in a posh voice , spluttered " Hell's tits ! " in moments of crisis . Sooner or later , someone is bound to make a game show with that title - and I bet you a fiver Noel will be the one to host it . |
401,323 | 7,743,887 | 65,225 | 5 | No Gold At The End Of This Rainbow | A train carrying one billion dollars in gold bullion is hijacked in Denmark . Its panic time on the world's money markets , so I . C . E . calls on its best agent ( guess who ? ) to recover it . The only lead they have is a beautiful dancer named Lola Medina , ex-girlfriend of Count Massimo Contini . Lola claims to have inside knowledge that Contini is the mastermind behind the heist . Equipped with a useful do-it-yourself helicopter , a camera that bellows incapacitating smoke , and explosive handkerchiefs , Matt flies out to Denmark , little knowing that MacDonald has opted to deliberately break his cover . . . After a run of two ( outrageous ) movies scripted by Herbert Baker and directed by Henry Levin , crime novelist William McGivern and director Phil Karlson ( who launched the series five years earlier with ' The Silencers ' ) brought Matt down to Earth . Our hero was removed from the colourful world of ' 60's style espionage ( no ' BIG O ' , ' Lovey Kravezit ' , helio-beams or flying saucers ) , and inserted into the more mundane realm of international crime . Donald Hamilton's book was virtually unfilmable - set in Sweden , it had Matt on a manhunt to find a killer named ' Caselius ' - so the movie was completely replotted . Unfortunately , the new story was not much better , lacking in originality , excitement and humour . It was also riddled with longueurs ( such as the Lola / Linka / Yu-Rang seduction scenes ) . The Bruce Lee-supervised karate fights look suspiciously like an attempt to rip off the James Coburn ' Flint ' movies . The excellent Nigel Green had played evil mastermind ' Carl Petersen ' in Ralph Thomas ' ' Deadlier Than The Male ' , which starred Richard Johnson as ' Bulldog Drummond ' . ' Contini ' is nowhere near as interesting a character , and does little apart from issue threats and stare at television screens ( one of his henchmen was a young Chuck Norris ) . As for Dino , by 1969 , he was looking a little heavy and tired , despite the trendy suits the wardrobe department has given him . He moves and speaks so slowly at times you might be forgiven for thinking he's impersonating Frankenstein's monster . For example , when Freya ( Sharon Tate ) accidentally bumps into Matt's car , we get : FREYA : Mr . Helm , we're stuck . MATT : What ? FREYA : We're stuck . MATT : We're stuck ? FREYA : Yes . MATT : Good ! FREYA : Is that all you've got to say ? And with that , she walks off in a huff . Hard to believe someone got paid for writing such drivel . Beautiful though they are , Elke Sommer , Nancy Kwan and even Tina Louise are wasted , only Sharon Tate makes an impression - she gives an amusing performance as an accident-prone British agent - while John Larch shines in his few scenes as MacDonald . Hugo Montenegro's sub-Bacharach score grates dreadfully , particularly the la-la-la-la-la cue heard whenever Tate goofs . The opening theme contains the ( politically incorrect ) refrain : ' Ah-so , ah-so , vedy vedy nice ! ' . Oh boy ! On the plus side , the film is beautifully photographed by Sam Leavitt ( who had earlier worked on ' Murderers ' Row ' ) , and has some impressive helicopter action . I liked the scene in ' The House Of Seven Joys ' club when Matt's table and chair suddenly spin around and he finds himself in Contini's lair . It preempts a similar scene in ' Live & Let Die ' four years later . Though Dean was booked for one more romp - ' The Ravagers ' - he hung up his camera and gun for good after this . ' Matt Helm ' would next be seen on television , in a short-lived series starring Tony Franciosa . Sharon Tate was brutally murdered by the Manson Family soon after completing the film . ' The Wrecking Crew ' was both a sad epitaph to her career and the Matt Helm series . |
400,998 | 7,743,887 | 72,557 | 5 | Did You Hear The One About . . . | . . . the Englishman , the Scotsman , the Irishman , and the Welshman ? Vince Powell obviously did , because that was the premise of this short-lived Thames sitcom . Having co-created popular shows such as ' George & The Dragon ' , ' Two In Clover ' ( what a little gem that was ! ) , ' For The Love Of Ada ' , ' Never Mind The Quality Feel The Width ' and ' Love Thy Neighbour ' with his late partner Harry Driver , Powell was on the look out for another hit . Early in 1975 , he gave us ' The Wackers ' with Ken Jones ( ' Horrible Ives ' from ' Porridge ' ) as a Scouser trying to readjust to society following a stretch in prison . It drew complaints on account of its colourful ( though mild by today's standards ) language and was swiftly axed . Vince bounced back that year with ' My Son Reuben ' , starring the late Bernard Spear as a mother-dominated Jewish launderette owner . It too failed to find an audience . Around the same time that last show went out , Vince unveiled ' Rule Britannia ! ' in which four old ex-Royal Navy sailors honoured a pact by meeting up again after 25 years . They were ' George Bradshaw ' ( Tony Melody ) , whose zest for life seems to have deserted him , ' Jock McGregor ' ( the late and much-missed Russell Hunter ) , ' Paddy O'Brien ' ( the late Joe Lynch , who had appeared in Powell and Driver's earlier ' Never Mind The Quality etc . ) , and ' Taffy Evans ' ( Richard Davies a . k . a . ' Mr . Price ' from ' Please Sir ! ' ) . Carol Mills played busty barmaid ( didn't all ' 70's sitcoms have these ? ) ' Maggie ' . Back in the company of his old chums again , George regains his sense of humour . But wife Lil ( Jo Warne , from Powell's ' Spring & Autumn ' ) is not amused seeing her husband in such disreputable company . With this top notch cast , it should have been a huge hit . Yes , the four main characters were stereotypes , but lots of classic sitcoms have featured these so I do not really have a problem with that . What I objected to was that Powell never really did much with them . Most of the time they sat around drinking beer , arguing about which part of the U . K . was best , and reminiscing about the ' good old days ' . The opening titles showed four pints of beer mysteriously disappearing to the stains of ( what else ? ) ' Rule Britannia ' . Viewers quickly tired of the whole thing . In one episode , George , Jock and Taffy put on a talent show to raise money for Paddy to go back to Ireland and see his mother . They did this , only for the show organiser to rob them as soon as their backs were turned . However , an alternative solution was found , and the episode ended happily as a tearful O'Brien was reunited with his mother . ' Rule Britannia ! ' was no classic , yet was worth watching for the cast , especially the dour tam o'shanter wearing Hunter . There was a very funny scene in another episode when the fellers discussed soap operas . " The wife's mother thinks ' The Archers ' ( a long-running B . B . C . radio soap about country folk ) are all real people ! " , said a grinning George . " She once tried to book a fortnight's holiday in Ambridge ! " . |
401,022 | 7,743,887 | 74,075 | 5 | We'll Meet Again | Eyebrows were raised when in the year of America's Bicentennial celebrations , Granada produced a sitcom with the unfortunate title ' Yanks Go Home ! ' . It was set in a northern town during World War Two , overrun by G . I . ' s who , according to the surly locals , are ' over paid , over sexed , and over here ' . With the B . B . C . ' s ' Dad's Army ' about to end , I . T . V . hoped to pinch some of its audience . They gave the show a big build-up , including a ' T . V . Times ' cover , but alas it proved only moderately successful . The main problem was that the subject matter had already been covered by ' Dad's Army ' itself , in an episode entitled ' Hi British Buddy ! ' . Each episode had a different writer , so the characterisations were somewhat inconsistent . The obvious canned laughter didn't help either . Best amongst the cast was Freddie Earlle , whose ' Corporal Pasquale ' was straight out of ' Sgt . Bilko ' . ' Yanks Go Home ' saw the return to television of Stuart Damon , not seen since ' The Champions ' . He later wrote one of the episodes . |
400,767 | 7,743,887 | 299,294 | 5 | Browned Off ! | 1980 was a vintage year for Margaret Thatcher impersonators . Not only was there one in Downing Street , but two - both with the surname Brown - landed their own shows . Busty Faith Brown shot to fame on L . W . T . ' s ' Who Do You Do ? ' , a quick fire sketch show starring top impressionists of the day such as Freddie Starr . It led to ' The Faith Brown Awards ' in 1979 , and then to this , a prototype ' Knowing Me , Knowing You With Alan Partridge ' with Faith interviewing celebrities such as Bette Midler , Mary Whitehouse , Kate Bush and Zsa Zsa Gabor ( all played by Faith ) . L . W , T . pinned hopes on this becoming a successor to the wonderful Stanley Baxter series ( even going so far as to recruit scriptwriter Ken Hoare ) , but , despite a peak-time Saturday night slot , it flopped . Janet Brown's show , however , lasted noticeably longer . |
400,703 | 7,743,887 | 665,469 | 5 | And you thought ' Escape To Victory ' was daft . . . | A football match is to take place between the Luxton bus company and ' The Basildon Bashers ' . The winning team gets a fiver each , so Stan ( in need of ready cash as ever ) signs up , along with Jack . Blakey assumes responsibility for knocking his squad into shape , but nearly puts himself in hospital . With one man short , Stan asks Blakey if Olive can substitute , but the inspector is adamant that women and football don't mix . He gets an almighty shock when the ' Bashers ' finally show up - its an all-woman team . . . Bob Grant and Stephen Lewis raid the ' On The Buses ' archive yet again for this episode , its ' Self Defence ' from Season 2 given a footballing angle . The ' Basildon Bashers ' are a collection of dolly-birds and middle-aged frumps who resort to cheating by distracting the male players as only women know how . When Stan complains , they tear off his shorts . Funniest moment - Blakey wandering into the women's changing room in his long johns ! |
401,183 | 7,743,887 | 162,116 | 5 | The Lost ' Alf Garnett Saga ' | Six years after ' Till Death Us Do Part ' ended , Alf Garnett crossed channels to A . T . V . - home of ' Crossroads ' . He and Else have retired to Eastbourne with their friend and former next-door neighbour Min , now a widow . As you would expect , they stand out like a sore thumb amongst the well-heeled locals . In one episode , Alf buys a clapped-out motorbike , finds he cannot drive it properly ( it only turns right on the road ) and crashes into the back of the garage . Una Stubbs made a welcome guest appearance as ' Rita ' ( she and Mike have moved to Liverpool ) , bringing with her Alf's punk grandson - Mike Junior . The absence of Tony Booth unbalanced the show because Alf had no-one to rail against his bigoted views . Another detrimental factor was the lack of a studio audience . I cannot think of another sitcom where the laugh-track has been so important . Take it away , and there's a danger that Alf will be taken seriously . ' Till Death ' was not well received , and has never been repeated or issued on V . H . S . or D . V . D . It wasn't the end for Alf though , he and Else returned in triumph to the B . B . C . four years later with ' In Sickness & In Health ' . |
400,628 | 7,743,887 | 60,708 | 5 | Travesty Blaise | Fox pinned hopes on ' Modesty ' becoming a franchise to rival Bond , but these were cruelly dashed as Joseph Losey's film played to mostly empty theatres in the U . K . and U . S . A . ( it did rather better on the Continent ) . Taken on its own terms , its not too bad . Jack Shampan's production design is superb , as is John Dankworth's music , there are a couple of decent performances ( Clive Revill , Harry Andrews , and a wonderfully camp turn from Dirk Bogarde ) and some good moments such as Modesty finding herself trapped in an op art cell . But as an adaptation of Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway's comic-strip , its a non-starter . Monica Vitti fails to project warmth and charm as Modesty , while Terence Stamp sounds like Michael Caine on an off-day . The scene where they sing a romantic duet whilst under fire is just painful . Losey was clearly not the right director for this project . Fox made a rather more successful ' girl power ' Bond thriller a year later - ' Fathom ' , starring Raquel Welch . |
401,157 | 7,743,887 | 60,728 | 5 | Barely A Step Up From ' Dr . Goldfoot ' | BIG O kidnaps the inventor of a death-ray so I . C . E . fakes Matt Helm's death to convince them he is no longer a threat . Posing as a mobster , our hero flies to the French Riviera where danger awaits . Rush released to exploit the success of ' The Silencers , ' Murderers ' Row ' is inferior in every respect . Any pretence the series might have had at being a spy thriller ended here . The script goes for cheap laughs ( mostly at the expense of Martin's image as a boozer ) at every turn , a pity as Donald Hamilton's novel was one of his best . Dino's refusal to do location filming resulted in a plethora of stand-ins and bad process shots . Bad S . F . X . too - a man falling off a cliff is obviously a dummy , even the explosions look fake . Ironhead , Wall's henchman , intended to be another Oddjob , is wrongly used for slapstick purposes . Karl Malden acts like he's in a different film , Camilla Sparv is woefully under-used , while Ann-Margret is far too young to be Matt's love interest . Some funny bits here and there , but disappointing overall . |
401,360 | 7,743,887 | 78,602 | 5 | Duncan And Dick In Oz ! | ' Doctor In The House ' began in 1969 , ran for nine years ( under various titles ) , and ended when it was still popular . Two years later , Robin Nedwell and Geoffrey Davies reunited for this short-lived spin off / sequel for Australia's Network 7 . Waring and Stuart-Clark have once again burned their bridges at St . Swithins and fled Blighty for pastures new . The set-up at St . Barnabas was indeed similar , even down to some of the supporting characters . ' Professor Norman Beaumont ' and ' Dr . Maurice Griffin ' were obviously based on ' Professor Sir Geoffrey Loftus ' and ' Dr . Lawrence Bingham ' . Frank Wilson was good as the crabby ' Beaumont ' , but John Derum played ' Griffin ' in an irritating one-note style . As ' Linda Franklin ' , Duncan's sexy secretary , Jennifer Mellet bore a striking physical resemblance to Jacquie-Ann Carr of ' Doctor On The Go ' . Predictably , there was an abundance of pretty young ' Sheilas ' for the lads to work their charm on . A wall map of Australia had coloured pins stuck into it every time they ' scored ' . William G . Stewart , producer of ' Bless This House ' , took charge . As for the writers , only Bernard McKenna worked on the original . Jon Watkins wrote or co-wrote most of the episodes , his other credits include the L . W . T . series ' The Fosters ' . Most of the plots concerned Dick's latest money-making scam or Duncan's attempts to have his way with a pretty doctor . Two instalments lacked writing credits , implying production difficulties . This was borne out by Nedwell , who later said : " I cringe whenever I see it . We had problems with scripts , and I'm sure the experience will haunt me for years to come . " . Alan Tew's theme was given a new , softer arrangement , more or less indistinguishable from the one employed on ' Doctor In The House ' . ' Under ' is generally disliked by ' Doctor ' fans . The weak scripts , the absence of guest-stars of the calibre of Arthur Lowe , Freddie Jones and Henry McGee , and the fact that little of Australia was seen outside of St . Barnabas and Duncan's flat combined to sink the show . I . T . V . screened ' Under ' in 1980-81 , mostly in afternoon or early evening slots . Many stations chose not to play the full run of thirteen episodes . By rights it should have been the end for Duncan and Dick , but in 1991 , they returned in the even less-successful ' Doctor At The Top ' . |
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