reviewId int64 363k 588k | userId int64 33.9k 15.9M | itemId int64 1 1.42M | rating float64 1 10 | title stringlengths 1 10.9k ⌀ | content stringlengths 81 11.6k ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
401,150 | 7,743,887 | 358,323 | 5 | Thirty Years Too Late | As any comedian will tell you , timing is all important . Spoofs of television programmes only work when the targets are contemporary . ' Look Around You ' would have been hilarious had it actually gone out in the ' 70's . Unfortunately , its far too late to be really effective . For one thing , who remembers the style of programme its supposed to be mocking ? I expect the intended audience for this show are young people whose only knowledge of the decade comes from . . . well , programmes such as this . One can easily visualise them at home , with a can of beer in hand , chomping on pizza , and laughing . " Look ! He's wearing flared trousers ! Huh huh huh huh huh ! Strewth ! She's got an Afro-Caribbean hairstyle ! Huh huh huh huh huh huh ! Look at him ! Kipper tie ! Huh huh huh huh huh ! " . In other words , complete and utter morons . Is it asking too much for comedy writers and performers to look for new targets for satire ? With so many abysmal shows around now , such as ' Big Brother ' and ' Top Gear ' , they should have a field day taking the urine out of these . Either the past must be an easier target , or else today's comics lack the talent to do a professional demolition job . Shows such as this seems to suggest that television has run out of things to say . Well made though it is its ultimately pointless . Kipper ties and flares look ridiculous now , but did so at the time . The point has been well and truly laboured . Robert Popper wrote ' The Timewaster Letters ' . A very funny book . He should stop wasting our licence money too . |
400,722 | 7,743,887 | 202,188 | 5 | Are You . . . Game For A Laugh ? | The reason ' Game For A Laugh ' wasn't called ' Candid Camera ' was that someone else owned the title . Otherwise it was the same show , consisting of pranks played on unsuspecting members of the general public . The main difference were the ' look at me , aren't I funny ' presenters - Jeremy Beadle , Henry Kelly , Sarah Kennedy and Matthew Kelly . Celebrities were occasionally roped in , such as Duncan Goodhew , Kenny Everett , and Windsor Davies . Personally , I could have done without the annoying presenters and over-the-top laughter track . Some of the pranks were very funny , though , such as the man in the nightclub unexpectedly watching his wife doing a sexy cabaret number . The close-ups of his astonished face had me in hysterics . ' Game For A Laugh ' was so popular it wiped the floor with its B . B . C . - 1 rival - ' Larry Grayson's Generation Game ' . It was the creation of Alan Boyd , an ex-B . B . C . producer who'd defected to L . W . T . where he'd , somewhat ironically , produced ' The Generation Game ' . ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' did a funny take-off of ' Laugh ' featuring an audience shrieking as though in pain and a prank in which a man comes home from work to find his wife decapitated . Matthew Kelly , Henry Kelly and Sarah Kennedy left at about the same time and were replaced by Debbie Rix ( later Rusty Lee ) , Martin P . Daniels and Lee Peck , and the revamped show was moved from Saturday nights to Sundays . But viewers were not happy , and it was eventually cancelled . However , it was reincarnated as ' Beadle's About ' . |
401,299 | 7,743,887 | 516,957 | 5 | How To Assassinate A Computer | Something is wrong with XR40 or ' George ' as he is more commonly known . George is the country's most brilliant computer . An unknown intruder breaks into the top secret establishment where he ( it ? ) is housed and shoots him . George manages to convey his feelings on a printout : " I Have A Message For You Of The Utmost Importance . . . Help ! " . The computer had discovered the existence of a traitor in the Ministry and was about to disclose the information when it was shot . Computer scientist Ardmore ( Anthony Nicholls ) tries to restore George , while Steed and Tara hunt for the gun man . The trail takes them to the home of Pelley ( Clifford Evans ) , George's creator . . . If this were made today , it would probably be titled ' Whoever Shot Poor George Forward Slash XR40 ? ' . A rare misfire from the pen of the normally reliable Tony Williamson . The notion that anyone would try to murder a machine is pretty silly even for ' The Avengers ' . An exemplary cast , including Frank Windsor , Clifford Evans , Dennis Price , Anthony Nicholls , and Judy Parfitt , are wasted . As ' Loris ' , Parfitt looks stunning . I was looking forward to seeing her fight Tara , but it never happens . George himself is not particularly well designed , being little more than a big box of lights . The scene where Ardmore tries to repair him closely resembles a heart transplant operation . Anthony Nicholls was ' Tremayne ' in ' The Champions ' . Dennis Price , cast as the creepy butler ' Jason ' was ' Jeeves ' in ' The World Of Wooster ' which starred Ian Carmichael . Frank Windsor is , of course , well remembered for his role as ' Watt ' in ' Z-Cars ' and ' Softly Softly ' . Cyril Frankel , this episode's director , is better known for his I . T . C . work such as ' The Champions ' and ' Department S ' . He is a good director , but I do not think he suited ' The Avengers ' . Mind you , with this script no-one would have . The main point of interest ( for me ) was the sight of Tara dressed as a cat ! ( she had been on her way to a fancy dress party when summoned to Steed's side ) . She later impersonates Pelley's American niece Prunella , and Thorson makes good use of her natural Canadian accent . |
400,650 | 7,743,887 | 85,384 | 5 | Best Of The Post-Sellers ' Pink Panthers ' | When Peter Sellers died , you'd have thought they'd have let the ' Pink Panther ' series die with him . But money talks and in 1981 we got the dire ' Trail Of The Pink Panther ' . ' Curse ' , its successor , was an improvement , thanks to a funny performance from the likable Ted Wass , best known as ' Danny Dallas ' from the long-running T . V . show ' Soap ' . His character , Clifton Sleigh , had more than a touch of Harold Lloyd about him but alas Sellers proved irreplaceable ( Dudley Moore and Rowan Atkinson knew this too . They both turned it down ) , and we never saw Sleigh again . Some good visual gags include Dreyfus falling from his office window and Sleigh's problems with an inflatable doll . The film might have stood a chance had it not been continually looking over its shoulder at what went before . Especially confusing was Joanna Lumley's appearance as Countess Chandra - a totally different character to the one she'd played in ' Trail ' . The decision to turn Clouseau bad rankled with audiences as well . David Niven's final film , sadly . |
400,735 | 7,743,887 | 699,347 | 5 | What we have here is an ongoing clash of loyalties situation ! | Shelley is reunited with his oldest friend , Ned , whom he asks to be best man at his forthcoming wedding . Ned , unfortunately , is a ' Jack The Lad ' type who loves to drink , smoke , and make love . Fran dislikes him intensely , and openly says so . After getting involved in a pub fight , Ned is hospitalised . However , the porter keeps him supplied with cigarettes and beer ( which he keeps under the bed ) . Ned is keen to be best man , as he has read somewhere that traditionally the best man gets off with the bridesmaid . Shelley replies that it is not obligatory , purely optional . Ned makes an unusual request of Shelley . Scared of a urine test , he asks his friend to provide the required sample . . . Despite being the fifth episode , this was actually transmitted after the sixth - ' Elders & Betters ' . Presumably the production team felt it to be a weak episode . If so , they were dead right . There's no ' Mrs . H ' for one thing , instead we get David Pugh giving a shockingly bad performance as ' Ned ' . Clad in denim , permanently smoking , drinking and ogling women , Pugh looks and sounds ridiculous , the epitome of the sad forty-old who still dresses and talks as though he were seventeen ( also known as ' the Jeremy Clarkson syndrome ' ) . Why anyone in their right mind would want such an unreliable character as Ned as a best man is a mystery ( although Shelley confesses to Fran that he hopes Ned - a staunch socialist - will annoy his prospective Tory voting father-in-law ) . Whenever Pugh speaks ( and he gives several mini-speeches ) , I found my attention wondering to more important matters such as what to have for supper . There aren't many laughs to be had here , but I did get a chuckle out of Shelley asking Ned where to go to fill the sample bottle . |
401,275 | 7,743,887 | 115,242 | 5 | Here Lies Reginald Iolanthe Perrin - Forever Revolting ! | The ' 90's saw the B . B . C . revive a number of famous comedy shows , including two made by I . T . V . - ' Agony Again ' and ' Doctor At The Top ' - along with ' The Liver Birds ' and , of course , this . Whereas these featured the original casts , ' Legacy ' was at a disadvantage because Leonard Rossiter passed away in 1984 . David Nobbs tried to work around this by making Reggie's death the catalyst for the show's events . Reggie's family and friends must do something really absurd in order to qualify for a share in his will . After a number of failed individual attempts , they combine to try to take over the country , at the head of an army of pensioners . The show was not the disaster critics tried to make out ; ' Jimmy ' , ' C . J . ' , ' Elisabeth ' , ' David Harris-Jones ' , ' Tom ' and ' Linda ' were strong enough to carry the show . The problem was that Reggie wasn't around to belittle them anymore . It was like watching ' Fawlty Towers ' without Basil . Best of the new characters was Geraldine Hackstraw , played by the lovely Patricia Hodge . |
400,819 | 7,743,887 | 335,438 | 5 | How Dare Todd Mess With Our Memories ! | Let's get one thing out of the way ; ' Starsky & Hutch ' is an entertaining movie , boasting two very funny performances by the leads , and if you're unfamiliar with the original television show it should provide some fun . But what about the show's fans ? Those forty-somethings who as kids bought the merchandise - the toy car , the posters , the paperbacks , the fanzines , David Soul's records ? Well , the film well and truly kicks them in the teeth . I know many people who were offended , and stayed away in protest . Todd Phillips originally considered updating the premise , but decided to do it as a period piece because it gave him an excuse to make fun of ' 70's pop culture . But it has been spoofed often enough . Besides , the late Benny Hill's send-up was more on-target . I wonder how ' Buffy ' fans would react if , say , thirty years from now , some hot shot Hollywood producer announces a ' spoof ' version of their favourite show , replete with jokes at the expense of ' 90's pop culture ? |
400,672 | 7,743,887 | 590,987 | 5 | The Goodies Shoot Themselves In The Foot | Bill and Tim are watching their favourite programme ' The Mysterious World Of Arthur C . Clarke ' . As the end credits roll , the continuity announcer states it won't be back next week because its just been discovered that Clarke does not in fact exist ! Of course its Graeme , heavily disguised as the venerable British sci-fi author , out to fleece the gullible public by peddling a tie-in book . Tim decides to do a similar show , called ' The Quest For Arthur C . Clarke - Man Or Myth ' . The Goodies travel to the Canadian Rockies which is where Arthur was last sighted . But they find an even bigger mystery awaiting them , for Canada is the home of the legendary Bigfoot ! In 1981 , the Goodies followed Tony Hancock and Morecambe & Wise by switching to I . T . V . at the height of their fame . London Weekend Television was no slouch when it came to producing hit comedy shows - being responsible for ' On The Buses ' , the ' Doctor ' series , and the Stanley Baxter shows amongst others . But the move proved a disastrous one . L . W . T . scheduled ' The Goodies ' at 6 . 45 on Saturday evenings , a slot normally reserved for family entertainment shows . The Goodies had in the past refused to acknowledge their younger audience , preferring a latish starting time . For some strange reason , it evolved into the very ' kids ' programme ' they had always denied it was . The ' Bigfoot ' episode is a good example ; it begins well enough with a funny parody of ' Arthur C . Clarke's Mysterious World ' , in which the acclaimed author of ' 2001 : A Space Odyssey ' examined unexplained mysteries such as the Loch Ness Monster , but when the action moves to Canada it becomes annoying-silly rather than funny-silly , ending with the lads hopping about on gigantic feet , and cute Disney-style singing gophers . The satirical edge which defined their earlier work was suddenly gone , so were the big name guest stars such as Beryl Reid and Stanley Baxter . Bob Spiers had replaced Jim Franklin as the Goodies ' producer by this time , and his film sequences in no way begin to compare with Franklin's . The L . W . T . series is currently being repeated on ' Paramount 2 ' on Sky . I hope no-one tunes in thinking they are in any way representative of the show as a whole . For fans of ' The Goodies ' , it was a rather sad finale to one of the best British sitcoms ever made . |
401,092 | 7,743,887 | 75,494 | 5 | ' Are You Being Served ' In Outer Space ? | I read an article in ' Dreamwatch ' magazine a good few years back which included the lines ; " Science fiction and comedy are difficult to mix . For every ' Red Dwarf ' , there are about ten ' Come Back Mrs . Noahs ' . At which point I fell on the floor laughing . " Come Back Mrs . Noah ' wasn't intended to be science fiction comedy ! I'm sure Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft would be the first to admit that . The premise is this ; Mollie Sugden plays ' Mrs . Gertrude Noah ' , a prize-winning housewife on a tour of a British space station ( ! ) . Unfortunately , there's an accident and said station is blasted out of orbit , beginning a course that will take it out of the Solar System . Rescue is , for the moment , impossible . Also on board are two scientists played by Michael Knowles and Donald Hewlett , and Ian Lavender as a news reporter . The humour is crude and coarse ; for instance , when in the first episode Mrs . Noah becomes weightless , the ship's computer advises her to propel herself forward by means of expelling natural body gas . Farting , in other words . Instead she takes a bottle of perfume from her handbag and uses that to do the same . If ' Grace Brothers ' had been a space station instead of a department store , this is what it would have been . But what do you expect from Lloyd and Croft ? There were also a number of scenes back on Earth with Tim Barrett as the harassed head of the British space exploration centre and Ann Michelle as his sexy assistant . Spoof news broadcasts read by Gorden Kaye prefaced each edition . Great comedy ? Absolutely not ! But its not as half as bad as F . Gwynplaine McIntyre makes out . I think we should be allowed to see it for ourselves so we can make up our own minds . Besides , after the fiasco of ' Hyperdrive ' , could anything possibly be worse ? |
401,608 | 7,743,887 | 675,788 | 5 | I wish to resign ! | Hedges wishes to take a year off from teaching to read Sociology at London University . The trouble is , he cannot bring himself to hand in his notice . Even the threat of Penny withdrawing her conjugal rights is not enough to give him courage . When he calls on the Chairman of the Board of Governors , he finds him entertaining a pretty young woman named Rita , and riles him so much he only succeeds in getting the sack . Miss Ewell , Smithy and Price call on Hedges to make one final bid to get him to stay . . . John Alderton bowed out of ' Please Sir ! ' with this episode , although it wouldn't be the last viewers saw of the character . A week later , he resurfaced in ' The Fenn Street Gang ' . Interestingly , no pupils appear . Wendy Richard acts a bit of sparkle to an otherwise flat episode as the Chairman's ' niece ' Rita . Funniest moment - Hedges absentmindedly hands Miss Ewell a copy of ' The Naked Ape ' by Desmond Morris ( then a major bestseller ) , the cover of which shows a naked man , woman and child . The schoolteacher glances at it , then flings it away in disgust ! |
401,629 | 7,743,887 | 145,631 | 5 | Everybody Out - Again ! | Following the end of ' On The Buses ' in 1973 , Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney searched for another hit . ' Don't Drink The Water ' , a spin-off from ' Buses ' , failed to duplicate the success of its parent show , while ' Yus My Dear ' , though it got to No . 1 in the ratings for most of its episodes , was fairly dire . A comedy pilot for the B . B . C . entitled ' The Boys & Mrs . B ' was equally awful , despite starring the wonderful Thora Hird and a young Tony Robinson . Wolfe and Chesney then decided that enough time had elapsed since the end of their first major success - ' The Rag Trade ' - to engineer a revival . The B . B . C . passed on the idea ( do they never learn ? ) , so they took it to London Weekend Television . Peter Jones and Miriam Karlin reprised their roles as ' Harold Fenner ' and ' Paddy ' , but the rest of the cast was new . Christopher Beeny , fresh in the public's memory from ' Upstairs , Downstairs ' replaced Reg Varney ( his character undergoing a name change to ' Tony ' ) , the buxom and giggly Diane Langton slotted effortlessly into the space vacated by Barbara Windsor , Anna Karen played ' Olive ' ( when ' On The Buses ' ended Olive was single again , but here she was happily married . We never found out just who the new man in her life was ) . Deddie Davies ' fluttery ' Mabel ' was obviously intended as another ' Lily ' ( the Esma Cannon character from the original ) . Future ' Eastenders ' star Gillian Taylforth made her television debut as ' Lyn ' . In a nod to multiculturalism , one of the new intake at ' Fenner's Fashions ' was black - ' Jo-Jo ' - played by Lucita Lijertwood . One major new character - the haughty ' Mrs . Fenner ' - was played first by Rowena Cooper and then ' Doctor In Charge's ' Joy Stewart . The first episode was a remake of ' The Sample ' from 1961 . This being 1977 , the humour was predictably coarsened , the language slightly stronger ( with words like ' scrubber ' and ' knickers ' bandied about ) . Despite its resolutely anti-trade union stance , the show occasionally took pot shots at the alternative . MABEL : You can always trust a politician who smokes a pipe . LYN : What about Margaret Thatcher ? She doesn't smoke a pipe . PADDY : She would do if she thought it would get her a few more votes , love . Lindsay De Paul provided the catchy theme tune . Despite being a ratings success , ' The Rag Trade ' somehow never replicated the affection of its predecessor . One angry letter to ' The Sun ' suggested it should be renamed ' The Drag Trade ' and that everyone in it ' should be out ' . It was unfortunate that Wolfe and Chesney chose to resurrect the show at a time when trade unions were massively unpopular . After only two seasons , Fenner's Fashions shut up shop again , this time for good . Parodied by L . W . T . ' s ' End Of Part One ' as ' The Gag Trade ' with Fenner's girls as scriptwriters instead of dressmakers . |
400,994 | 7,743,887 | 563,077 | 5 | What have you got ? A bingo line ! | After a run of four excellent episodes , it was back down to Earth with a bump with this one , which barely has a single funny moment in it . It begins in Bingham's ward , where Duncan is showing around some students . He tries to examine elderly patient Mr . Hutton , but then Bingham appears , with more students in tow , and they begin arguing over who has the right to examine the old man first . Dick and Paul show up and the row escalates . Loftus commissions the doctors to devise a new system for patient inspection . Duncan's version seems to be the best , involving the use of coloured magnetic counters on a blackboard . But predictably even this new system winds up going wrong . . . That's all the plot this Graham Chapman and Bernard McKenna scripted episode contains , pretty thin even for a twenty-five minute show . No guest-stars either . If you find the sight of doctors bickering amusing , however , it might be right up your street . Trying to find the funniest moment here was not easy , but the oft-repeated gag of Loftus wandering into the operating theatre just as the doctors are taking the rise out of him is trotted out yet again , and thank goodness for that , otherwise there would have been nothing to laugh at . |
401,436 | 7,743,887 | 563,124 | 5 | Come on England ! | Duncan , Dick and Andy are looking forward to a Saturday afternoon in front of the telly , watching a football game between England and Wales . So keen is he to see the English hammered the Scottish Andy is kitted out in Welsh national costume . But Duncan is unexpectedly recalled to duty . To spoil his friends ' fun , he tells Gascoigne that an old Busby Berkeley musical is on B . B . C . - 2 . Gascoigne is almost assaulted when he tries to change the channel . Loftus shows up , and the film is put back on . Dick pulls the plug out of the wall , and makes it appear as though the set has broken down . Just as they are getting into the game , two T . V . repair men take the set away , claiming they are part of a faulty batch . . . I remember reading an article in ' The Sunday People ' ( as it was then called ) in 1977 , which credited ex-doctors turned comedy writers Rob Buckman and Chris Beetles with having ' saved ' the ' Doctor ' series . This made no sense ( it was not renewed after this season ) , as their episodes are nowhere near as funny ( in my view ) as those of Steve Thorn and Paul Wolfson . This one is like the ' No Peace For The Wicked ' episode of ' Porridge ' in that the main character ( s ) is looking forward to a planned Saturday afternoon , only to be continually interrupted at every opportunity . But the two are worlds apart in terms of execution . To get revenge on Gascoigne for his continual interruptions , the lads trick him into thinking that an Italian patient ( played by Ricardo Montez of ' Mind Your Language ' fame ) has a mysterious unknown disease . Oh ha-ha . Funniest moment - the bit at the end where Gascoigne gets revenge on his tormentors by magnanimously sending them a television set to watch the match . However , it has no screen , valves or tubes , just a football dangling on a piece of string inside the box ! |
401,600 | 7,743,887 | 675,768 | 5 | Potter Under Suspicion | Sharon is molested while walking home across the common one evening . Using her as bait , Hedges and the male 5C pupils lay in wait . The man they apprehend is Potter . The caretaker refuses to disclose his reasons for being there , and threatens to press charges on the police for false arrest . Potter suddenly finds everyone in the school ranged against him ; the headmaster won't let him wash his car , and even Smithy steers girls away from him in the corridor . Finally , Hedges gets at the truth . Potter had been to a regimental dinner two nights before and , when his war stories were laughed at , walked out in disgust , taking with him an ornamental German dagger he named ' Siegfried ' . He had lost the dagger on his way home on the common , which was why he went back to look for it the following night . A young girl has a run in with a pervert , and an innocent man is blamed . Sound like a barrow load of laughs , do you think ? Today this would probably be the plot of an episode of ' The Bill ' . It seems unlikely that Potter would be allowed to go on working at the school if he really were under suspicion . At the end , a mob of giggling girls crowd round Hedges , expecting to be escorted to their front doors . Hedges complains when one of them touches a private part of his body . Give this episode marks for being brave enough to tackle a difficult subject , but subtract them again for the cop-out ending . |
401,111 | 7,743,887 | 640,785 | 6 | The End Of The Road For T . R . Sloane | Investigating the theft of top secret scientific material , Sloane arranges a meeting with an employee of Dr . Karla Meredith . But his attention is momentarily distracted by an intruder . He returns to find her dead , having literally aged years in only a few seconds . Meredith is head of a scientific institute working on a formula to slow down the ageing process . Her backer , KARTEL villain and ex-Nazi Hans Kruger , is using the place as cover for a project to clone a South American leader . . . The final episode of ' A Man Called Sloane ' was the only one to be directed by its star . Which made it all the more strange why Conrad later dismissed the show . If he really thought it that bad , why did he get involved in its production ? Patrick Matthews ' script has some interesting ideas , but they don't really come together as well as they should . Sloane's only gadget is a charm bracelet with a built-in knife , a sure sign of creative fatigue . Dennis Cole's ' Mr . Freeze'-like villain is underused ( he has to live in a warm environment else he will revert to his true age ) , and the beauty contest finale looks rushed . A sad epitaph to what promised initially to be a lively , entertaining show . ' Sloane ' has , to my knowledge , never been rerun either in the U . K . or U . S . A . and seems destined to spend eternity in that cathode ray phantom zone where all cancelled shows dwell . |
400,803 | 7,743,887 | 818,956 | 6 | Why am I doing this at my age ? | Billy has really done it this time . Not only has he made multiple dates with girls on the same night , but an urn containing the ashes of a valued client has mysteriously disappeared from Shadrach & Duxbury's funeral parlour . The undertaker subjects Billy to relentless questioning . Back home , the Fishers are struggling to redecorate their living room without the paint Billy promised to bring home from work . . . The last ' Billy Liar ' episode of all , and a disappointing finale to the series . Billy is kept away from his family for almost the whole episode , and when he finally goes home we are not privileged to see or hear the argument raging in the living room . Our last sight is of him emerging covered in yellow paint . It beggars belief that Billy would so daft as to set up dates with practically every eligible female in Stradhoughton on the same night , besides this plot device had been used in the previous series . The main joke here is Mr . Fisher roping in various visitors to assist in the redecoration of the lounge . The impression given is of Waterhouse and Hall running out of ideas . Which may explain why this was the last episode . Even the scenes where Billy sees his employer and family as Nazis had been done before . Eighteen months later , another comedy character with a strong fantasy life found his way onto British television . Although not as young as Billy , Reginald Iolanthe Perrin was every bit as imaginative . Funniest moment - Mr . Fisher searches for Grandma , and finds he has absentmindedly covered her in a sheet ! |
401,477 | 7,743,887 | 1,226,700 | 6 | Getting To Know You ! | Earlier this year , I . T . V . revived that old chestnut ' Mr & Mrs ' . As it went out directly opposite ' Dr . Who ' on B . B . C . - 1 , I did not get to see it , but I doubt if it was as saccharin as the original . It was a quiz show for married couples . A husband and wife , let's call them Christine and Bill , would be led into the studio by a dolly bird hostess . Christine would be put in a soundproof booth while Bill would be bombarded with daft questions by the host , such as ' If you bought your wife a grand piano for her birthday , would she a ) sell it b ) learn to play it or c ) hit you over the head with it ? Bill then had to guess his other half's response . Christine would come back and the question was put to her . If she gave the same answer as her spouse , they won fifty pounds ( a lot in those days ) . And the losers got a smashing candelabra ! ' Mr & Mrs ' began here in Wales , as a Welsh language show called ' Sion y Sian ' but the English language version was hosted by one of my country's unsung heroes of broadcasting - the late Alan Taylor . He was the antithesis of a modern-day game show host , being balding , plump , and myopic ( he wore a monocle when reading questions ) . Taylor got around ; he also did a Saturday morning children's show called ' Tinker & Taylor ' ( in which he played second fiddle to a glove puppet ) and later , ' Orbit ' , which purported to be set aboard a space station ( his co-host was a squawking alien called ' Chester ' ) . Every episode ended with him crying a la Stan Laurel . He also appeared on ' Paint Along With Nancy ' , a daytime show in which American artist Nancy Kaminsky painted fruit every week . It is a common myth that the ' Mr & Mrs ' contestants were mostly elderly . Some were , but there were newly-weds too . The elderly ones were the more fun though . One night , a man was asked ' if you told your wife that you had booked a fortnight's holiday's in a nudist camp , would she say a ) no b ) maybe or c ) throw off all her clothes and say when do we go ? ' . He gave ' a ' as his answer . But when she came back from the soundproof booth , she said : " When do we go ? " which brought the house down . Who says old people have no sense of adventure ? This lightweight , gossipy show proved so popular it reached the I . T . V . network in 1972 , and inspired Border Television to make its own , equally maudlin version , hosted by Derek Batey . I did not like that one as much , mainly due to its horrible Tony Hatch & Jackie Trent theme , which made your teeth rot as you listened to it . Our ' Mr & Mrs ' had as a theme what sounded like a Welsh male voice chair warbling ' Getting To Know You ' from ' The King & I ' . The L . W . T . sketch show ' End Of Part One ' did a blinding take-off called ' Mr & Mr & Mrs ' , and Stanley Baxter put the boot in too . Taylor's version vanished from the airwaves sometime in the early ' 80's ( he retired to run an antiques shop in Bath , then went to live in Spain where he stayed until his death ) , but Batey's lasted until 1986 . Julian Clary's smut-fest under the same name was so bad I . T . V . took it off after only two weeks , and the ' reimagined ' version earlier this year does not seem to have set the world alight . If Alan Taylor was still alive , I would happily go on his ' Mr & Mrs ' , just for the sheer thrill of being manhandled by hostess Lynda Thomas ( what a lady ! ) and taking home a useless piece of junk ( the candelabra I mean , not my wife ) . |
401,414 | 7,743,887 | 235,147 | 6 | Impressionists Galore ! | L . W . T . ' s ' Who Do You Do ? ' was a quick fire sketch show starring top impressionists of the day , such as Freddie Starr , Janet Brown , Faith Brown , and Russ Abbot . The one who made the biggest impact on me though was Peter Goodwright ; I once saw him do a ' Dad's Army ' routine in which he did the voices of the entire cast . Paul Melba ( whatever happened to him ? ) was good too ; nobody did James Mason better ! Kenneth Williams impersonator Adam Daye went on to appear in ' Opportunity Knocks ! ' , rather than the other way round ! ' 60's songstress Sandie Shaw appeared in one episode . The gags were fairly corny ; one sketch had Tarzan ( Freddie Starr ) playing cards with Cheetah the chimp . Tarzan threw the cards into the air , and exclaimed angrily : " Me Tarzan . Him Cheetah ( cheater ) ! " . Starr played James Cagney in another sketch . " You dirty rat ! " , he said . Then the camera pulled back to reveal Starr giving a toy rat a good brushing ! ' Who Do You Do ? ' proved sufficiently popular with viewers to run for many years . In the mid-80's , L . W . T . revived it under a different title - ' Copy Cats ' . |
400,661 | 7,743,887 | 665,491 | 6 | Wedding Bells For Blakey ? | An outbreak of astrology at the Butler household convinces Olive and Mum that they each are going to be the next Mrs . Cyril Blake . For the inspector , it is the start of a living nightmare as the two women fight it out for the right to cook , clean and generally smother him with kindness . . . Jack has a new driver in this Bob Grant & Stephen Lewis penned episode , Fred , played by Larry Martyn . When Fred first appears , it looks as though Stan Butler has returned , as Martyn is a dead ringer for Reg Varney . Martyn played ' Mr . Mash ' in the original series of ' Are You Being Served ? ' . Funniest moment - Blakey getting a face full of beer ! |
400,701 | 7,743,887 | 665,484 | 6 | A House Divided | Stan's mother wins an all-expenses paid holiday for two to the Costa Brava . But who will she take with her ? Stan , Olive and Arthur each lay claim to the coveted prize - and try to curry the old lady's favour by bringing her breakfast in bed , peeling potatoes and performing various domestic chores . In so doing , they almost wreck the house . But Mrs . Butler has received a letter , the contents of which she refuses to divulge . . . The last episode to feature Arthur is a pretty tiresome affair with Stan and Arthur behaving like contestants on the old Mike Read children's show ' Runaround ' . Julia Breck is best remembered as ' that bird with the big boobs ' on the Spike Milligan ' Q ' shows . Funniest moment - Blakey revealing that the competition organiser has been arrested for fraud , hence it has been declared null and void , surprising everyone except crafty old Mrs . Butler , who'd been notified by post , and didn't let on as she liked being the centre of attention . |
401,471 | 7,743,887 | 74,094 | 6 | Who Needs ' Travis Bickle ' When You Have ' Joe North ' ? | I have heard it said that this film took more money at the U . K . box office than ' Taxi Driver ' starring Robert De Niro ! Easy to see why . Scorsese's film lacked the magic ingredient - Barry Evans ' old boy . Poor Barry . Having starred in the T . V . series ' Doctor In The House ' and ' Doctor At Large ' , he was fired for ' erratic behaviour ' and subsequently forced to appear in tat like this . As you may have guessed , the ' Adventures ' series is a shameless rip-off of the ' Confessions ' movies starring Robin Askwith . The main gag in all these films is the hero , in bed with a love-starved nymph , being caught by her husband / boyfriend , and having to make a break for it by shinning down a ladder / drainpipe , his bare bottom exposed to the world . Evans ' character is ' Joe North ' , a chirpy Cockney cabby who lives at home with his mum ( a criminally wasted Diana Dors ) and his younger brother and sister , the latter fond of throwing food around the kitchen . He is betrothed to Carol Hotchkiss ( Adrienne Posta ) , whom he hates the sight of . He eventually moves in with his mate , garage owner Tom ( a pre ' Citizen Smith ' Robert Lindsay ) , and that's when the fun really begins ( sort of ) with knickers and bras flying about confetti . At the end , North gets involved with jewel thieves and you think ' Great ! We're going to have a ' Carry On Cabby ' type finale ! " , but no , instead everyone stands around talking for what seems an eternity . Another reviewer has stated how uncomfortable Evans looks in the role , and I would agree . Unsurprisingly , he was in neither of the two sequels . His career recovered though when he starred in the hit L . W . T . sitcom ' Mind Your Language ' . In a sad irony , he became a taxi driver for real when his acting career foundered . As was the case with ' Confessions ' , there is a stellar line-up of British comedy talent on display here , including Ian Lavender , Stephen Lewis , Brian Wilde , Liz Fraser , and Henry McGee , none of whom get the material they deserve . Three of Evans ' co-stars - Angela Scoular , Adrienne Posta , and Judy Geeson - had acted with him a decade earlier in the superior sex comedy ' Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush ' . Scoular charmed George Lazenby out of his kilt in ' On Her Majesty's Secret Service ' , but looks a lot less sexy here ( probably due to that awful new hairstyle ) . Posta is rather good as the annoying ' Carol ' , even if her vocalisation of the title theme put me in mind of the mice from ' Bagpuss ' . Unable to secure the talents of Linda Hayden , producer Stanley Long settled for her sister Jane , playing a would-be suicidalist . There are some nice shots of late ' 70's London , especially at night , but much of the comedy is forced , at times resembling the ' Fast Show ' parody ' Confessions Of A Cucumber Salesman ' . However , there are at least three genuine laugh-out loud moments , one involving two nuns , another a bathtub , and in the best scene , Liz Fraser's prostitute performs fellatio on a rich client in the back of North's taxi . He breaks suddenly to avoid knocking someone down , the cab lurches forward , and Fraser's client unleashes a terrible scream . Ironically , the movie showing nearby is ' Jaws ' ! Moments such as these go some way towards making the film at least partially endurable . |
401,490 | 7,743,887 | 398,516 | 6 | No , we are not on drugs , we are on Social Security . | ' Love Thy Neighbour ' was a long-running 70's sitcom which made fun of a bigot . Ironically , it is today regarded as racist , with the same old clips trotted out in tiresome fashion on banal retro programmes to illustrate just how politically incorrect those times were . But , for a moment , imagine if the B . B . C . series ' The Melting Pot ' had gone out in 1975 . Every major character was a racialist . The Thames show might have appeared tame by comparison . Johnny Speight had nothing to do with ' The Melting Pot ' . It was the creation of Spike Milligan and Neil Shand , authors of the ' Q ' series . Milligan and John Bird played a Pakistani father and son ( called ' Mr . Van Gogh ' and ' Mr . Rembrandt ' ) , who arrive in England illegally via Amsterdam , thinking it to be the ' milk and honey land of free speech , and no racism ' . They move into Paddy O'Brien's seedy boarding house at 7 , Piles Road , London . Paddy is a coal man , and on their first meeting Van Gogh mistakes him for a fellow countryman . Observing O'Brien washing coal-dust off his face and hands , Van Gogh is horrified . " You must never use the soap here ! " , he tells his son , " I saw a black man washing with it and I watched his nationality coming off and go down the plughole . " . The other boarders include a black Yorkshireman named Luigi O'Reilly , Chinese cockney wide boy Eric Lee Fung , booze-loving , ex-Indian army officer Colonel Grope , Australian bookies ' runner Bluey Notts , and Orthodox Scottish Arab Sheik Yamani . Watching television in the front room that evening , Paddy remarks ; " I am trying to watch this b - - - - y show . Kojak is just going to kill the n - - - - r . " . Luigi says . " Less of that n - - - - r talk . " . Paddy amends his words : " Kojak is going to kill the lovely coloured gentleman who has just split his wife's head open with a b - - - - y meat-axe ! " . It was a culture clash comedy , not a million miles removed from ' Curry & Chips ' , which Milligan had starred in six years earlier . Unlike that earlier show , however , ' The Melting Pot ' was never broadcast in its entirety . The B . B . C . got cold feet and shelved it after only one episode . Had it been shown it probably would now be regarded as even more offensive than ' Neighbour ' . For one thing , it starred two white men in black make-up . Before anyone says " what about ' It Ain't Half Hot Mum ' ? ' , the two shows were very different . Michael Bates ' ' Rangi Ram ' was a brilliant piece of acting , he was totally convincing in that role . With Milligan and Bird , however , they were anything but . Frank Carson was good as the loud-mouthed Irish coal man . Pity he did not get more sitcom roles . Well intentioned the show may have been , but the lack of a liberal character along the lines of Tony Booth's ' Mike ' from ' Till Death Us Do Part ' was noticeable . The only major female character was a busty blonde called ' Nefertiti ' , Paddy's daughter ( Alexandra Dane ) . Clearly not a show for the easily offended . Even so , Milligan felt his show had been harshly treated . He later published the scripts , as well as drawing on them for his novel ' The Looney ' . Only the pilot still exists . A radio version was made in 1999 , however . It beggars belief that the B . B . C . could commission this , film it , and finally decide it was untransmittable ! And in the era of ' The Black & White Minstrel Show ' to boot . ( The above rating is for the pilot , the only edition I have seen ) . |
400,882 | 7,743,887 | 195,490 | 6 | The Quiz Of The Week ! | Benny Hill did a wonderful take-off of this show , called ' Sale Of The Half-Century ' , with himself as smarmy host ' Nicholas Parcels ' . It was unusually unkind for a Hill sketch , especially seeing how Nick had been his ' feed ' for years in the Fred Scuttle sketches . But what of the original ? It was made by Anglia Television , one of I . T . V . ' s smallest stations , and along with ' Roald Dahl's ' Tales Of The Unexpected ' , remains its best remembered achievement . Each episode opened with the booming voice of John Benson : " And now from Norwich . . . " as though we should all be impressed by where it was coming from . Benson went on : " Its the Quiz of the Week ! " . I used to wonder who had bestowed that grand sounding title upon it . Was there an ' Its A Knockout ' type programme somewhere in which quiz shows would compete for the right to be called ' Quiz Of The Week ' ? If so , why had I not seen it ? Pretty girls and luxury items such as spin-dryers and colour televisions would then float about to the accompaniment of an instantly hummable theme tune . Back came the voice of terror : " And here's your host . . . Nicholas Parsons ! " . And the great man would duly appear . Parsons took a lot of stick over his so-called ' patronising ' manner , in truth he was no different from other hosts of similar shows of that period . In those days , game show presenters were required to put contestants at ease , not insult them if they got an answer wrong as Anne Robinson does now on ' The Weakest Link ' . There were no searchlights on view , and no dramatic music . Peter Fen's organ ( of the musical variety ) provided the ' stings ' ( obviously the producers could not have seen the ' Monty Python ' sketch ' Blackmail ' ) . Three contestants ( mostly elderly ) had to answer general knowledge questions , amassing amounts of money and the one with the highest total at the end got to take home a nice prize . That was all there was to it . The questions were tougher to answer than those to be found on modern shows , which confuse soap opera mythology with general knowledge . And contestants could not excuse their ignorance by stating that they had never seen the film / T . V . show they were being questioned on . I used to love the hostesses . The poor girls looked as though they had stepped off the set of ' The Stepford Wives ' and had the unenviable task of looking sexy against a backdrop of fridges and dishwashers . Parsons ' amiability made him a target for various comedians , such as The Goodies , Mike Yarwood and the aforementioned Benny Hill , but he took it all in his stride . The show ran for the best part of fifteen years . The alternative comedy brigade had Parsons send up his oh-so nice image in ' The Comic Strip Presents ' episode ' Mr . Jolly Lives Next Door ' . ' S . O . T . C . ' was briefly revived in the late ' 80's as part of Sky One's original line-up , only without Parsons . Then Challenge T . V . gave it a new lease of life ( if you can call it that ) with that roving Swap Man Keith Chegwin . But these revivals did not have the staying power of the original . ' Sale Of The Century ' without Nick Parsons was like ' Bullseye ' without Jim Bowen . Utterly pointless . |
400,602 | 7,743,887 | 843,111 | 6 | Sid's Half-Hour ! | Sidney Balmoral James is one of life's losers . Every penny he gets he gambles , but never seems to win anything back . Ditto his Antipodean friend , pool hustler Bill . Sid's fiancée , club owner Liz , seems to be single-handedly supporting him . Then he comes up with what he thinks is a sure fire way to make easy money - he puts all his money on a waiter named Chester to win a forthcoming race , then makes it appear as though Chester has a bad limp , meaning no-one else bets on him . There's only one flaw to Sid's foolproof plan - Chester's liking for alcohol . Following the break-up of Tony Hancock and Sid James ( initiated by the former ) , Alan Simpson and Ray Galton gave Sid his own show , with him essentially portraying the same character , a charming opportunist , always on the lookout for ' readies ' without having to work for them . Bill Kerr had been in the radio version of ' Hancock's Half-Hour ' , but was not used in the television series . The lovely Liz Fraser was also in several ' Hancock ' episodes . From the moment Sid is seen walking down a street to the accompaniment of a tuba not unlike the one heard over the ' Hancock ' titles , its clear that the show was modelled on its parent as closely as possible . I saw this episode , courtesy of the B . B . C . ' s Archive Trial and , while I enjoyed it on the whole , it came nowhere near the standard of the Hancock series . The bet rigging plot has been flogged to death in numerous other shows over the years . Sid looks lost without Tony to play off against , though Kerr and Fraser do their best . Sid went on to do much better shows , notably ' Two In Clover ' and ' Bless This House ' . That fine character actor John Bluthal is seen as ' Charlie ' , who keeps Sid well supplied with salt beef sandwiches and pickled gherkins ( amazing Liz wants to marry him when he lives on such a diet ) . Sidney Tafler crops up as a shady bookie . Funniest moment - Sid's opening monologue where he describes his friends . Focusing on the Australian , he says : " He came over for the Victory Parade , but got lost ! " . |
400,999 | 7,743,887 | 505,216 | 6 | Tunnel To Nowhere | A man is knifed to death in a London sewer . Then during a power blackout , Georgina witnesses a smash-and-grab raid on a jeweller's , a crime for which she is arrested . Beneath London's streets , criminals gather to listen as The Face outlines his plan for ' The Crime Of The Century ' - he intends staging a massive power blackout , so that his men can emerge from hiding and steal everything they can get their hands on , including the Crown Jewels ! Gasp ! A number of top British comedy writers contributed to this show , amongst them Vince Powell , Harry Driver , Dick Sharples , and Richard Waring . Presumably it was thought that these gentlemen's ability to concoct amusing , original situations would make them ideally suited to a show of this kind , which after all was pretty outrageous . Waring was known at that time as the creator of the hit show ' Marriage Lines ' which starred Richard Briers and Prunella Scales , and would later write ' Not In Front Of The Children ' for Wendy Craig , and ' Rings On Their Fingers ' for Martin Jarvis and Diane Keen . ' Tunnel ' is nothing if not audacious ; the ' blackout ' idea was clearly inspired by the famous one in America two years before . Why oh why does The Face deliberately endanger his own plan by involving Adamant ? Its almost as though he wants to be thwarted . The ending is a bit of an anti-climax - Georgina rescues Adam and Simms from a perilous situation , Adam pulls a lever and . . . that's it . End of story . Kenneth Ives , who plays ' Bruno ' , would later direct episodes of the classic B . B . C . show ' Secret Army ' . |
401,487 | 7,743,887 | 195,463 | 6 | Archery On Television | A few years back , Sky's ' Challenge T . V . ' repeated editions of ' The Golden Shot ' as part of a season of archive game shows ( how about another season , Challenge ? Hint . hint . ) . I watched in fascination ( as you do ) when confronted by a show one had not seen in literally years . ' Shot ' was a fixture on Sunday afternoon television for years , but began life as a peak-time Saturday night show . Hosted by Jackie Rae , a genial Canadian , it was okay but nothing special . Blindfolded contestants aimed a William Tell-style crossbow at a target while directed by another member of the public via telephone . The bows were loaded by ' Bernie The Bolt ' ( who was always called that , no matter his real name ) . The ritual went something like : " up a bit , left a bit , down a bit . . . fire ! " . Whosoever hit the target ( or got closest to it ) won a cash prize . The targets changed from game to game ( one week , they had a special show to tie-in with the children's sci-fi show ' Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons ' with the hostesses dressed as Spectrum Angels ) . At the end of each show , the target was a golden apple , and if hit a cascade of glitter poured forth , drawing gasps from the studio audience . ' Shot ' was moved to Sundays by Lord Lew Grade , and Rae replaced by the marvellous Bob Monkhouse . Both decisions proved correct . Rae had been humourless and stiff , but Bob had this amazing ability to improvise ( and needed it for the show went out live ) . He often told on chat-shows years later how a man insisted on taking part even though his T . V . set had been repossessed by Rumbelow's , and the only way he could view the show was through the window of a T . V . shop in the High Street . Charming though this story is , one must take it with a pinch of salt - T . V . shops would not have been open in those days on Sundays . The other well-remembered participant was Anne Aston , cute , blonde and daffy ( a sort of Carol Vorderman without the mathematics ) . Monkhouse made the show a hit , but left somewhat suddenly in 1973 . In his autobiography , he later revealed that A . T . V . suspected him of taking bribes from contestants . It was untrue , of course . Bob was replaced by ex-'Sunday Night At The London Palladium ' host Norman Vaughan . I have to say I never found the man the least bit funny , and his stint on ' Shot ' was dire . He never stopped talking , once telling a lengthy joke only for the the punchline to be met with complete silence . Norman's replacement , Charlie Williams , was even worse . The first black comic to make it big in Britain , the Yorkshireman became a sensation on Granada's ' The Comedians ' , and was in great demand for television , theatre , advertising etc . He was even the subject of a strip in the children's comic ' Shiver & Shake ' . Williams later described his run on ' Shot ' as ' the biggest mistake of my career ' . He was right . Watching one of his editions again recently I felt genuinely sorry for him . He was just not cut out to be a game-show host , and came off looking like chief mourner at a funeral . When the show ended , his television career ended with it . In 1975 , the I . B . A . ( Independent Broadcasting Authority ) ruled that ' Shot ' had run its course , and took it off . Monkhouse came back for the final edition , along with Norman . ' Shot ' was briefly revived a while back by Ant & Dec , but as I never saw it ( nothing on Earth would want to make me watch those two ) , I cannot comment . The old Sunday teatime game show slot was later ( more than adequately ) filled by Jim Bowen's ' Bullseye ' , ironically co-created by Norman Vaughan , and it remains his best known achievement . Having made up with Monkhouse , A . T . V . eventually gave him a new game show - ' Family Fortunes ' . For those of us of a certain age , we cannot consume a Spam sandwich nor mandarin oranges with Carnation ( its nice - try it some time ! ) without remembering this show , and some poor twit going : " Down a bit , right a bit , up a bit . . . fire ! " . |
400,707 | 7,743,887 | 665,448 | 6 | ' On The Buses ' Loses Its Way | A tearful Olive emerges from the divorce courts , her marriage to Arthur Rudge finally over . Mum tells Stan to look after her while she goes off to stay with Aunt Maud . But he has arranged to take the curvaceous Sandra to the pictures . Olive goes with them - and makes a nuisance of herself , munching sweets , complaining about not being able to see the screen , and slurping orange juice . Not wishing to be stuck with her for the evening , Stan tries to download her onto Blakey . . . After 61 television episodes , a board game , a ' Look-In ' comic strip , and two feature films ( a third appeared at the end of 1973 ) , ' On The Buses ' was a mass-media phenomenon . Had there been a ballet based on the show , doubtless the theatres would have been packed to the rafters . But the bubble had to burst sometime , and with the seventh season , it did just that . A new set of animated titles was used , composed of horrendous caricatures of the cast , including an unrecognisable Doris Hare ( with the wrong colour hair ! ) and Blakey scuttling along like a cockroach , his head colliding with a lamp post . Michael Robbins had moved on , and he had made the character of ' Arthur ' his own to such an extent it was impossible to replace him . ' On The Buses ' had seen a cast change before , of course - Cicily Courtneidge departed after the first season - but that was before the show really took off . Robbins ' wonderfully dead pan Arthur was an integral part of the cast . It was never going to be the same again . Funniest moment - Olive thanking Blakey for ' offering ' to take her home . " You don't think you'll be too tired , will you ? " , she asks innocently . Blakey knows nothing about the offer and thinks she's trying to get fresh with him . |
401,291 | 7,743,887 | 165,008 | 6 | Eric And Ern's Nemesis Entertains | As any Morecambe and Wise fan will tell you , Des O'Connor was for years the butt of their gags . Like a true pro , he accepted his ribbings with good grace ( even appearing with them on one of their legendary Christmas shows ) . But with top-rated variety shows such as this , he could afford to be gracious . ' Entertains ' featured Des singing ( ahem ! ) , dancing , and doing comedy , often with big names as guest stars . A regular item ' Dandy Sandy ' spoofed the ' Watch With Mother ' children's show ' Andy Pandy ' , with Des as ' Dandy ' , the late Sir Harry Secombe as ' Teddy ' , and , if you can believe it , Britt Ekland as ' Looby Loo ' ! Another was ' I Say , I Say , I Say ! ' , a music-hall spot in which Des tried to tell a joke , only to be interrupted by celebrity comics such as Norman Wisdom . Jack Douglas was a semi-regular , appearing as his twitching alter-ego ' Alf Ippititimus ' . Terry-Thomas and Connie Stevens were on standby to help sell the show to America ( Wonder what our transatlantic cousins made of the lugubrious Johnny Vyvian ? ) . |
400,622 | 7,743,887 | 260,666 | 6 | Hell's Bells ! | Great idea - a ' celebration ' of the all-time worst British television . Thing is , it has been done before , and better - by B . B . C . - 2's ' T . V . Hell ' ( 1992 ) which at least showed whole programmes rather than piddling clips . Here we've got Z-list celebrities being insufferably pompous about archive telly . One could easily excuse say John Cleese being rude about ' Bottle Boys ' . Coming from Kate Thornton its a bit hard to take . No attempt was made to take into account the context of the era in which the shows were made . I wonder how many of the viewers who chose ' Curry & Chips ' have actually seen it ? It was never repeated or issued on video / D . V . D . so its inclusion was strange . Meera Syal was only eight years old in 1969 but that did not stop her from laying into it . She said that it was basically : ' let's have a laugh at the w-g ' ' . Actually , no it wasn't . It was ' let's have a laugh at the racists ' . The person who found the vandalism of the ' Blue Peter ' garden funny should be ashamed of himself for openly encouraging the sort of attitude that leads to vandalism . I wonder if he would laugh if his own garden were wrecked in similar fashion ? Nevertheless the clips were well chosen for the most part , particularly Annabelle Lwin storming out of an interview with B . A . Robertson and the sheer inanity of ' The Word ' . David Frost's encounter with Jerry Rubin's ' Yippies ' was no worse than you will find on many contemporary talk-shows such as Jeremy Kyle . One hopes that any future shows of this kind will focus on ' reality television ' and the barrel-scraping awfulness they have unfortunately come to symbolise . |
401,236 | 7,743,887 | 162,074 | 6 | The Butler Of Billingsgate ! | Made by A . T . V . , ' A Rather Reassuring Programme ' was a satirical comedy show from 1977 , hosted and produced by the late Ned Sherrin . One sketch was set in I . T . V . ' s comedy department , and featured John Junkin as a writer and Henry McGee as a hard-to-please producer . Ideas for various series were bandied about , only to be rejected . Then Junkin proposed a sitcom about Billingsgate Market fish porters . " Of course " , he added , " It could turn out to be another ' Down The ' Gate ' " . McGee shuddered . " Do you think the world is ready for another ' Down The ' Gate ' ? " . That should give you some idea of how highly regarded the show was at that time . Reg Varney had left ' On The Buses ' mid-way through its seventh ( and as it turned out final ) season , to land a show of his own on A . T . V . Entitled simply ' Reg Varney ' , it had our man singing , playing the piano , and playing bizarre characters in sketches ( such as ' The Monologue Man ' - dressed in flamboyant clothes , he constantly spoke in rhyme ) - basically , all the things he was not allowed to do on ' On The Buses ' . The show was a modest success . In 1975 , Reg felt that it was time for him to return to sitcom . He came up with an idea for a show about Billingsgate Market fish porters . Writers Roy Tuvey and Maurice Sellar fleshed out the premise . Reg played ' Reg Furnell ' , a fish porter very much like . . . Stan Butler . Except in one important respect - Stan was single , whereas Reg was happily married to the social-climbing Irene ( Dilys Laye ) , who was always trying to impress important people such as the bank manager , and would lose her cool whenever her husband came home late and stinking of mackerel . Reg's best mate was ' Old Wol ' , played by Reg Lye ( someone really ought to make a documentary about that man . After all , how many Australian actors can you name who have emigrated to Britain and made a living playing Cockneys , Northerners , Scotsmen et al ? ) . Reg and Old Wol had a different relationship to that of Stan Butler and Jack Harper , they were more like father and son than pals . The late Geoff Love wrote the cheeky saxophone signature tune , he had earlier written the excellent theme for ' Bless This House ' . I . T . V . had enough confidence in it to give it their prestigious ( for comedy at any road ) Wednesday 8 P . M . slot , usually reserved for ' The Benny Hill Show ' and ' The Tommy Cooper Hour ' . But it never caught on in the way that ' On The Buses ' had done . It was not Reg's fault . The scripts were not terribly good , and there was an insufficient mix of strong characters . Tony Melody played ' Len Peacock ' in the first season , and then Percy Herbert was brought on board in the second to play ' Mr . Preston ' - a ' Blakey'-styled authority figure . Instead of ' get that bus out ! ' he said ' get those crates moved ! " . Irene inherited some of Mrs . Butler's characteristics , such a tendency to display over-affection . It was just not the same , and viewers noticed . Reg might as well have stayed on board his bus . ' Down The ' Gate ' vanished from the airwaves in 1976 . Reg never did another sitcom . Plans to revive ' On The Buses ' in the late 1980's came to nothing . A . T . V . wiped the show soon after its screening , but canny old Reg used a video recorder ( yes , they existed then , albeit in a basic form ) to preserve seven of the twelve episodes , meaning that someday it might turn up on D . V . D . If it does , I think its fair to say that no-one will rush to acclaim it as a lost comedy classic . Its a pity they did not do instead a show in which Varney played a butcher with a twin brother - they could have called it ' Meat & Two Reg ' ! |
401,327 | 7,743,887 | 162,089 | 6 | Very well , thank you ! | Lovable , bumbling Harry Worth is barely remembered now , yet in the ' 60's and ' 70's he was one of British television's brightest comedy stars . With his trademark trilby and spectacles , he was a walking disaster area . This Yorkshire T . V . sitcom cast him as Harry Matthews , a middle-aged widower struggling to raise two children - the good-looking Martin , and Shirley , a precocious schoolgirl . It was not easy . As Harry sang each week : " She's growing up so incredibly fast , he seems to think I live in the past ' . It was basically ' Father Dear Father ' by another name , even the title was the same as a Michael Robbins I . T . V . sitcom from 1975 . In the first episode , Harry is concerned at the prospect of Martin dating an older woman . A later ( and rather funny ) instalment saw Shirley announce her wedding to a drippy mummy's boy . Fanny Carby played a nosey next-door neighbour ( as she seemed to do in most I . T . V . sitcoms of the period ) . Harry for the most part was in fine form , although a little unsteady in some scenes ( absentmindedly referring to Shirley as Debby in one episode ) . It was cosy domestic sitcom fare - the sets were cardboard , the plots contrived , the characters too nice to be credible - far removed from the awfulness of the real world . Maybe that was why it was so enjoyable . |
401,063 | 7,743,887 | 959,714 | 6 | I look in my hole at least once a day ! | St . Swithins is in a bad state - the corridors and wards have not been painted in years , the internal telephones do not work properly , dustbins overflow with rubbish , even the lettering on the sign outside is incomplete . Duncan , Dick and Paul angrily confront Adrian Quint , the hospital's new ' manager ' , in reality an hard-hearted accountant more interested in saving money than lives . He pours scorn on their concerns . The lads decide to stage a scam ; by making Quint think that a V . I . P . is due in for a minor operation , they get him to release the funds required to give St . Swithin's a full make-over . . . Angus Deayton brightens up this episode ; his ' Quint ' is reminiscent of the show's old-style ' nasties ' such as ' Sir John Pollock ' ( from the ' In Charge ' episode ' The Merger ' ) and ' Mr . Gascoigne ' ( from the ' On The Go ' instalment ' For Your Own Good ' ) . In the old days the lads would have debagged him , covered him in yellow paint or thrown him into the canal . The worst that happens to him here is that he is made to look extremely foolish . Nice to see Robin Nedwell regaining a little of his old fire , the scene where he rages at Quint is superb . Once again , George Layton the writer is at odds with George Layton the actor . There's no denying that Layton is as good here as he was in the original show , sadly he fails to give himself ( along with everybody else ) any decent lines . With N . H . S . cutbacks very much in the news in 1991 thanks to the horrendous Virginia Bottomley , the then Minister Of Health , this plot was certainly timely , even if it really belongs on ' Casualty ' . Twelve million viewers tuned in for the first episode of ' At The Top ' , but by this one went out that figure had decreased to five . Funniest moment - Quint entering a ward expecting to see the V . I . P . - Charles Windsor - but instead of the future King he sees only a little boy with the same name ! |
401,064 | 7,743,887 | 959,710 | 6 | Birthday Boy ! | As preparations for Loftus ' birthday dinner gather momentum , Dick is saddled with an unexpected problem - Rebecca wants a new computer for the hospital . He refuses , regarding them as an expensive luxury . Dr . Snell proposes that the staff should each contribute £100 to a fund to buy a present for Loftus , an idea which meets with short shrift from Duncan , knee deep in mortgage problems . At the dinner , Loftus is upset to find most of the attendees are strangers ( including a minor Royal ) and he is sidelined by the social climbing Stuart-Clarks . Then Dick receives a note from the Students Union - acting on an idea given to them by Collier , they have kidnapped Loftus and refuse to hand him back until St . Swithins gets its computer . . . The second episode of ' Top ' is marginally better than the first , mainly because one has gotten used to seeing ' the terrible trio ' as older men . Dick has changed the most . The old model's hobbies were sex , gambling and drinking . Dick circa 1991 looks as though his idea of a fun evening would be sharpening his scalpel ! Reviewing ' Sins Of The Father ' for ' The Daily Mirror ' , critic Hilary Kingsley not only panned the new show , but astonishingly described the original as ' one of those sub-'Carry On ' shows that blighted ' 70's T . V . ' . I'm sure John Cleese and Graham Chapman ( had he been alive then ) would have taken umbrage at any comparison between their work and the long-running Peter Rogers series of film farces . Collier's anecdote about how he and his fellow students once stole a pop star's appendix is yet another example of the show's sloppy revisionism - it never happened in the original - and makes no sense when he could have quoted the kidnapping of the Frank Middlemass character from the ' Doctor At Large ' episode ' Students At Heart ' instead . Funniest moment - Snell presenting Loftus with a silver tankard , before backing away in an obsequious manner . The old man looks at it sadly , and puts it in a box full of similar tankards ! |
401,413 | 7,743,887 | 236,914 | 6 | Dear Noel , I want to swap my Action Man for Maggie Philbin ! | Contrary to popular myth , ' Multi-Coloured Swap Shop ' was NOT the first Saturday morning children's show . That honour went to ' Zokko ' in 1968 , a full eight years before Noel and co . got going . " We're slick , we're glossy , and proud of it . We're out to entertain the whole family ! " , gushed Noel Edmonds in a ' Sun ' interview in the late ' 70's . He'd been asked to make comparisons with I . T . V . ' s ' Tiswas ' . Noel thought that because ' Tiswas ' featured people getting soaked to the skin , and sprayed with green slime , it was a bad show . Then , twenty years later , he gave us ' Noel's House Party ' . Go figure . According to a ' Radio Times ' article , Noel ' likes a cup of coffee and a cartoon at eleven o'clock ' . He may still do for all we know . Being a live show , anything could happen . One of the classic moments was when Noel interviewed Debbie Harry of ' Blondie ' fame . He asked Ms . Harry to pick the winner of the previous week's competition , and she'd agreed . Eric's bubble descended onto the set . That week , it was made up to resemble Jimmy Savile O . B . E . Fearing Debbie might mistake the face for an unkind caricature of herself , Noel quickly pointed out it was in fact Jimmy Saville , of whom she'd never heard - his discomfiture was delicious . The Roving Swapman , Cheggers , provided another Solid Gold moment when a trophy he presented to a figure skater fell to pieces in his hands ! I often wondered what the parents of all those children wanting to swap their toys on air thought of this show . I bet that some were still being paid for on hire purchase . Hobbyists were also a regular item ; one horrible boy bragged about his fabulous collection of Marvel Comics . I felt like phoning in to do a ' Five Star ' on him ! The best thing about ' Swap ' was that it kept Noel off peak-time telly for years . Then , one day , it tragically ended , leaving Noel free to whirl his wheels and hand out gotchas ! |
401,484 | 7,743,887 | 65,967 | 6 | Harry In Search Of Kip | Sometimes the past is best left undisturbed . This picture was a favourite of mine and used to play often on 70's television , usually in a late-night slot . I had thought of it as a tense , gritty movie full of exciting action and superb performances . Then it mysteriously disappeared from our screens , so when the opportunity arose recently to view it once again , I jumped at the chance . Oh dear . Based on the novel ' The Ordeal Of Major Grigsby ' by John Sherlock , ' The Last Grenade ' begins in the Congo . A mercenary unit , headed by Major Harry Grigsby ( Stanley Baker ) , is waiting to be picked up by a helicopter by one of their number , Kip Thompson ( Alex Cord ) . Instead he has changed sides and wipes them out en masse - laughing like a maniac as he does so - before blowing up their camp for good measure . Only Grigsby survives , swearing revenge . Some time later , he is back in England and recovering from tuberculosis in a sanitarium when the British Government ( naturally bothered by an American mercenary's activities in a foreign land ) asks him to kill Thompson who has been making a nuisance of himself in China by making cross border raids . You would think they would prefer to use someone in better health , but that's politicians for you . Taking along other mercenaries - including Julian Glover and John Thaw ( criminally wasted in such a small role ) , he sets about hunting for his hated adversary . They eventually meet , but instead of killing Grigsby where he stands , Thompson puts him in solitary confinement , from which he is able to escape easily . This lapse in logic is not isolated ; as the film progresses , other opportunities crop up for Thompson to remove Grigsby , but for reasons unexplained , he chooses not to do so . We know of course why - the story would have ended there and then . Harry then begins an affair with Katherine ( Honor Blackman ) , the good-looking wife of General Whiteley ( Richard Attenborough - also wasted in this movie ) , and considers calling off the search for Thompson ( forgetting of course that he has been paid to do the job by British tax-payers ) and settle down to a life of domestic bliss . Thompson has other ideas and kills Katherine ( he was really after her husband , but never mind ) . So now Harry is full of fury once more , and storms off into the rainy forests to look for Kip . You think a big fight is coming , but no , it does not and suddenly the credits are rolling up the screen . Watching this the other night I wondered how on earth the writers - one of whom was James Mitchell , creator of ' Callan ' - thought that they could get away with such blatantly obvious plot holes , some of which are big enough for Thompson to fly his helicopter through . Even my wife ( a confirmed soap opera addict ) spotted them , which tells you all you need to know . Baker makes a convincing mercenary - all moustache and muscles , upper lip trembling in anticipation of the final kill - more so than the cast of ' The Wild Geese ' combined . Harry using a corpse as a trap for Thompson is in character , but his decision to stop hunting for Thompson to move in with Katherine is not . As the giggling psycho , Alex Cord's performance surely must have been a big influence on Christopher Walken when he played ' Max Zorin ' in the Bond movie ' A View To A Kill ' fifteen years later . Ray Brooks is around too , but got better dialogue when he did ' Mr . Benn ' . On the plus side , there is impressive location filming in Spain ( doubling for the Congo ) and China . The opening massacre gets the film off to a thundering start . But from then on , it is all downhill , as the plot wanders around in circles . We do not even get to see Grigsby and Thompson engage in hand-to-hand combat . Gordon Flemyng , the director , was also responsible for the two ' Dr . Who ' movies of the ' 60's starring Peter Cushing , and you will find more excitement in those than this . If you enjoyed ' The Last Grenade ' in 1970 , then to preserve your happy memories do not watch it now . Believe me , ' The Wild Geese ' is ' Apocalypse Now ' by comparison . |
401,202 | 7,743,887 | 197,158 | 6 | Big Breadwinner Hogg | ' Hogg's Back ' was an I . T . V . children's comedy series which starred the late Derek Royle ( best remembered these days for playing ' Mr . Leeman ' in ' The Kipper & The Corpse ' episode of Fawlty Towers ' ) as Dr . Hogg , an incompetent country quack brought out of retirement to administer the needs of a quiet country village . Stammering , twitching and fumbling like a terminal piles sufferer , Hogg caused chaos wherever he went . You definitely wouldn't want him at your bedside with a thermometer . Royle was an acrobat in his younger days , and the ability served him in good stead here . The scripts were by the late Michael Pertwee , who wrote classic comedy movies such as ' Laughter In Paradise ' . ' Hogg's Back ' was far from his best work , but I suspect if released on D . V . D . now would outshine many modern comedies for sheer belly laughs . Jacki Piper , who played Hogg's secretary Pearl , left mid-way through Season 1 , to be replaced by Wendy Richard . In Season 2 , Pat Coombs joined the cast as Hogg's housekeeper . |
400,624 | 7,743,887 | 196,249 | 6 | Let's Play Doctors And Nurses ! | Ah , ' 70's daytime television ! Let me see now . ' Rainbow ' for the kids ( along with ' Hickory House ' , ' Pipkins ' , ' Mr . Trimble ' , and ' Sing To The Animals ' ) . ' News Report ' with Robert Kee . ' Crown Court ' for the adults , ' Lunch Time With Wogan ' ( every one of which has been wiped apparently ) , ' Quick On The Draw ' hosted by Bob Monkhouse , Rolf Harris and Michael Bentine ( though not at the same time ) , ' There Goes That Song Again ' , a musical quiz hosted by Steve Race , and ' Looks Familiar ' in which Denis Norden reminisced about the past with invited guests . If that lot has not triggered any memories , nothing will . There were also films ( the best ones always seemed to be on when I was at school ) , and repeats of classic adventure shows such ' The Saint ' and ' Danger Man ' , along with more recent ones like ' A Family At War ' and ' Sam ' . None of your ' Loose Women ' rubbish around then . There were also soaps - or ' afternoon serials ' as they were then called ( the word ' soaps ' was regarded as an insult in those days ) . ' Castle Haven ' was bragged up at the time as epitomising the ' 70's . How true this is we shall never know - like ' Lunch Time With Wogan ' not a single edition survives . ' Emmerdale Farm ' fared better ; it is still running . A . T . V . ' s ' General Hospital ' was kind of successor to the well-remembered ' Emergency Ward 10 ' . It too focused on the day-to-day routine in a city ( Midland General ) hospital . The doctors were handsome and the nurses ( among them Lynda Bellingham , Carmen Munroe and Barbara Kellermann ) pretty , and some of the patients were not bad looking either . The only ugly character as I recall was ' Capper ' the porter ( later replaced by ' Ernie Penrose ' , played by future ' Coronation Street ' killer Brian Capron ) . In terms of story lines , ' General Hospital ' frequently resembled ' Doctor In Charge ' starring Robin Nedwell . One week , Dr . Neville Bywaters ( Tony Adams , later to play ' Adam Chance ' in ' Crossroads ' ) fell in love with patient Janey Hart ( Jill Gascoigne ) . Alas poor Janey died , and Dr . Bywater's heart was truly broken . But wait ! A week later who should move into the hospital ( and ward ) but Janey's twin sister ! In fairness , Liz Gebhardt ( ' Maureen Bullock ' of ' Please Sir ! ' and ' The Fenn Street Gang ' ) gave a moving performance in another episode as an anorexic . In common with ' Emmerdale Farm ' . the show was upgraded to hour-long episodes and shown on ( Friday ) evenings , where it concentrated more on the internal politics of the hospital . The late Eric Lander was brought in to play ' Richard Kirby ' , a ' man you love to hate ' figure . Johnny ' Sleepy Shores ' Pearson provided a new , strident theme tune , replacing Derek Scott's mellower version . |
401,458 | 7,743,887 | 397,794 | 6 | A Grumpy Old Man ( Aged 43 ) Writes | I have mixed feelings about this . Part of me is glad to see the modern world getting a well-deserved kicking , even if it is from well-paid and over-exposed showbiz figures . Some of the views expressed ( particularly John O'Farrell's ) seem eminently sensible . But another part of me says : " This is patronising in the extreme . " . Despite the title , its clearly aimed at the young . One imagines them tuning in and exclaiming : " Ha Ha ! The sad old fools don't realise the world has moved on ! " . Actually , the concept is nothing new . In 1976 , the B . B . C . made a series called ' Write On ! ' in which members of the public were invited to speak their minds on air . Their ideas included the teaching of First Aid in schools ( now why was that never taken up ? ) , the promotion of fishing as a national sport , complaints about the lack of television programmes aimed at the young ( how times have changed ! ) and the use of incidental music in films . It only ran a single season , yet was vastly superior to ' Grumpy Old Men ' . Who cares what millionaires think ? |
400,920 | 7,743,887 | 199,252 | 6 | Its time to go Nationwide ! | It seems odd to denounce the ' 70's as ' a time best forgotten ' then keep our memories alive by reviewing its television programmes . In the last episode of ' Life On Mars ' , Sam Tyler ( John Simm ) killed himself by jumping off a roof because he wanted to return there . I have a far easier option - I watch D . V . D . ' s . ' Nationwide ' went out after the regional evening news and before the light entertainment programmes on B . B . C . - 1 . Each edition started with the presenter ( either Michael Barrett or Frank Bough ) seated before a bank of screens , on which could be seen the face of a local newsreader . Topics ranged from issues of the day such as the Budget or the death of a world leader to showbiz interviews . ' Down Memory Lane ' was a short-lived feature which exploited a fad for nostalgia triggered by shows such as ' Upstairs , Downstairs ' . Later on Richard Stilgoe and Valerie Singleton fronted a weekly consumer guide which became the forerunner to ' Watchdog ' . ' The British Rock & Pop Awards ' blasted the show into the ' 80's . In common with ' Pebble Mill At One ' , ' Nationwide ' tried to be something to everyone . It was frequently naff , but light and easy to digest . Ideal for unwinding to after a tiring day . I can recall cringing with embarrassment though when they wheeled in thriller writer Francis Durbridge and invited him to speculate on who had shot J . R . Ewing . He had obviously not seen ' Dallas ' , and was plainly out of his depth here . Another ' dearie me , did they really say that ? ' moment occurred in 1973 when a cake shop in Bournemouth was apparently commissioned to bake Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips ' wedding cake . We were shown in great detail the preparation and hard work that went into its making . Had ' Ceefax ' been around then , the recipe would have been on page 447 . The staff looked pleased as punch , like Mrs . Bridges in ' Upstairs , Downstairs ' when King Edward The Seventh came to dinner . However , on the day itself , viewers were informed the British Army had made the cake instead . Did someone at the Beeb boob ? The cracking signature tune was by John Scott . Some decent presenters ( including luscious long-legged Sue Lawley ) got their start here and the show had the occasional memorable moment such as Margaret Thatcher being put on the spot by schoolteacher Diana Gould over the sinking of the Belgrano . Giving air-time to talentless people ? Well , reality television is now doing that on a far grander scale . Michael Barrett was not alone in sending himself up on ' The Goodies ' . Tony Blackburn and Michael Aspel did as much . Stanley Baxter produced a funny send-up of ' Nationwide ' in one of his legendary Christmas shows . The L . W . T . show ' End Of Part One ' went for the jugular with ' Nationtrite ' , hosted by Sue Straightman ( Sue Holderness ) . When ' Nationwide ' finally ended in 1983 , its successor was the hugely unpopular ' Sixty Minutes ' , hosted by Sarah Kennedy . It was spoofed a year later by the I . T . V . comedy show ' The Steam Video Company ' as ' Nationwide With The Furniture Rearranged ' . |
401,473 | 7,743,887 | 199,272 | 6 | Ahead Of Its Time ? | Made by B . B . C . Scotland , ' Sin On Saturday ' was the creation of Shaun Hardie , one of the ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' producers . It must have looked a surefire winner on paper - a late-night Saturday talk-show devoted to each of the seven deadly sins , hosted by the late and respected television journalist Bernard Falk . Up-and-coming comedians Robbie Coltrane and Elaine Loudon provided funny interludes . Ideal post-pub material . The first edition was , unsurprisingly , ' Lust ' . It was more like a debate on pornography , with guest Linda Lovelace ( in her second incarnation as tireless anti-pornography campaigner ) on one side and hellraising movie star Oliver Reed on the other . It got rowdier as it progressed and finally reached the point where nobody could make themselves heard . A letter-writer to ' Points Of View ' suggested that the show be retitled ' Din On Saturday ' ! Reed was initially reluctant to go on it , but when he started talking proved impossible to shut up . He got up the noses of the feminists present by endorsing porno films . Some of the men in the audience agreed , one was even heard to shout " where's the crumpet ? " . Another thanked Linda personally for having made ' Deep Throat ' . Streaker Erica Roe was there too , claiming that her decision to run topless onto a rugby pitch was ' an expression of freedom ' . I see , nothing to do with getting your face ( and other bits ) in the papers and on television then . Poor Falk looked relieved when the end credits rolled . I realise that this sounds like nothing unique , you can see stuff like this every morning now on I . T . V . But back in 1982 nothing like it had ever been broadcast in Britain before . Critics ripped it to pieces . ' Bummer of the season ' was one such damning verdict . Some viewers felt the show had been unfair because the pro-pornography section of the audience - mostly men - were able to easily drown out the protests of the anti-porn section . The following week , the sin under the spotlight was ' Covetousness ' and featured ex-Labour M . P . John Stonehouse , who did a real-life ' Reggie Perrin ' act by faking his death . It was a more sedate affair , as was the edition after that : ' Envy ' , which contained interesting contributions from pools winner Viv Nicholson and Allan Williams a . k . a . ' The Man Who Gave Away The Beatles ' . These last two programmes were everything the first had not been . Of course answers to the issues raised were never going to be found , but the level of debate was fascinating . Amazingly , critics panned these shows too , appearing not to notice the improvement in quality . The topic of the fourth edition was going to be ' Gluttony ' and would have boasted , among other people , Fanny Cradock , making her first television appearance since her disastrous appearance on ' The Big Time ' in 1977 . But it never went out . The B . B . C . , acting like a nervous vicar in a sex shop , pulled the series in mid-run . The last time anything like that happened was when Peter Cook's infamous chat-show disaster ' Where Do I Sit ? ' was yanked off B . B . C . - 2 a decade earlier . Falk rarely appeared on television again . He later gave an interview to ' The News Of The World ' expressing his disappointment at the B . B . C . ' s decision . In 1991 , ' Sin On Saturday ' featured on ' T . V . Hell ' , the B . B . C . ' s celebration of bad programmes . Certainly the first edition belonged there , but I do not think the other two were bad at all . Compared to ' The Jeremy Kyle Show ' and ' Jerry Springer ' , they were almost ' Newsnight ' standard . The British public were simply not ready for shouting matches posing as debate , movie stars belittling women , or streakers making fatuous claims about personal freedoms . But they soon would be . In that respect , the show was ahead of its time . |
401,565 | 7,743,887 | 69,623 | 6 | Caravan Capers | With ' On The Buses ' a proved success , Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney were invited by L . W . T . to come up with ideas for other sitcoms . They eventually produced ' Romany Jones ' . A starring vehicle for ' Dad's Army''s James Beck , it cast him as ' Bert Jones ' , a good-for-nothing living in a ramshackle caravan with his much-put-upon wife Betty ( the squeaky-voiced but sexy Jo Rowbottom ) . Their neighbours ( and some would say the show's true stars ) were the Briggs - Wally and Lily - an uncouth Cockney couple played by Arthur Mullard and Queenie Watts . I have not seen this since its original broadcast , so cannot tell you with any degree of certainty whether it is an undeservedly forgotten comedy classic or a load of rot which should never be seen again . I remember enjoying it hugely at the time . Yes , it was vulgar and rude , but what do you expect from Wolfe and Chesney ? Yes , some of the humour came from the appalling lack of hygiene and manners from the Mullard character , but it was no worse than you'll find in ' Steptoe & Son ' . Beck's character wasn't far removed from ' Private Walker ' ; if there was a way to make money by doing as little work as possible , Bert Jones would be sure to find it . I recall an episode in which he tried his hand at being a door-to-door salesman . At one house , a vicious Alsatian chased him up the garden path . Shutting the gate , Bert thought he was safe , but then the animal sailed over it and followed him onto the road . In his ' Radio Times Guide To T . V . Comedy ' , Mark Lewisohn brands the show an insult to Britain's gypsy population . Come off it Mark . How many gypsies were offended by this in 1972 ? How many even had access to television ? The public liked it enough to put it in The Top 20 of most watched programmes . Tragically , just prior to the transmission of Season 2 , James Beck died suddenly . This talented comedy actor , once touted as a possible replacement for Sid James , was gone . Scripts for Season 3 were hurriedly rewritten ; Betty and Bert were dropped and an entirely new couple - the Chrichton-Jones - substituted . As played by Jonathan Cecil and Gay Rose , they were ever-so posh and subsequently very different from their predecessors . The show ran for two more seasons , spawning a spin-off - the dire ' Yus My Dear ' . Has ' Romany Jones ' stood the test of time ? Probably not . Even so , I would still like to see it again , if only to marvel at the wonderful talent of the late , much-missed James Beck . I think its fair to say that if you liked ' Dad's Army ' you'll be disappointed , but if you found ' On The Buses ' funny you should like this too . |
400,841 | 7,743,887 | 956,749 | 6 | I hope she gets turps all over her knickers ! | Keen to secure a £3 , 000 decorating contact , Eric begins getting friendly with the very pretty Shirley Matthews . Sharon assumes he is two-timing her . Maureen tries to bust up the pair by masquerading as one of Eric's ' girlfriends ' . Outraged , Shirley storms out of the pub . Once she realises the truth , Maureen attempts to put things right . . . A Rowley / Baker episode of little merit . This being a family sitcom , there was never any danger of Eric's motives being anything other than honourable , his interest in Shirley is ( so he claims ) for ' business ' only . When I tell you that Shirley is played by the stunning Jan Francis ( she of ' Secret Army ' and ' Just Good Friends ' ) , you'll find his claims a little hard to swallow . The low point is Maureen's impersonation of a squeaky-voiced floozy . Aimi MacDonald she ain't . The late Kenneth Waller , later to play ' Grandad ' in Carla Lane's ' Bread ' , is seen briefly as a randy pensioner in a burger bar . Future ' Citizen Smith ' star Cheryl Hall appears as Shirley's mate ' Brenda ' . Funniest moment - when the ' End Of Part One ' caption appears , Peter Cleall and Liz Gebhardt start eating peanuts ( which Craven had earlier dropped ) off the table . From their expressions I'd say they knew this script was a loser . |
401,652 | 7,743,887 | 69,609 | 6 | Back To Basics ? | Produced by H . T . V . West , ' Men Of Affairs ' was a spin-off from the 1973 movie ' Don't Just Lie There , Say Something ' , adapted in turn from a hit stage farce . Rix reprised his role , but as Leslie Phillips was making ' Casanova 73 ' for the B . B . C . , Warren Mitchell ( in monocle and toupee ) replaced him . Each week , the perpetually randy Sir William got up to naughty business , persuaded the hapless Ovis to cover for him , usually very badly . Misunderstandings piled on top of misunderstandings , and of course this being the ' 70's there'd be lots of dolly birds in various states of undress capering around bedrooms , and hiding in wardrobes . Joan Sims provided welcome support as Sir William's harridan of a wife . For lovers of British stage farce , this was essential viewing . I don't know if it still exists in the archives , but if so its a pity it wasn't repeated during John Major's time as Prime Minister . The labyrinthine plots of sex and deception would have seemed startlingly prescient . |
400,626 | 7,743,887 | 78,863 | 6 | Shifting Sands | In the wake of ' The Spy Who Loved Me ' , a number of television pilots unsuccessfully tried to revive the moribund spy genre , of which this was one . Written by Jimmy Sangster ( co-writer of the 1966 Bulldog Drummond caper ' Deadlier Than The Male ' and the ' Touchfeather ' novels ) , it starred Dale Robinette as Robert Sands , a C . I . A . agent assigned to investigate the mysterious death of a fellow agent , who had claimed to have seen ' flying saucers ' . The ' saucers ' are not interplanetary space vehicles , but dome-like structures designed to shield the arch-villain Horatio Black from ultra-violet rays . Black intends to destroy the ozone layer unless his extortionate demands are met . Whilst hardly in the same class as the Bond films , ' Threat ' boasts a few decent action sequences and gadgets , plus the marvellous Patrick Macnee in a role very different to Steed . Dale Robinette , however , is miscast as Sands , and lets the whole thing down . Despite being superior to ' Death Ray 2000 ' , there was no spin-off series . |
400,931 | 7,743,887 | 112,111 | 6 | We Can Deluge You With A Thousand Channels | In the mid-'90's , B . B . C . - 2 screened ' The Outer Limits ' in the slot vacated by the ratings-busting first season of ' The X-Files ' . They gave it a ' Radio Times ' cover and loads of publicity , but unfortunately shot themselves in the foot by opening with the execrable ' Blood Brothers ' instead of the excellent pilot episode ' Sandkings ' . Ratings plummeted , and the show eventually disappeared . It was a shame because ' Outer ' had some good stories , special effects and performances to offer . By far the best episode was ' A Stitch In Time ' in which Amanda Plummer played a time-travelling scientist who executes the men who will one day become serial killers . On the down side , the show featured gratuitous nudity and sex ( particularly ' Caught In The Act ' ) , something the original managed to do without . A number of episodes from the old show were remade ; ' I , Robot ' was passable , but the less said about ' The Inheritors ' the better . The quality varied , but overall it was worth watching . |
400,879 | 7,743,887 | 181,260 | 6 | Beware The Big Red Book ! | Each Wednesday evening , at 7 . 00 P . M . , Mrs . Elsie Haddock , aged 72 , of Runcorn , Cheshire , would be wearing her best dress and jewellery . She wanted to look presentable in case a certain Irishman came calling , a gleam in his eye and a big red book under his arm . " You thought you were going to watch ' This Is Your Life ' tonight . But no , because Mrs . Elsie Haddock , tonight ' This Is Your Life ' ! " . I did not make that up . It was in ' The Sunday People ' newspaper sometime around 1972 . Mrs . Haddock was one of millions who thought they were in with a fleeting chance of stardom , thanks to the publicity department at Thames T . V . Anticipating the National Lottery's slogan , it went as follows : " Who knows , it might be you ! " . Of course there was never any danger of someone like Mrs . Haddock actually getting on ' Life ' , for that you needed an Equity card . Occasionally lifeboatmen , charity workers and war heroes such as Pat Reid and Douglas Bader featured , but by and large the victims were actors , singers , directors etc . Quite a lot of the subjects were coincidentally starring in series made by Thames , such as Jack Smethurst ( ' Love Thy Neighbour ' ) , Simon Rouse ( ' The Bill ' ) , and George Cole ( ' Minder ' ) . The shows followed the same pattern ; Eamonn Andrews ( sometimes known as ' Seamus Android ' ) would ambush his victim at a press conference or book signing , cackling maniacally at their confusion , before whisking him / her off to a studio where he would tell his / her life story , and guests came on and told amusing anecdotes . " That's right , Eamonn . I remember it as though it was yesterday . . . " . Many guests became regulars , provoking the following sarcastic quote from Jasper Carrott : " Is there anyone in the Western Hemisphere who does not know Lionel Blair ? " . One week the victim was ' Carry On ' star Jack Douglas , and his ex-comedy partner Joe Baker gave Eamonn a fright by telling a different anecdote to the one planned , causing him to sweat even harder than usual . One of snooker superstar Alex Higgins ' relatives began a recollection about his childhood in Ireland , got nervous about being on television and dried up , leaving ' Hurricane ' to complete the tale . One or two people stubbornly refused to co-operate , most notably footballer Danny Blanchflower . Jack Warner , star of ' Dixon Of Dock Green ' , said he never ever wanted to go on it , stating it had all the entertainment value of a traffic accident . ' Coronation Steet ' actor Roy Barraclough looked as though he hated every moment of his time on ' Life ' , and with good reason . He had had to cut short a holiday abroad to fly back to England , having been told that rushes of the soap had been spoilt , and needed re-taping . It was all a ruse . His smiles looked as unconvincing as the beer he pulled in the ' Rovers Return ' . When ' Avengers ' star Patrick Macnee was the subject , his friend Ian Hendry turned up smashed and gave an incoherent speech that had to be cut from the transmitted show . When it went well , it could be unbearably sentimental , thus making it a target for spoofs by comedians such as Mike Yarwood and Benny Hill . But viewers loved it . Eamonn himself was the target one night , with magician David Nixon standing in for him as host . Actor Richard Beckinsale got the red book in 1977 , provoking a complaint from a ' Sun ' reader that he was too young to go on the show , and that he had his whole life ahead of him . As we know now , that life tragically ended three years later . I did not see the 1992 edition that featured Gary Glitter , but I bet it makes uncomfortable viewing today ( it probably did then ) . After Eamonn's death in 1988 , Michael Aspel took over , and the show was later dropped by Thames , eventually resurfacing on B . B . C . - 1 , where it lasted until 2003 . As I write this , rumours persist about a possible return for ' Life ' . I'm not surprised because although it drove me up the wall for much of the time ( oh no ! Bonnie Langford again ! ) it remains a good , solid television format . People love showbiz glamour . If it ever returns , I shall put on my best suit and gold cuff-links on Wednesday nights just in case the man with the big red book comes knocking . You never know . . . |
401,186 | 7,743,887 | 73,178 | 6 | Not Many Saw ' The Invisible Man ' | The success of ' The Six Million Dollar Man ' prompted this show , loosely based on the H . G . Wells novel . David McCallum played ' Dr . Daniel Westin ' , a scientist who turns permanently invisible when an experiment goes awry . He then becomes a secret agent known as ' The Klae Resource ' . For McCallum , this was his first American series since ' The Man From U . N . C . L . E . ' . As one would expect , he brought a lot of charm to the role . Craig Stevens played the ' Oscar Goldman ' equivalent . What strained credibility ( more so than the premise itself ) was the notion that Westin could only be seen through the wearing of a mask , designed to resemble his real face . It must have been a pretty good mask because his teeth and eyes were visible also . The plots were mediocre ( apart from ' Power Play ' which featured a stunning turn from Monte Markham as a psychotic villain ) , and overall the show failed to register with the U . S . public . It was popular over here , though , and was still being rerun as late as 1990 . |
400,881 | 7,743,887 | 312,256 | 6 | Tarby Takes All | It used to be the case that whenever a comedian's career started to flag , he did either of two things : a ) retired to France or b ) fronted a game show . Nowadays they are regarded as a step up for comics . Not every funnyman is cut out to be a game show host , of course ; for every Bob Monkhouse or Tom O'Connor , there's a Charlie Williams or Max Bygraves . In 1975 ( its not 1978 , sorry I . M . D . B . ) gap-toothed , mop-topped Jimmy Tarbuck , fresh from a string of A . T . V . specials , fronted this modest little show , made by good old Yorkshire Television , in which two contestants were asked general knowledge questions and had to choose the answer from a board . The higher the odds , the greater number of points were scored . Occasionally there was consensus ( usually when the question was dead simple ) but from time to time differences of opinion occurred . We knew this because Jimmy would say : " We have a difference of opinion ! " . The questions and answers were read aloud by the invisible form of Geoffrey Wheeler , whom I recall presented an early ' 70's schools programme called ' Meeting Your Needs ' . He had a lovely relaxing voice which somehow suited the style of the show . Geoffrey appeared on camera from time to time , usually in the Christmas specials . Speaking of which , a question concerning a type of hot drink led to an unexpected guest appearance by Dorothy Sleighthome , presenter of the iconic daytime show ' Farmhouse Kitchen ' . She had come prepared with drinks for both contestants as well as Tarby . Nice lady . But , as she turned to leave the studio floor , carrying her empty tray , she slipped and went flying . Presumably this was a live show as her mishap went out on air . Like ' Sale Of The Century ' , ' Winner Takes All ' was best viewed with a mug of cocoa and plate of Jammie Dodgers to hand . I watched not because I was a big fan of Tarbuck but because the show occasionally threw out interesting if somewhat useless facts , verified by the equally invisible Deborah Sutherland using the Encyclopaedia Britannia . In the early ' 80's , it underwent a makeover . Dolly bird hostesses were brought in to provide glamour ( one of whom - Jani-Z - went on to an unsuccessful pop career as well as appearing in 1983's Bond epic ' Octopussy ' ) . A jazzy new theme tune replaced the more sedate old one . Its catchy lyric went thus : ' Winner Takes All ! Winner Takes All ! Parp ! Parp ! Parp ! Parp Parp ! ' . The new set looked like the bridge of the Liberator spaceship from ' Blake's Seven ' . Somehow this seemed like an act of desperation , it was as though the Antiques Roadshow were suddenly being presented by Davina McCall . No longer did you need the mug of cocoa and Jammie Dodgers , instead you had to have bromide to stop getting excited at the sight of Jani-Z's stunning cleavage . Some of the answers boggled the mind . For instance , in response to ' Who Wrote The Book ' The Thirty-Nine Steps ' ? ' , a contestant chose ' Victor Silvester ' over John Buchan . Tarbuck later admitted he had to bite his lower lip to stop him calling the man an idiot on air . One question had me roaring with laughter . It was " Who Said ' You've Never Had It So Good ? ' " . Alongside Harold Macmillan ( which was the correct answer ) was the name ' Linda Lovelace ' . I could imagine sweet old biddies all over the country turning to each other and going : " Who's she ? " . As host , Tarbuck's job was to chat to the contestants , put them at ease , and wherever possible make a golfing joke . The combination of his cheeky chappie humour and Wheeler's earnestness went down well and the show ran for twelve years , earning itself promotion from a non-networked midweek show to a peak-time Sunday night highlight along the way . Tarbuck left in 1987 , and it continued with Wheeler as host . But the viewers decided it was not the same and it did not return . Like ' Sale Of The Century ' , Sky's ' Challenge ' threw it a lifeline sometime in the ' 90's with Bobby Davro as host . I never saw it so I cannot comment . An episode of the original was repeated on ' Challenge ' a few years back . The most interesting thing was the appearance of the young male contestant ; he had fashionable shoulder-length hair , but also a Hitler-style moustache . I was amazed that Tarby did not try to make fun of him . Should ' Winner Takes All ' be revived by I . T . V . ? Of course . Presenter ? I should have thought that was obvious . Michael Winner , of course . |
401,692 | 7,743,887 | 706,334 | 6 | Kalthon Lives ! | Koenig and Alan are exploring a jewel-like asteroid which has wandered into Alpha's vicinity . In a cavern that looks like a hall of mirrors , Koenig is duplicated by an unknown alien force . The duplicate overpowers the real Koenig , steals his jacket and commlock , and returns to Alpha in his place . He orders an energy beam be directed at the asteroid . The others , particularly Helena , think he has gone mad . The beam will use up Alpha's remaining power . She also notices he has become cold to the touch . . . Suspecting something , Maya and Tony flee the Moon in an Eagle . The fake Koenig orders that it be shot down . . . One of the best episodes from ' Star Trek ' was ' The Enemy Within ' in which an evil Captain Kirk was created as the result of a transporter malfunction . Here ' Space : 1999 ' ( ahem ) pays homage , with Commander Koenig undergoing a similar division of personality . Alas , Martin Landau isn't given much of an opportunity to make the ' bad ' Koenig particularly interesting . Its a one-note performance . At the heart of the asteroid is the seed of an alien race known as ' the Kalthon ' , which the fake Koenig wants revived at all costs . Its never explained what the Kalthon intend doing once they regain corporeal existence . They can't live on the asteroid , and Alpha will have been destroyed as a result of the energy drain . Unless there's an underground hangar full of spaceships we haven't been told about , their chances of survival look very slim . That was the trouble with many of the Fred Freiburger produced ' 1999 ' episodes , an idea would be created , but never properly developed or explored . There are other disappointments too ; no big name guest stars , and none of the spectacular S . F . X . we expect from this show . Even the cave looks like the hall of mirrors at Coney Beach Fun-Fair , Porthcawl , Wales . One of the weaker Year 2 stories . |
401,217 | 7,743,887 | 590,984 | 6 | We Is Revoltin ' ! | The Goodies look into their family histories ; Graeme's ancestor , Celtic Kilty , was from a remote part of Scotland where the inhabitants enjoyed hunting the haggis and bathing in porridge ; Bill's ancestor , Kinda Kinky , came from Cornwall and was a member of the ' oo ah , oo ah ' tribe who wore smocks and drank cider ; Tim's ancestor , County Cutie , was an upper-class sheep-stealer . The trio are rounded up by the whip-wielding Tourmaster , taken to the B . B . C . T . V . Centre , London , and auctioned off for use as dancers in light entertainment shows . No-one wants the Goodies ' ancestors , so they are put on ' The Black & White Minstrel Show ' , where they organise a revolt . . . Alex Haley's book ' Roots ' became a blockbuster television mini-series in 1977 . Watched by the highest recorded audience ever , it told of a shameful period in American history - how native Africans were snatched from their homeland and transported by sea ( in the most appalling conditions imaginable ) to the United States to be sold off as slaves . No-one who saw the series can possibly hope to forget it . Which makes it all the more strange why the Goodies should think it a suitable subject for parody . Had The Goodies been around in the mid-90's , do you think they'd have meted out similar treatment to ' Schindler's List ' ? I don't think so somehow . The Goodies ' ancestors ' whirlwind journey round London is reminiscent of the famous ' Lightning Tours ' sketch from Marty Feldman's show . This may seem like a daft question , but the adventure of the Goodies ' ancestors is clearly taking place in the ' 70's , so how can they exist at the same time as their descendants ? The late , great Brian Pringle crops up as the sinister ' Tourmaster ' , though he's woefully underused . Once the action moves to the B . B . C . , the Goodies abandon the ' Roots ' spoof and switch their attention to a somewhat less revered show of that era - ' The Black & White Minstrel Show ' . Attempting to equate blacked-up Welsh singers with oppressed African slaves is just not on , lads . Jim Franklin had been taken off directorial duties , and was replaced by Bob Spiers , who had worked on ' Dad's Army ' and would go on to helm the second season of ' Fawlty Towers ' , ' The Comic Strip Presents ' and more recently , ' Absolutely Fabulous ' . He would stay with the Goodies right until the end . Funniest moment - despite the appalling taste exhibited by this episode , there are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments , such as the restaurant above the G . P . O . Tower spinning faster and faster to the accompaniment of the theme from Rodgers & Hammerstein's ' Carousel ' . |
401,518 | 7,743,887 | 591,020 | 6 | Metal Billy ! | The Goodies are losing money , so they downsize by cutting a third of their work force - in other words , they fire Bill . To replace the bearded bird watcher , Graeme builds a robot - a walking dustbin with Nookie Bear-eyes that behaves like a baby . They hire ( where did they suddenly get the money from ? ) a Swedish au pair named Helga who turns out to be Bill in drag . Bill tries to destroy the robot , but it proves too clever for him . Soon it has grown ( ! ) to the size of a man and begins having sex with other robots . Determined to put a stop to it , Graeme dresses as a female robot . The android isn't fooled and enlists the aid of a cooker , a toaster and a vacuum cleaner in a bid to take over the business . . . Following the ' Snow White 2 ' Special , this was the first ' proper ' episode of ' The Goodies ' to be screened on I . T . V . Its hardly one of the team's more inspired efforts . To be honest , its one of their worst , bearing an unfortunate resemblance to L . W . T . ' s ' Metal Mickey ' children's comedy series , which starred Irene Handl . Besides , they had a robot servant in the B . B . C . episode ' U-Friend or U-Foe ' ( it was called HEE-BEE-GEE-BEE ) , and had previously done a plot about Bill leaving the business ( ' Cunning Stunts ' ) , so there was something of a ' been there , done that ' feel to the whole thing . The ' robot as baby ' angle became tiresome well before the commercial break ( and what a shock it was in 1982 to see genuine commercials in ' The Goodies ' instead of spoof ones ) . The voice of the robot was provided by the late David Rappaport , best remembered as one of the dwarfs in Terry Gilliam's ' Time Bandits ' . Funniest moment - Holding aloft a placard that reads ' Support Your Striking Mate ' , Bill pickets the Goodies offices . It rains and the ink runs , so that the placard now reads : ' Up Yours , Mate ' . A passer-by sees this and punches Bill out ! |
401,101 | 7,743,887 | 617,034 | 6 | Lights ! Cameras ! Assassination ! | Over-the-hill Hollywood movie star Jeff Wheeler is sacked from the set of his newest movie . Then wife Lisa announces that she intends leaving him . Depressed , he contemplates suicide , but cannot go through with it . He asks Dirk Brogan , his agent , to kill him , without telling him where or how the murder will take place . Some time later , Jeff is almost run down in a busy street by a black Porsche . Then a lift door comes close to crushing him . A pleasant afternoon's golfing is spoilt when someone shoots at him . Jeff survives , but finds he cannot locate Dirk to get him to call off the attacks . He no longer wishes to die . . . Easily the worst episode of the series , mainly because it is so unbelievable . When Jeff tells his agent he wishes him to be his assassin , Dirk looks unsurprised as though it were an everyday occurrence . No showbiz agent would ever bump off one of his major sources of income . Dirk is such a wimp he looks to be incapable of swatting a fly , much less killing a human being . Jeff should have hired a professional hit-man if were genuinely serious about dying . The plot bears a startling resemblance to ' The Odd Job Man ' by Bernard McKenna , an episode of ' Six Dates With Barker ' broadcast in 1971 . In that , Ronnie Barker played the would-be suicidalist , with David Jason as his inept would-be executioner ( later made into a movie starring Monty Python's Graham Chapman ) . It played the whole thing for laughs , but ' Do Me A Favour ' takes itself very seriously indeed . Joseph Cotten is ' Jeff ' , with future ' Man At The Top ' star Kenneth Haigh as ' Dirk ' . Also in the cast are Joyce Blair ( Lionel's sister ) and Monty Python babe Carol Cleveland . Smooth direction from Gerry O'Hara , who also worked on ' The Avengers ' and ' Man In A Suitcase ' . Neat twist ending . |
401,457 | 7,743,887 | 129,710 | 6 | Nice Format , Shame About Some Of The Guests | When Stephen Fry went on ' Room 101 ' , he lambasted the format and proposed a variant whereby guests named their favourite things . Its easy to see why it wasn't made . Negativity gets big audiences , positivity doesn't . ' Room 101 ' is unmissable only when the guest is brilliantly funny ( the episodes with Spike Milligan , Peter Cook and Linda Smith spring to mind ) . Put someone who used to be on ' Blue Peter ' or ' Eastenders ' on it and you're in big trouble . Nick Hancock was the first and best presenter ; Paul Merton is okay but tends not to put up much of an argument against the guest's choices . To give an example , when Michael Grade selected ' Dr . Who ' , Merton caved in completely , letting Grade spit his venom . Also the use of out-of context film clips is annoying in the extreme . On one occasion , the American singer Johnnie Ray was shown miming badly to one of his hits . I wonder if the studio audience's hilarity would have been as great if they'd been told beforehand he was stone deaf ? |
401,146 | 7,743,887 | 675,786 | 6 | 5C Brushes With Dearth ! | 5C is entrusted with helping local pensioners and looking after kids - tasks which , surprisingly , they excel at . The only person unhappy with the idea is Potter , who has been told by 5C that ' geriatrics ' is the name of a person ( Jerry Atrix ) coming to Fenn Street School to take his job . In disgust , he tears off his badges in the staff room , and flings his hat out of the window . One pensioner who proves difficult is Albert Dearth , who won't wash nor let anyone in his house to tidy up . Craven decides to give him help - whether he wants it or not . . . I suspect that this episode , along with ' Norman's Conquest ' was written to placate those critics who regarded ' Please Sir ! ' as a bad influence on the young . In the earlier programme , they took an interest in wildlife , here its old people and kids . The late Jack Woolgar specialised in playing cantankerous pensioners . ' Dr . Who ' fans will probably best remember him as ' Staff Sergeant Arnold ' in the 1968 classic ' The Web Of Fear ' . Funniest moment - Potter entering the 5C classroom wearing psychedelic boots ! |
400,712 | 7,743,887 | 300,805 | 6 | When Lennie & Dianne Met Charlie | Lennie Peters and Dianne Lee ( or ' Peters & Lee ' as they were collectively known ) were a popular singing duo who came to prominence on Hughie Green's ' Opportunity Knocks ' in 1973 . Lennie ( who by the way was blind ) and the beautiful Dianne notched up several middle-of-the-road hits such as ' Welcome Home ' , ' Don't Stay Away Too Long ' and ' Rainbow ' . Following their appearances on A . T . V . ' s ' Des O'Connor Entertains ' , the couple were offered their own series , entitled ' Meet Peters & Lee ' , which ran for one season in 1976 . Interspersed with their songs were sketches featuring Charlie Drake , his first regular television series since ' Slapstick & Old Lace ' in 1971 . Drake had gotten into trouble with Equity after employing a non-union dancer in a pantomime he was starring in , and was effectively blacklisted for a while . ' Meet Peters & Lee ' got him onto the box via the back door . It has to be said , though , that these sketches were far from his best work . In one , he played a World War 2 pilot who lets loose his cargo of bombs , even though his plane has yet to take off . The show was a big comedown for the diminutive comic . Good for fans of Lennie and Dianne , bad for fans of ' The Worker ' . Peters & Lee continued to work in theatre and summer shows , but their popularity was never the same again after this . Eventually , they parted company . Lennie died in 1992 . Dianne went on to appear in Jim Davidson's X-rated pantomimes ( as did Charlie ) . The classic sitcom ' Citizen Smith ' made a delightful reference to the duo in one episode . Attending a talent contest in dark glasses , Wolfie reminds his girlfriend that an old lady asked them for an autograph . " That's because she thought we were Peters & Lee ! " , laughs Shirley . |
401,607 | 7,743,887 | 675,792 | 6 | Special Schoolkids Issue ! | Suspecting shopkeeper Mr . Dutton of selling cigarettes to the Fenn Street pupils , Mr . Cromwell declares the shop out of bounds . This not only riles the kids , but also Smithy , who buys his aniseed balls there regularly . To get revenge , 4C launches a new version of the school magazine - ' The Fenntasy ' . Filled with provocative articles and obscene photos ( including a ' Classmate Of The Term ' ) , it shocks the teachers so much they try to suppress it . . . With John Alderton gone , Deryck Guyler was effectively the show's new star . This was the first ' Please Sir ! ' not to be written by Esmonde and Larbey . The writers are Geoff Rowley and Andy Baker , authors of several ' Fenn Street Gang ' episodes . Basically a reworking of ' X Certificate ' from Season 2 , only here the pupils are making a magazine rather than a film . The allusions to the famous ' Oz ' obscenity trial are unmistakable . 4C are given a bit more screen time than in ' Identitwit ' and its easy to see why Hedges disliked them so much that he left . Not a decent actor amongst them . Still , they least they look like children , which was more one could have said about 5C . Funniest moment - an angry Mr . Dutton confronting the headmaster in a corridor , and Potter turning chicken when threatened ( shades of Frankie Abbott ! ) |
401,198 | 7,743,887 | 75,548 | 6 | Mr . Humphries-By-The-Sea | Sleazy and unfunny ! " Excruciating ! " " Filth ! " . These were a few of the comments made about ' Odd Man Out ' , an obscure Thames sitcom from 1977 . Bearing in mind that it was written by one half of the team behind ' Love Thy Neighbour ' , starred one of the cast of ' Are You Being Served ? ' , and produced by the director of the ' Carry On ' movies - the late Gerald Thomas - it would have perhaps been unrealistic to expect Carla Lane . John Inman's first starring role on television , he played ' Neville Sutcliffe ' , a Blackpool fish and chip shop owner who inherits ( along with prudish sister Dorothy ) half ownership of a seaside rock factory in Littlehampton . The staff includes ' Wilf ' ( Peter Butterworth ) , ' Ma ' ( Avril Angers ) , and big chested Marilyn ( Vivienne Johnson , ' Young Mr . Grace's nurse in ' Are You Being Served ? ' ) . It was ' Nearest & Dearest ' revisited . Even Neville's living room resembled Nellie Pledge's . ' Neville ' was identical to Mr . Humphries ( right down to the mincing walk ) save in one important respect . In ' Are You Being Served ? ' , Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft went to great lengths to keep the nature of Humphries ' sexuality a secret . It was suggested but never overtly stated . Vince Powell showed no such restraint , hence viewers were treated to a string of increasingly crude anecdotes about Neville's best friend ( whom we never saw ) Bobby . In place of ' I'm free ! ' he said ' how's your rock , cock ? ' . His other catchphrase was : " what are we going to do , what are we going to do ? " . Plots included Neville trying to swim the Channel , taking driving lessons , romancing a rich man's daughter , and going to France . The opening credits were - unsurprisingly - done in the form of seaside postcard pictures , accompanied by a bouncy theme by Max Harris , who also wrote the end title music for ' Porridge ' . ' Odd Man Out ' was a compendium of gay jokes , the like of which television had never before broadcast ( up to that point , any way ) . In the era of Julian Clary and Graham Norton , it seems tame , but in 1977 public outrage ended the show after only one season . Inman returned to Grace Brothers , Josephine Tewson had a better sitcom lined up in ' Shelley ' , but sadly Peter Butterworth passed away shortly afterwards . |
401,462 | 7,743,887 | 266,202 | 6 | The Last Gasp Of A Dying Format | With the boom in home video recorders in the ' 80's came a number of ' video review ' programmes , of which this was the last . Earlier examples of the genre include ' The Video Age ' with Patrick Stoddart , ' Re-Vid ' with Gary Crowley and Jon-Stephen Fink , and ' Video Video ' starring Adam Faith . ' Video View ' went out so late you needed a V . C . R . to watch the blamed thing , and was presented by blonde , husky-voiced Mariella Frostrup . Unlike say Barry Norman , Mariella didn't write the reviews , but delivered them in a sexy , confidant manner , while the camera prowled around the set at thigh-level . She only ever annoyed me once ; when ' Ghost ' won an award in 1991 as ' Best Picture Of 1990 ' , she quipped ; " I wouldn't be surprised if it wins it again next year . " . How on earth could a film made in 1990 be ' Best Picture Of 1991 ' in 1992 ? As the V . C . R . boom died down , satellite and then later D . V . D . took over , hence ' Video View ' was relaunched in 1993 as ' The Little Picture Show ' . |
401,336 | 7,743,887 | 635,129 | 7 | Lost In The Dark Dimension ! | Chased by Sandmen , Logan - with Rem's help - penetrates a force-field surrounding a bunker-like structure set into a hill . Logan deactivates the minefield beyond , making it safe for them to enter . They find an underground complex , in which lives the beautiful Lisa , with two comical-looking robots - Friend and Nanny - for company . While Francis fumes outside , Lisa falls for Logan , and comes to see Jessica as a threat to her happiness . Lisa has been imprisoned because she was perceived as a threat to Mankind - she has phenomenal psychic powers . . . A variant on ' Forbidden Planet ' . Lisa Eilbacher plays the naive young woman ; first seen in Shirley Temple pigtails , she then dresses provocatively to attract Logan's eye . Hard to tell but for a moment I thought she had the hots for Jessica too . Were this to be made now , the limitless erotic possibilities could certainly be exploited . ' Friend ' looks like one of the Cylons from the original ' Battlestar Galactica ' , then a year away . Not bad , but ending's a letdown , though . |
401,443 | 7,743,887 | 635,127 | 7 | Penny For Your Thoughts | The Solarcraft has broken down , so while Rem fixes it Logan and Jessica go off in search of water . They find it , along with lush tropical vegetation , untalkative parrots . . . and Penny Robinson from ' Lost In Space ' . " Welcome to Sanctuary . " , she trills , in the manner of a Californian air hostess , " I'm Karen . " . Logan and Jessica are thrilled . But , of course , we viewers know differently . This can't be Sanctuary . . . its only the first episode ! Taken to what appears to be a holiday camp for ex-Miss World and Mr . Universe contestants , Logan and Jessica are introduced to ' The Protector ' - a grey-haired man called John and his partner , Joanna ( played by the lovely Leslie Parrish , of ' The Manchurian Candidate ' fame ) . Jessica is reunited with ( ahem ! ) an old friend named Martin , and Logan doesn't appear jealous . It all looks too good to be true , and is . ' Sanctuary ' is an illusion created by aliens out to study Mankind as part of some sort of cosmic experiment . Locked away in a steam bath are two other aliens , resembling extras from ' The Name Of The Rose ' . Logan and Jessica are trapped - and their only hope of salvation lies with Rem . . . Pleasant , undemanding episode which recalls ' Star Trek's ' first pilot ' The Cage ' and ' Space : 1999''s ' Missing Link ' without managing to be as good as either . A bit more action and fewer flying pillows would not have gone amiss . Some of the creatures could have stepped out of the ' Star Wars ' cantina . Most interesting moment - Logan's nightmare in which he is taunted by Sandmen , though Francis is not amongst them . Jessica looks beautiful even when climbing a hill . Nice to see Rem brooking no impertinence from the aliens . |
400,660 | 7,743,887 | 635,122 | 7 | Jessica Does The Splits ! | Logan , Jessica and Rem are attacked by primitive people known as Castouts , but rescued by another group of people known as Positives , who take the travellers to a community protected by a force field . The Positives have developed a method of splitting people into positive ( good ) and negative ( evil ) duplicates . The process is used on Jessica . When complete , the negative Jessica is banished into the wilderness . Logan senses that something is up when Jessica changes her views on Carousel . He and Rem break through the force field and go looking for the negative Jessica , hoping to reverse the treatment . . . One of television sci-fi's favourite clichés - the perfectly ordered society with a dark secret - is given another outing here . Kim Cattrall , who plays ' Rama 2 ' is better known today as that Castout ' Samantha ' from ' Sex In The City ' . Nice photographic effects as Jessica undergoes the process . At one point we even see her through a kaleidoscope . I wish the negative Jessica was given a bit more screen time though . Apart from a dirty face , she doesn't look all that evil to me . Script by Simon Wincelberg . |
401,110 | 7,743,887 | 640,776 | 7 | Washing The World Clean | Worthington Prendergast has created the blueprint for a new city , to be constructed using slave labour . But first he has to destroy the U . S . A . KARTEL supplies him with a laser projector whose ray can greatly increase mass . Prendergast plans to sink a ship carrying nuclear waste off California , thus contaminating the coastline . Unfortunately for him , a wily cat burglar named Harry Helms jeopardises the operation by stealing the blue crystal needed to power the device . Sloane decides to impersonate the thief . . . Michael Pataki's organ-playing villain is straight out of ' The Phantom Of The Opera ' , and gives Clive Revill a run for his money in the over-the-top stakes . He executes an ineffective agent by subjecting him to a barrage of deadly sonic waves . Sloane's gymnasium jeopardy was obviously inspired by the ' Shrublands ' scene in the Bond film ' Thunderball ' , while his dart-firing signet ring echoes Bond's wrist-watch gun from ' Moonraker ' . Fun episode , let down slightly by the finale . Even Roger Moore's Bond never used soap suds to save the world . |
400,601 | 7,743,887 | 942,711 | 7 | Dash ! Dash ! Dash ! | Social climber Jennifer Corner has invited her new neighbours , the Wyatt-Pearsons , round for a friendly drink . Mr . Wyatt-Pearson is a city stockbroker , and Jennifer automatically associates the profession with good breeding . In the lounge she swiftly replaces Henry's portrait of a nude with one of a bowl of fruit . The children are playing in the garden . When Robin , the eldest , falls over he lets slip an expletive . Jennifer is appalled . Where has the word come from ? She suspects Henry . . . My my . How times have changed . A boy using a four-letter word is the basis for a sitcom plot . ' Children ' was created by Richard Waring , a specialist in forgettable , middle-of-the-road sitcoms in the ' 60's and ' 70's . His other shows include ' Batchelor Father ' , ' And Mother Makes Three ' ( also starring Wendy Craig ' ) and ' The Many Wives Of Patrick ' . They're guilty pleasures . Pleasant to watch but hardly groundbreaking . Wendy Craig's character is well-meaning but scatterbrained , a sort of British Lucille Ball . It wasn't until 1979 and Carla Lane's ' Butterflies ' that she would finally be rid of that persona . As ' Henry ' her devoted husband , the late Paul Daneman is rather good , bringing a much-needed touch of sanity to the proceedings . Waring comes up with several good lines , such as " Remember when you talked about The Pill ? You made it sound so interesting the kids wanted to try it ! " . ' Trudi Corner ' was played in the first two seasons by Roberta Tovey , who had been ' Susan ' in the ' Dr . Who ' movies starring Peter Cushing . Olaf Pooley , seen here as ' Mr . Wyatt-Pearson ' , would appear opposite Jon Pertwee's ' Dr . Who ' in the brilliant 1970 story ' Inferno ' . ' Children ' became a byword at the time for ' naff ' television comedy . much as ' Terry & June ' did two decades later . On the evidence of the solitary episode I viewed recently , its seems an unfair reputation . We are left in no doubt as to what the offending word ( Jennifer is seen mouthing the first letter ) is . I bet there were a few angry letters read out on ' Points Of View ' the following week all the same . Viewed in the context of its time period ( as all archive shows should be ) , its good fun . Funniest moment - Jennifer attempting to teach Robin how to swear like a true English gentleman ie . " Botheration ! Blow ! Dash ! " |
401,672 | 7,743,887 | 957,589 | 7 | Then you won't mind paying for it ! | Sharon is working at the ' Dolls House ' boutique , managed by the camp Mr . Winters . Visiting her there , Duffy ( wearing decorator's overalls ) manages to get paint on an expensive dress . To get her own back , Sharon agrees to go on a date with a good-looking rep , Tony Lawson . As Duffy and his mate Batch have various run-ins with the police ( mainly concerning illegal parking of their van ) , Sharon is being wined and dined by Lawson , and they go back to his place . Unbeknowest to her , hard-boiled private eye Frankie ' Hank ' Abbott is keeping watch on the apartment block . . . A young Christopher Timothy appears here as ' Lawson ' , the master of seduction . Mike Grady , who plays ' Batch ' would go on to be ' Ken ' in ' Citizen Smith ' and more recently , ' Barry ' in ' Last Of The Summer Wine ' . Carmen Monroe , cast as ' Yvonne Parker ' , Sharon's work colleague , went on to be ' Vilma ' in ' The Fosters ' . She's a great actress , far too good for this thankless role . No laugh-out-loud funny moments in this Geoff Rowley and Andy Baker penned episode , I'm afraid , but Frankie's ridiculous private eye act raises the odd smile . |
400,929 | 7,743,887 | 80,231 | 7 | When Hammer Rose From The Grave | The last official ' Hammer horror ' film - ' To The Devil A Daughter - was released in 1975 . That seemed to be it . Five years later , this I . T . V . series appeared . Despite the title it was actually made by I . T . C . Entertainment ( ' Lew Grade's House Of Horror ' didn't have the same ring , I suppose ) . The thirteen episodes were a mixed bag , many relying on gore and nudity for their shock value , rather than well written stories . Easily the best was ' The Silent Scream ' starring the late , great Peter Cushing . Great final shot ! ' Witching Time ' was pretty memorable too ( because Patricia Quinn and Prunella Gee both got their kit off ) . But there was little of the essence of the movie series that had scared audiences for two decades . The strongest influence came from ' Thriller ' , an anthology made by A . T . V . in the early ' 70's . ' Guardian Of The Abyss ' was the most Hammer-like episode , bearing a resemblance to ' The Devil Rides Out ' ( 1968 ) based on the famous Dennis Wheatley novel . |
401,214 | 7,743,887 | 957,582 | 7 | To the Dennis , the spoils ! | Penny Hedges takes an embarrassed Bernard to a boutique to get him a new pair of underpants , and here he is reunited with Sharon ( who works there ) , Maureen and Dennis , the latter after a new shirt . Bernard wants to study Sociology at London University . But thanks to a malicious student - whose game of tennis he accidentally spoils - he not only goes to the wrong building , but turns up for class six weeks too early . Hedges and Penny accompany Dennis to a race where one of the horses in his care is a contender . They celebrate the animal's victory with champagne . Unfortunately , this makes Penny late for work at the airport , and she faces the sack . Unless Bernard can smooth things over . . . John Alderton bowed out of ' Please Sir ! ' in the episode ' The Pruning Of Hedges ' , broadcast on / 71 . Just over a week later , however , he , along with the lovely Jill Kerman as ' Penny ' , resurfaced in the third instalment of ' The Fenn Street Gang ' . Even at this early stage you could tell the show was destined to outlive its parent . David Bailie , seen as the ' Student ' , would menace Tom Baker in the ' Dr . Who ' classic ' The Robots of Death ' in 1976 . The late Arthur Borough , best known as ' Mr . Grainger ' in ' Are You Being Served ' , plays a doddery old lecturer . Maggie Henderson ( anyone remember her from the B . B . C . children's show ' Ragtime ' ? ) crops up briefly as a flight departure announcer whose heavily accented Scottish voice changes to posh English as soon as she gets near a microphone . Funniest moment - Hedges absentmindedly putting on freshly ironed trousers ! |
400,845 | 7,743,887 | 957,581 | 7 | I've got Sleeping Sickness ! | Maureen is down in the dumps after failing to pass the ' O ' Levels required to become a full-time Nurse . To cheer her up , Eric and Peter takes her to a Young Conservatives do ( ! ) . Sharon , Dennis and Frankie go to the pictures instead . Amidst the sandwiches and sherry , Maureen gets friendly with Edgar , a good-looking and ever-so posh architect . Unfortunately , he thinks she is a soft touch ( he must have watched too many ' Doctor In The House ' episodes ! ) and as soon as they are alone in his car tries to sexually assault her . Luckily Sharon and the others happen to be passing by . . . Christopher Mitchell , later to play ' Gunner Parkins ' in the B . B . C . sitcom ' It Ain't Alf Hot Mum ' , guests in this Esmonde and Larbey-penned episode ( one of the few to feature the entire Gang ) as ' Edgar ' the Young Tory Boy who fancies his chances with Maureen . " I know what you nurses are like ! " , he yells , before attempting to kiss her to death . The attempted rape of Maureen is a shocking moment , but the audience strangely finds it amusing , along with her strangled cry of ' I've been raped ! ' . In the final scene , Liz Gebhardt looks genuinely terrified as Peter Cleall repeatedly throws her into the air to celebrate Maureen having passed her Practical Exam . The Tories seem to have forgotten that in the ' Please Sir ! ' episode ' Catch A Falling Drop-Out ' , Maureen stole a valuable silver cup from one of their Clubs . Maureen has a photo of Mr . Hedges in her flat , bearing a dedication of love she wrote herself . Dennis tells Sharon he loves Maureen , but bottles out of telling her to her face later on . Funniest moment - Frankie throwing a dart in the pub , and hitting some poor guy's hat ( while he is wearing it ) ! |
401,213 | 7,743,887 | 957,578 | 7 | You're drunk ! You're disgusting ! | Craven , now a G . P . O . courier , fears the sack after wrecking his motorbike . Reporting it stolen , he along with Duffy and Frankie , push it off a bridge . But a woman sees them and calls the police . Frogmen search the river for a body . Meanwhile , Dennis has been invited to a trendy party by Maureen . Feeling out of place , he goes home . Maureen follows , and on seeing the police dredging the river , thinks he has committed suicide . . . No horses appear in this Geoff Rowley and Andy Baker penned episode , which makes the title a bit of a mystery . There's a touching moment as Dennis tells Maureen he misses his friends , and wishes they were all back at school . Sally Thomsett appears as ' Kathleen ' , a dizzy blonde who mistakes Dennis for a private eye . Two years later , her pert bottom would grace the opening credits of ' Man About The House ' . Funniest moment - a paralytic David Dunstable admonishing his son for coming home drunk ! |
400,860 | 7,743,887 | 957,577 | 7 | I've Gotta Horse | As a birthday surprise for Dennis , the Gang decide to buy furniture for his flat . They attend an auction , which Frankie disrupts by making unrealistic bids . Dennis has a surprise of his own - he buys a horse , which he calls ' Spitfire ' . With nowhere to keep the animal , he puts it in the stable where he works , and sleeps alongside it . But Spitfire steps on his alarm clock and Dennis oversleeps . The next morning , the stable owner finds them there and sacks Dennis on the spot . . . Poor Dennis . Having been arrested and suspected of committing suicide this season , now he gets the push from his beloved stables . Needless to say , his old school chums rally round , and attempt to sell the horse on his behalf . How marvellous it must have been in Fenn Street in 1971 ! The auctioneer is James Beck , on loan from ' Dad's Army ' . His performance as the fast-talking spiv ( not unlike Private Walker ) is the highlight of an otherwise humdrum Esmonde / Larbey penned episode . He was hotly tipped to be the new Sid James , but tragically died the following year . May Warden appears as a troublesome old woman . In 1973 , she would play a similar role in ' Billy Liar ' . Funniest moment - a flummoxed Dennis attempting to work out his personal finances , before opting to draw a horse instead . With gas and electricity bills rising constantly , I know how he feels ! |
401,656 | 7,743,887 | 134,239 | 7 | Loving With Leslie ! | Capitalising on the notoriety of the B . B . C . - 2 series ' Casanova ' ( written by Dennis Potter , and starring Frank Finlay ) , ' Casanova 73 ' cast Leslie Phillips as ' Henry Newhouse ' , a suave lounge lizard , not far removed from the character he played in the ' Doctor ' films . The level of humour was epitomised by the title sequence ; it showed Henry at the wheel of an open-topped sports car , eyeing up various mini-skirted lovelies , in particular a sexy garage attendant who suggestively inserts her pump into his fuel tank . Henry seemed to charm the clothes off every gorgeous chick he met , such as Cyd Hayman or Maureen Lipman , but this being a sitcom , things would not go as smoothly as planned . In one episode , Henry went mad trying to find a tape recorder hidden in the flat where he and his latest conquest had just had sex . In another , he panicked after a frumpy friend of his wife's ( Josephine Tewson ) spotted him dining out with his newest amour . In yet another , he travelled to his son's private school to investigate a complaint brought by a sexy maths teacher . Newhouse Junior had taken pictures of said teacher skinny dipping in some woods . Henry tried to smooth things over by wining and dining the woman , but they got drunk and wound up in bed . The evidence of Henry's guilt was visible when he removed his shirt in his wife's presence - in the heat of passion , the teacher had scrawled sums all over his back . The show was pure farce , with innuendos flying around like confetti at a wedding . Why his wife Carol ( who knew of his adultery ) didn't divorce him was a real mystery . Galton and Simpson intended it as a humorous comment on the so-called ' permissive society ' , but the Mary Whitehouses of this world didn't appreciate the joke , branding it ' lewd ' and ' smutty ' . The B . B . C . agreed , and shifted it to a post-watershed slot , where it was quietly forgotten . One unmade script , in which Henry took Carol to a wife swapping party , was later used in the 1977 Yorkshire T . V . series ' The Galton & Simpson Playhouse ' . Richard Briers played Henry on that occasion . |
401,698 | 7,743,887 | 818,970 | 7 | Build Your Own Stegosaurus ! | Billy's latest craze is making model dinosaurs . When Mr . Fisher finds him putting the finishing touches to a plastic stegosaurus , he reminds him he is late for work at the funeral parlour , so off he goes , taking the model with him . He spends the day playing with the creature , but leaves it in Mr . Shadrach's office . The stone mason thinks his boss wants a monument in the shape of the monster . Billy must get the model back at all costs . . . One of the lesser instalments of the first series ; Billy's dinosaur fixation leads to a number of ' One Million Years B . C . ' type sequences such as the one where the stegosaurus tries to eat Mr . Fisher , who is dressed as a caveman . Roy Barraclough plays the stone mason . Funniest moment - Billy riding the monster as though it were a horse ! |
401,274 | 7,743,887 | 195,452 | 7 | Does Anyone Out There Still Own A ' Crackerjack ! ' Pencil ? | On Channel 4's ' The 100 Greatest Kids T . V . Shows ' , some twerp I've never heard of said he " couldn't understand how ' Crackerjack ! ' ever got a commission , seeing how it was a poor quality version of ' Seaside Special ' " . I couldn't understand how he had seen these shows as he looked too young to remember either . For millions of children , ' Crackerjack ! ' was the television highlight of the week , coming as it did on the last day of school . Many presenters , including Elaine Paige , Leslie Crowther , Ronnie Corbett , and Michael Aspel , went on to become big stars ( my favourite , however , was Don Maclean ) . And who can forget dear old Peter Glaze with his owl-like glasses , podgy shape , and habit of exclaiming ' Doh ! ' every time he was made to look foolish ? The show had quizzes , a regular pop group slot , and comedy sketches where the cast sang pop songs with the lyrics rewritten to fit the situation . ' Crackerjack ! ' probably wouldn't work today , but its memory should be treasured . |
400,706 | 7,743,887 | 665,482 | 7 | Olive Turns Into Big Brother ! | With Arthur gone , money is tight in the Butler household . Stan pleads with Blakey to take Olive on as a clippie , but the Inspector is not at all keen on the idea . In desperation , Stan tells the hard luck story to end them all , and Blakey relents , provided that Olive work on Stan's bus . To everyone's amazement , she turns out to be good at the job , and before long is quoting the bus company's rule book as though she wrote it herself . Stan and Jack find that , with Olive around , most of their ' busmen's perks ' have suddenly gone . . . This George Layton & Jonathan Lynn penned episode provided Anna Karen with a welcome opportunity to step outside the normal confines of her character ( is it just me , or has Olive lost weight ? Perhaps the depression caused by her divorce caused her to cut down on her eating ) . Of course , she's annoying , that's the whole point . In a very good piece of continuity , Olive's previous time as a clippie ( ' Olive Takes A Trip ' from Season 1 ) at the bus depot is mentioned . Funniest moment - Stan knocking an egg out of Olive's mouth . |
400,686 | 7,743,887 | 1,231,147 | 7 | Somewhere In An Airport | Sheila has been nagging Peter to ask his boss , Mr . Fitch ( Richard Wilson ) for a fortnight's holiday . After carefully rehearsing his request , he forcefully strides into the man's office , but gets sidetracked into helping him with his ' image ' - Fitch having a thing about wishing to look authoritative to the staff . When the subject of holidays finally comes up , Fitch agrees to the idea , provided that Barnes goes right away . The Barnes ' go to a travel agent where they encounter bus conductor Andrews ( Alun Armstrong ) . He talks them out of a package holiday to Majorca - before snapping it up himself . At the airport , the Barnes ' find themselves amidst chaos as their plane is delayed . Who should be seated next to them but Andrews and his glum-looking wife ( Bella Emberg ) ? The bus conductor is keen to ' make up a foursome ' . The Barnes decide not to go after all . . . The third episode has some nice moments , but does not quite hit the bullseye . The scene in Fitch's office goes on longer than it needed to , while the travel agent bit is a lot less funny than its equivalent in ' Holiday With Strings ' ( 1974 ) . It is only when the action moves to the airport do the laughs come . Funniest moment - Peter's attempts to get coffee out of a machine . |
401,233 | 7,743,887 | 195,450 | 7 | Noughts And Crosses On Television | What is the day every comedian dreads ? , asked Ronnie Corbett in one of his famous ' chair ' routines in ' The Two Ronnies ' . " Its the day he gets his call-up papers to appear on ' Celebrity Squares ! " . Like the other I . M . D . B . reviewer , I watched ' Celebrity Squares ' mainly because of Bob Monkhouse . There was something about the man , he could take any game show format - no matter how inane - and make it work . He was quick-witted and slick . This was his first game show since ' The Golden Shot ' ( he had been made to stand down after being suspected of accepting bribes - an allegation that was later proved untrue ) , and was made by the same station - A . T . V . Based on the hit U . S . show ' Hollywood Squares ' , it had nine celebrities seated in boxes on a vertical grid . Bob would ask one a question , and the contestant had to decide whether to agree or disagree with their answer . If they were right , either an ' O ' or ' X ' would appear on the box , and the first to get a line was the winner . Vincent Price ( sans moustache ) was appearing in a play in London's West End at the time it began and graciously found time to fit in a few early editions . It felt strange seeing the guy who had frightened me numerous times on late night television seated alongside the likes of Leslie Crowther and Willie Rushton . Other celebrities to appear over the years included Diana Dors , Michele Dotrice , Dr . Magnus Pyke ( the legendary arm-waving boffin of ' Don't Ask Me ' ) , Hinge & Bracket , Pat Coombs , Charlie Drake ( this was before Equity blacklisted him for hiring a non-union member to appear in one of his shows ) , Norman Wisdom ( one of his questions was ' what is a bidet ? ' ) , Arthur Mullard ( whose pronunciation of ' haemoglobin ' came out sounding like ' I'm a goblin ' ! ) , Jenny Lee-Wright ( from ' The Benny Hill Show ' ) , Little & Large , Rod Hull & Emu ( was there a show in the ' 70's these two were not on ? ) and Val Doonican . Yootha Joyce's appearance was especially sad , the actress passed away a short time after it was recorded . Kenny Everett supplied the breathless voice-over at the beginning of each show : " Its Bob and The Big Box Game ! " . It was a job clearly unworthy of someone of his talents ; fortunately , three years later he landed his own series on Thames and the rest is history . There was a charity element to ' Squares ' - Bob read out letters from viewers in dire need of financial help , and - this may sound extraordinary now - often broke down in tears as he did so . It was not fake emotion either , he was genuinely upset . ' Squares ' went the reverse route taken by ' The Golden Shot ' - starting out on Sunday tea-times , before shifting to a regular Saturday evening slot . It ran from 1975-79 , and returned briefly in the 1990's as a Noel Gay ( a top Australian T . V . producer , also responsible for ' Going For Gold ' with Henry Kelly ) production . The new intake of celebrities included Kim Hartman ( ' Helga ' off ' Allo , Allo ' ) , travel writer Tony Hawks , impressionist Hilary O'Neil , Bradley Walsh , ' Red Dwarf ' funny girl Hattie Hayridge , Jon Pertwee ( in one of his very last T . V . appearances ) , and dear old Willie Rushton , who ( along with Bob ) was the only survivor from the old show . In between the original and its revival was a rip-off - the dreadful ' Punchlines ' , hosted by Lennie Bennett . Bennett was no Monkhouse , and the show featured the likes of Irish singer Rose-Marie , comic Fogswell Flax , dancer Judy Gridley , and brash American comedienne Bryan Joan Elliott , of whom I had never heard before ( nor since ) . While ' Celebrity Squares ' was unmitigated crap , it was made partially watchable by the great , much-missed Bob . |
400,932 | 7,743,887 | 108,771 | 7 | Too Much Filler | ' The Fast Show ' is ' Harry Enfield's Television Programme ' without Harry Enfield . No offence to Paul Whitehouse and co . , but they are hardly in Enfield's league when it comes to comic characters . So whilst funny at times ( the lovely ' Ralph and Ted ' sketches , the ' Ground Force ' send-up , the spoof of 70's British film comedies ) at others its the proverbial pain in the butt . Enfield's show used catchphrases too , but they weren't the focal point of the comedy . The early ' Monty Python ' shows had visual catchphrases like the knight with the chicken , the angry Colonel etc . , they were later dropped when the Pythons realised they were a cheap way of getting a laugh . ' The Fast Show ' , on the other hand , is full of the most banal comic catchphrases ever devised . When Arabella Weir complained to the producer about the use of naked breasts in one scene , she was told : " We're being postmodern ironic ! " . Which is a novel way of saying " We can get away with being un-P . C . , because we're clever ! " . Sorry , Charlie , but I won't fall for it . Whenever I watch repeats of ' Fast ' I always tape them first so I can fast-forward through the filler to get to the good stuff . |
401,001 | 7,743,887 | 505,204 | 7 | Double Jeopardy For Adam | A discredited academic named Farnley is hired to impersonate Adam Adamant in order to destroy his reputation by assassinating a visiting African President . Bored with 1966 , the real Adam tries to recapture something of his past by joining the 100 Club , a secret society for those obsessed with the Victorian Era . Little does he know that the club is a front for The Face's criminal organization . . . Name me an action series that hasn't done a ' double ' plot at some time or other . Whilst not particularly outstanding , this Jon Pennington scripted episode has some nice imaginative touches , including Adam's delight at being back in his own era ( or rather a recreation of same ) , and that dastardly fiend The Face showing Farnley a home movie of his predecessor being buried alive . Heh , heh , heh ! A pre-'Upstairs , Downstairs ' Jean Marsh plays ' Lady Lydia ' , while animator Bob Godfrey ( who gave the world ' Roobarb ' and ' Henry's Cat ' ) is seen as ' Roach ' . Sadly , this is one of several ' Adam Adamant Lives ' episodes no longer in existence , but you can read the script on the D . V . D . release . |
401,671 | 7,743,887 | 799,445 | 7 | I've got a glass eye in a very funny place ! | Series 3 of ' Please Sir ' concluded with Bernard ' Privet ' Hedges marrying the lovely Penny , and 5C graduating ( strangely we never saw them sitting exams , much less getting qualifications ) . Episode 1 of ' The Fenn Street Gang ' begins with a lengthy scene in a bowling alley which was clearly written to bring viewers up to speed on the Gang's activities ( Duffy must be a good friend to Craven . He allows him to leer suggestively at Sharon as she throws the ball ) . There's a lovely , touching moment as a pompous tannoy announcement provokes a cry of ' Nose ! Nose ! ' . Looking at one another , the Gang laugh . You can take the kids out of the school , but not the school out of the kids it seems . Concerned they might not see one another any longer , they arrange to meet up on Thursdays at eight in ' The Three Feathers ' pub ( presumably they have lied about their ages to get service ) . At the first such meeting , Maureen fails to show up . While the others grumble , she is hard at work in the hospital where she works as a nurse . An explosion in a glass eye factory means her services are required round-the-clock . On leaving the pub , Frankie traps his finger in the door of Duffy's van , and has to be hospitalised . Here the Gang realises the reason for Maureen's non-appearance . . . The first episode is more concerned with setting up the premise for the show , rather than being amusing in its own right . Its also one of the few to feature every Gang member - later stories would focus on individual characters , with the others appearing in supporting roles . Two cast changes occurred - Carol Hawkins replaced Penny Spencer ( fired after asking for a pay rise ) in that year's ' Please Sir ! ' movie , and stayed in the role throughout ' The Fenn Street Gang ' . Fans are divided over who was the best ' Sharon ' . I tend to favour sultry Spencer myself , though bubbly Hawkins was equally beautiful . Malcolm McFee was unavailable , so the role of ' Peter Craven ' went to Leon Vitali . Vitali lacked McFee's flair for sarcasm , and was just too similar to Peter Cleall's ' Duffy ' for his own good . Fortunately , McFee returned for subsequent seasons . Richard Davies makes a welcome guest appearance as the grumpy Welsh teacher ' Mr . Price ' . Spotting the Gang in a pub , he makes various rude comments , before accepting their invitation to join them . The day after this episode first went out , ' Please Sir ' kicked off its fourth and final series with ' Identitwit ' , in which Liz Gebhardt made a similar cameo . Spot the mistake - when the ' end of part one ' caption is on , someone walks past the camera ! Funniest moment - it does not involve the Gang . In the hospital scene , a man with his right arm in plaster attempts with difficulty to drink a cup of tea ! |
401,628 | 7,743,887 | 101,083 | 7 | Doctors Reunited | Eleven years after ' Doctor Down Under ' , Duncan Waring and Dick Stuart-Clark were back on British soil , and reunited with their old pal Paul Collier and Professor Loftus for this short-lived B . B . C . series . Actor / writer George Layton thought there would be tremendous public interest in seeing the St . Swithins gang again - there wasn't . Far too much time had elapsed - and public taste changed - since the original show ended in 1977 . Layton acknowledged this by ringing changes on the main characters ; Waring was now a devoted family man , Collier a practitioner of private medicine , and Stuart-Clark ( rather improbably ) had replaced Loftus as Professor of Surgery . Bad continuity errors abounded - how could Waring have been married for twenty years when , in 1971 , he was in America ? For those who wanted the ' lads ' back as they were , it was a crushing disappointment . Appearing on the ' Wogan ' show to publicise his latest sitcom ' Trouble In Mind ' , Richard O'Sullivan claimed he'd been approached about playing ' Bingham ' again , but proved unavailable , hence the creation of the character played by Roger Sloman - ' Dr . Lionel Snell ' . Layton wrote over half the series , ex-'Goodie ' Bill Oddie penned the rest , including a very funny one in which Duncan opts to have a vasectomy . The show's failure was particularly sad in light of the fact that the original had been one of I . T . V . ' s biggest comedy successes in the ' 70's . Lightning didn't strike twice , alas . |
401,551 | 7,743,887 | 120,667 | 7 | Flame On ! | When I heard Chris Evans had been cast as ' The Human Torch ' in a movie of ' The Fantastic Four ' , I fell off my chair . Fortunately , it turned out not to be the annoying ex-Radio One D . J . , but an American actor of that name . Following the successful ' Spider-Man ' and ' X-Men ' movies , it seemed inevitable Hollywood would get round to doing the F . F . - Marvel's first smash-hit comic , launched in 1961 . Four people risk their lives flying into outer space - scientist Reed Richards , his best friend Ben Grimm , girlfriend Sue Storm , and her headstrong brother Johnny Storm - where they are exposed to cosmic radiation . Back on Earth , they find they have each been blessed with super powers - Reed can stretch his body like a rubber band , Sue becomes invisible , Johnny bursts into flame without getting burnt himself , and poor Ben changes into a grotesque orange monster that resembles an unfinished statue . They become media darlings ; Reed is nicknamed ' Mr . Fantastic ' , Ben ' The Thing ' , Johnny ' The Human Torch ' and Sue ' The Invisible Woman ' . The movie sticks to this origin story but with one major difference - arrogant industrialist Victor Von Doom goes along for the ride . He becomes progressively insane , his skin peeling away to expose metal . He dons a mask to become ' Doctor Doom ' . When I saw this originally my first reaction was that it would have made a decent pilot for a television series . As a cinema movie it was a bit of a let-down , boasting little by way of spectacular action ( apart from an extended scene on a bridge and the climactic battle in a street ) . Doom did not have any major plots to conquer the world up his sleeve , other than a determination to defeat the F . F . The special effects were fine , and the cast portrayed the characters well ( Michael Chiklis being an outstanding ' Thing ' ) , but the lack of action sequences proved a handicap . Fortunately , the movie performed well enough at the box office to warrant a superior sequel ; 2007's ' Rise Of The Silver Surfer ' . The other thing ( no pun intended ) I liked about the picture was that it eschewed the dark , angst-ridden approach favoured by the likes of other superhero movies such as ' Batman Begins ' . ' Fantastic Four ' was bright , colourful , fun to watch , which is just how it should be . And Stan Lee's ' Willie Lumpkin ' cameo was his best to date ! |
401,541 | 7,743,887 | 61,179 | 7 | I'll be blowed ! | British scientists have developed a new means of aircraft propulsion - a nuclear unit protected by a lightweight metal known as ' Spurium ' . A gang of villains , headed by Angel and Cherub , want to steal a sample to sell to the Russians . But Charles Vine is not about to let them . . . The second entry in the Charles Vine spy series , played mainly for laughs to try and compensate for a low budget . Adams is his usual laconic self , but Michael Pittock's script lacks the twists and turns of the first movie's screenplay . The late Michael Ripper was not cut out to play Bondian villains , ditto Tim Barrett , cast as the bowler-hatted assassin ' Seraph ' . Though given equal billing with Tom Adams , Dawn Addams is only on screen for the last twenty minutes . Cameos from Sid James as a mortician , Joe Baker as a Cabinet Minister and Wilfred Brambell as a train station guard destroy any hope the film has of being taken seriously . Lindsay Shonteff , director of the first Vine picture , was replaced by John Gilling who seems to know nothing of how to make an action movie . However , there's a good prologue in which Vine - in drag - helps thwart a rocket attack on The Houses Of Parliament . Best among the supporting cast is John Arnatt , back as Vine's harassed boss Rockwell . Some aspects of the plot are somewhat confusing . For instance , when Vine and Seraph leave Rockwell's office , they are photographed by a Chinese woman . She is not seen nor mentioned again . Who is she ? One good gag : getting into a taxi , Vine says " Waterloo ! " . The driver looks baffled . " The station ? " . " Bit late for the battle ! " , quips the secret agent . A few more funny bits like this , and the film might have been worth watching . |
400,702 | 7,743,887 | 665,429 | 7 | The end is nigh . . . | The Luxton bus company insists its drivers and conductors must undergo strictly supervised medicals . Blakey's amusement turns to horror when Mr . Stilton points out he must have one too . Stan and Jack eavesdrop on the examination room , and mishear Blakey talking about his impending departure from the company - they think he is terminally ill . A baffled inspector suspects something is up when Stan invites him home for dinner , and turns up for work on time . Then the truth comes out . . . ' On The Buses ' ' answer to the Doris Day / Rock Hudson film ' Send Me No Flowers ' . Stan's eagerness to regain Blakey's friendship is rather touching , a reminder of past days as seen in ' Stan's Worst Day ' . Black comedy this ain't though . Its a little uncomfortable to watch now - Michael Robbins died of cancer in 1992 . |
401,098 | 7,743,887 | 665,438 | 7 | I'll think of you every time I watch a horror film ! | Stan lands himself a job in a car factory in the North of England , which means he must give in his notice as driver for the Luxton bus company . When Blakey refuses to listen , he deliberately antagonises the inspector in order to get the sack ! That night , Jack and the other drivers throw a farewell party for Stan . Olive and Mrs . Butler have prepared a fry-up dinner and trifle for afters . With a skin full of beer in him , Stan can't face the food , and stuffs it into the pockets of his uniform . The next day , Blakey turns up to collect it - and is horrified to find it full of food ! He is there for another reason - to look over Stan's old room , with a view to becoming a live in-lodger ! ' On The Buses ' was still reeling from the loss of Michael Robbins when it was hit by an even bigger blow - the departure of Reg Varney . Reg had become one of Britain's most popular comedy stars as a result of the show , and was keen to move on . He would next be seen on television in a musical comedy show for A . T . V . entitled simply ' Reg Varney ' . Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney made no attempt to replace Stan , instead they had Blakey moving into the Butler household , and gave Olive more to do . But something was missing - ' On The Buses ' without Stan Butler was like ' Porridge ' without Norman Stanley Fletcher - the viewers knew it , and it did not reappear for an eighth run . Because this episode went out mid-season , it wasn't possible to greatly sentimentalise Stan's departure . After all , the show was still going to be around , even if the leading man wasn't . Hence Stan's exit is conducted with minimal fuss and bother - Blakey looks glad to be rid of him , Jack is curiously apathetic about losing his best friend while Mrs . Butler seems more worried about whether or not Stan will be sending home money . Our final view of Stan Butler , that cheeky chappie of a bus driver , is ( ironically ) on a bus pulling out of the Luxton garage , chased by friends and family . Symbolically it signalled the imminent end of the series too . |
400,665 | 7,743,887 | 665,439 | 7 | The Heat Generation ! | With Stan and Arthur gone , and Blakey in residence , you'd think that life in the Butler household would be all peace and tranquility . Er , no . There's no hot water on tap , as Blakey discovers when he tries to shave . Jack offers him a good deal on an emersion heater , but it turns out to have been stolen from the bus depot . Blakey and Jack endeavour to get the heater installed , and wind up breaking the stopcock in the street , causing a flood of near-Biblical proportions . . . The first post-Reg Varney episode actually isn't too bad ; one gets the impression that Blakey's lines were originally intended for Stan . No sooner is Blakey around that kitchen table than he starts insulting Olive in much the same way Stan and Arthur used to . Blakey and Jack trying to fit the heater isn't nearly as funny as Stan and Jack would have been . Had Reg been in this , it would have been a great little episode . Fuinniest moment - Blakey and Jack turning off the stopcock in the street . When a policeman comes their way , they try to make it look as though they are dancing ! |
400,662 | 7,743,887 | 665,436 | 7 | Not On Your Todd ! | Appalled by the worsening standard of the food in the canteen , Blakey suggests Mrs . Butler apply for the job as cook . The new area manager , Mr . Simpson , is an old friend of hers , and Mum gets the job without any difficulty whatever . Soon talk is rife in the depot of impending marriage . With an ally at the top , Jack thinks he has Blakey over a barrel , and starts pushing him about . . . Written by George Layton and Jonathan Lynn . Bob Todd of ' The Benny Hill Show ' guest stars as ' Mr . Simpson ' . Funniest moment - Blakey telling ' Jack ' to get out of his chair . The figure in the chair lowers his paper , and Blakey is horrified to see he has been talking to Mr . Simpson all along . |
400,718 | 7,743,887 | 665,462 | 7 | This is worse than trying to shoe a horse ! | Its nearly time for the annual Busman's Ball . This year , instead of a conjurer , the lads want a stripper , and have one in mind , the delectable Sandra . Blakey rejects the idea , but relents when Jack informs him that unless Sandra gets to strut her stuff , the busmen will boycott the ball . Arthur announces he will not attend , but changes his mind when he finds out that Sandra will be appearing . Stan and Arthur collaborate to fix Olive's dress in time for the ball . Needless to say , it is not an easy job , and involves the use of a dressmaker's dummy which is in no way shaped like Olive . . . It was inevitable that the lovely Wendy Richard would turn up in ' On The Buses ' at some point . Before she became a human cannonball , before she became ' Miss Brahms ' of ' Are You Being Served ? ' , she was clippie Elsie . Its not much of a role , frankly , and is not pivotal to the story . An actress of her calibre deserved better . The episode gets off to a good start with Stan and Jack holding Blakey to ransom , but gets sidetracked with the hoo-haa over Olive's dress , and becomes a little tiresome . Still , there's some fun to be had over Stan's attempts to slip a girdle on the dressmaker's dummy . Funniest moment - Olive emerging tearful from the Ball . After the stripper's knickers landed in her lap , the busmen piled on top of her to get it ! ( The lucky bloke with the garment has to take it back to Sandra . No wonder Stan and Jack were so keen to book her ! ) . Stan is the man on this occasion , making this probably the only ' On The Buses ' episode to end with him getting the girl ! |
401,566 | 7,743,887 | 665,451 | 7 | Stan's Cashflow Problem ! | Flat broke again , Stan borrows from ' Basher ' , who works at the depot . Basher wants his money back within a few days else he will show Stan how he earned the nickname . Stan wonders how to repay him . Salvation comes in the shape of Iris , whose mother is moving house . Stan and Jack agree to convey her furniture in their bus . Stopping off at a bookies to have a flutter , they are horrified to find the bus gone when they leave . . . Messrs . Wolfe and Chesney contributed not one script to the sixth season of ' On The Buses ' . They were probably too busy with ' Romany Jones ' , their other hit sitcom of the early ' 70's . Thanks to writers such as Bob Grant , Stephen Lewis , George Layton and Jonathan Lynn , their absence was not as serious as it might have been . This episode follows the same pattern as ' Cover Up ' in that Stan makes personal use of his employer's property , only to then be found out by Blakey . Rather than give the driver the sack , he simply stops the money out of Stan's wages . You'd think Stan would have learnt his lesson by now . Funniest moment - Arthur is fixing tiles on the kitchen wall . Nearby , Mum and Olive are baking a birthday cake for Aunt Maud . If I were to mention that Arthur's cement and Olive's icing are both yellow , can you possibly guess what happens next ? |
401,678 | 7,743,887 | 526,892 | 7 | Sid gets an airing ! | Mike and Sally decide to go into business by buying and selling old junk . Sid tolerates it at first , but when he looks out of the window one morning and sees an old gypsy caravan parked on his lawn he snaps . The children respond by leaving home . Well , not quite . Mike moves into the garage , Sally takes up residence in the caravan . Whenever Jean prepares food she has to ring a bell in the kitchen to get their attention . After a while Sid can stand it no longer so he decides to move out . Well , not quite . He moves into the airing cupboard . . . Carla Lane was a busy lady in the early ' 70's , what with this and ' The Liver Birds ' on her plate . This is an amusing if somewhat unbelievable episode . With a family like his , you would understand if Sid were to leave home for good , but why he puts himself through the uncomfortable ordeal of hiding in the airing cupboard is never explained . Nor how he copes if he needs to use the toilet . Jean herself dabbled in the junk collecting business two years before in the ' Bless This House ' movie , but this is never mentioned . Funniest moment - Trevor creeps into the house late at night and drills a hole in the cupboard door so that he can administer food and drink to Sid . Jean sees what is going on , and once Trevor has left , squirts her husband in the eye with a soda syphon ! |
401,324 | 7,743,887 | 62,657 | 7 | Fun in Acapulco With Dino | I . C . E . are brought in to supervise security on the launching of an experimental spacecraft , which resembles a flying saucer . The pilot is glamorous Sheila Sommers . No sooner is the craft in flight than an anti-gravity beam pulls it back to Earth . The thief is one Jose Ortega , owner of a beer factory in Acapulco , and also the leader of a group of fanatical would-be revolutionaries out to overthrow the Government of Mexico . Sheila is found in the jungle some time later , badly beaten and with no memory of her ordeal . To recuperate , she is sent to an ICE rehabilitation centre by MacDonald . Also present ( on a refresher course ) is Matt Helm . . . The third picture in the series , ' The Ambushers ' was also the second and last to be scripted by Herbert Baker and directed by Henry Levin . Once again Donald Hamilton's storyline has been clumsily grafted onto a jokey , sci-fi oriented plot . ' Murderers ' Row ' featured a death-ray , here its a flying saucer ( doubtless had Baker written ' The Wrecking Crew ' , time travel would have figured ) . What's surprising is how much fun the movie is . A big improvement over its predecessor , the locations are beautifully photographed and it breezes along nicely with plenty of action and good humour . Albert Salmi is menacing as the villain , and Janice Rule makes a classy heroine as Sheila . Senta Berger sizzles as the top pilot for ' BIG O ' - Francesca Medeiros . Yes , the Slaygirls are on hand again to assist Matt , some kitted out with guns in their brassieres . At times you feel that there's a good movie struggling to get out . A stronger emphasis on adventure and less on comedy was needed . Better S . F . X . would have helped too . The saucer and Ortega's anti-gravity devices ( where did he get these , incidentally ? ) look like left-over props from ' Star Trek ' . As Matt , Dino is . . . well , Dino . If you don't like Dino , don't watch Matt Helm . For all its failings , this is the best Helm movie since ' The Silencers ' . |
400,607 | 7,743,887 | 959,715 | 7 | The Basil Fawlty Of St . Swithins ! | Duncan is undergoing a mid-life crisis which takes the form of bursts of uncontrollable rage . Everything seems to upset him , from coffee machines that do not work to hermetically sealed sandwiches . He even loses his temper with one of his patients , a young boy . Concerned for his well being , Dick suggests he sees a psychiatrist . Luckily , Duncan is married to one . It becomes clear Duncan is jealous of Collier's success . Dick suggests he goes into the private sector too . Paul leaves him in charge of his patients for a day to see what it is like . Unfortunately , his first is the same boy he shouted at in St . Swithins . . . The last episode of ' At The Top ' was by Bill Oddie and , while not as good as his others , was better than those at the start of the series . Funniest moment - Snell trying to calm Duncan by giving him coffee , only to get it thrown in his face ! The big audience for ' Sins Of The Father ' did not stick around . First impressions count and its particularly true of sitcoms . Unless viewers bust a gut laughing at the first episode , they do not tune in again . Which means they would have been unaware of the upswing in quality which occurred with the fourth episode . A similar upswing took place in the first series of ' In The House ' in 1969 . In those days , each season had a longer run ( usually thirteen episodes ) meaning viewers had time to get to like the characters . In ' At The Top ' , what few viewers remained had just gotten accustomed to the new-look St . Swithins , when it was axed . There's no use in denying it was a ratings failure . For all its faults , though , it was superior to other revived sitcoms of that era , such as ' The Liver Birds ' and ' Agony Again ' . It deserved a second season , preferably with new writers aboard . When Layton was the subject of a ' This Is Your Life ' later in the decade , Oddie came on as a guest , and made light of the failure of ' At The Top ' . Apart from a solitary repeat on U . K . Gold in the mid-90's , it has not been seen since . If nothing else , it gave an extra dimension to the characters , reminding us that youth is something we only have once and ought to cherish while it lasts . Five years after ' At The Top ' , the St . Swithins ' gang were back on British T . V . screens , courtesy of the then-new satellite channel ' Granada Plus ' . A whole new generation was able to enjoy a complete run of the L . W . T . ' Doctor ' series , commencing ( rather oddly ) with the second season of ' In Charge ' . ' Men & Motors ' recently repeated both seasons of ' In The House ' and it is out on D . V . D . There seems little chance of it being forgotten . Reviewing all these episodes has left me exhausted , and in need of a nice , soothing massage . Wonder if Nurse Willett is available ? |
401,579 | 7,743,887 | 516,846 | 7 | ' The Great Great Britain Crime ' | ' Homicide & Old Lace ' is regarded by ' Avengers ' buffs as the show's worst ever episode . I disagree . Season Five's ' The Joker ' ( a lame remake of the vastly superior ' Don't Look Behind You ' ) beats it hands down for sheer awfulness . Even so , it is a bit if a dog's breakfast . When John Bryce was fired as producer , Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens were asked to return . They filmed new scenes for the episodes already in the can , with only ' Invasion Of The Earthmen ' going out relatively intact . ' The Great Great Britain Crime ' was not so lucky . Clemens apparently disliked it so much he felt the only way he could possibly include it was to turn it into a comedy , hence the framing device of Mother spinning a tall tale to his dotty spinster aunts ( Mary Merrill and Joyce Carey ) . What ultimately resulted was an ' Avengers ' version of ' Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ' and you cannot get much worse than that . We can see where the faults are , and do not need for anyone to point them out to us . The plot itself is a sequel to ' Intercrime ' , an episode of the second season , written by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks . The dastardly criminal organisation is up to its old tricks again , this time plotting to trigger ' Operation : Rule Britannia ' , a plan to remove all art treasures from galleries in the event of war , replace them with forgeries , and give the originals for safe-keeping to Colonel Corf ( Gerald Harper ) . Once he places them in his secure vault , Intercrime can then nab them . The ' Great Great Britain Crime ' sequences were directed by Vernon Sewell , but the director's credit goes to John Hough . The problem is that the framing material is obtrusive and leadenly unfunny , despite artful playing from Newell , Merall and Carey . There's no Tara , and Steed only appears in a toe-curling tag scene in which Rhonda ( Mother's mute bodyguard ) is made to speak for the first time . Left intact , this would in my view have been a lot more interesting . Certainly it boasts a couple of decent action bits , such as Tara being chased around a multi-storey car park by hoods and the final shoot-out in Corf's vault . Another mistake on Clemens ' part was the re-use of old footage , such as Steed nearly being buried alive in ' The Fear Merchants ' and being attacked by Christopher Lee in ' Never Never Say Die ' . Sadly , the original version is widely believed to no longer exist , meaning we are stuck with this travesty for all eternity . The final insult is Laurie Johnson's tinkly piano score . It more or less tells the audience : " this is rubbish and we know it ! " . So its for the revisions , for the original material . |
401,468 | 7,743,887 | 494,607 | 7 | A Shotgun Wedding | When Morecambe and Wise left the B . B . C . in 1978 to go to Thames , the B . B . C . looked around for a brand new double-act to replace them . Producer Ernest Maxin took two comedians who had enjoyed limited television exposure , Lennie Bennett and Jerry Stevens , and gave them their own show . Bennett , curly-headed and with big teeth , was the funny one , while Jerry , good-looking and Italianesque , played at being straight man . The show itself was a curate's egg , to be honest , often looking like televised cabaret , but the duo caught the public's fancy , and soon they were doing Royal Variety Performances and the like , their patter often interrupted by toothless northerner Albert Pontefract . Had Lennie and Jerry stayed together its very likely they'd have inherited Eric and Ernie's crown ( their only competition at this time were Little & Large , and Cannon & Ball ) ; even Eric Morecambe admitted to being a fan , but in 1980 they stunned fans by splitting up . Lennie went on to host the I . T . V . game show ' Punchlines ' , Jerry the B . B . C . ' s short-lived ' Telly Quiz ' . When those ended , obscurity beckoned for both comics . |
400,917 | 7,743,887 | 315,092 | 7 | Gloria's T . V . Love-In ! | Funny how some television themes stick in your head years after the shows they came from ended . Even now , I can recall that this one went something like : " We love T . V ! / no doubt about it / can't live without it / we love T . V . ! ' etc . Hosted by Gloria Hunniford , ' We Love T . V . ' was a quiz show devoted to T . V . nostalgia . Not the first of its kind ; I . T . V . ' s ' Those Wonderful T . V . Times ' ( hosted first by Barry Cryer , then Norman Vaughan ) beat it to the airwaves in 1976 . Each edition was devoted to a type of programme - comedy , soap , sci-fi , drama etc . A member of the public would be paired with a celebrity , such as Ernie Wise or Joanna Van Gyseghem ( of ' Duty Free ' fame ) , and made to answer questions on old shows . It hailed from the days before archive telly became a source of fun ( " look at those cheesy sets ! " , " look at those awful clothes the cast are wearing ! " etc . ) , meaning that the shows were treated with respect ( although one of the more over-the-top episodes of ' The Avengers ' - ' A Touch Of Brimstone ' - drew mirth from the studio audience ) . I watched mainly to see clips of long-forgotten shows . One was ' The Human Jungle ' , a 1960's filmed drama series that starred Herbert Lom as a psychiatrist . The clip chosen to represent the show - Joan Collins taking her clothes off in the London Underground - served as an appetite wetter for the repeats Channel 4 had lined up for the following year . John Alderton introduced a snippet of ' Please Sir ! ' , a show he said he ' would not have missed for the world ' . In 1984 , repeats of ' On The Buses ' and ' Doctor In The House ' were nowhere to be found on British television , hence ' We Love T . V . ' afforded viewers a welcome chance to reacquaint oneself with these long-unseen shows . The B . B . C . refused to play ball , and denied L . W . T . access to their archives , meaning that ' We Love T . V . ' was forced to use the movie versions of shows like ' Steptoe & Son ' and ' Dad's Army ' rather than the real McCoy . This was not just selfishness on their part - they had their own retro T . V . quiz in the pipeline - ' Telly Addicts ' . ' We Love T . V . ' scored over ' Telly Addicts ' in two important respects : 1 ) it was slicker . The set had had money spent on it , while ' Telly Addicts ' looked as though it was coming from a doss house in Croydon and 2 ) it did not have Noel Edmonds and his ' hoofer-doofer ' . Gloria may have been lightweight , but she was easier on the eye and did not attempt to upstage the clips by cracking inane jokes . She also had better dress sense ( no tacky sweaters for Glo ) . We were also spared the hideously embarrassing spectacle of contestants attempting to ' sing ' television theme tunes , which alas was a recurring feature of ' Addicts ' and , for entertainment , is on a par with open-heart surgery and championship bowling . L . W . T . inexplicably threw in the remote control after only two seasons , leaving the field clear for Noel for the next decade or so . There was never an ' We Love T . V . ' board game in the shops at Christmas , but somehow you felt there should have been . |
401,665 | 7,743,887 | 956,511 | 7 | I do not write thrillers . I deal in reality ! | Howard tries his hand at writing a novel . But his efforts - in which the main character is called ' Mark Tempest ' - are derided by Trevor and laughed at by Mary ( who thought it was intended to be funny ) . Mary finds a poem by Byron copied from a book , and thinks Howard himself wrote it . The bounder heads over to Laura's house to see if she will fall for his new persona as a sensitive poet . . . Mildly amusing third episode , not as good as the second but better than the first . I would have liked to have heard more about Howard's literary masterpiece . We do not even find out what it is called . When the scam fails , Howard then masquerades as pulp thriller novelist ' Quincey Brown ' author of ' The Corpse That Would Not Lie Down ' . The lie backfires when Trevor tells Laura that not only did Quincey die in 1973 , but was also a woman ! Funniest moment - Howard withdrawing his proposal of marriage to Laura in wonderfully melodramatic fashion . |
400,934 | 7,743,887 | 74,812 | 7 | More Of A Walk Than A Run | There's an amusing scene in ' Free Enterprise ' when a sci-fi fan turns thirty and dreams he is in ' Logan's Run ' . The movie came out a year before ' Star Wars ' and was one of the last films of its kind for some time - the dysfunctional futuristic thriller . Based on a novel by William F . Nolan and George Clayton Johnson , it is set in a world where the inhabitants live in a city of domes , and can have everything they want - except their thirtieth birthday . Then they are subjected to the ordeal of ' Carousel ' , which is in fact population control . Logan is a ' Sandman ' , a security officer trained to track down and kill ' Runners ' - people who try and escape Carousel . He is ordered by the central computer to run , in order to find and destroy ' Sanctuary ' , the mythical refuge sought by all Runners . Accompanied by the beautiful Jessica , Logan runs , only to be stalked by fellow Sandman , Francis . For the first half-hour , Michael Anderson's film sticks to the book , but then it goes in a different direction . The book took Logan and Jessica to different locations all over the planet , but in the movie they don't stray far from the city before returning , resulting in a schmaltzy ending . Worth watching for the dazzling art direction , special effects and Jerry Goldsmith's music . The short-lived television series was better . Normally I hate remakes but would love to see this redone . |
401,536 | 7,743,887 | 1,162,607 | 7 | You've got the wrong chap , old chap ! | Rita gives Alf a jacket she bought in a charity shop . He is offended at the thought of being given someone's cast-offs , but changes his tune when he sees medals sewn on to the breast pocket . An idea occurs to him . The next Saturday , Alf wears the jacket to the West Ham football stadium , with Marigold pushing him in Else's wheelchair . Posing as a crippled war veteran , he tries to gain access to the disabled stand , but an attendant ( Ron Pember ) disputes his entitlement ( possibly he remembers Alf tried to pull a similar stunt in Season 1 ) , and Alf does not help matters when he begins frantically waving his legs about . When his team scores , he is so elated he jumps out of the chair and does a little victory dance , forgetting he is meant to be disabled . Later , Alf catches Rita putting ' Vote Labour ' posters in his window , and loses his rag . The argument escalates when first Marigold joins in , and then a canvassing Labour candidate ( Graeme Garden ) , followed by Mrs . Hollingbery . The Indian shopkeeper ( Renu Setna ) we saw two episodes back reappears , now standing as a Tory candidate . . . The first part of this episode is very good , with Alf behaving as though the medals on his new jacket are really his , but the second where he brings a whole street to a standstill by shouting at the Labour candidate only manages to annoy , not amuse . It is here that you appreciate the contribution made to ' Till Death Us Do Part ' by Tony Booth . He would have told Alf to shut up , or attempted to deflate his pomposity in some way . But here everyone stands around , arms folded , listening to what he has to say . Ex-'Goodie ' Graeme Garden makes a welcome appearance , he also appeared in ' Yes , Minister ' as I recall , and it is a pity he was not used more often in sitcoms . I'm with Alf regarding the posters . It is his flat , after all , not Rita's . Her childish behaviour looks like a cheap attempt to wind up her father for the sake of a few laughs . Funniest moment - Alf's victory dance at the stadium , followed by a cry of " Its a miracle ! " . |
400,797 | 7,743,887 | 595,652 | 7 | Hancock The Gag-Man | Written by Terry Nation , ' The Writer ' was the penultimate episode of ' Hancock ' - The Lad From East Cheam's ill-advised attempt to do ' Hancock's Half Hour ' on I . T . V . but without the services of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson . By this juncture , the comedian was well aware that the show was in no danger of being a hit . As it opens , he walks into a pub carrying a bag . No-one is about . For several seconds he just stands there , looking around him , as though he has forgotten what to do . Fortunately , things start to happen . He tries to ring a bell on the counter . It does not work , and he hurts his hand in the process . Yet the next person to use it does so with no difficulty whatever . Hancock has brought back his empty beer bottles , but after accidentally breaking most of them gets only enough back to buy a single bottle of Brown Ale . In the next room , two men are laughing at a recorded television programme . Hancock joins them . On the box is top British comedian Jerry Spring ( now there's a great name for a comic ! ) , played by John Junkin . Hancock grumbles incessantly about Spring's corny jokes . To his surprise , sitting next to him is none other than Spring himself . The other man is manager Elmo Dent ( Francis Matthews ) . Spring asks Hancock if he can write better jokes than those he is currently using in his act . Of course Tony says yes , and goes home to sharpen his pencils - and wits . . . It surely must have been tempting fate to depict Hancock as a man devoid of a single funny idea in his head at a time when the British viewing public were beginning to think he was just that . Certainly the longueur at the beginning of this episode is quite extraordinary . What was Alan Tarrant thinking ? John Junkin went on to play ' Evelyn ' in ' The Blackpool Show ' , a variety show in which Hancock served as compère . Francis Matthews voiced ' Captain Scarlet ' in the puppet sci-fi show of that name , was ' Paul Temple ' for the B . B . C . , and appeared alongside Morecambe and Wise both on television in their films . As was the case with ' The Assistant ' , there are some laughs here , but the whole thing is let down both by Hancock's obvious reliance of teleprompters and the unimaginative ending . I would have liked it better if Spring had tried to perform Hancock's material in public and gotten no laughs , instead he simply reads the pages and creeps out of the room while Hancock is talking . Funniest moment - Hancock , back in the pub , complaining about a wrestler . Guess what ? The wrestler is only sitting next to him . Next thing Tony is flung across the room , and crashes into a table . |
400,992 | 7,743,887 | 59,988 | 7 | Enchanting April | Such was the popularity of ' The Man From U . N . C . L . E . ' in 1965 that a spin-off was planned . An episode of the second series - ' The Moonglow Affair ' - saw Solo and Kuryakin temporarily written out , and their places taken by agents ' April Dancer ' and ' Mark Slate ' , played by Mary Ann Mobley and Norman Fell respectfully . It did well , and a series was commissioned - but with two important changes . The lead roles were recast ; in came a young Stefanie Powers as ' Dancer ' and British actor Noel Harrison ( son of Rex ) as ' Slate ' . Leo G . Carroll , of course , played ' Mr . Waverly ' . I did not see this when it first went out , but viewed it recently . It is enjoyably daft hokum , with plots involving such unlikely ideas as a dog's fleas used to carry a microdot , a Kali statue coming to life and throwing daggers , the entrance to the lost city of Atlantis turning out to be in some caves in the Caribbean , an island colony of shipwrecked survivors , a health spa that makes its customers youthful , and Boris Karloff ( in drag ) as the head of a gang of killers who wear flat caps and speak bad Cockney . This hailed from the same era as ' The Monkees ' and ' Batman ' , and it shows . Powers is beautiful and glamorous , though it is a pity that ' April ' was not given more to do in the action department . In the last episode I saw ( ' The U . N . C . L . E . Samurai Affair ' ) , she was attacked by a frogman , and after putting up token resistance , went to hide while Slate dealt with him . She should have chucked him over her shoulder the way Mrs . Peel did in ' The Avengers ' . It does seem bizarre to call a show ' The Girl From U . N . C . L . E . ' and then depict its main character as a helpless bimbo heavily reliant on a male sidekick . Another mistake was the reuse of Jerry Goldsmith's ' Man From U . N . C . L . E . ' theme , here given a trendy new arrangement . I warmed more to Harrison's ' Slate ' . Obviously intended to be the show's answer to David McCallum , he is rather good as a foppish hero in the ' Jason King ' mold . But whose idea was it to cast a teenage boy ( ' Randy Kirby ' ) as an U . N . C . L . E . agent ? Robert Vaughn played ' Solo ' in ' The Mother Muffin Affair ' , at exactly the same time Harrison was guesting on the parent show . In the U . K . , ' Girl ' was shown in rotation with ' Man ' , but in the U . S . A . , they were screened more or less together . Viewers found two ' U . N . C . L . E . ' shows a week a bit much to take , and ' Girl ' was dropped after a single season . Less comedy and more action ( for April ) would have been beneficial for the show . Sam Rolfe's superb first season of ' Man ' should have been the blueprint for ' Girl ' . Best episode - ' The Atlantis Affair ' ( written by ' I am Legend ' author Richard Matheson ) Worst episode - ' The Paradise Lost Affair ' . |
401,659 | 7,743,887 | 62,395 | 7 | You're beautiful , man ! | In the early ' 80's , Roger Corman gave a talk at the British Film Institute , where he was interviewed by ' Guardian ' critic Derek Malcolm . He then fielded questions from the audience . One of these concerned his 1967 film ' The Trip ' . Although the then-unknown Jack Nicholson was credited as writer , Corman pointed out that he himself had had input into the script , particularly with regards to the drug scenes . He had used L . S . D . , as had Dennis Hopper ( one of the cast ) , and their various experiences were incorporated into the film . Spotting the then-head of the British Board of Film Censors - the late James Ferman - in the audience , Malcolm asked him why the B . B . F . C . had twice refused ' The Trip ' a certificate . Ferman said he felt the film was an incitement to drug use ( even though other movies featuring drugs were passed without any difficulty whatever ) . In 2003 it was finally deemed fit for British audiences . ' The Trip ' begins with a portentous disclaimer warning the audience about the risks involved in taking L . S . D . Then we see a bride and groom standing on water . No , the trip has not yet started . It is for a television commercial . Paul Groves ( Peter Fonda ) , the director , is going through an unhappy time with his divorce to Sally ( Susan Strasberg ) almost complete . He approaches drug dealer John ( a bearded Bruce Dern ) and asks him for L . S . D . as he wants to find out about himself . So Paul swallows the pill and the madness begins . Over the course of seventy-five minutes , he sees kaleidoscopic visions , is chased along a beach by masked figures on horseback , strolls naked through woods with some attractive ( equally naked ) women , is put on trial by Dennis Hopper , and generally has a pretty weird time of it . John initially acts as a minder , stopping Paul from jumping out of the window ( the house is high up on a hill ) , but then Paul escapes , and sees the world as a entirely different place . In one excellent scene , he wanders along a street at night and the neon shop signs take on a particularly menacing quality . As he spends most of the movie in a drug-induced haze ( which is after all the point ) it is difficult to praise Fonda's acting . Susan Strasberg is woefully underused , while Salli Sachse is drop dead gorgeous as the drug dealer's girlfriend . James H . Nicholson and Samuel Z . Arkoff apparently intended this as an anti-drug film , but a section of the audience saw it differently , and smoked certain substances during screenings , as they later did with Kubrick's ' 2001 ' . Anyone expecting another ' Reefer Madness ' will be disappointed though , it is not bad enough to be that . The film proved successful enough to spawn a sequel of sorts - 1968's ' Psych-Out ' , directed by Richard Rush , which also featured Susan Strasberg and Bruce Dern ( with Jack Nicholson as one of the cast ) . I prefer the latter because , unlike ' The Trip ' , it has a plot . I agree with the commentator who said that the hallucinatory sequences lose their impact or so after a while and the film becomes tough to sit through . Cynthia Lennon , in her book ' A Twist Of Lennon , said that taking L . S . D . was the most frightening experience of her life . I have not used the stuff ( the nearest I got was Barratt's Sherbert Fountain ! ) so cannot comment , but if ' The Trip ' is to be believed , I do not think I ever will either . We are far from those times now , when people had abstract paintings on their walls , wore colourful clothes , and ended every sentence with ' man ' . A modern audience might have difficulty trying to distinguish between the drug scenes and those set in the real world . Interesting then mainly as a curio . |
400,867 | 7,743,887 | 956,726 | 7 | Duffy Versus The Doctors | Its Rag Week at The Duke Of York Hospital , where Maureen works as a nurse . She is chosen as their official Rag Queen , but a gang of loutish students kidnap her before she can be crowned . Duffy , Frankie and Craven rescue Maureen . However , Duffy's van is stolen by the students . Eric is furious with Frankie as he'd left him in charge of the vehicle . To make matters worse , the van contained a box in which is a wedding dress intended for Duffy's cousin Deborah . As the clock ticks down to the ceremony , Eric must find the van and retrieve the garment . . . A Rowley / Baker penned episode that has a strong ' Doctor In The House ' feel to it , what with the anarchic students and infantile pranks . Its not surprising that the writers wrote for ' Doctor At Large ' that same year . Its hard to say for sure but the hospital exterior looks like the same one used in that other show . ' Bernard ' , the leader of the students , is played by future ' Robin Of Sherwood ' star Nickolas Grace . Funniest moment - Frankie leaning against the window of Duffy ' s van , only for his hand to pass through it as there is no glass there ! |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.