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401,691 | 7,743,887 | 90,442 | 7 | I'm Billy ! " I'm Johnny ! " " Hello everyone ! " | Gareth Hale and Norman Pace rose to fame part of the alternative comedy boom of the ' 80's , which was strange because strictly speaking , they were far from alternative . Their repertoire of comic characters included the ' Two Rons ' , thuggish gangsters whose catchphrase was " We are The Management ! " ( based on the Kray Twins , who allegedly were fans ) , the idiotic children's T . V . presenters ' Billy ' and ' Johnny ' ( " We know a song about that , don't we ? " ) , and a pair of drug-addled Hell's Angels . In short , they were the dark side of ' The Two Ronnies ' . Traditional in tone , but going just that little bit further . Following several series in which they played supporting roles , such as ' Pushing Up Daisies ' ( later to be retitled ' Coming Next ' ) , ' Saturday Live ' , and ' The Saturday Gang ' , they finally landed their own sketch show in 1988 . Made by London Weekend Television , the first edition got them into trouble with an item in which they microwaved a cat ( it wasn't a real one , of course , but a lot of people were upset nonetheless ) . A later sketch had frogs used as tennis balls . One of the ' Billy & Johnny ' items featured the daft duo engaging in a threesome with Johnny's sexy wife . Another was set in a house constructed entirely from human waste . Gareth and Norman relished in flaunting their political incorrectness - particularly with the Teutonic country and western singer ' Hank Von Schweinhund ' whose backing group consisted of sexy , goose-stepping Nazi girls - and audiences loved them for it . As a mark of their popularity they landed guest roles in what turned out to be the last ' Dr . Who ' story for sixteen years - ' Survival ' in 1989 . The show ran for the best part of ten years in a late Sunday night slot . But not everyone appreciated Hale and Pace's ' poo and pee ' humour . A letter writer to ' The Daily Mirror ' said : " I agree that Hale and Pale are not afraid to be offensive . They're not very funny either . " . The outspoken Alexei Sayle took a swipe at the lads on his B . B . C . show : " When Oliver Hardy went golfing , Stan Laurel would time gags , edit scripts and cut film . When Gareth Hale goes golfing , Norman Pace goes with him . Which explains why their show is so awful ! " . He had a point . The later ' Hale & Pace ' shows looked tired and flat , and they faced tough competition from Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer , so they killed it off and crossed over to the B . B . C . to do a new version of ' In At The Deep End ' in which they performed unlikely tasks . ' Hale & Pace ' is not widely remembered as a comedy classic , but it was fun - at first , anyway - its only major flaw being that the lads didn't know when to call it a day . Nothing lasts forever . Matt Lucas and David Walliams would do well to remember this as they continue to reap the ' Little Britain ' dividend . |
401,543 | 7,743,887 | 179,015 | 7 | Nixon And His Magic | I've never been fond of magic acts ( Tommy Cooper excepted ! ) but I always watched ' The David Nixon Show ' , which occupied the ' Opportunity Knocks ' slot of 6 . 45 on a Monday evening . Why ? Because of Nixon himself . He was like your favourite uncle - bald , elderly , a shade eccentric , had he been an actor he'd have made a wonderful ' Dr . Who ' . For years he dazzled television audiences by sawing people in half , making playing cards disappear and reappear , conjuring flowers out of thin air , the sort of things you expect magicians to do . He had a relaxed , confidant manner that was marvellous to watch , and he knew how to tell a joke . Anita Harris , Freddie ' Parrot Face ' Davies , and Basil Brush all regularly appeared on the show . Nixon would never have gotten up to the stunts so beloved of today's magicians such as David Blaine . When he died in 1978 , British television searched for a replacement - and came up with the awful Paul Daniels . At least Nixon never bored us rigid with stupid catchphrases like ' not a lot ' . |
401,465 | 7,743,887 | 163,484 | 7 | The Man Who Officially Does Not Exist | In 1965 , Adam Hall ( Elleston Trevor ) wrote ' The Quiller Memorandum ' , in which a British secret agent goes to Berlin to investigate the death of one Kenneth Lindsay Jones , who had uncovered a neo-Nazi revivalist group known as ' Phonix ' . This highly acclaimed book was filmed a year later , with George Segal as ' Quiller ' , Alec Guinness as his superior ' Pol ' , Senta Berger as ' Inga ' , and Max Von Sydow as ' Oktober ' . The screenplay was by Harold Pinter , and it remains one of the more intelligent and well-acted spy thrillers of that era . Nearly a decade later , the B . B . C . bought the rights to the character , and assigned as producer Peter Graham Scott , producer of ' The Troubleshooters ' . ' Quiller ' had all the makings of a smash hit . Starring the talented Michael Jayston in the title role , it was to have boasted exotic locations , big-name guest stars , scripts by leading writers such as Michael J . Bird ( Hall himself wrote an episode based on one of his books - ' Tango Briefing ' ) , beautiful girls , and a catchy signature tune . But something went wrong . Interviewed for ' Shatter ' magazine in 1976 , Brian Clemens said budgetary cutbacks at the B . B . C . resulted in ' Quiller ' looking a bit shabby . He wrote an episode set in France , but without his knowledge it was filmed in Hastings . " Had I known they'd film in Hastings , I'd have set it in Hastings . " , he said . Quiller himself came across as somewhat colourless . Earlier spy shows such as ' Danger Man ' and ' Mission : Impossible ' also featured ciphers as heroes , but ' Quiller ' was made in the mid-'70's when , in the wake of ' Callan ' , audiences wanted their spies a bit more human . A second season might have corrected the first's flaws , alas it was not to get one . |
400,753 | 7,743,887 | 710,125 | 7 | The Battle Of Oil Drum Lane ! | Season 8 of ' Steptoe & Son ' saw some classic episodes such as ' And So To Bed ' and ' Upstairs , Downstairs , Upstairs , Downstairs ' , but also one or two below-par efforts such as ' Back In Fashion ' and this one . It begins with Albert emerging from a cinema showing ' Enter The Dragon ' starring Bruce Lee . His attempts to mimic one of the action scenes result in a passer-by getting accidentally thumped in the stomach . Harold has brought home what he thinks is a priceless Oriental vase . His joy is compounded when his father finds the word ' Han ' inscribed on the base . But there's more : ' Ley ' . Hanley near Stoke-On-Trent is famous for making toilets . Harold is gutted , having paid £25 for the thing . A knock on the front door signals the arrival of Frankie Barrow ( Henry Woolf ) , Shepherd's Bush's answer to ' The Godfather ' , newly released from prison . Barrow has gone into the insurance business ( a . k . a . the protection racket ) and gets the Steptoes to take out a policy . When Harold refuses , Barrow's thugs smash the vase . Reluctantly , Harold signs the contract . From now on , he will have to pay £15 ( a lot of money then ) a week to Barrow . Harold cannot go to the police as Barrow's insurance company is officially registered with the Board of Trade ( I doubt whether an ex-con would be allowed to set up an insurance company so soon after being released , but we'll let that pass ) . So what to do ? Albert tells Harold not to worry , as he has friends who know a thing or two about kung fu . . . The kung fu craze swept across the world in the early ' 70's . You could watch ' Kung Fu ' ( starring David Carradine ) on television , see it at the cinema in films such as ' The Big Boss ' and ' Fists Of Fury ' , read comics with titles such as ' Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu ' , listen to Carl Douglas singing ' Kung Fu Fighting ' , eat ' Kung Fu ' crisps , and watch a children's cartoon called ' Hong Kong Phooey ' . It was everywhere . However , ' Steptoe & Son ' does seem an odd place to spoof the genre . The climactic kung fu fight ( arranged by Bill Weston and directed by Mike Crisp ) is well staged , but jars with the show's realistic tone . Perhaps Ray and Alan were running low on ideas by this time . Diminutive Henry Woolf plays ' Frankie Barrow ' . With his whining voice , red shirt , slicked-back hair and bow tie ( which resembles a dead butterfly stapled to his collar ) , he is a ludicrous figure who somehow manages to be intimidating . The actor ( also a playwright ) appeared the following year in Eric Idle's seminal sketch show ' Rutland Weekend Television ' and was ' The Collector ' in the 1978 ' Dr . Who ' story ' The Sunmakers ' . ' Barrow ' returned to menace Harold and Albert later in ' 74 in the movie ' Steptoe & Son Ride Again ' . When Barrow orders his thugs to smart smashing things , the comedy suddenly stops ( it did for me anyhow ) . The title - and indeed the plot - comes from Akiro Kurosawa's classic ' The Seven Samurai ' , made in 1954 . Funniest moment - as Frankie's boys start breaking things , Harold discreetly hides the goldfish bowl ! |
401,096 | 7,743,887 | 828,937 | 7 | Stannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn ! | Flu strikes the Butler household . Olive and Mrs . Butler take to their beds , hot water bottles at the ready , while Stan and Arthur are forced to carry out all the domestic chores . Poor Stan is driven to the point of nervous breakdown by the insistent demands of his family . Eventually , they recover , but then Stan goes down with it ! With Cicily Courtneidge gone , the show needed a new Mrs . Butler . Doris Hare was a perfect choice , far more natural as a Cockney housewife , she brought warmth to the role . Her cries of " Stannnnnnnnnnnnnnn ! " gave the show its second major catchphrase after " I ' ate you , Butler ! " . With Hare on board , the classic ' On The Buses ' line-up was in place . Within a very short space of time , it had overtaken ' Coronation Street ' and ' Crossroads ' in the ratings . But why ? Why should a piece of homespun Cockney humour about busmen prove so astonishingly successful ? And not just in Britain either ; it was No . 1 in Yugoslavia , and a hit in Holland . It certainly wasn't down to the quality of the writing . Many of the ' On The Buses ' plots are not much different to those you'll find in other shows of the period . I think the secret of its success lay in the fact that viewers could readily identify with the Butler family , and thus care about them . What a contrast to today's comedies , which by and large are peopled with thoroughly unlikeable ( not to say , unfunny ) types interested only in themselves . ' On The Buses ' hit a chord because viewers recognised the truthfulness of it . There's a scene in one of the early episodes when the milk man calls and , unable to pay him , the Butlers pretend to be out by hiding under the kitchen table . This was how millions of working-class people all over Britain lived from week to week . I saw Stan and Jack as naughty schoolboys , forever playing childish pranks on the headmaster figure ( Blakey ) . Almost everyone who watched ' Buses ' found at least one element they recognised . ' Family Flu ' is not the best episode by a long chalk , but its more than adequate an introduction for Doris Hare . Anna Karen's surname is given as ' Karan ' on the credits . Funniest moment - Stan's problems with a tapioca pudding ! |
401,081 | 7,743,887 | 828,935 | 7 | A Hair Raising Time For Arthur ! | Once again money is tight in the Butler household , and Stan cannot secure overtime as Blakey wants conductors not drivers . In desperation , he is forced to join the cleaning ladies . His first day in the job is not a success - he smashes a window on his own bus . Back home , Arthur is behaving in a furtive manner . Struck on a sexy clippie named Beryl , he tries to attract her interest by wearing a wig . . . A slight but amusing episode ; best appreciated by middle-aged men with an alopecia ( baldness ) problem ( I'm sorry to say I include myself in this category ) . No man likes to think of himself as losing his sex appeal , which is why many resort to the kind of desperate measures Arthur undertakes here . Of course , it fails miserably . Though Beryl is initially impressed , she sees through the deception when the doors to Stan's bus unexpectedly close , trapping Arthur's head , and causing the wig to fall off . Good work from Michael Robbins , particularly when he tries to justify buying the wigs . " When I came here , I had a full set of hair . I want it back ! " . Funniest moment - our first sight of Stan in his ' Mrs . Mopp ' gear ! |
401,588 | 7,743,887 | 546,889 | 7 | My dead husband has walked in through the door ! | Syrie Van Epp digs up Phil Scrotty's final resting place - only to find he is not in it . Anticipating elimination by Miss Dunner ( June Watson ) of Dept . K for double-crossing them , he got someone to put blanks in her gun . So now he is on the run , and sleeping with the recently widowed Mrs . Abigail Whitebait . Except that she is not - her late husband has just been brought back from the dead , thanks to Robag ( Aubrey Morris ) . Van Epp wants Scrotty resurrected because he has important information . . . One of Twin Peaks ' most popular characters was a dwarf . Well , ' The Corridor People ' ( often likened to David Lynch's surreal series ) had one too - ' Nonesuch ' ( William Trigger ) . In a truly startling scene , Van Epp - dressed as a nanny - pushes a pram through a park . Clouds of smoke issue from it . It contains no baby , but a cigar-smoking Nonesuch , who proceeds to shoot a man called Whitebait - who is supposed to be dead anyway . If all this makes sense , I cannot have explained it properly . I am not going to waste time attempting to rationalise the events of this bizarre show . That way madness lies . Scrotty gets more air-time here than in the previous instalment , and a right pain he proves to be too . Not merely content with openly bragging about having conned both Dept . K and Van Epp , he allows an innocent man to be eliminated just so he can resume carrying on with his wife . Van Epp's base of operations is in a disused theatre , allowing for Scrotty and her to have some fun with clown masks . ' Robag ' is that wonderful actor Aubrey Morris , who specialised in eccentrics . |
400,833 | 7,743,887 | 71,025 | 7 | Hello . This is The Brown Cow speaking ! . | Based on a stage play by Tom Brennand and Roy Bottomley , ' Not On Your Nellie ' cast the irrepressible Hylda Baker as Nellie Pickersgill , a northern spinster who inherits a shabby London pub which she decides to run with her father Jed ( John Barrett , who'd also played her father in the ' Nearest & Dearest ' pilot ) . The pub's regulars consist of a gay couple ( " And what are you today , Gilbert ? Oh , you're one of those , are you ? " ) , a layabout window cleaner called Charlie and an Asian bus conductor - typical ' 70's sitcom stereotypes , in other words . Nellie Pickersgill was so like Nellie Pledge it hardly seemed worth changing the surname . Various busty barmaids came and went , amongst them a young Wendy Richard . It was crude , vulgar , hardly P . C . , but very funny . In the third season , Jed's place was taken by Jack Douglas as Nellie's cousin Stanley . Baker broke her leg during the filming of one episode and had to do the next in a wheelchair . When she got so ill she couldn't work anymore , the show was sadly abandoned . |
400,720 | 7,743,887 | 916,157 | 7 | Duncan Waring - Prime Suspect ! | Angered by the Purser's malicious gossip , Duncan assaults him before the passengers and crew . Some time later , the Purser is accidentally locked in the ship's storeroom whilst observing Duncan helping himself to a bottle of wine and a couple of steaks . When the Purser's absence is noticed , suspicion falls on Duncan . Has he finally flipped and committed murder ? Duncan turns detective in this episode , attempting to clear his name before it is too late . Dick and Joyce don't offer much help , and behave as though they think he might actually be guilty . Funniest moment - Duncan alone on the deck , and hearing the Purser's voice carried through the ventilation system , thinks he is listening to a ghost ! |
401,438 | 7,743,887 | 803,372 | 7 | The School Of The Sixth Unhappiness ! | 5C embarks on a project which involves them measuring the exterior walls of Fenn Street School and , in Dennis ' case , counting the number of bricks in them . When Hedges ventures onto the roof to obtain a piece of brick , 5C lock the trapdoor behind him , ensuring they do not have to waste more time on the pointless project . Price , meantime , has had enough of 5C's refusal to learn and asks Mr . Cromwell for a leave of absence . The headmaster grants it , telling the other teachers he has gone to China to adopt six children . Hedges attempts to stand in for Price with little success as he knows nothing about science . The truth about Price's whereabouts are revealed when a television set is accidentally left switched on . . . Ah , school projects ! Remember them ? The perfect excuse for a morning or afternoon away from the classroom . In my case , our geography master Mr . Davies ( or ' Dai Geog ' as we used to know him ) would take us into the town square , where we would sit under the war memorial counting the cars and lorries as they went past . As soon as Dai's back was turned , several of our number would dive into the nearest newsagents and emerge moments later carrying Amazin ' or Super Mousse bars and cans of Pepsi . It was like having an early Breaktime . 5C aren't so lucky as their project takes place within the school grounds . Abbott goes up a ladder with a measuring tape , loses his balance , and accidentally smashes a window . An angry Potter appears on the other side . Thanks to Frankie , the headmaster's lavatory is now full of broken glass . 5C are impressed when Hedges tells them of Price's Chinese trip . Sharon likens it to the film ' The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness ' ( 1958 ) which starred Ingrid Bergman as missionary ' Gladys Aylward ' . Funniest moment - 5C watching Price on television . Instead of China , he is in Betws-y-Coed , at the Eisteddfod , where he is wearing Druid's clothes , singing ( in Welsh , naturally ) and playing the harp ! |
400,689 | 7,743,887 | 803,370 | 7 | Enter The Weaver Street Gang ! | Eighty-seven pupils from the newly-closed Weaver Street School move to Fenn Street . They include hard-case Terry Stringer , his dimwitted cousin Robin ' Godber ' Gibbons , guitar-playing anarchist Des Ridley , the lovely if common-as-muck Celia , and her devoted friend , Daisy . Ffitchett-Brown finds the class impossible to handle . When he jokingly tells Terry to go home , the boy takes him at his word - and the rest of the class follows suit . Meantime , Potter has learnt than Fenn Street School is to go comprehensive , and begins sucking up to the man he believes will replace Cromwell as headmaster . . . Though the comprehensive school system started in the late ' 50's , it got into full swing a decade later , as more and more schools merged in the hope of producing places where comprehensive ranges of subjects could be taught across the academic and vocational spectrum . The decision to turn Fenn Street into a comprehensive , however , seems to have been motivated by the fact that the cast changes to ' Please Sir ! ' were not working too well , and a new mix of characters was badly needed . My friends gave up watching at this point because they did not feel it was ' their show ' any more . Most of the plots now revolved around the teachers . Esmonde and Larbey played safe by patterning the new intake on the old 5C line-up ; Terry being the new Eric Duffy , Godber a more violent version of Dennis Dunstable , Daisy another Maureen Bullock , and Celia the new Sharon . Daisy's infatuation with Celia is especially interesting , being a rare example of pubescent lesbianism in an early ' 70's family sitcom . A major problem , though , remained . ' David Ffitchett-Brown ' was not given anything like the same prominence in the scripts as his predecessor . Still , this episode's an improvement on others from this season . Funniest moment - Potter and Price being menaced by Terry and Godber while the former is washing Mr . Cromwell's car . As you'd expect , he turns the hosepipe on them ! Yes , a corny gag , but still funny ! |
401,455 | 7,743,887 | 81,887 | 7 | Kev's ' ere ! | In the wake of ' Not The Nine O'Clock News ' , several sketch shows sprang up , each attempting to recapture the original's healthy disrespect for authority and revelling in sheer bad taste for the sake of it . Made by B . B . C . Scotland , ' A Kick Up The Eighties ' is best remembered today for bringing the then-unknown Rik Mayall ( credited as Kevin Turvey ) to a mass audience . Turvey , a Brummie idiot who fancied himself as an investigative reporter , delivered surreal monologues to camera which he concluded by saying : " Kev's ' ere ! " , whilst touching his left ear . The first show upset viewers with a sketch in which Miriam Margolyes played a nurse who unplugs a patient's life support machine in order to be able to use her vacuum cleaner . Richard Stilgoe provided David Frost-style linking material for the first year's sketches , some of which - such as ' Toyah Wilcox Masterclass ' - wouldn't have looked out of place on ' Three Of A Kind ' . It was hit and miss stuff , but it laid the groundwork for the superior ' Naked Video ' . |
400,695 | 7,743,887 | 803,387 | 7 | The Charge Of The Light Fingered Brigade ! | Cromwell is invited to address The Rotary Club , and asks Miss Ewell to write his speech . When she refuses , he locks himself in his office , and begins to reorganise the school , drawing up a giant-sized timetable . David wants to use the playground to stage a reenactment of ' The Charge Of The Light Brigade ' , but , finding it off-limits , takes 4C to see the film of the same name . Liz complains about being unwell , so he has to leave 4C to take her home . . . One aspect of school I ( along with the rest of the class ) used to enjoy was the ' educational trip ' , whether it be to a play , museum or zoo . If nothing else , it provided a welcome respite from the stifling atmosphere of the school . In this Rowley / Baker episode , three such trips occur simultaneously , the others presided over by Price and Smithy . Price returns from the brewery drunk , and Smithy goes missing . Spot The Mistake : when David leaves the cinema , 4C are unsupervised . By rights he ought to have appointed one pupil to act as monitor . Mollie Sugden plays the mother of one of David's pupils . The Dreaded Liz returns , fortunately her only line is : " Sir , I feel sick ! " . One of her fellow classmates is a young Elaine Donnelly . Ten years later , she would star in the L . W . T . sitcom ' Lovely Couple ' . ' The Charge Of The Light Brigade ' starred David Hemmings and was made in 1968 , so this must be a reissue . Funniest moment - an inebriated Price sits on David's desk , and breaks it ! |
401,567 | 7,743,887 | 803,382 | 7 | Oh Chichester , Oh Chichester , you bastion of endeavour ! | Cromwell decides that the pupils of Fenn St . School should be sub-divided into ' houses ' , each named after a great British hero . Hedges asks Duffy which house he would like to be in , so he chooses one at random . The rest of the class joins him . Potter is appalled to discover that 5C are in ' Montgomery ' , named after the wartime general . Hedges appoints Duffy , Maureen and Dennis ' prefects ' and tells them to choose a captain . They choose Dennis . Initially , he is thrilled but on realising the extent of the responsibilities that come with the title , such as reading aloud from the Bible in Assembly , he becomes frightened . . . I well remember the idiocy of my school when it came to choosing pupils for ' houses ' . For days , children were running round , shrieking : " What house are you in ? " . Ever the smart-alec , my reply was : " No . 40 , Maes-Y-Wern . " . Nothing ever used to come of this bizarre form of apartheid . We would sit about in groups , talking constantly , attempting to organise ' events ' , only for them to be conveniently forgotten as soon as the last bell went . Still , it was better than lessons . Interesting that 5C should rig the voting in Dennis ' favour and yet unintentionally make him unhappy . Luckily Hedges has a solution . Funniest moment - Potter locking up his office tighter than a drum , then realising he has forgotten his hat and has to reverse the procedure . |
400,696 | 7,743,887 | 803,377 | 7 | I want a duck-duck ! | Penny emerges from Hedges ' bathroom wearing only a towel , and accompanied by David Rose's ' The Stripper ' . Nice way to begin an episode , don't you think ? Frankie is rushed to hospital with appendicitis . His hypochondriac mother begins inflicting her complex medical problems on fellow patients . Over Frankie's sick bed , Hedges kisses Penny . Mrs . Abbott thinks he is molesting one of the nurses , and heads for Fenn St . School to register a formal complaint . . . Hedges and Penny are officially engaged in this episode , which doesn't sit too well with Maureen . She takes the news badly indeed , thus setting up a number of future plot lines . Barbara Mitchell makes a welcome return as Frankie's mother . Around this time , she was also to be seen as Irene Handl's daughter ' Ruthie ' in ' For The Love Of Ada ' . Funniest moment - in the staff room , Mrs . Abbott rants about Frankie : " I bore him ! " . To which Price replies : " You bore me too ! " . |
401,403 | 7,743,887 | 591,034 | 7 | Look ! I'm dreadfully confused ! | Contestants for ' The Nicest Person In The World ' award are being systematically nobbled . The Goodies find this out the hard way when they get chased by an angry mob out to steal their trandem . Taking refuge in a police station , they cannot believe it when the desk sergeant starts blowing raspberries and issuing schoolboy insults . On the wall is a ' wanted ' poster featuring the Goodies . But who is discrediting them ? The last episode of Season 2 was also the last to be produced by John Howard Davies ; with its over-the-top arch-villain out to make a name for himself by building robot doubles of his rivals , it feels like an episode of ' The Avengers ' . Our heroes even find themselves in two ' inescapable doom-traps ' ! The gag about Julie Andrews going topless proved astonishingly prescient ; nine years , she did ' S . O . B . ' for her husband , Blake Edwards . The late Patrick Troughton gleefully hams it up as ' Dr . Wolfgang Adolphus Ratphink Von Petal ' , complete with maniacal cackle , pet vulture and dressed in a Richard The Third costume . John Junkin had worked with Tim Brooke-Taylor in ' Its Marty ! ' . Peter Reeves supported ' Tommy Cooper ' in his 1969 L . W . T . series . Felix Bowness , seen here as a bookie , was a decade away from his role as jockey ' Fred Quilly ' in ' Hi-de-Hi ! ' . Funniest moment - the Goodies battling their robot doubles . Must have a swine to film , but it was worth the effort ! On / 72 , B . B . C . - 2 put out ' A Collection Of Goodies ' , a compilation of material specially recorded for ' Engelbert With The Young Generation ' . Tim and Graeme are playing ' Strip Scrabble ' while Tim fills out a Tax Evasion form . In flashback we see the Goodies working out in the gym , playing football with a plum pudding , ' Pan's Grannies ' ( a very funny send-up of ' Pan's People ' ) , converting a car wash into a Baby Wash , and becoming street entertainers . It helped relieve the long wait between Seasons 2 and 3 . |
401,375 | 7,743,887 | 591,033 | 7 | C'mon everybody , its gibbon time ! | Once again , the Goodies are out of work . Then a mysterious woman claiming to be a witch - named Hazel , of course - turns up at their offices , wishing to conduct a seance . Thinking her a raving lunatic , the Goodies accede to her request . As the witch repeatedly cries out " Is anyone there ? " , they humour her by putting on daft voices . But Graeme becomes possessed by an evil force , and starts a coven which Tim and Bill try to infiltrate by pretending to be sacrificial virgins . . . Made just prior to the phenomenal popularity of ' The Exorcist ' and other Satanic ' 70's shockers , this episode is more of a parody of Hammer horror , in particular ' The Devil Rides Out ' . Then , as now , the British tabloids were obsessed with lurid tales of witchcraft in the suburbs , mainly because it provided an excuse to run photos of bare bums ! The late , much-missed Patricia Hayes enjoys herself hugely as the cackling witch . ' Stuff That Gibbon ' is actually a catchier song than the Goodies ' later hit ' The Funky Gibbon ' . Funniest moment - Graeme conjuring up the Devil . It turns out to be none other than David Frost ! |
401,353 | 7,743,887 | 591,039 | 7 | Army Games | The Goodies fancy a nice holiday in Penrudden Cove , Cornwall . They find it strangely deserted , except for one dotty old vicar . The British army has evacuated the area , planning on using it as a testing site for a new missile . The Goodies aren't having that , so they break into the barracks and alter the blueprints so that a new children's playground gets built instead . . . One can easily see why ' The Goodies ' was immensely popular with the young . ' Love The Police ' made fools of the boys in blue , here the military gets it in the neck . George Benson who plays the vicar ( not Richard Caldicot , as listed above ) was in the delightful British comedy short ' A Home Of Your Own ' , while Timothy Carlton was the unctuous chat-show host ' Colin Pillock ' in the second series of ' The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin ' . Interestingly , no attempt is made to justify the military's actions on patriotic grounds . Its assumed ( probably rightly ) that the audience is broadly sympathetic to the Goodies ' environmentalist aims . Whatever , its nice to see them working for themselves for once . Shame about the woman taking her clothes off to distract the missile experts though . Funniest moment - soldiers beating a hasty retreat as the Goodies pelt them with eggs ! |
400,865 | 7,743,887 | 591,031 | 7 | The Goodies Go For Gold ! | The Minister of Sport asks The Goodies to represent Britain in the Commonwealth Games . As all the other Commonwealth countries have gained independence , the only competitor is August Bank Holiday Island , where the games will take place . The Goodies undergo various fitness procedures ( including a sex test courtesy of The Minister's sexy secretary Miss Foster ) , before travelling to the island . But they have an unpleasant surprise in store - the stadium is located at the top of an incredibly high mountain , where the oxygen is very thin . As the Goodies endeavour to pole vault , do the high jump , run etc . , they are fighting to survive in a hostile environment . . . Along with Season 1's ' Caught In The Act ' , this is the only other ' Goodies ' episode known to only exist in monochrome . The first of a batch of episodes to feature the Goodies taking part in major sporting events . Others include ' Winter Olympics ' and ' A Kick In The Arts ' . There's some good visual gags both in the training and games sequences , such as the spectacle of our heroes running in slow motion . It looks as though it may be an ' Action Replay ' but no , they really are running at that speed . Bill leaps over a hurdle , lands in water , and is attacked by a crocodile . Prior to the high jump , Graeme asks for the pole to be lowered until it nearly touches the ground , and still he doesn't make it . One or two racist gags here , I'm afraid . When the Goodies arrive on the island , their accommodation turns out to be a dirty old hut inscribed with the following graffiti : " Whitey Go Home " and " White Bas . . . . . " . The late Reginald Marsh , who plays ' The Minister Of Sport ' , is familiar to comedy fans for his roles as ' Sir ' in ' The Good Life ' and ' Sir Dennis Hodge ' in ' Terry & June ' . Funniest moment - The Minister meeting the Goodies at his office , located inside Big Ben . Stuffing cotton wool into his ears , he is the only one protected from the deafening sound when the bell chimes on the hour ! |
400,758 | 7,743,887 | 61,591 | 7 | Lewis In London | In the mid-'60's , Walter Shenson scored at the box office with the Richard Lester directed Beatles films ' A Hard Day's Night ' and ' Help ! ' and was keen to do other films in a similar madcap vein . One was the underrated ' 30 Is A Dangerous Age Cynthia ' starring Dudley Moore . Another was this - ' Don't Raise The Bridge , Lower The River ' . Jerry Lewis plays ' George Lester ' , a smooth American con man based in London . He is married to lovely ' Pamela ' ( Jacqueline Pearce , the future ' Servalan ' of the B . B . C . ' s ' Blake's Seven ' ) , but she grows tired of his constantly travelling around the world trying to make a fast buck , and wants a divorce . The final straw comes when he turns her family home into a discotheque and ( it is implied ) knocking shop . To raise the money needed to restore the house , he embarks on his biggest caper yet - making illicit copies of the blueprints for a new kind of electronic drill , which he hopes to sell to the Arabs . He smuggles half of the plans out of the country in the dental work of an airline steward called Fred Davies ( Bernard Cribbins ) . To help him out , he enlists the aid of fellow crook - H . William Horner ( Terry-Thomas ) . . . Unlike the majority of Jerry's Sixties films , this was not written by him ( it was by Max Wilk , adapting his own novel ) and directed instead by Jerry Paris , whose other credits include the ' Happy Days ' television series and a couple of the ' Police Academy ' sequels . The fact that Jerry was at large in Swinging London was the film's main selling point . Unfortunately , the ludicrous story leaves little room for the kind of satire the film badly needs . Perhaps it would have been funnier if Lester had been manager of a rock band or something . Lewis himself seems more restrained than usual . Some might think that a good thing , but the ' Jerry ' of ' The Disorderly Orderly ' and ' The Family Jewels ' would , had he been injected into the proceedings , have gone some way to making the film fun . As it stands , it is mainly down to the supporting cast ( Bernard Cribbins , Michael Bates , John Bluthal , Nicholas Parsons , Patricia Routledge - very good as the head of a girl guide troupe - and , of course , Terry-Thomas ) , to try and salvage something out of the almost joke-free script . Cribbins having an attack of toothache while serving drinks on a plane is very funny indeed . Sally Gesson of ' Bless This House ' can be glimpsed as one of the girl guides . Pearce is rather wasted as Lester's wife . Apparently she did not get on with Lewis during the film's making , and it shows . Jerry Paris ' direction breezes the inane story along to a not very amusing conclusion . Two other reasons to see the film - Margaret Nolan and Sandra Caron ( sister of Alma Cogan ) , both of whom play dental nurses . They can extract my molars any time ! |
401,633 | 7,743,887 | 591,012 | 7 | Oh Cod ! | Iceland extends its fishing limits by a further 2 , 000 miles , which alas encompasses most of the British Isles . Tim learns this the hard way when , sitting by a riverbank one day , he is shot at by a boat load of eskimos . With most of the U . K . ' s fish reserves now officially belonging to another country , Graeme tries to end the shortage by breeding a super-cod , which he calls Brian . But he becomes emotionally attached to the fish , and can't bring himself to kill it . Tim and Bill don't feel the same way , and a battle of wills ensues . . . With ' Jaws ' having become the highest grossing film of all time the year before , it was inevitable that ' The Goodies ' would sooner or later take a pop at it . John Williams ' theme is heard as the cod takes to the Serpentine . One wishes they had parodied ' Jaws ' more closely ; its still a popular film . Too much time is spent spoofing the ' Cod War ' which , alas , results in this episode looking more dated than it should . Funniest moment - Bill attempting to frighten the fish by putting on a Nicholas Parsons mask ! |
401,025 | 7,743,887 | 75,503 | 7 | Trapped In The Triangle | ' The Fantastic Journey ' , along with ' Planet Of The Apes ' , ' Logan's Run ' , ' The Invisible Man ' and ' Gemini Man ' flopped in the U . S . A . , but here in the United Kingdom proved enormously popular . They were slickly produced , boasting better special effects ( and lots of flashing lights ! ) than our British shows could manage . ' Journey ' had a most captivating premise . Trapped on a mysterious island at the heart of the famed ' Bermuda Triangle ' , a group of travellers venture from one dangerous time zone to the next , searching for a way home . Jared Martin's ' Varian ' was from the future , and carried a tuning fork weapon not unlike Dr . Who's ' sonic screwdriver ' . Katie Saylor made the biggest impact on me ( well , I was 15 at the time ) as Liana . She had a telepathic cat called Sil-L . Roddy McDowall's ' Willaway ' fulfilled a similar function to Jonathan Harris in ' Lost In Space ' . Hardly Hugo-award winning stuff perhaps , but ' Journey ' was lively and entertaining and deserved a much longer run . |
401,215 | 7,743,887 | 675,790 | 7 | What A Brilliant Man ! | Its the first day of a new term at Fenn St . School and 5C return to find a painter and decorator - Mr . Turner - at work in their classroom . Mr . Hedges tries a novel way of teaching his unruly class maths - using betting shop terminology as a model . His class displays a natural aptitude for the subject , particularly Duffy . " They're not fractions ! " , he tells the teacher , " They're odds ! " . Hedges is appalled to learn the class has placed two shillings on a horse race , and goes along to the bookies to cancel the bet . But the horse romped home - leaving 5C considerably richer . Miss Ewell spots Hedges entering the betting shop , and jumps to the wrong conclusion . The opening episode of Season 2 was also the first to be made in colour . Its not particularly outstanding , but Geoffrey Hughes - forever immortalised in the television hall of fame as Scouser ' Eddie Yeats ' in ' Coronation Street ' , as well as ' Onslow ' in ' Keeping Up Appearances ' - manages a few laughs at a decorator in awe of Mr . Hedges ' teaching abilities . Funniest moment - a furious Miss Ewell confronting Mr . Hedges in the betting shop . " My senior mistress ! " , he tells the bemused bookie . |
401,599 | 7,743,887 | 675,780 | 7 | 5C Gets Multicultural ! | A new boy joins Hedges ' class - Panalal Datta - who is only there temporarily until he returns to India . Hedges is unhappy because he feels his class is full enough already . Word gets out about the new arrival . At the next meeting of the Teachers & Parents Association , the only parents who turn up are Panalal's . 5C like Panalal , and are fascinated by his wealth of knowledge on Indian culture . The next meeting of the T . P . A . is packed to the rafters , now that Panalal has gone home , and much to Potter's disgust as he has not provided enough refreshment . . . Interesting if underdeveloped culture clash episode . Note the amused reaction of the studio audience when Panalal first appears . Thankfully we are spared one of those head waggling ' goodness , gracious me ' stereotypes so beloved of sitcom writers . Its the adults rather than the children who show most disdain for Panalal's presence , which if nothing else , leaves the viewer with a glimmer of hope for the future . One wishes this had been a two-parter , all the same . Funniest moment - Mrs . Abbott recounting her medical problems to Hedges in a café , and putting him off his meal ! |
400,981 | 7,743,887 | 675,793 | 7 | Caught On Camera ! | Fenn Street Secondary Modern are planning an ' Open Day ' , but 5C's contribution will consist of ' coats and teas ' . Hedges is having none of it , and suggests the class make a movie entitled ' Our School ' . The class are thrilled , particularly Sharon , who sees it as her chance to break into movies . But the resulting film is a disaster , consisting of monotonous shots of the school , and unconvincing footage of both teachers and pupils attempting to look natural . Then Hedges hits upon an idea - to turn the film into a critique of the education system . This does not make him popular with Mr . Cromwell and Miss Ewell . . . A standard sitcom plot line for years was ' the home-made movie ' . ' Man About The House ' used it in ' The Last Picture Show ' , ' Only Fools & Horses ' in ' Video Nasty ' , and ' The Goodies ' did ' Movies ' . Here ' Please Sir ! ' does its version of the idea , but the execution is not as good as it might have been . Miss Ewell steals the film , end of story . So why does Hedges not make another ? He gives in all too easily . The beautiful Suzan Farmer crops up briefly as journalist ' Judith Howard ' . Funniest moment - the film itself , which looks like it was made by Benny Hill on an off-day . At one point , Mr . Cromwell is seen nervously edging off screen , then reappears from a different direction ! |
400,832 | 7,743,887 | 75,569 | 7 | Mary Whitehouse Was Not A Fan | Remembered as a bland ' 70's I . T . V . sitcom , ' Robin's Nest ' outraged Mrs . Mary Whitehouse when it first appeared ! Unlike the set-up of ' Man About The House ' , Robin was clearly sleeping with the girl - airline stewardess Vicky - he lived with . It was only as the series progressed - Robin married Vicky , and fathered twins - that it degenerated into cosy tweeness . The first two series were by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke , and when they were in charge , all was well . Alas , different writers took over for the remainder of the run ( amongst them Richard O'Sullivan's ' Doctor At Large ' co-star George Layton ) , and poor Robin found himself relegated to the role of straight man , as one-armed Irish dish washer Albert Riddle and pompous James Nicholls became the main source of the show's humour . The biggest slap in the face to ' M . A . T . H . ' fans was when Robin failed to invite Jo , Larry , and the Ropers to his wedding . Given that they'd been so close before , this was strange indeed . |
400,751 | 7,743,887 | 555,204 | 7 | Terror In The Post Office ! | Les wishes to buy a 25 pence postal order to go with his pools coupon . An easy enough task you might think . But at the Post Office he encounters problem after problem - firstly , he is mistaken for a robber , the cashiers run out of postal orders , he keeps losing his place in the queue , a gay man ( yes , its Roy again ! ) gets fresh with him , and finally , when he gets what he wants , posts the coupon to the wrong pools company . Easily the weakest of the ' Dawsons Weekly ' series , the one-joke script wastes the talents of not only Les and Roy but but also Avril Angers and Patsy Rowlands . I recall Dave Allen once doing a monologue on his early ' 90's I . T . V . series on the subject of Post Offices , and it was a heck of a lot funnier than this . Worth keeping to show to future generations what Post Offices were actually like . Funniest moment - Les , trying to get back into the queue , explains to a disgruntled man that he was behind Roy before , and a cashier yells : " Do you two poofs want serving or not ? " . |
401,301 | 7,743,887 | 641,206 | 7 | McGill's Treasure Hunt | Richard Bradford said that several ' Suitcase ' episodes were originally intended for other shows . ' Find The Lady ' gives the impression of having been planned for either ' The Baron ' or ' The Saint ' . McGill is in Rome when he is visited by Mori ( John Garrie ) , a filthy little man who refers to him as ' Macagill ' . The Rossini jewels have been stolen , and Mori thinks he knows who the thief is - Guilio ( Maxwell Shaw ) , Italy's answer to ' Raffles ' . Mac is then called in by the local police , who want him to recover the missing gems . The Commandante ( Patrick Cargill ) confiscates his passport so that he cannot leave the country until the job is done . At a specially arranged rendezvous in a park , Mori meets Guilio . Mac is hiding , waiting to nab the gems . But things go wrong and a brief gun battle ensues . In the confusion , Mori runs off with the jewels and manages to hide them before Guilio kills him . Before he passes on , he whispers one word : ' Signora ' . . . A fairly uneventful adventure this , boasting lots of talk , mostly between Mac and the lovely Francesca ( Jeanne Roland ) . Clever old Mori hid the jewels in some catacombs , leading to a climactic fight there . Patrick Cargill is suitably sinister as the ' Commandante ' , more so than the jewel thief he is intent on arresting . Maxwell Shaw , who plays ' Guilio ' , was married to casting director , Rose Tobias Shaw . 1967 was a good year for lovely Jeanne Roland - in addition to this , she appeared in not one but two Bond movies : ' You Only Live Twice ' as Bond's masseuse , and as ' Captain of the Guards ' in the spoof version of ' Casino Royale ' . Carlos Douglas , the waiter in ' Duty Free ' , plays a hotel receptionist . The hotel lobby looks like the one used in ' Sweet Sue ' ( it probably was ) . |
401,070 | 7,743,887 | 563,074 | 7 | Save Our Pool ! | The St . Swithins ' indoor swimming pool is scheduled to be demolished shortly , so that a new ward can be built , to be named after Loftus . A pretty young doctor named Diana organises a protest , and ropes in Dick and Duncan , the latter being sweet on her . Bingham , of course , sides with Loftus . After promising to keep the pool open , Loftus arranges for it to be demolished early the next day . Realising they have been tricked , Duncan and the others lay in front of the pool , blocking the path of the bulldozer . Bingham seizes the controls and , laughing maniacally , prepares to do battle . . . David Askey stepped out from behind the camera to pen this episode , an enjoyable enough romp which provided an early television role for Jan Francis , later to star in ' Secret Army ' and ' Just Good Friends ' . Arthur English is seen briefly as a hospital porter . Funniest moment - Loftus accidentally demolishing his own car ! |
400,773 | 7,743,887 | 563,081 | 7 | Sir , Waring is a tea-bag ! | A spate of petty pilfering at St . Swithins leads Duncan to suspect Paul and Dick , who in turn suspect him . Bingham , meanwhile , suspects them all . The atmosphere in the hospital suddenly turns paranoid . Bingham's attempt at playing detective lead him down a laundry chute . He cries wolf so many times that , when he finally uncovers the real thief , no-one listens to him ! Okay episode , nothing special , interesting mainly for the sight of the St . Swithins gang regarding one another with suspicion . No guest cast . We find out Bingham's political affiliation - he is a Tory . Well , what a surprise ! Funniest moment - Bingham's ' Perry Mason ' act ! |
401,667 | 7,743,887 | 563,106 | 7 | Is everybody anarchy ? | Upton is summoned to the Dean's office . A photo in a newspaper shows him participating in a students ' protest . It looks as though Upton faces expulsion from St . Swithins until Loftus points out that the picture was , in fact , taken in New York . Upton was at the Dean's tea party the day before , a fact the old duffer had forgotten . The hospital is invaded by hippies protesting about declining education standards . Duncan and the gang take the rise out of them mercilessly . Loftus tries to quell the protest but is himself arrested . . . Topical episode from Garden & Oddie . Student protests were worldwide at the time , thanks to the Vietnam war . It is unfortunate though that the protesters here include a smattering of ethnic groups , making Duncan and co . ' s mocking of them seem slightly racist . No Briddock , Evans and Collier either . Funniest moment - despite their mockery of the earlier protest , Upton and the others stage one of their own to complain about Loftus ' arrest ! |
400,943 | 7,743,887 | 563,114 | 7 | I wish they all could be . . . | Kirby Allen is young , American and beautiful . Loftus wants her wealthy father to buy a expensive piece of medical equipment for St . Swithins . Which means that for the next 24 hours , she must remain ' sober and unmolested ' . Fat chance . As soon as they clap eyes on her , Duncan , Dick and Andy start drooling . A race ensues to see who can bed her first . But then an unexpected element enters the equation - Kirby starts to fancy Gascoigne . . . Basically a remake of ' Men Without Women ' from ' Doctor In Charge ' , this Wolfson / Thorn episode is typically ' 70's in its approach to women . A pretty girl walks into a room , smiles and all the men can think of is sex . Having said that , if remade now , with the genders of the main characters reversed , it probably would be acclaimed as a proto-feminist tract . What a strange world we live in ! The piece of equipment Loftus wants ( I'm not sure of the spelling but ' scintillascope ' is the nearest I can get ) is the same he wanted in ' Loftus The Terrible ' . Presumably Lady Loftus reneged on her promise to buy the thing . Either that , or this story is a prequel . Funniest moment - at Gascoigne's door , Dick and Andy hear heavy breathing and heartbeats . Its only a recording , but they wrongly assume the normally shy James has scored ! |
400,697 | 7,743,887 | 675,764 | 7 | Off To The Caribbean ! | Ffitchett-Brown wants to dust the cobwebs out of Fenn Street School , so requisitions a tape recorder and television set for his class , but Cromwell seems more interested in the yo-yo craze currently sweeping the country . Noticing some lads absent from school , David tracks them to the Caribbean Billiard Hall . The boys have fallen in with a bad crowd , made up of absentees from Weaver Street School . They care little for their job prospects , and seem to think they can make a living at the green baize table . . . Not far from my local Secondary Modern was a seedy café which served as a refuge for pupils who'd opted-out of school . All day long boys would drink Coke , chat , play slot machines and cards . We called them ' mitchers ' . This Geoff Rowley and Andy Baker penned episode provides the new teacher with his first baptism of fire . Putting Mr . Dix in his place was nothing compared with overcoming teenage apathy . Robin Askwith appears as hustler ' Eddie ' , a character he previously played in ' The Fenn Street Gang ' episode ' Meet The Wizard ' . Charles Bolton is his dimwitted sidekick ' Godber ' from Weaver Street School . We will see more of him later . Future ' Eastenders ' star Shirley Cheriton has the small role of ' Pat ' . Funniest moment - Potter trying to play billiards ! |
400,912 | 7,743,887 | 563,037 | 7 | Accused ! | Duncan and Stuart-Clark are warned by Captain Loftus not to make amorous advances towards the lady passengers . As if they would ! On their next port of call - Spain - they make for the beach in search of senoritas . While Dick goes to fetch ice-cream , Duncan relaxes . Spotting a girl in trouble in the water , he rushes in to save her . His attempts at mouth-to-mouth recussitation are misinterpreted by the locals , who think he is trying to molest her . Duncan suddenly finds that he is to marry the girl , whether he wants to or not . When he protests , he is formally charged with rape . . . This is the episode that got the show in ( if you'll pardon the expression ) hot water on its first transmission . I . T . V . received complaints from people protesting that ' rape ' was not a suitable subject for comedy . ' The Sun ' hypocritically ran a story that week entitled : ' Has ' Doctor At Sea ' sprung a leak ? ' . The complainants were right , of course ; rape should never be taken lightly . But the argument needed to be put into context ; Duncan had not committed rape , he was being falsely charged with the offence . When Stuart-Clark rushes to tell Loftus , the old sea-dog automatically accepts that Duncan is innocent . In this and other episodes , Duncan has been shown to be such a Casanova he would never need to commit such a dreadful offence . The row was a contributory factor in Humphrey Barclay's decision not to make another series of ' At Sea ' . When Neville Hope ( Kevin Whately ) was accused of rape in an early ' Auf Wiedershen , Pet ' episode , there was no repeat of the hoo-ha because a ) times had changed and b ) ' Pet ' was a comedy drama , not a sitcom . On the plus side , this episode offers nice location filming , and the sight of our smartly dressed heroes strolling along a busy Spanish street ( nice work if you can get it ) , eyeing up the local talent , is enough to gladden the heart of any ' Doctor ' fan . The barman is played by Ricardo Montez , ' Juan ' from ' Mind Your Language ' . He does not get to say ' por favor ! ' here , but you expect him to . Funniest moment - Duncan in jail . His attempts to communicate with the guard all meet with the same response ; " No comprendo ! " . Duncan loses patience , and insults the man . The guard understands this , however , and whacks the doctor across the back of the head . |
401,542 | 7,743,887 | 61,810 | 7 | Today The Hairdryer - Tomorrow The World ! | Interviewed by ' The T . V . Times ' in 1981 , James Coburn claimed that Fox were so keen to get ' In Like Flint ' into cinemas they didn't care if the script was workable or not . It wasn't unfortunately ; reversing the premise of the original , the ' baddies ' here are women attempting to impose a new world order whereby all men are slaves . Which makes it all the more strange why they then rely on General Carter of Z . O . W . I . E . and Presidential lookalike Sebastian Trent . The film gets off to a cracking start with the launching of the space platform and the President's kidnapping , but goes awry when Flint goes to Russia , and never recovers . Too may plot holes abound to make this as enjoyable as it could have been . Why haven't ' Fabulous Face ' prepared for the possibility of General Carter turning against them ? How is he able to take over their operation without so much as a shot being fired ? Why does Carter go into space with the bombs when he knows Flint is in the rocket too ? The action sequences are not on a par with those in the first film , in particular the finale in outer space is shockingly unspectacular . Poor effects work from the normally reliable L . B . Abbott . What little excitement there is comes mainly from Jerry Goldsmith's wonderful music . Coburn also claimed Gordon Douglas was ill for most of the shoot , hence much of the film was directed by the cinematographer . A rewriting of the script was badly needed to eliminate tedious scenes such as Flint's seduction of Natasha . The Russian Premier's phone call to The President ( named as ' Melvin Muffly ' in the novelisation ) looks suspiciously like an attempt to parody ' Dr . Strangelove ' . A big disappointment , and a sad finale to what promised initially to be a thrilling franchise . |
401,590 | 7,743,887 | 563,019 | 7 | Men's Sana In . . . Oh , Whatever It Is | Upton and Dick are at Stokely Manor Health Farm , run by the eccentric Stanley Moon . The patients are driven to near-insanity by the strict regimen he enforces . Endless cups of lemon-flavoured water and grapefruit are the order of the day . Dick bets Upton a fiver he cannot go without food for twenty-four hours . Unable to win the money , Upton leads a mass exodus of patients to a nearby country pub . . . John Cleese's last ' Doctor ' script is his weakest , though it has its moments . ' Stanley Moon ' was the name of Dudley Moore's character in ' Bedazzled ' ( 1967 ) . John Le Mesurier plays him as a combination of ' Sergeant Wilson ' and ' Private Godfrey ' from ' Dad's Army ' . Geoffrey Lumsden , who played ' Captain Square ' in that series , appears here as ' Colonel Oliphant ' . Jacqueline Clarke was familiar to viewers through ' Dave Allen At Large ' . Wanda Ventham's ' Maggie ' is a television actress , famous for her role in the sitcom ' The Abattoir Lads ' . A sly dig at ' The Likely Lads ' , perhaps ? Funniest moment - two of Moon's patients squabbling like children over a grapefruit ! |
400,947 | 7,743,887 | 563,011 | 7 | Upton In Love - Again ! | Upton is smitten by Dr . Nicky Barrington , and the feeling is reciprocated . He plans a holiday-for-two in Devon , but then Collier brings some exciting news - Bingham has been sacked from the Dean's firm ( a post he landed in ' Now Dr . Upton . . . ' ) , meaning there is now a vacancy for a surgeon . Despite having blotted his copy book by parking the Dean's Mini on the sunroof ( see ' Students At Heart ' ) , the old man is keen for Upton to have the job . Mike is torn between taking up the post ( which means taking him away from Nicky ) or staying . Further complications arise when it transpires that Nicky has applied for the job herself . . . Concluding the storyline begun in ' With A Little Help From My Friends ' , this Rowley & Baker episode sets the scene for the remainder of the series , with everyone back at St . Swithins . Of course there was never any real chance of Upton and Nicky becoming an item , so the thing practically wrote itself . Collier seems to have forgiven Mike for sacking him , although he later exacts a form of revenge by setting in motion the chain of events that wrecks Mike's romance with Nicky . Finally , Nicky withdraws her application , allowing Mike to get the job unopposed . Funniest moment - Mike and Nicky arguing in full view of the patients , including a bemused Mrs . Mollett ( Mollie Sugden ) . |
400,896 | 7,743,887 | 563,066 | 7 | Typhoid ! | Dick and Paul are suffering from dreadful hangovers , so Duncan makes their lives hell by deliberately dropping bedpans and the like . With Bingham off sick , Duncan agrees to take his students round the ward . Among them is the cack-handed Reggie Grace ( Tony Robinson ) , last seen in the previous year's ' Amazing Grace ' . The bespectacled blunderer is behaving unusually oddly ( even by his standards ) ; whenever Duncan mentions a symptom Grace suddenly exhibits it . Soon he is staggering round the ward , knocking over students , fighting the urge to vomit , urinate etc . When Grace's symptoms are fed into a computer , it diagnoses his condition as typhoid . Duncan immediately orders that the hospital be sealed , and a mass sterilisation programme gets underway . . . One of the weaker episodes of this season , bearing a striking plot similarity to the previous year's ( much better ) ' The Long , Long Night ' . Phil Redmond's script is only made funny by the performances of the cast , rather than any major effort on his part . Grace's exhibition of typhoid symptoms would have been inspired had not Jerry Lewis not done something similar in 1964's ' The Disorderly Orderly ' . Still , its nice to have Robinson back , and a pity he made no further appearances after this . Future ' Are You Being Served ? ' cast member Nicholas ( ' Mr . Rumbold ' ) Smith appears as panicking patient ' Mr . Neave ' . Funniest moment - a news reporter ( Tim Brinton ) interviews Dick on camera . " Emergency supplies are being delivered ! " , he tells worried ' News At Ten ' viewers . We then see Dick taking stock of two crates of whisky ! |
400,725 | 7,743,887 | 635,130 | 8 | Nasty Nick Gets My Goat ! | A runner named Hal 14 is pursued through the City Of Domes and shot dead by a Sandman . At a laboratory , the Sandman's entire physical appearance is surgically altered to resemble the dead runner , who was a friend of Jessica's . Logan , Jessica and Rem encounter ' Hal 14 ' , who claims that there a revolution brewing back at the City Of Domes , and urges them to return . Before they can do so , the Solarcraft is suddenly imprisoned in a force-field by ' The Provider ' - the leader of a community whose inhabitants use electronic means to achieve happiness . . . The late John Meredyth Lucas is probably best remembered by cult T . V . fans for his work on ' Star Trek ' . His one and only contribution to the world of ' Logan's Run ' is a somewhat disjointed affair ; the ' Hal 14 ' and ' Provider ' story lines are not particularly well integrated . Nicholas Hammond , who plays ' Hal 14 ' , was one of Heather Menzies ' co-stars in ' The Sound Of Music ' , and went on to play ' Peter Parker ' in ' The Amazing Spider-Man ' television series . Most interesting moment - Rem saving his friends ' lives by killing ' The Provider ' , in so doing he breaks a condition of his programming - never to take the lives of humans . |
401,109 | 7,743,887 | 635,123 | 8 | Carousel Is Death ! | The television version of ' Logan's Run ' begins in much the same fashion as the 1976 movie of the same name ; we open with an aerial shot of a fantastic city of domes , decades after nuclear wars have ravaged our planet . The year is 2319 . It is a perfect world of pleasure - but only if you're under 30 . Then , on ' Lastday ' , citizens must subject themselves to the ghoulish ritual of ' Carousel ' , believing it to be renewal . Logan and Francis are Sandmen - security officers whose task it is to hunt and kill ' runners ' - people who have realised ' Carousel ' is in fact population control . Logan is under surveillance as he has been overheard questioning authority . We are therefore unsurprised when he throws in his lot with runner Jessica . After a chase through the city , Logan and Jessica venture outside , finding the air to be clean and the water and soil uncontaminated , the exact opposite of what they'd believed to be true . Now the plot ventures in a different direction from the movie ; Francis goes before the Council Of Elders , a group of wizened men who hold the real power in the city . He is offered a place on the Council if he brings Logan back for reprogramming . Finding a solar-powered craft , Logan and Jessica begin searching for ' Sanctuary ' - a mythical refuge for runners - only to find a community living in a fallout shelter , which is constantly under threat from ' riders ' - warriors on horseback , kidnapping people to use as slave labour . Logan and Jessica may be free of the city , but haven't escaped from danger yet . . . I prefer the ' Logan's Run ' television series to the movie . Gregory Harrison and Heather Menzies make an attractive couple as ' Logan ' and ' Jessica ' respectively , and British actor Donald Moffat adds a welcome touch of humour as the lovable cyborg ' Rem ' . Hiring the co-author of the original novel as one of the pilot's writers was a smart move . Quite a bit of recycled movie footage , most notably the ' Carousel ' sequence , but not as much as there would have been if this were an Irwin Allen series . The pilot barely sketches in the characters before they start running . Logan seems to have quite a lot of ammo about his person ; perhaps he knew in advance he was going to run ? How come Francis is always one step behind Logan and Jessica even though he's on foot and they're not ? How come Jessica's hair always looks great ? Don't question - just enjoy . A decent series opener . |
401,597 | 7,743,887 | 635,118 | 8 | The Hunting Of The Sandmen | Francis finally catches up with Logan , Jessica , and Rem . Leaving Rem in the company of fellow Sandman Benjamin , Francis takes the Runners back to the City Of Domes for reprogramming . En route , Jessica is abducted by James Borden , a big game hunter who lives in a gadget-packed house protected by a force field . Borden has grown tired of hunting Runners and is after bigger game - Sandmen . Equipped with a laser rifle , he stalks Logan and Francis through the forest , while his wife Irene goes after Jessica . . . Richard Connell's ' The Most Dangerous Game ' provided the inspiration for several T . V . sci-fi plots , such as ' The Incredible Hulk ' episode ' The Snare ' , here it is pressed into service for ' Logan's Run ' and makes a welcome respite from the normal pattern of the series . Horst Bucholz , who plays ' Borden ' , was the youngest member of the original - and best - ' Magnificent Seven ' , while Mary Woronov is mouth-wateringly sexy ( especially in a tiger skin dress ) as Irene . Logan and Francis work as a team for once . Episode could have been better directed , though ; the hunt consists of little else but people running through sunny forests . A few more death traps ( like the pit and the phantom cage ) would have been nice . Francis saves the day by shooting Borden . Logan lost his Gun near the pit , though Rem retrieves it later on . Sandmen are useless without their Guns , aren't they ? |
400,938 | 7,743,887 | 68,285 | 8 | Get The Abbott Habit ! | With Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas in charge , the film version of ' Bless This House ' was bound to wind up looking like a ' Carry On ' . No bad thing , it has to be said . The first and most sensible thing they did was replace Robin Stewart with Robin Askwith as Sid's son Mike . Stewart was boring , Askwith is cheekier and funnier . Secondly , they brought in Peter Butterworth to play Sid's friend and next-door neighbour Trevor . While I liked Anthony Jackson's ' Trevor ' , Butterworth and Sid are a far more natural comedy team . Thirdly , they had Terry Scott and June Whitfield as the Abbott's new neighbours , the Baines . Scott's character is not the lovable ' Terry ' of ' Happy Ever After / Terry & June ' , in fact he's a pompous snob . These changes benefited the movie , though I wish the Geoff Love theme tune had been retained . Favourite bit ? Sid mowing the lawn with a tattered Panama hat on his head . ' Bless This House ' offers no startling insights into the human condition , but its a nice way to chill out on a Sunday afternoon . |
400,849 | 7,743,887 | 640,777 | 8 | Beware : Caesar ! | At the London planetarium , Sloane has a rendezvous with a fellow U . N . I . T . agent - only to find him dead , two marks on his neck . Pursuing an attractive young woman , he is set upon by her minders , knocked out cold , and nearly electrocuted , until rescued by Torque . The dead agent had uncovered a plan to fire missiles at Caesar's Comet , thus altering its trajectory ( it passes Earth every 100 years ) and placing it on a collision course with North America . The villain of the piece is an old adversary - Jefferson Crane . But Crane died years ago . . . Stephen Kandel wrote the ' Harry Mudd ' episodes of ' Star Trek ' , as well as various ' Mission : Impossible ' capers . Though set in England , no location filming was done . Nice moment when Sloane is nearly murdered by a fake tailor . And one very surreal one when polo players attack Sloane's van with sticks . |
400,891 | 7,743,887 | 640,782 | 8 | The Big Sayonara ! | Carlos Casal , the premier of San Marcos , South America , is in the United States on an official visit . He has been receiving unknown threats urging him to stand down , so he calls on U . N . I . T . for protection . They send along their top man - Thomas Sloane . A group of men break into Casal's residence , overpower Sloane , and make off with the Premier's daughter Marja . Sloane identifies the leader as an old enemy of his called Tanaka . Highly skilled in the martial arts , Tanaka escaped from a Jakarta prison and founded a mystic cult , though he does odd jobs ( murder and kidnapping ) for KARTEL . Casal is told that in order to save his daughter's life he must resign on live television . San Marcos will then be run by a new KARTEL-friendly Premier . The one lead Sloane has is Carrie Baldwin , an ex-disciple who left the cult on realising that the ' Samurai ' was just another charlatan . He visits her at the Kabuki Theatre , Tokyo , where she works , and here is attacked by one of the players , Sato . Sloane tricks Sato into thinking he has killed him and follows at a discreet distance . Sato leads the agent back to Tanaka , though the wily Samurai has expected this and prepared a neat little trap in the form of an exploding ivory puzzle box . . . The second contribution to the series by Dick Nelson , his first being ' Tuned For Destruction ' , this is unique in that its the only episode to feature something resembling a believable plot . It also looks noticeably cheaper . Had the series lasted longer its my guess we would have seen a few more in similar vein . The late Japanese actor Mako is very good as ' Tanaka ' , providing a serious physical threat to the agent as well as getting rough with KARTEL boss Mr . Prentice ( Earl Boen ) . Nancy Conrad ( daughter of star Robert ) plays ' Carrie Baldwin ' . Fortunately , there's no lovey-dovey stuff between the characters or else the connotations could have been most unfortunate . She also acted alongside her old man in one of his previous shows : ' Black Sheep Squadron ' . Sloane's gadgets - a bugging device hidden in a badge . Torque's van comes equipped with a nifty little periscope . There's an amusing scene where Torque is caught breaking into Tanaka's place . He gives the guards a quick demonstration of his cybernetic hand , and then gasses them where they stand ! The episode climaxes with a sword fight between Sloane and Tanaka . My only beef is that the latter is defeated a bit too easily . A longer fight would have done the story a power of good . At least Conrad manages to look a lot more proficient in karate than Roger Moore did in ' The Man With The Golden Gun ' . |
401,614 | 7,743,887 | 640,783 | 8 | Bannister's Angels | Sloane and Torque are in France , watching technicians testing a new laser gun . Suddenly , they are attacked by a group of ' schoolgirls ' , who make off with the weapon . Sloane tries to stop them , but is overpowered and thrown out of a speeding truck . Luckily he has managed to steal a ruby without which the gun is useless . Only two more like it exist in the world . Posing as an African king , Torque auctions the diamond to the highest bidder , hoping it will lure whoever has the gun into the open . The party most interested is Bannister , leader of an all-girl terrorist squad known as ' Sweethearts ' . But someone else is too - Anna , Sloane's Russian counterpart . . . This story is a virtual remake of ' Death Ray 2000 ' , which had not been transmitted in the U . S . A . at that point . The idea of Sloane of teaming up with a beautiful Russian spy was a nod to ' The Spy Who Loved Me ' , released two years earlier . Why does Sloane discuss the mission with The Director , with Anna only a few feet away ? Sloane's latest gadget is a comb that fires an incapacitating ray . Obviously of no use whatever to Xander Cage . . . |
401,531 | 7,743,887 | 75,950 | 8 | When the man at the top panics , the dominoes start to fall ! | In the aftermath of Watergate , a number of conspiracy movies appeared , such as this one , written by the late Adam Kennedy ( based on his novel ) . Gene Hackman plays ex-Vietnam veteran ' Roy Tucker ' , a loser who has wound up in prison . He receives visits from Marvin Tagge ( Richard Widmark ) , who claims to represent an organisation designed to assist the wrongly convicted . They offer him freedom , and despite distrusting Tagge he accepts . But he brings along a fellow cell mate by the name of Spiventa ( Mickey Rooney ) . Exactly why is hard to see , as Spiventa is an irritating little man who drives Tucker mad with persistent talk of sex , not what you want to hear when you are behind bars . Tagge's benefactors kill Spiventa before Tucker's astonished eyes . Reunited with wife Ellie ( Candice Bergen ) , and given a new identity ( strangely , he does not attempt to change his appearance . Shaving off that cheesy moustache would have been a start ) , he settles down , but finds there is a catch - Tagge wants Tucker to do no less than assassinate the President of the United States . He refuses , so Tagge has Ellie abducted . . . I will leave the synopsis here , but I am sure you can guess the rest for yourself . The script has enough plot holes to make you want to read the book ( neat trick that ! ) . The people Tagge represents are never revealed . The allusions to J . F . K . ' s killing are unmistakable . Despite the findings of The Warren Commission , the doubt as to whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone persists to this day . This was Stanley Kramer's first movie in years , and while no turkey , it lacks the grip of say John Frankenheimer's ' The Manchurian Candidate ' or Alan J . Pakula's ' The Parallax View ' . Being a left-wing conspiracy movie , it tends to skirt around its subject matter instead of getting to grips with it . I prefer right-wing ones myself - they are funnier ! ' Domino ' has the look and feel of a made-for-T . V . movie , and boasts what must be the easiest prison escape in movie history not to mention an ending copped from the Michael Caine classic ' Get Carter ' . What makes it watchable are Gene Hackman and Richard Widmark . The latter , who sadly passed away earlier this year , is superb as the mysterious Tagge , who initially appears to be behind the operation until he too is ruthlessly eliminated , beginning a chain of deaths designed to remove all trace of evidence as one by one the perpetrators of this evil plot fall - just like dominoes . As Tucker , the innocent pawn , Hackman is marvellous . You have to wonder though why he chose to hide out in such an obvious place . In his shoes , I'd have fled to the other side of the world , anywhere to get away from these fanatics . Hackman's love scenes with Bergen slow the plot down , and it is almost a relief when she gets snatched . Presumably the producers thought so too , which explains why it opens with a bizarre prologue setting out the film's entire premise - voiced by British actor Patrick Allen - warning the audience that ' they ' are out there , and that ' they ' are out to get us . Comedian Les Dawson later spoofed this opening in his B . B . C . show ' The Dawson Watch ' . Mickey Rooney had earlier worked with Kramer on ' Its A Mad , Mad , Mad , Mad , Mad World ' . His ' death ' scene here resembles like an outtake from that picture , with the actor looking as though he has been stung by a wasp rather than shot dead . Conspiracy movies used to be only made by the left , but now the right are getting in on the act too . Last year , ' Taking Liberties ' , an absurd concoction of lies and half-truths about Tony Blair's Government turned out to be Britain's answer to ' Reefer Madness ' . At least , ' Domino ' had lovely Candice Bergen . The best Chris Atkins ' film could offer was Anne Widdecombe ! Surprisingly , ' The Domino Principle ' was made by Sir Lew Grade , the legendary British television mogul behind ' The Saint ' , ' Jesus Of Nazareth ' and ' The Muppet Show ' . He worked with Adam Kennedy again in 1980 on ' Raise The Titanic ! ' , whose failure was so great it sank Grade's ambitions of being the new Louis B . Meyer . Being somewhat open-minded , I would not rule out the possibility of a conspiracy . |
400,851 | 7,743,887 | 640,781 | 8 | Its his brain we care about , my dear ! | This was the American public's first sighting of Priority One agent for U . N . I . T . - Thomas Remington Sloane The Third . British audiences , however , got the pilot - ' T . R . Sloane Of The Secret Service ' ( later retitled ' Death Ray 2000 ' ) - first when it was shown over the Christmas 1979 period . I can remember tuning in to this a few months later and feeling confused . Where was Robert Logan ? How did Torque survive and why is he now working for U . N . I . T . ? It was by Peter Alan Fields , whose other television credits include ' The Minus X Affair ' episode of ' The Man From U . N . C . L . E . ' and ' The Six Million Dollar Man ' caper ' The Seven Million Dollar Man ' . Posing as a thief named Cooper , Sloane is on a small plane soaring over vast acres of woodland . The pilot is the beautiful Krista ( Christine de Lisle ) . Concealed on his person are stolen K-3 plutonium energised pellets , which he hopes to sell to her employer . Krista thinks he is about to jack up the price , hence Sloane is ejected into the sky . Luckily , he remembered to put on a parachute that morning . Landing in a tree , he is met by Melrose ( Jack Tyree ) , a tall , impossibly handsome man who demands he hand over the pellets . Melrose's employer - the eccentric Manfred Baranoff - discovers they are fakes , and orders his servant to kill Sloane . After a fight , Sloane throws the parachute over his attacker , and pushes him down a steep bank . Baranoff retrieves the ' corpse ' . Melrose is a robot . Several fantasy T . V . shows of the period featured mad scientists out to control the world using androids . Henry Jones pitted his wits against the ' Six Million Dollar Man ' no less than three times , while John Houseman menaced ' The Bionic Woman ' in the ' Kill Oscar ! ' three-parter . Here in the U . K . , ' The Last Of The Cybernauts ? ' wanted rid of John Steed , Mike Gambit and Purdey of ' The New Avengers ' . This ' Sloane ' adventure is really no worse than any of them . Manfred's robots don't kill people by flailing their arms though - they have flame throwers built into their mouths ! Sloane's gadgets - a pipe gun and an ink spray . Roddy McDowall guest-stars as ' Manfred Baranoff ' , and as you would expect from someone who was in Adam West's ' Batman ' does not underplay the role . Its a pity he is underused instead . To add insult to injury , he is killed off well before the end . Baranoff has built a super-robot named ' Alexander ' ( Chris Marlowe ) , intended to be his alter ego . But in true ' Frankenstein ' style , the robot turns out smarter than expected , and kills his creator . Blessed with telepathic abilities ( which make his eyes glow ) , Alexander is able to steal more K-3 pellets and energise further robots . With ten under his command , he orders them to break into a private nuclear research facility , intending to energise an army of 500 . He is too ludicrous to be really menacing ( it does not help that our first sighting of him is under what looks like a ladies ' hairdryer and wearing T-shirt and shorts ) . Despite his being nothing more than a pile of nuts and bolts , Krista is attracted to him . Kinky ! The other leading lady here is Diane Stilwell as sculptor ' Sara Nightingale ' . Her big moment comes when she uses a silver tea tray to help Sloane escape one of Baranoff's impenetrable force-fields . We never know for sure , but presumably Alexander has removed the robot's major weakness - they short-circuit on falling into pools . Of course the agent manages to locate another in time for the final fade-out . A lively start to ' A . M . C . S ' . Hokum , but it hooks you . |
401,690 | 7,743,887 | 640,786 | 8 | I Think We Gave Him The Slip ! | A U . S . space probe to Venus brings back an unwelcome hitch-hiker - a microbe capable of destroying all life on Earth . Dr . Charles Franklyn is part of a team of scientists working on an antidote , only to steal both the microbe and antidote with the help of the lovely Charlene . Sloane and Torque chase after him , and are pursued by an ambulance whose siren doubles as a rocket launcher . Franklyn gets away , handing his booty to evil gambling den owner and KARTEL agent Jonathan Cambro . The ungrateful Cambro tests the antidote on a live subject - Franklyn himself . When the scientist dies , Cambro realises the antidote is incomplete . Apparently Franklyn mislaid a page when transcribing the formula in his mountain cabin . The person who has it is Melissa Nelson , a sexy detective hired by Franklyn's wife to keep tabs on him . Eager-to-please Melissa has no idea of how important she has suddenly become . . . Marc Brandel wrote for the original ' Danger Man ' starring Patrick McGoohan , and the short-lived ' Amos Burke Secret Agent ' . He could have called this ' The Satan Bug ' had the title not been used already . Its another outing for that hoary old spy cliché - killer virus threatens Mankind . Sloane has only twenty-four hours to retrieve the antidote as the scientists who developed it are trapped in their lab . He and Cambro have met before , apparently , the latter was responsible for the death of a woman Sloane loved . Which makes it all the more strange why Sloane doesn't exact a more satisfying revenge than the one eventually achieved - he simply punches the villain in the stomach . The underrated Monte Markham plays ' Cambro ' ; fans of ' The Six Million Dollar Man ' will recall he played bionic ' Barney ' in two memorable episodes : ' The Seven Million Dollar Man ' ( written by Peter Alan Fields , co-author of this episode ) and ' Bionic Criminal ' ) as well as being one of the hired gunslingers in ' Guns Of The Magnificent Seven ' . Why he never achieved stardom is a mystery . Fellow cast member Morgan Fairchild , who played ' Melissa ' , fared rather better , notching up roles in hit 80's soaps ' Dallas ' and ' Flamingo Road ' . Sloane's gadget - a pen torch capable of projecting light that can open locks . Very handy . Best bit - the ambulance chase . Whilst hardly in the same league as ' Bullitt ' , it gets the episode off to a good start . Luckily , our man is prepared for such an eventuality - he sprays the road with oil , causing said ambulance to go spinning off the road . Cue witty quip ( quoted above ) . |
401,326 | 7,743,887 | 68,134 | 8 | Gentle humour from Jimmy | This popular Harry Driver / Vince Powell series starred the late , great Jimmy Jewel as Tommy , an embittered pensioner forced to go and live with his daughter and her garrulous husband in their high-rise flat after his house is demolished by the local council . Feeling a misfit , he goes for a walk in the park , where he meets Charlie , a young Cockney tearaway being raised by his single mum . The old man becomes a father figure to the boy and soon they are to be seen fishing , walking and sharing their wildly differing views on life . If this were made now , there'd almost be a ' Brass Eye'-style public outcry , even though its plainly obvious that there's nothing sexual going on between Tommy and Charlie . One episode addressed this concern directly , and for once the normally boisterous studio audience was silent . ' Spring & Autumn ' was warm , funny , altogether charming , and its a sad reflection on our present-day society when a series such as this cannot be made for fear of people jumping to the wrong conclusions . |
401,514 | 7,743,887 | 957,575 | 8 | David's Lost Weekend | Dennis has got a fortnight's holiday entitlement , and does not know what to do with himself , so Duffy books him into a guest house near the seaside . It isn't the most exciting place in the world to be ; the residents are elderly , and some appear senile . With no-one of his own age to talk to , Dennis quickly becomes bored . Hearing that his father is in hospital , Dennis cuts short the holiday . He finds a very different David Dunstable to the one he is used to - clean , well-mannered , and - most surprising of all - stone-cold sober . Dennis suggests his father return with him to the seaside . But for how long will the new image last ? Once more the late Peter Bayliss turns in a funny performance as ' David Dunstable ' , the man who makes Albert Steptoe seem like Noel Coward . Part of the fun here is the contrast between the drunken old sot he usually is and the reformed character he becomes . There's also a delightful film sequence showing Dennis at the seaside , which effectively conveys his boredom without once becoming boring itself . Funniest moment - David asking Nurse Maureen for a bedpan , and then - because he has the D . T . ' s - using it to swat imaginary insects on his bed ! |
401,211 | 7,743,887 | 957,583 | 8 | For My Next Trick . . . | In a cruel irony , ex-teacher Bernard Hedges is out of work , while his former pupils have landed good jobs . The Labour Exchange offers him the exciting prospect of ' wizarding ' - demonstrating kitchen appliances at a department store whilst dressed as a wizard . But the food mixers and blenders cannot be turned off and , on pulling the plugs , he inadvertently causes a power failure . His next job is as debt collector for the same firm of private investigators which employs Frankie Abbott . In yet another cruel irony , he is sent to the very department store which had dismissed him . . . John Alderton was once quoted as saying he would be happy if a crane were to fall on his ' Please Sir ' / ' Fenn Street Gang ' character ' Bernard Hedges ' . After three seasons , various Christmas specials , a movie and two episodes of the spin-off , he was bored with playing the mild-mannered teacher . To his credit , his boredom is not evident on screen . This was his penultimate appearance in the role . Hedges may have been unemployed , but there was no danger of anything similar happening to Alderton . After ' Fenn Street ' , he was next seen in the second season of L . W . T . ' s hugely successful Edwardian drama ' Upstairs , Downstairs ' in which he played Welsh manservant cum chauffeur ' Thomas Watkins ' . He went on to star in a further five hit television series in the ' 70's alone . Robin Askwith makes a guest appearance as ' Eddie ' , Craven's friend . Unconfirmed reports suggest he may have been a last minute replacement for Peter Cleall's ' Duffy ' . Two years later , Askwith was to be seen running around bare-arsed in the ' Confessions ' series of sex farces . Funniest moment - Hedges finding Penny in a massage parlour ( she works there as a masseuse , but hasn't told her husband ) and jumping to the wrong conclusion ! |
400,605 | 7,743,887 | 607,969 | 8 | Frankie Turns Criminal ! | At an army reunion , Frankie is reunited with his old pal Chalky White . Also in attendance is Sergeant Hardman , their old nemesis . Frankie takes the opportunity to turn the tables by publicly humiliating the ex-sergeant with the aid of a cream cake and a soda syphon . Later , at Chalky's flat , Frankie is given a valuable grandfather clock for safekeeping . The bailiffs are due the next day , and Chalky does not want them to have it . But the clock is stolen property and the flat not his . When he realises this , Frankie has to break in to try and return it before the owner - Sergeant Hardman , by the way - notices it is missing . . . Another funny Stuckey / Robinson script , benefiting hugely from the guest appearances of the wonderful Alfie Bass and Alan Curtis , the latter had been the ' Captain Of The Guards ' on Frankie's B . B . C . show ' Whoops Baghdad ! ' . Linda Thorson looks incredible in a see-through nightie ( obviously topless underneath ) as the sex-mad ' Eve ' , a role far removed from Steed's glamorous sidekick - ' Tara King ' - in ' The Avengers ' . Spot the mistake - Frankie says " Tonight I want to talk about my war experiences . " . But he does not . The episode is set in the present day . Funniest moment - Alfie Bass getting a line wrong . Instead of ' dyspepsia ' , he says ' nervous disposition ' , causing Frankie to splutter ' nervous what ? ' . Bass collapses in a heap of giggles , but to his credit , Alan Curtis stays stone-faced throughout . |
400,859 | 7,743,887 | 957,576 | 8 | Mamma Mia ! | With his mother away , Frankie has the house all to himself . He boasts to the other Gang members that he intends getting ' a couple of birds ' . With Dennis in tow , he chats up a pair of Italian girls ; Liza , who is pretty , and Gina , who isn't ( and also upset because she is pregnant ) . In the nearest bus shelter ( a favourite spot of courting couples ) , they blow their chances with the girls . But news of their amorous intentions reaches ' Papa ' - the Godfather like leader of the girls ' family . Thinking Frankie to be the father of Gina's child , they force him to propose marriage . . . I suppose ' The Godfather ' was uppermost in the minds of Geoff Rowley and Andy Baker when they wrote this , hence the reference to ' sleeping with the fishes ' . Its a good episode , even if the Italians are hand-waving , pot-bellied stereotypes ( and that's just the women ) . David Barry gets to do some physical comedy as he struggles to elude Gina's brothers when they invade his house . Lynda Bellingham plays ' Liza ' . What a lady ! Great actress and beautiful to boot . The ' 70's were a good time for her . After seeing her flashing her boobs in ' Confessions Of A Driving Instructor ' , it was difficult for me to accept her as ' the Oxo lady ' . Her overwrought sister , Gina , is portrayed by Rosalind Eliot , who became a semi-regular in Season 2 , though as a different character - the dimwitted ' Celeste ' . Funniest moment - a policeman and policewoman turf snogging teenagers out of the bus shelter , and as soon as they are alone begin snogging each other ! |
400,606 | 7,743,887 | 607,968 | 8 | Frankie On Trial ! | While reporting a stolen car to the police , Frankie is asked to take part in an identity parade . He is made to wear an old coat , and stand in line with other similarly attired men . An old woman named Mrs . Beauchum claims to have been bothered by a flasher , and picks Frankie as the culprit . Poor Frankie goes to court , and brings on character witnesses who turn out to be totally useless . Things look grave for him . Mrs . Beauchum finally admits to having invented the charge , simply to get her own back on Frankie for all the bad jokes she has endured over the years . . . Another Stuckey / Robinson collaboration , this one bringing Frankie into conflict with the law . Joan Sims reappears ( though as a different character ) , John Junkin plays a Police Sergeant ( as he did in countless other sitcoms of the period ) , and there's an astounding turn by Robin Hawdon ( ' Randolph ' the music teacher in ' Bedazzled ' ) as a camp policeman named ' P . C . Trimble ' . One wonders if the role was originally written with John Inman in mind . As was the case with Nicholas McArdle's ' Dr . Smelley ' , Hawdon comes tantalisingly close to upstaging Howerd , no mean feat . Frankie's attempted cross-examination of himself would have been hilarious had Woody Allen not done the gag first in the film ' Bananas ' in 1971 . Funniest moment - the line-up scene . At the command of the Sergeant , the suspects - Frankie included - are made to open and close their coats in rapid succession . Believe me , it looks funnier than it sounds ! |
400,603 | 7,743,887 | 607,965 | 8 | Do you want sex now or later ? | Frankie tries computer dating , and meets Nellie , a three-times married widow with some strange habits such as playing an imaginary piano . He is repulsed by her initially , but weakens , eventually proposing marriage . To celebrate , she offers to cook him Chilli Con Carne . Frankie tucks in gratefully . What he does not know is that his fiancée has recently escaped from a lunatic asylum . She was put there because of her love of poisoning husbands . . . Dick Hills was one half of the writing team behind Morecambe and Wise's shows and movies in the ' 60's . Here he comes up with an amiable bit of nonsense , essentially a two-hander involving Howerd and Joan Sims ( yes , her again ) , spoilt only by some unnecessary cutaways to Dr . Morgan's clinic . Frankie chatting to himself courtesy of video trickery does not work either , the device was not used again after this . Frankie's cat Godfrey plays a pivotal role in the plot , which means the word ' pussy ' gets bandied around an awful lot , I'm afraid . The story's time scale is slightly askew ; if Nellie has only just broken out of the asylum by taking the place of Mrs . Palethorpe , how could she have found time to register with a dating agency ? Whatever its flaws , the episode was considered strong enough to go out at the start of the show's one and only run in 1976 . Funniest moment - Suspecting he has been poisoned , Frankie looks at the camera and says : " This is just like Lacenic and Old Arse ! " . |
400,608 | 7,743,887 | 607,966 | 8 | I've been caught by the Privates ! | Its World War Two , and Frankie is part of a concert party out to entertain the troops in France . After becoming separated from his platoon , he wanders into an old farmhouse , wherein he is captured by members of The French Resistance , led by the stunning Captain Latour . Establishing his nationality by scrawling the word ' bum ' on a wall , Frankie is hurriedly bundled into a German Captain's uniform , moments before the Germans arrive . Having convinced them , Frankie finds himself having to backtrack when the British show up in force . . . Hugh Stuckey was an Australian comedy writer who worked on a number of British shows in the ' 70's , usually in collaboration with Peter Robinson . Stuckey had been the principal writer on the ill-fated ' Hancock Down Under ' series , never completed due to Hancock's suicide . This caper is what you would expect from a Frankie Howerd show , and may or may not have provided an influence on the later ' Allo , Allo ' . Caroline Munro , who plays ' Captain Latour ' was a stunningly beautiful woman who appeared in several films in the ' 70's , most notably ' Naomi ' the helicopter pilot in ' The Spy Who Loved Me ' . Funniest moment - attempting to cheer up the troops with his famed George Formby impression , Frankie is thrown bodily out of a moving truck . Clambering to his feet , he remarks : " How was I to know they didn't like George Formby ? " . |
401,059 | 7,743,887 | 607,967 | 8 | Dr . Smelley ? He sounds a real stinker ! | Frankie goes into hospital to have a tonsillectomy , but finds the staff , especially the wise-cracking Dr . Smelley and bullish Matron Scuttlebutt , a pain . The receptionist fails to recognise him and old men in striped pyjamas bombard him with their ailments . To make matters worse , he is placed in a small ward with aged Mr . Cockspur , whose cries of ' I want my bottle ' every few seconds get on his nerves . Frankie receives a visit from his agent , who cannot even remember his name . Some consolation comes in the curvy shape of Nurse Barron . . . This long-forgotten series has just resurfaced on D . V . D . While not up to standard of ' Up Pompeii ! ' , its a lot better than some of Frankie's other shows , particularly ' Then Churchill Said To Me ' . Talbot Rothwell's script has much in common with his script for the 1968 film ' Carry On Doctor ' . The same leading man for one thing , a battle axe of a matron , insane patients , and a sexpot nurse . Oh , and acres of bad puns . Joan Sims ' ' Matron Scuttlebutt ' is not far removed from ' Matron Joanna Sweet ' , her character in ' Doctor In Clover ' in 1966 . Madeline Smith is ' Nurse Barron ' and , as you'd expect , her busty substances ( to borrow a phrase of Peter Cook's ) are displayed to maximum effect . All good fun but nothing really special . Funniest moment - Frankie attempting to administer a bottle to Mr . Cockspur , resulting in the old man's plastered leg falling on top of him , and the entire bed collapsing ! |
401,132 | 7,743,887 | 75,875 | 8 | ' Hi-de-Hi ' Was Never Like This ! | Having failed dismally with their driving school , Sid Noggett ( Tony Booth ) and Timmy Lea ( Robin Askwith ) head off to Funfrall Holiday Camp , a paradise where the possibilities for sex are limitless . The only thing missing is the weather . But then their fun is stymied by the arrival of new manager Whitemonk ( John Junkin ) , a former prison governor . He wants to impose militaristic discipline on the staff . Noggett proposes a beauty contest . The Lea family turn up en masse and begin causing trouble , in particular Dad ( Bill Maynard ) who gets involved in an ongoing dispute with the father of a cheeky kid ( Nicholas Owen , ' Tristan ' from ' George & Mildred ' ) . Timmy's numerous sexual exploits become increasingly public , leading the manager to conclude there is a mad streaker on the loose . Against Sid's wishes , Rosie enters the beauty contest . But when the kid chucks a cream pie at a contestant , all hell breaks loose . . . I used to work in a holiday camp ( as a chef ) so know how accurate a lot of this film is . Some of the things I saw would make even Timmy blush ! It is the usual slap and tickle , enlivened by guest appearances from John Junkin , Colin Crompton ( from ' The Wheeltappers & Shunters Social Club ' ) and Lance Percival ( whose role of ' Lionel ' seems to have been written for Kenneth Williams ! ) . The formula was looking a bit tired by this time ; this entry closely resembles ' Holiday On The Buses ' , while the finale was obviously inspired by that of ' Carry On Girls ' ( both 1973 ) . Liz Fraser and Linda Hayden , both of whom featured in earlier ' Confessions ' pictures , return as different characters . Sue Upton ( later to be one of Benny Hill's ' Angels ' ) and Caroline Ellis are particularly good as a pair of giggling Brummie girls called ' Glad ' and ' Reen ' . Shame about Timmy's racist remarks to ' Blackbird ' ( Nicola Blackman ) though . Top marks to the cast for throwing themselves into the piece with abandon . It could not have been easy being filmed in bikinis and swimming trunks in March . Funniest moment ? Whitemonk complaining to Sid about the streaker , while behind him a naked Timmy thrashes about in a pool . ' Confessions Of A Plumber's Mate ' was planned next , but Columbia unexpectedly shut down film production in the U . K . , and it went unmade , though Stanley A . Long cheekily put into production the not-dissimilar sounding ' Adventures Of A Plumber's Mate ' . That too was the last of its line . British audiences were beginning to be more interested by American comedies such as ' National Lampoon's Animal House ' and ' 10 ' . I hope no-one tries to revive ' Confessions ' ; like the ' Carry On ' films , they were of their time . Naughty but nice ! |
401,478 | 7,743,887 | 68,109 | 8 | Charity Begins At Home | I do miss Leslie Crowther . Though hardly one of Britain's greatest ever comedians , he had great likability and charisma , and could turn his hand to anything , whether it be kids T . V . ( ' Crackerjack ' ) , variety shows ( ' The Saturday Crowd ' ) , sketch shows ( ' Crowther's In Town ' ) , talent shows ( ' Stars In Your Eyes ' ) , and , of course , sitcoms . His first , ' The Reluctant Romeo ' , was for the B . B . C . and made no impact on the world . He later described it as an embarrassment , believing himself to be ' totally miscast ' . He fared somewhat better with his second . ' My Good Woman ' , made by A . T . V . , starred Crowther as ' Clive Gibbons ' , an antiques dealer constantly at loggerheads with wife Sylvia ( Sylvia Syms ) , who is heavily involved in local charity work . She hates to see things being thrown away , meaning Clive is up to his neck in jumble sale fodder most of the time . Exerting an Svengali-like influence on her is the local vicar , the Reverend Martin Hooper ( Richard Wilson , in his first major sitcom role ) . Clive's best friend is Philip Broadmore ( Keith Barron ) , also his next-door neighbour , a man whose tight-fistedness could give Scrooge a run for his money . When Barron left after two seasons , Glyn Houston replaced him as ' Bob Berris ' , darts player and ladies man . One typical episode had Clive agreeing to stand in for his wife on ' Meals On Wheels ' duties . Unfortunately , he collected the wrong list of names , and handed out meals to people who did not need them . Realising his error , he tried to snatch a plate of food away from a man halfway through the repast . If one had to define ' My Good Woman ' it must be as ' middle of the road ' . The whole set-up - husband and wife , next-door neighbour , vicar , comic misunderstandings - was very ' Terry & June ' . Crowther and Syms had great chemistry together though , very much as Terry Scott had with June Whitfield . The writer , Ronnie Taylor , went on to pen David Jason's first solo success ' A Sharp Intake Of Breath ' , which also featured Richard Wilson . While not an outstanding comedy writer as such , like Vince Powell , he knew how to construct a sitcom , and while its hard to avoid charges of blandness , the amiable show was a five season hit . There was also a sketch in the 1973 All-Star Comedy Carnival , and this is the only bit of the show I own . |
401,285 | 7,743,887 | 68,110 | 8 | What John Alderton Did Next . . . | ' Please Sir ! ' was a massive success for I . T . V . in the late ' 60's / early ' 70's , making John Alderton into a household name . He left the show at the start of its fourth and final season in 1971 . Naturally he was not about to sign on at the local Employment Exchange . Television companies kept him gainfully employed for much of the decade . His next sitcom role would be as ' George Bassett ' in the B . B . C . - . 1 show ' My Wife Next Door ' . George and Suzy ( the lovely Hannah Gordon ) are newly divorced , and have moved to the countryside . But - in one of those incredible coincidences you only ever find in sitcoms - they find they have unknowingly bought cottages next door to each other . Each tosses a coin to see who will move out . But it does not happen ( naturally , or there would have been no show ) , and they have to make the best of a bad situation . It was like a middle-class version of ' Love Thy Neighbour ' minus the racial element . When I tell you that Tim Barrett played George's friend and colleague ' Henry ' , Diana King played Suzy's mother , and Mollie Sugden was cast as George's mother , you should be able to correctly guess what it was like . It was one of several middle of the road sitcoms penned by the late Richard Waring , whose other credits include ' Not In Front Of The Children ' starring Wendy Craig , ' The Many Wives Of Patrick ' with Patrick Cargill , ' Rings On Their Fingers ' with Martin Jarvis and Diane Keen , and ' Marriage Lines ' with Richard Briers and Prunella Scales - shows that somehow managed to pull off the trick of being pleasantly amusing without ever being particularly funny . The basic idea for ' Door ' was co-credited to Brian Clemens , best known for his work on ' The Avengers ' television series . Middle of the road or not , it topped the ratings in 1972 , helped along by the the charm of stars Alderton and Gordon . William Franklyn and ' Dad's Army ' star James Beck made one-off guest appearances . Rather like the later ' To The Manor Born ' , there was an element of ' will they , won't they ' to the show . As it progressed , George and Suzy stopped hating one another , and the fire that was their marriage slowly rekindled . In the last episode , they raced to prevent the divorce from becoming final . It meant that there was no chance of a second series , but did not matter as the comic possibilities had more or less been exhausted by the first . In one episode as I recall , George and Suzy had to pretend to be still wed so as not to upset an elderly relative . He found out at the end though , and was far from pleased . The thirteen episodes were repeated well into the ' 80's . ' U . K . Gold ' showed it several times , but have not done so now for over a decade . Its continuing absence from D . V . D . is perplexing given its enormous popularity at the time . If it were to become available , I would buy it , mainly for the pleasure of seeing these marvellous actors at their best . I would like to end this review by wishing a Merry Christmas to all I . M . D . B . users - in particular fellow comedy fans ' cornonthecobb ' , ' Ecky Thump ' , ' Cyril Blake ' and ' Deathmark VIII ' . Have a good one ! |
401,085 | 7,743,887 | 65,205 | 8 | Norman Throws Away The Cloth Cap | As the ' 60's began to swing , a sea change took place in British comedy . Family-oriented fare gave way to a much ruder , cruder style . The ' Carry On ' films were well placed to take advantage of this , but poor old Norman Wisdom found himself out in the cold . Determined not to be left behind , he co-wrote and co-produced this low-budget sex farce for Tigon Pictures . In it , he plays ' Timothy Bartlett ' , a meek , middle-aged businessman , happily married to Margaret , and a devoted father . En route to a banker's conference at the seaside , he gives a lift to a pair of free-spirited young women , one of whom is ' Nikki ' , played by future ' Bless This House ' star Sally Geeson . The girls annoy him at first , eating his sandwiches and urging him to overtake lorry drivers , but he winds up becoming infatuated by Nikki , and tracks her down to a discotheque . Sneaking her into his room , they wind up in bed , and over the course of the next few days he learns to love life again . Soon he is wearing trendy clothes and they are riding the Big Dipper at funfair's , dancing , and even skinny-dipping ! Timothy installs Nikki in a flat he has bought . But the fun ends when he finds her in bed with a younger man . Devastated , he accuses her of behaving like a whore . The relationship is over . Rather than go home , he sends for his wife , and behaves with her the same way he did with Nikki . ' Goose ' plays like a 60's version of ' Shirley Valentine ' with the sex of the main character reversed . Norman does not do drugs here thank goodness ( besides , he already had a trip in ' The Early Bird ' when he ate doped apples ) , but seeing him frollicking with a young woman must have been a tremendous shock to his fans . Some traces of ' Pitkin ' remain , however . When Timothy enters the disco , two men swinging from a rope Tarzan-style crash into him sideways . Locked out of his room , he climbs up the side of the hotel . The dialogue could have been a bit sharper . For a sex farce , there's surprisingly little innuendo . Its amazingly sweet-natured too . The film's main strengths are Norman's and Sally's performances , plus supporting roles from Derek Francis , Terance Alexander and Paul Whitsun-Jones . And a great soundtrack from Reg Tilsley ! ' Goose ' bridged the gap between the old school of British comedy ( in which accident-prone losers like Norman became winners ) , and the ' oo er missus ' stuff of the ' 70's , such as the ' Confessions ' series . Well worth a look . |
400,877 | 7,743,887 | 59,143 | 8 | Norman Catches The Worm ! | Mention the name Norman Wisdom to many and the chances are the first thing they think of is of him in that ill-fitting ' gump ' suit , mugging frantically , falling over to the strangulated cry of ' Mr . Grimsdale ! ' . Comedy film fans may make the sign of the cross at his name , but the fact is he was the No . 1 British box office star for well over a decade . There is nothing pretentious about him or his films . You do not need to be ' in ' on the joke because there is nothing to be in on . Now it is very different - unfunny material can make millions for its creators as long as it is perceived to be ' cutting-edge ' . Norman's brand of knockout comedy was old hat even in his hey-day , owing a debt to silent era comics such as Chaplin and Keaton . But he soon put on his own stamp on the genre , finding out what worked for him and what did not . His regular ' stooges ' were Edward Chapman as his boss , the aforementioned ' Mr . Grimsdale ' , and long-faced Jerry Desmonde as the pompous authority figure whose side Norman becomes a thorn in . ' The Early Bird ' was the last time all three appeared together . It came along at a time when British film comedy was becoming less and less family oriented ( look at 1966's ' Doctor In Clover ' and compare it with the earlier Dirk Bogarde ones ) . Norman tried to move with the times by going into colour , and then parted company with his producer Hugh Stewart , who went on to make three pictures with Morecambe and Wise . Norman once more is ' Pitkin ' , this time a milkman for Grimsdale's Dairies , a small-town firm under threat from the much-bigger ' Consolidated Dairies ' . When he finds broken bottles on his round , it amounts to a declaration of war . Consolidated Dairies's top milkman is ' Austin ' ( Brian Pringle ) , and when they confront one another in a deserted street it is like ' High Noon ' all over again . " Little men like you do not stand a chance ! " , sneers Austin , before landing a nasty-looking punch to Pitkin's jaw . But when the ' little man ' is Norman , he is in with more than just a chance . Right , that's the premise established . What about the slapstick ? Well , Norman is dragged through Desmonde's garden on an out of control lawnmower , disguises himself as a vicar to gatecrash Desmonde's game of golf with ' The Colonel ' ( John Le Mesurier ) , eats doped apples intended for his horse Nellie ( a sequence more disturbing than all 75 minutes of Roger Corman's ' The Trip ' ) , falls downstairs goodness knows how many times , and manages to nearly demolish Consolidated Dairies's H . Q . No wonder Norman was offered the role of ' Frank Spencer ' before Michael Crawford . Corny ? Yes . But there's nothing wrong with corn . Despite the many fun moments , Norman's popularity was in rapid decline . His next picture - ' Press For Time ' - combined the knockabout stuff with a half-hearted attempt at political satire , and his 1969 offering ' What's Good For The Goose ' saw him shedding the cloth-cap ( along with everything else ) by jumping into bed with Sally Geeson of ' Bless This House ' . Whether you like ' The Early Bird ' depends on whether you like Norman , and to many he is simply is not funny . But he gave a lot of pleasure to an awful of people - including the entire population of Albania - and I suspect his cheap and cheerful movies will still be gracing Saturday afternoons long after the ' cutting-edge ' stuff has been forgotten . |
400,646 | 7,743,887 | 72,492 | 8 | Back To St . Swithins | ' Doctor On The Go ' saw Duncan Waring and Dick Stuart-Clark back at St . Swithins , and once more under the watchful eye of Professor Sir Geoffrey Loftus . New characters included the permanently inebriated Scot ' Dr . Andrew MacKenzie ' ( played by future ' Terry & June ' scriptwriter John Kane ) , the conceited ' Bingham'-like ' Dr . James Gascoigne ' ( the late Andrew Knox ) , and ' Dr . Kate Wright ' ( the attractive Jacquie-Ann Carr ) , who became Waring's regular girlfriend . Of particular note is the episode ' For Your Own Good ' which marked a welcome return to writing duties for Graham Chapman , who co-wrote it with the then-unknown Douglas Adams . Two new writers were Rob Buckman and Chris Beetles , later to land a show of their own - the very funny ( and bizarrely forgotten ) ' The Pink Medicine Show ' . It was business as usual for the St . Swithins gang , even if they now looked a little long-in-the-tooth to be still chasing pretty nurses . In the final episode - ' Happy Ever After ' - Waring and Kate announced marriage plans - only to abandon them at the very last minute . Though the door was kept open for another series , L . W . T . turned off the life support machine on Richard Gordon's creation , concluding one of I . T . V . ' s biggest ever comedy successes . Waring and Stuart-Clark would next be seen in ' Doctor Down Under ' , an Australian T . V . spin-off in 1979 , and then in 1991 crossed channels for the unsuccessful ' Doctor At The Top ' . |
400,801 | 7,743,887 | 59,260 | 8 | I am not what I seem ! | Released in 1964 , ' A Hard Day's Night ' was a movie classic . ' Help ' , which came out a year later , had the potential to be better still ; a bigger budget , colour , exotic locations , top-notch British character actors of the calibre of Leo McKern , Patrick Cargill , Victor Spinetti and Roy Kinnear . Yet despite all these plus factors , it turned out to be a major disappointment . Having wisely retained the services of director Richard Lester , producer Walter Shenson inexplicably failed to hold onto writer Alun Owen . Marc Behm and Charles Wood's script for ' Help ! ' is , frankly , dreadful . The plot - such as it is - concerns a mystic Eastern sect who pursue the Fab Four all over the world in an effort to recover a sacred ring , which has somehow gotten stuck on Ringo's finger . For sheer inanity , it gives the worst of Elvis Presley's celluloid efforts a run for their money . Much of the Goonish humour seems forced , and the cast constantly winking at the audience grows wearing . Sadly missed are Norman Rossington , John Junkin and Wilfred Brambell from the first film . John Lennon later likened ' Help ! ' to the ' Batman ' television series . I think it has more in common with ' The Monkees ' . Arch plots such as this were routine in that show . The decision to turn ' Help ! ' into a larger-than-life action comedy is the main reason for its artistic failure . The pseudo-documentary look of ' Night ' suited The Beatles down to the ground ; all they had to do was be themselves . Here they are required to react to bizarre happenings , and aren't able to convince themselves , let alone the audience . Their frequent cries of ' ho ho ho ' leads one to believe they were so high on pot they forgot they were making a film . Lennon's comment about how they ' became extras in their own film ' is accurate . With McKern , Cargill and Spinetti hamming it up outrageously , and Eleanor Bron looking stunningly sexy in Julie Harris ' costumes , how could it have been otherwise ? The best gags in ' Help ! ' are visual , such as The Beatles simultaneously entering four houses and being reunited in a single room , and Patrick Cargill getting out of a small plane to be greeted by a massive flight of steps . But the overall impression is one of complacency on the part of the production team . They knew that the film was likely to make a mint , so were not too concerned with minor details such as a script . ' Help ! ' only comes to life when The Beatles perform ; the ' Ticket To Ride ' sequence in the Austrian Alps is stunning ( love the notes on the telegraph lines ) , as is the ' Another Girl ' section in the Bahamas . My favourite , though , is ' You've Got To Hide Your Love Away ' . Marvellous photography throughout . Its no wonder that Lester later became regarded as the ' father ' of M . T . V . An underrated aspect of ' Help ! ' is the incidental music . Ken Thorne caught the Bond-like atmosphere to a tee , and even includes a clever homage to Monty Norman's ' James Bond Theme ' at one point . ' Help ! ' is a relic from the time when The Beatles were conquering the world . Its worth watching for the music , but it could and should have been so much better . |
400,807 | 7,743,887 | 818,953 | 8 | Billy's Kung Fu Fighting ! | Billy has been bitten by the Kung Fu bug . To the horror of fiancée Barbara , he breaks off their engagement ( again ) to embark on a quest to China ( or India or Pakistan , he does not know where ) in search of his spiritual destiny . Billy's Dad is more interested in knowing where his gardening hat and tool bag have mysteriously vanished to . His son is keeping them under his bed , intending to take them with him to the East . Mr . Shadrach , in the meantime , is alarmed at the spectacle of his junior clerk smashing urns and practising martial arts moves around the funeral parlour . . . The movie ' Enter The Dragon ' ( starring the late Bruce Lee , of course ) in 1973 provoked a worldwide craze for martial arts movies that even infected British sitcoms . The same year this episode of ' Billy Liar ' went out , ' Steptoe & Son ' did ' The Seven Steptoerai ' , a very funny homage to Akiro Kurasawa , climaxing with a pitched battle between a gang of thugs and Albert's pensioner friends . Most of Billy's daydreams are spoofs of the hit American series ' Kung Fu ' which starred David Carradine . Billy plays ' Caine ' ( the Carradine character ) with his Dad as the blind ' Master Po ' ( played in the original by Keye Luke ) . Alan Chuntz choreographed the fights , which are unusually violent for a prime time sitcom . The scene where Mr . Fisher punches Billy in the face made my jaw drop . Funniest moment - Billy's ' Ironside ' impression , achieved with the aid of his granny's wheelchair ! |
401,695 | 7,743,887 | 818,964 | 8 | Billy Sees A Shrink ! | Concerned by his son's inability to tell a truthful word , Mr . Fisher consults eminent psychiatrist Dr . Smiley . Questioning Billy , the doctor concludes that the elaborate fantasies are as a result of his craving for affection . Hence the Fishers , Gran , and even Mr . Shadrack , endeavour to be as nice to Billy as possible . But the strain of smiling all day long proves too much for them , and they start hitting the bottle . . . The peerless Roy Kinnear guest stars as ' Dr . Smiley ' . If nothing else , this episode gives us a chance to see George A . Cooper's father in a different key , being quieter and less aggressive towards Billy . By this stage in the series , Mr . Shadrach was almost one of the family . Though he does not really need to go along with the ' be nice to Billy ' deception , he pitches in all the same . Funniest moment - Gran sneakily helping herself to Mr . Fisher's whisky ! |
401,697 | 7,743,887 | 818,961 | 8 | Billy Drops Out ! | Stealing a model Concorde from a display in Mr . Shadrach's window , Billy is having the time of his life in the shopping mall pretending to be a pilot when he hears his name called . His old friend Colin Westmacott has become a guitar-playing hippie who rejoices in the new name of ' Slug ' , and , with his sexy girlfriend ' Fifty-Five ' , plans on going to a commune in Cornwall . He invites Billy to come along . Thinking that a new life of unlimited free love awaits , Billy agrees . But first there's the problem of what to do with his new friends . Billy smuggles Slug into his bedroom , whilst installing ' Fifty-Five ' in his dad's television repair van . Unbeknowest to him , Slug smuggles the girl in through the window . Billy tells his parents he plans on becoming a hippie , and they hit the roof . . . Sooner or later , hippies were bound to turn up in ' Billy Liar ' . ' Slug ' is played by Simon Rouse , better known these days as ' D . C . I . Jack Meadows ' from ' The Bill ' . Its quite a good episode , actually . For the first time , Mr . Fisher is faced with a young man even more rebellious than his son . There's no sense of the hippies being out to con anyone , which was the case in many ' 70's sitcoms to feature them . But then these were largely written by middle-aged men . The source of the humour here is Mr . Fisher's narrow-mindedness . The fact that ' Slug ' refers to his girl by a number is odd . Its the very kind of depersonalisation the hippie movement were dead against . What's even more strange is that ' Fifty-Five ' ( Pam Scotcher ) doesn't seem to mind . Funniest moment - Billy imagining himself as a hippie pop star ! |
401,390 | 7,743,887 | 818,963 | 8 | Billy Fancies A Foot ! | Billy is dating sexy art student Sandra Bullock ( no relation ! ) . He tells her that his grandmother is a leading art critic , so she hands over an erotic painting entitled ' Lust ' , and asks for his grandmother's opinion . Later , Billy's dad finds the picture and is so shocked he throws it into the dustbin . Then Sandra turns up , demanding the picture back . . . The stunningly beautiful Moira Foot is best remembered for her role as ' Effie ' the whispering mind in Ronnie Barker's ' Hark At Barker ' ( 1969 ) and its sequel , ' His Lordship Entertains ' ( 1972 ) . She cropped up in other comedy shows , such as the ' Doctor At Large ' episode ' Cynthia Darling ' , ' The Benny Hill Show ' , and as ' Denise Laroque ' in ' Allo , Allo ' . Here she plays Billy's art student girlfriend . In one scene she paints him in the nude - unfortunately , she isn't the one in the buff . Its part of a fantasy sequence in which Billy imagines himself as Touloise Latrec . Funniest moment - Billy as a French Resistance fighter blowing up a dustbin to the accompaniment to Robert Farnon's ' Colditz ' theme ! |
401,396 | 7,743,887 | 118,688 | 8 | What is wrong with ' camp ' ? | One thing that strikes me from reading these reviews is that people have sadly forgotten how to appreciate ' camp ' . Back in the ' 60's , camp was in vogue , thanks to the ' Batman ' television series , as well as movies such as ' Our Man Flint / In Like Flint ' and Dean Martin's ' Matt Helm ' series ( which began with ' The Silencers ' ) . What is camp ? It is a ridiculous story approached with deadly seriousness on the part of the main characters , so serious in fact that it becomes amusing . So , yes , ' Batman & Robin ' is campy . And that's how I like the Caped Crusader . Taken seriously , I find him a bit of a bore . So many modern movies are ' dark ' now that I have to take a flashlight every time I visit the local multiplex . ' B & R ' was the third sequel to the 1989 Tim Burton blockbuster , which starred Michael Keaton . Both left the series at the same time . Their replacements were Joel Schumacher and Val Kilmer . Schumacher retained the dark , brooding atmosphere of the Burton films , while bringing in some of the colourful campery of the ' 60's series . He was ripped to pieces for doing so but I think he was right . Kilmer was an adequate replacement . George Clooney donned the cowl and cape for ' B & R ' , and was better than Kilmer , but Keaton was still far and away the best . Warner Bros . ' ' Batman ' franchise was bound to run out of puff , and did . All franchises run out of puff in the end . James Bond did with ' The Man With The Golden Gun ' in 1974 . The less said about ' Superman 4 : The Quest For Peace ' the better . But they both recovered . Ditto ' Batman ' . ' Batman Begins ' could never have been made were it not for ' B & R ' . The plot concerns ' Mr . Freeze ' who is trying to save his dying wife by freezing Gotham City . . . something like that . It is not important . People who go to ' Batman ' in search of great plots are fools . Arnold Schwarzenegger was miscast as ' Mr . Freeze ' - the man cannot , and never could , act . Patrick Stewart should have gotten the role . Then there's Uma Thurman as ' Poison Ivy ' , a villain I'm not familiar with , but she was the best thing in the movie . Sexy , sassy and cool . This was how she should have been in ' The Avengers ' . Alicia Silverstone as ' Batgirl ' ? Another mistake . ' Batgirl ' is to ' Batman ' what ' Scrappy Doo ' is to ' Scooby Doo ' . Chris O'Donnell reprised his role as ' Robin ' , but like ' Batgirl ' , I never could stand the character . As soon as the title of this film was announced , I thought : " Oh oh trouble ! " . Its so crass . ' Batman Supreme ' would have been better . So with all these strikes against it , why is ' B & R ' so much fun ? Simple . For those of us who fondly remember the ' 60's version , it works perfectly as a homage . If you ask me , they should have gone further by putting ' Pow ! ' , ' Zap ! ' and ' Kerpow ! ' on the fights . Nothing in the movie makes sense , nor is it meant to . Just as reality makes no sense . Don't go to ' B & R ' expecting Fellini , and you'll have a great time . The opening chase alone is worth purchasing the D . V . D . for . To all the doom mongers , I say this - lighten up ! Watch ' B & R ' and enjoy . We can get ' dark ' and ' edgy ' movies anywhere . ' Batman ' is not ' Seven ' ! |
401,389 | 7,743,887 | 818,974 | 8 | Get ' em off then ! | A game of Monopoly in the Fisher household turns into a blazing family row . Mr and Mrs . Fisher decide to go to the pub , leaving Billy alone with Barbara . Well , not quite , because his grandmother is there too , but Billy isn't concerned about her . He senses a golden opportunity to get his fiancée into bed . Whilst Barbara is making tea , Billy throws a jug of milk over her skirt , and tells her to go upstairs and slip out of her wet garments . She does so , and Billy strips off too , even though he is bone dry . Before Billy can have his evil way , however , his mother and family come home unexpectedly early . . . Yes , well we've all been here , haven't we ? This episode rings true with those of us who remember the golden days of courtship . Taking a girl out in those days was like driving a car with one foot on the accelerator and another on the brake ! Because ' Billy Liar ' went out post-watershed on a Saturday night ( at least in its first season ) , it was able to be a bit racier than most other sitcoms . No nudity as such , but we do get a fantasy sequence in which Billy imagines playing strip poker with Barbara , and gets her down to her underwear . Sally Watts is indeed a very well endowed young lady . Funniest moment - a ' Star Trek ' spoof in which Billy , as Captain Kirk , uses a phaser to zap his parents ! Then Mr . Shadrack materialises as ' Mr . Spock ' ! |
401,391 | 7,743,887 | 818,968 | 8 | Brush Up Your Shakespeare ! | Billy plans on spending a weekend with Barbara at Stratford-Upon-Avon , ostensibly to see a theatre production of ' Julius Caesar ' . Really , he has his sights set on slightly less intellectual pursuits - he wants a dirty weekend . When Barbara storms out on him after a heated row in a cafe , he starts flirting with sexy waitress Betty , and asks her to go with him instead . She accepts . All looks good for Billy until Barbara reappears , having changed her mind . So now he is stuck with not one , but two women who want to go with him to the Bard's hometown . Which one should he take ? Once again Billy has girl trouble , and has to lie his way out of it . The thing is , he really hasn't much of a choice . Betty is coarse , vulgar and sexually experienced , while Barbara is soft , soppy and virginal . I know who I would take ! ' Betty ' is played by Elissa Derwent , one of the hottest females ever to grace a television screen . In one of Billy's fantasies , she is dressed as a French maid , who then strips off behind a screen , before streaking ( literally ) into the bathroom . The sight of a nude woman in a ' 70's sitcom was rare indeed , and being Elissa its a welcome one . She plays ' Betty ' in the same key as Gwendoline Watts in the ' Billy Liar ' movie . As with almost any ' Billy Liar ' episode , its the fantasy sequences that stand out as the funniest moments . Billy chasing Betty ( clad in only a towel ) around a bedroom Benny Hill fashion is easily the highlight here . |
400,969 | 7,743,887 | 72,552 | 8 | The Little Aussie Bleeder | In 1982 , the newly-launched ' Channel 4 ' set out to widen British viewers ' horizons by screening two Australian comedy imports : ' The Paul Hogan Show ' and ' The Norman Gunston Show ' . The former , a straight copy of ' The Benny Hill Show ' , was more accessible to U . K . audiences ( and paved the way for the comic's ' Fosters ' lager adverts and ' Crocodile Dundee ' movie ) . However I personally found the latter to be the funnier of the two . So who was ' Norman Gunston ' ? He was the creation of talented comic Garry McDonald . Sheltering behind a fictitious comic character as Barry Humphries did with ' Dame Edna Everage ' , McDonald gave us no less than the worst talk show host of all time . Stan Laurel-like Norman had slicked back hair and a face full of toilet paper dabs where he had nicked himself shaving . He interviewed some of the world's biggest stars , such as Charlton Heston , Lee Marvin , Burt Reynolds , and James Garner , often making a fool of himself by asking the most ridiculous questions . He famously told Reynolds ; " You were great in ' Deliverance ' . I loved the bit where you played the banjo . " . To Mick Jagger he said : " I was a big fan of yours when you were in ' The Beatles ' " . The German movie actress Elke Sommer was bombarded with questions about Rod Stewart , Gunston obviously having confused her with Swedish Britt Ekland ( who had had a well-publicised affair with the rock star ) . When Warren Beatty flew to Australia to promote a film , Gunston asked him what he thought of the local girls . " I've only just got here ! " , the star thundered . Gunston shot back : " What about the stewardesses on the plane ? Have you tried one of those yet ? " . Beatty was speechless . ' The Norman Gunston Show ' was not Britain's first exposure to the Aussie comic . Six years earlier , the B . B . C . gave him a one-off special . Quite a lot of critics , including Margaret Forwood of ' The Sun ' liked him ( I loved his disaster movie cakes ! ) , but British audiences failed to see the joke . Things hadn't changed much when Channel 4 threw him a lifeline . Hilary Kingsley , television critic of ' The Daily Mirror ' , expressed her appreciation for Gunston in a spoof letter . " Dear Norman . . . " , it began , " Loved the interviews . Want more . But please come to Britain to make your next show . Your Aussie producers are hopeless . Those scenes of you stuck at the top of a fireman's pole were as amusing as finding a dead kangaroo on your doorstep . " . It is certainly true that Gunston was not as amusing away from his talk-show studio . Following a series called ' Norman Gunston's Australia ' , he was effectively grounded for good . It was a pity in a way as he was more original than Hogan , and can now be regarded as the prototype for Steve Coogan's ' Alan Partridge ' and Paul Kaye's ' Dennis Pennis ' . |
400,699 | 7,743,887 | 665,483 | 8 | Stan Vs . The Macho Men ! | Fearful of being sacked by Blakey , Stan enters a contest to find the perfect busman - the winner's face will used on on a new poster promoting the bus company . His competition are three macho-looking males , so to stand a fighting chance he agrees to undergo ' beauty treatment ' , which involves being fitted with a face-pack . . . I seem to recall a ' Sergeant Bilko ' episode with a similar plot ; anyway Wally Malston and Garry Chambers ' episode is quite funny , particularly the scene where Stan's competitors are introduced , all conforming to the ' rugged he-man ' stereotype so prevalent in the early ' 70's . You can almost smell the after-shave . The climactic crash looks as though it was originally intended for one of the ' On The Buses ' movies . Note Olive's smirk ! Funniest moment - the removal of the face-pack . Stan is horrified to see his face is now redder than an apple ! |
401,036 | 7,743,887 | 1,231,142 | 8 | Just the ticket ! | Peter is looking forward to England playing West Germany at Wembley Stadium . Walking past a post box , he absent-mindedly pops in the envelope containing his ticket . A policeman , seeing him trying to put his hand inside , wanders over . The postman ( Albert Moses ) opens the box , but refuses to hand back the ticket as tampering with Royal Mail is illegal . Barnes snatches it but , before he can do a runner , a boy on a skateboard grabs it from him , and races off . The chase is on . . . I do not know if this was a remake of one of Powell's earlier shows ( as ' Wheels ' was ) , but it is an okay episode , giving David Jason a chance to do physical stuff such as climbing over the fence of a factory , running , and ( in a ' Billy Liar ' type dream sequence ) fantasising about being part of the English football team . Richard Wilson is still missed though . Alister Williamson , cast as the stadium's ' security officer ' , was Eric Duffy's dad in both ' Please Sir ! ' and ' The Fenn Street Gang ' . A young Linda Robson plays one of Peter's colleagues , whom we see in a pub . Albert Moses was , of course , in ' Mind Your Language ' , scripted by Powell . Funniest moment - in the pub , Peter bends down to pick up his dropped ticket and , when he rises , knocks over a tray of drinks a man is carrying . CODA : I note that the fourth season did not carry a credit for the late Ronnie Taylor , such as ' Series Created By . . . ' . Bearing in mind that the show was originally his idea , it seems somewhat odd . |
401,099 | 7,743,887 | 799,392 | 8 | It Could Be You ! | An episode of the second series of ' The Worker ' . Charlie reports to the Employment Exchange . As Mr . Pugh rants and raves about how he has devoted twenty years of his life trying to find him steady work , Charlie is secretly listening to a horse race on the radio . He has a gambling problem - namely , he is no good at it . Instead of giving up as any sensible person would do , he goes on betting in the hope that his bad luck will somehow change . Mr . Pugh gets Charlie a cleaning job in a betting shop . But the lure of ' having a flutter ' proves too much for him , and soon he is blowing one week's wages after another on the nags . In desperation , he goes to work for ' Gamblers Anonymous ' , an charitable organisation dedicated to helping poor unfortunates such as himself . His first client is Mr . Niggs , a compulsive winner . Niggs ' house is full of colour T . V . sets , uncashed cheques , motor cars , and other valuables he has won as prizes . Charlie suggests that he play on his behalf in an effort to lose the money . . . Poor Charlie . Some people just never know when to quit . This fun episode actually has quite a serious underlying theme , namely that gambling can be as addictive in its own way as alcohol or drugs . Charlie was said to have suffered from such a problem in real life . Glyn Houston , brother of Donald , guest stars as ' Mr . Niggs ' . Funniest moment - Charlie's attempts at placing bets are constantly frustrated by shabbily-dressed ( and taller ) punters . Each time he loses , he takes out his anger by repeatedly pushing the same man over . |
401,411 | 7,743,887 | 478,075 | 8 | Your Grumbleweeds Need You ! | I have a confession to make . One that will astound my loyal band of devoted followers ( I know you're out there , folks ! ) . Here it is : I actually like The Grumbleweeds . There I've said it . Now the world can carry on as before . Why , I hear you ask ? Weren't they those idiots who used to be on I . T . V . on Saturday evenings back in the ' 80's , a couple of them had no teeth , while the others capered about in front of tacky sets , doing jokes straight out of ' The Beano ' ? Well , yes . I can't pretend that The Grumbleweeds broke new ground in comedy , or anything fancy like that . They were just funny . Robin Colvill's ' Jimmy Saville ' impression made me roar ( J . S . himself was a fan ) , while the Sutcliffe brothers ( Albert and Carl ) looked so gormless you could not help but laugh . Graham Walker used to put me in mind of Charlie Drake , As for Maurice Lee ( the bearded one ) he was the lemon of the group , but that didn't matter . Every group has to have a lemon . I used to watch The Grumbleweeds before going out on Saturdays . It put me in a good mood for the evening . The jokes were terrible but that wasn't the point . Like Tommy Cooper or Freddie Starr , The Grumbleweeds got laughs simply by being there . I think its a pity they haven't had the recognition they deserve . |
401,266 | 7,743,887 | 1,243,681 | 8 | Ding Dong ! | A decade ago , B . B . C . - 2 brought us ' Politically Incorrect Night ' , the usual talking head stuff interspersed with out-of-context clips of ' Mind Your Language ' , ' The Benny Hill Show ' , ' Curry & Chips ' and , of course , ' Love Thy Neighbour ' . Mysteriously absent was ' Casanova 73 ' , Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's spoof of the so-called Permissive Society . It ran for a single season in 1973 and has never been repeated ( not even on U . K . Gold ) nor issued on D . V . D . If the latter ever happens you can be sure that the likes of Stuart Maconie will bash it in the pages of ' The Radio Times ' ( as he did with ' Not On Your Nellie ' ) , branding it ' sniggering schoolboy smut ' and ' the sort of comedy we have banished from our screens forever ' . He will be right on both these counts . The thing is , I liked it . It is a true guilty pleasure . Leslie Phillips plays 44-year old ' Henry Newhouse ' , the ultimate lounge lizard . He has a good job in the city , lives well , is married to the lovely Carol ( Jan Holden ) , and yet cannot keep his hands off other women . They in turn are charmed by him . In the first episode , he talks to himself while trying to keep in trim , explaining his reasons for his philandering . " A man likes a change " , he says : " I do not like to play a game of chess where I know all the moves ! " . In other words , he is excited by the thrill of the chase rather than the actual conquest . Carol knows what he is up to and complains constantly but never contemplates divorce . Rather like Alan and Sarah B'Stard in I . T . V . ' s ' The New Statesman ' , they hate one another but stay together for reasons of convenience . The first episode begins with Henry panicking after being sent letters from abroad by one of his amours - airline hostess Valerie Masters , who got his address when he left behind his credit card . Terrified that his wife will see these , he takes time off work and pretends to dig the garden so he can intercept the correspondence , even going so far as to bribe the postman . But then his regular postman is involved in an accident and a new one takes his place , much to Henry's horror . Luckily for Henry his blood pressure reaches normal again at the end - poor Valerie is eaten by sharks while swimming in Australia and her stream of correspondence stops . In the final scene , Henry is dining with a Chinese girl ( Pik Sen-Lim of ' Mind Your Language ' ) when he realises he has been eating shark . Remembering Valerie's fate , he runs to the loo to be sick - as indeed did some viewers at home . At the show's press conference , the men were laughing their heads off while women walked out in disgust . I can see why . It is sexist with a capital ' S ' . Henry is arrogant , unfeeling , racist ( check out his comments on Japanese businessmen ) and a chauvinist . But thanks to Leslie Phillips you cannot help but like him . We middle-aged married blokes with mortgages would kill for a lifestyle like his . Galton and Simpson defended their show by claiming it was moral , and that Henry's appalling behaviour was usually seen to be punished . To get an idea what this was like , watch the ' Galton & Simpson Playhouse ' episode with Richard Briers . ' Swap You One Of Those For One Of These ' started life as a script for ' Casanova 73 ' . Funniest moment - spotting a white hair on his head , Henry panics , and searches his body for other detectable signs of ageing . He looks down at his chest , tries to peer under his arms and - in a scene that got Mary Whitehouse fuming - stares down into his pyjama bottoms . Ray and Alan had just - to use a current phrase - pushed the boundaries of what was permissible on television . |
400,679 | 7,743,887 | 1,243,682 | 8 | Like Father , Like Son | Henry ( Leslie Phillips ) gets a phone call from his old headmaster , Dr . Spratforth ( Ronald Adam ) concerning his fourteen-year old son , Roger ( Roger Monk ) who is facing possible expulsion from Windthrift School For Boys because of a complaint brought by maths teacher Miss Phyllis Dropmore ( Cyd Hayman ) . Roger took photos of her when she went skinny dipping , and has been selling the snaps to the boys . Henry , who had been expelled himself from the place thirty years before after being caught with a Land Army girl , goes to the school to try and smooth things over . Newhouse Junior is making pots of money out of his classmates by taking bets on horse races , which they then watch on television in the science lab . He has rigged up a system of C . C . T . V . cameras , enabling him to see every part of the school . Henry meets ' Droopy Draws ' ( as the boys refer to Miss Dropmore ) , and she turns out to be a stunning beauty . Immediately his crumpet-o-meter goes into overdrive . . . One of the first things to be said about ' Casanova 73 ' is that it does not feel like a Galton & Simpson show . There's none of the pathos of ' Steptoe & Son ' nor inspired humour of ' Hancock's Half-Hour ' . It feels more like the work of Talbot Rothwell , writer of numerous ' Carry On ' pictures . I'll give you an example . The headmaster tells Henry that his son justified his presence in the woods by claiming he was on an ornithological expedition ' to photograph tits ' . Ooh , double meaning ! Roger is a strange boy indeed ; his interest in his teacher being one of financial profit , rather than lust . He regards her as ' ancient ' even though she is only 25 ! How on earth did he manage to install a C . C . T . V . camera in her room without her knowing ? Though credited as ' guest star ' , the lovely Cyd Hayman ( you may remember her as ' Madame Cocotte ' from the ' Death Can Be Fatal ' serial in the fourth series of ' The Two Ronnies ) is only in one scene , where she comes over all prim and proper in Henry's presence , feeling that her right to privacy has been violated . He of course never tells her it was not a good idea to go skinny dipping in the vicinity of a boys ' school . Before you ask , no we do not get to see the photos . Erik Chitty a . k . a . ' Smithy ' from ' Please Sir ! ' plays the ' Sports Master ' ( if you can believe it ! ) . Funniest moment - Henry spinning his wife Carol a pack of lies concerning his behaviour the night before . Removing his shirt , his infidelity is revealed . In the heat of passion , the maths teacher had scrawled sums all over his back ! |
401,485 | 7,743,887 | 968,882 | 8 | Triple Date ! | Mrs . Tranmere , one of the passengers aboard the M . S . Begonia , is rich , American , and - how can I put this - has a fondness for crew members . On clapping eyes on Duncan , she falls for him . Her daughter , Susan , is also taken with the young doctor . Suddenly he finds himself on a simultaneous date not only with Mrs . Tranmere and Susan , but also Nurse Wynton . . . We've been here before , haven't we ? Bernard McKenna and Richard Laing's script effectively takes the plot of the ' In Charge ' episode ' Honey Lamb ' and shifts the location to sea . Once more poor Duncan is forced to dash around , lighting fags and pouring drinks , and come up with all sorts of daft excuses for leaving the women alone . Nedwell would do it all over again four years later in the opening episode of ' The Upchat Connection ' . Sandra Dickinson makes her second appearance in ' At Sea ' , she had earlier been seen ( as a different character ) in the ' Sir John & Baby Doc ' episode . Here she sports a red wig , possibly to distinguish her from Elisabeth Councell . Nurse Wynton's sudden interest in Duncan is a bit hard to take . Previous episodes had depicted her as rather independent and aloof , but now she behaves like a love-sick puppy . Still , Councell gets a lot of comic mileage out of her ' wronged woman ' routine . Funniest moment - it involves Councell , funnily enough . Smashed out of her mind , she drags Duncan to the ship's discotheque , and they begin dancing . Around the dance floor are bars like those found on cages . The music stops suddenly , and she is left flouncing about like a fool . To make her humiliation worse , Duncan rushes off , leaving her crying helplessly , her hands gripping the bars like a convict . Top marks to the actress for getting laughs out of a virtually laugh-free script . |
401,279 | 7,743,887 | 502,944 | 8 | Welcome To SlapstickWorld ! | The final edition of ' Six Dates With Barker ' was a rare excursion by Ronnie Barker ( he wrote it under his ' Gerald Wiley ' alias ) into science fiction . It is 2774 A . D . A head of state lays dying . A physician arrives to tend to his final needs . He makes his entrance by jumping through a circus-style hoop , before executing a Billy Dainty-style funny dance . The viewing masses roar with laughter . Yes , we are in a bizarre future where comedy has become the new religion . Instead of The Father , The Son & The Holy Ghost , it is Chaplin , Keaton , and W . C . Fields . No-one is allowed to be serious anymore . People greet one another by thumbing their noses . A banana skin graces the national flag . When Prince Boffo ( Ronnie Barker ) weeps for his dead father , the viewers at home are mystified . When he questions the status quo , his wife reports him to the authorities , who decree he be re-indoctrinated to regain his sense of humour . He must face the Arch Funster . . . If you went to the cinema in the early ' 70's to see a science fiction film , chances were you would be confronted with the likes of ' A Clockwork Orange ' , ' No Blade Of Grass ' , ' The Final Programme ' , ' Soylent Green ' and ' Zardoz ' , all of which predicted doomy futures for the Human Race . It is a little surprising to see a half-hour sitcom on the same theme . ' Stooge ' depicts a nightmarish world , with everyone constantly cracking jokes , and an air of forced joviality in place at all times . Michael Hordern makes a guest appearance as the ' Arch Funster ' , a cross between Bob Monkhouse and Groucho Marx . The actor had previously worked with Barker on the silent film comedy ' Futtock's End ' . Lesley-Anne Down , who plays Prince Boffo's daughter ' Cheeky ' , went on to the period drama ' Upstairs , Downstairs ' as the annoying ' Georgina Worsley ' . The author's message is obvious ; only by being serious can we ever hope to measure the joy of laughter . Like the ' Galton & Simpson Playhouse ' episode ' Variations On A Theme ' , this should be regarded as a piece of experimental comedy , an attempt to do something other than what was the norm for I . T . V . comedy at the time . I cannot say for sure but my guess is that it probably baffled audiences . It makes its point fairly quickly , and then has nowhere to go . Perhaps the idea would have worked more effectively in sketch form . A similar premise appeared on ' Dr . Who ' in 1988 - ' The Happiness Patrol ' starring Sylvester McCoy . Funniest moment - Prince Boffo's re-indoctrination , in which he has to supply the punchlines to the Arch Funster's incredibly corny jokes . If it failed to offend anyone of a certain religious faith at the time , then I would be most surprised . Of course when this was written old school comedy was still around . Just imagine an updated version , featuring a world in which people worshipped ' The Mighty Boosh ' . Doesn't bear thinking about , does it ? |
400,658 | 7,743,887 | 299,315 | 8 | Gonna Have Fun In The Sun | We don't get shows like ' Hi ! Summer ' anymore , do we ? Name me one programme on now that opens with its high spirited cast cast larking about on a brightly coloured bus to the upbeat strains of a Lyndsay De Paul tune . Some might think that the culling of these shows was a good thing , but I beg to differ . I used to enjoy these seaside-themed variety shows , cheesy though they undeniably were . Like the B . B . C . ' s long-running ' Seaside Special ' , ' Hi ! Summer ' was light , frothy and fun . At least programme planners in those days acknowledged the existence of summer . Nowadays they put the same boring old crap out as the rest of the year . The cast , whose number included Leslie Crowther , Lena Zavaroni , Derek Griffiths , and Derek Waring , looked as though they were enjoying themselves , and this was communicated to the audience . Even my father , who normally hated this sort of thing , found it a good laugh . ' Hi ! Summer ' was one of several programmes designed to capture the feel of the good old traditional British holiday . The hot sun , the smell of the sea , the flavour of fish and chips . Many of the jokes could have been penned by Donald McGill . One sketch was set in a restaurant . A waiter brings Crowther's meal over . Lifting the dish , he finds the head of Lena Zavaroni underneath . " I asked for cannelloni , not Zavaroni ! " , he roared . Alright , so its not the world's funniest gag , but it worked . Another sketch sent up ' Charlie's Angels ' with Crowther as Farrah Fawcett-Majors . It owed a great debt to ' The Saturday Crowd ' which also had Crowther in charge of a team of comics . The difference was that ' Hi ! Summer ' moved around the country , from one popular tourist attraction to another . Derek Waring stood out like a sore thumb mainly because he could not sing to save his life . He was best known to viewers as a straight actor . You have not lived until you have heard his gravelly rendition of ' Get Out & Get Under ' . De Paul's catchy theme was later re-used on commercials for ' The T . V . Times . I think it is sad that people have forgotten how to enjoy fluff like this . These days Sunday evenings are full of depressing dramas about serial killers . Writing to ' The Sunday People ' , one enthusiastic ' Hi ! Summer ' viewer called it ' super ' and wanted to know if there would be a ' Hi ! Winter " . |
400,637 | 7,743,887 | 1,243,687 | 8 | Henry's Final Fling ! | The final episode of Galton and Simpson's mickey-take of the sexual revolution brought the series to a definite end . Henry is suffering from that middle-aged man's curse - impotence . " If Raquel Welch walked in here now stark naked , I's be lucky to raise a smile ! " , he tells Carol in bed . He vows to visit a private doctor , but does not . He instead winds up in the bed of tarty Muriel ( Elvi Hale ) , whose husband is in Scarborough . Henry's problem does not go away . But he has an even worse one to contend with - her moronic husband Montague ( George Murcell ) comes home unexpectedly early . He is a professional wrestler built like a Yeti . A terrified Henry hides in the wardrobe . . . This is the most farcical of the episodes , with Henry trapped and Murial having to pass him food when her husband isn't looking . Despite his appalling behaviour in earlier stories , you do feel sorry for him with regards to his personal problem . Viagra was not around then , so he has to suffer regardless . Elvi Hale was ' Anne Of Cleves ' in the B . B . C . ' s classic series ' The Six Wives Of Henry VIII ' , while Geoge Murcell played villains in both ' The Saint ' ( ' The Death Game ' and ' The Power Artists ' ) and ' The Avengers ' ( ' You Have Just Been Murdered ' ) . The ending has Henry regaining his sexual prowess and vowing only to use it on Carol from then on . Obviously had another series been made this would have been forgotten but it makes a nice conclusion all the same . The series was doomed from the moment the B . B . C . shoved it into a late-night slot . One script was left-over , and it was made into an episode of ' The Galton & Simpson Playhouse ' in 1977 starring Richard Briers . Funniest moment - Murial giving Henry a bottle of wine and a salad through the wardrobe door , followed by a box . " Ah , pudding ! " , says Henry , excitedly . But it contains instead a jug for him to pee in . Despite the often objectionable nature of this series , I enjoyed seeing it again after all these years . One has to remember that it very much a product of its times , hailing from the same era as ' Are You Being Served ? ' . It did offend some , mostly women . Personally any show that got up Mrs . Whitehouse's nose is fine by me . The sight of a 44 year-old man relentlessly chasing nubile young women for his own sexual gratification would not go down well now . Best viewed as a period piece . I'll leave the final word to Leslie Phillips himself . When asked whether he ever enjoyed Henry's lifestyle for real , he laughed and shook his head . " One would be tired all the time , wouldn't one ? " . |
401,611 | 7,743,887 | 437,950 | 8 | Terror From The Tube | Some things about the past are best left undisturbed - Count Dracula's coffin , King Tut's tomb , and the career of Noel Edmonds . Ever since I can remember Noel's name has been synonimous with ' rubbish T . V . ' . From ' Top Of The Pops ' through to ' Noel's House Party ' , everything he has touched has turned to soggy paper . Watching this programme - a breezy romp through Noel's television history - was like reliving a nightmare . The Bearded Wonder's presenting skills have not improved one iota since the days he introduced Clive Dunn in a rocking chair singing ' Grandad ' . Bad programmes aside , Noel does not appear to be particularly nice as a person ; he disparaged the lifeboat man who'd saved him from drowning after he later sold his story to the press , and indulged in self-pity in the aftermath of the Michael Lush tragedy . Some fun to be had out of seeing Noel made to look stupid by Chris Morris on ' Brass Eye ' , and the downfall of the ' Crinky Bottom ' theme park chain , but as it ended , I thought : " There's a danger this programme could lead to a career rebirth for Noel . Oh no . Please don't let it be so . " . Well , it did , didn't it ? So the nightmare is with us all over again ! |
401,553 | 7,743,887 | 502,940 | 8 | Will this war never end ? | Fritz Braun ( Ronnie Barker ) , butler to Kaiser Wilhelm ( Dennis Ramsden ) , is believed to be a security risk , so the Kaiser orders Captain Otto Von Diesel ( Graham Armitage ) to shoot him . But Von Diesel , Braun's brother-in-law , only pretends to do so . Glamorous German agent Lola Fisher has gone missing , hence Braun drags up to impersonate her . Von Diesel places a message on Braun's back using special ink that only shows up when exposed to heat . It is intended for the eyes of British officer Major Yappe ( Freddie Jones ) , meaning Braun has to go back to the randy old goat's flat . . . The third episode of ' Six Dates With Barker ' may or may not have been inspired by The Kinks ' hit ' Lola ' which was in the pop charts the year before . It contains the line : ' she talks like a woman but walks like a man ' , and that certainly applies to Ronnie here . I could not help but think this would have been funnier as a vehicle for Frankie Howerd . He later did do something like it - 1973's ' Up The Front ' . The writers , Ken Hoare and Mike Sharland , were responsible for ' Mr . Digby Darling ' starring Peter Jones and Sheila Hancock . Hoare also worked solo as Stanley Baxter's head writer . O . K . , but the cast deserved something stronger . Hugh Walters is rather good as a young Hitler , and Valentine Dyall appears briefly as ' General Kitchener ' , taking a break whilst posing for that famous ' Your Country Needs You ' poster . Funniest moment - Braun ( as ' Lola ' ) having the message written on his back while on a train . " Be careful where you dot the ' i's ! " , he tells Von Diesel . A passing waiter , hearing Braun grunting from discomfort , peeps through the keyhole and jumps to the wrong conclusion . Incidentally , the fate of the real Lola is never revealed . |
401,557 | 7,743,887 | 502,943 | 8 | I'm a looney ! | John Cleese , in need of money following a disastrous business venture , accepted Humphrey Barclay's offer to write several episodes of ' Doctor At Large ' in 1971 . Among them was the classic ' No Ill Feeling ! ' , later to inspire ' Fawlty Towers ' . Also that year Cleese penned this episode of ' Six Dates With Barker ' . Ronnie plays ' Dr . Swanton ' , a money-grabbing psychiatrist who gets a visit from the gas man ( Michael Bates ) . Only he is not really a gas man , but someone with dreadful psychological problems . He claims he is being followed everywhere by a little man in a Robin Hood hat with binoculars . Swanton tries to assure him the watcher is only a figment of his imagination , and appears to be having some success , but then , bizarrely , he starts seeing him as well . . . Remember the ' Argument ' sketch from ' Monty Python's Flying Circus ' ? Blow that up into ten times its length and you have this . It is basically a two-hander with Bates ' character protesting he must be a looney and Ronnie's trying to persuade him he is not . As was the case with ' All The World's A Stooge ' , the joke wears off quickly and the episode is left all at sea . I loved the ending though ! Energetic work from the late Michael Bates as the paranoid gas man . I do wish Network would release ' Turnbull's Finest Half-Hour ' on D . V . D . as it featured one of his very best performances ( check out my I . M . D . B . review for my thoughts on the show ) . Funniest moment - Dr . Swanton trying to prove the imaginary man really exists by tipping him upside down . |
401,466 | 7,743,887 | 86,006 | 8 | Move Over Moore ! The Other Feller's Back ! | As the ' 70's drew to a close , rumours began to fly in the entertainment industry about the possible return of Sean Connery to the role he had made famous back in 1962 - James Bond . Cubby Broccoli was asked on location in Brazil during the making of ' Moonraker ' by the B . B . C . ' s Barry Norman how he viewed the prospect . Understandably , the producer was reluctant to commit himself to an opinion . When ' Moonraker ' opened , Bond fans were outraged by what they perceived to be a cheapening of the character , and the jumping onto the ' Star Wars ' bandwagon much as ' Live & Let Die ' had done with the blaxploitation craze a few years earlier . Many publicly vocalised their hope that Connery would return , if only to show Eon how a real Bond movie should look . Years of legal battles followed . The original script , entitled ' James Bond Of The Secret Service ' ( later retitled ' Warhead ' ) was written by Kevin McClory , Len Deighton , and Connery , was never filmed , and remains one of the great unmade movie blockbusters . A new script , closer to the ' Thunderball ' storyline , was commissioned . It was written by Lorenzo Semple Junior , best known as the man who put the camp into ' Batman ' . He had also written ' The Parallax View ' , one of the decade's finest conspiracy thrillers . Feeling the script needed a British touch , Connery brought in Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais , writers of hit British sitcoms ' The Likely Lads ' and ' Porridge ' . The witty title was suggested by Connery's wife Micheline . ' Never Say Never Again ' opened just before Christmas 1983 to a shower of critical praise ; normally sensible critics were so ecstatic at Connery's return they ignored all other aspects of the film . Many used it to viciously attack the Roger Moore series , particularly that year's ' Octopussy ' . In truth , ' Octopussy ' is superior in every respect . ' Never ' lacks the excitement and spectacle one associates with Bond , at times it looks like a made-for-T . V . movie . The story had been done before and better in 1965's ' Thunderball ' , hence ' Never ' was always going to come off second best . It was also hampered by not being part of the official series , meaning that Monty Norman's ' James Bond Theme ' and Maurice Binder's gun-barrel logo could not be used . As Bond , Connery is magnificent , effortlessly stepping back into his most famous role . Playing Bond as an older , wiser agent worked . Barbara Carrera landed her best movie role as villainous ' Fatima Blush ' , a lady whose love for murder is such she dances after ( so she thinks ) killing Bond . Kim Basinger smolders as ' Domino ' . As S . P . E . C . T . R . E . agent ' Maximillian Largo ' , Klaus Maria Brandauer gives a chilling performance . A major disappointment though is Max Von Sydow as ' Blofeld ' . The posters gave the impression he would be a major character , in fact he appears only in a few scenes . With a stronger script , he could have been one of the all-time great Bond villains . ' Never ' promised to be a throwback to the early Eon Bonds such as ' From Russia With Love ' , but did not deliver . The gadgets were there , but were used almost apologetically . Bond's rocket-firing motorcycle was a tired gimmick even in the ' 60's . The film tried to compete with Eon's Bonds in terms of humour . Bond saving himself by throwing his own urine sample into an assassin's face is a farcical a moment as any you will find in ' Moonraker ' . But the nadir comes with the introduction of Rowan Atkinson as bumbling Foreign Office official ' Nigel Small-Fawcett ' . He gives a performance so staggeringly awful you wonder if he thought he was in a Footlights revue . Michel Legrand's music is horrible , the man seems to never to have seen a Bond film in his life . Though the film was a financial success , viewed years later it stands as the weakest Bond of the ' 80's . Connery himself was disappointed with it , and not did act in a movie again for some years . 1983 was a good year for 007 maniacs , in addition to the Connery and Moore movies , George Lazenby did a delightful cameo in the made-for-T . V . ' Return Of The Man From U . N . C . L . E . : The Fifteen Years Later Affair ' . |
400,729 | 7,743,887 | 147,763 | 8 | Before ' The X-Files ' , There Was ' The Enigma Files ' | Rugged British actor Tom Adams , once tipped as a possible successor to Sean Connery as ' James Bond ' , never seemed to find the right vehicle for stardom . He was in ' The Great Escape ' , not that anyone probably noticed , and played secret agent ' Charles Vine ' in a trilogy of low-budget spoofs in the mid-60's . He achieved greater success on television , playing ' Major Sullivan ' in ' Spy Trap ' , and suave villains in shows such as ' The Avengers ' , ' Strange Report ' , and ' The Persuaders ' , as well as a doctor in the long-running I . T . V . soap ' General Hospital ' . In 1980 , it looked as though his big break had finally arrived , when he starred as ' D . C . I . Nick Lewis ' in the B . B . C . police drama ' The Enigma Files ' , created by Derek Ingrey . Lewis was an honest copper who had had the misfortune to be involved in a police corruption scandal . Rather than be sacked outright , he was placed in charge of ' The Prisoners Property Office ' , an archive of unsolved police cases . Preferring active duty , he was far from happy , but decided to follow the advice of his daughter Liz and blow the dust off the files . He was assisted by sexy Kate Burton ( Sharon Maughan - the lady off the old ' Gold Blend ' coffee ads ) , and Phil Strong ( comedian Duggie Brown ) , a computer boffin . Future ' Emmerdale ' star Alyson Spiro played ' Liz ' , Lewis ' only daughter . Over the course of fifteen weeks ( an unusually long run for a B . B . C . drama series ) , the team went after missing girls , master forgers , murderers , a porn king , a man who made money by inventing charities , two Cordon Bleu criminals whose victims would not testify against them , and a millionaire's killer . These wrong-doers assumed that the passage of time guaranteed them immunity from arrest - until Lewis came after them . The show was curiously old fashioned , a sort of cross between ' Department S ' and ' Dixon Of Dock Green ' . It could easily have been shown at 7 . 15 on B . B . C . - 1 on a Sunday evening , but was given the rather odd slot of 9 . 30 on a Tuesday night on B . B . C . - 2 . Nobody swore , took their clothes off , or did anything remotely violent . It was pleasantly undemanding entertainment , the sort of programme you could unwind to after a tiring day . The catchy disco-flavoured theme was by Anthony Issac . Christine Sparks novelised the first eight episodes for B . B . C . Books . Prior to the series , Adams gave an interview to ' The News Of The World ' in which he unwisely disparaged other television detective shows such as ' Shoestring ' and ' Target ' . Offended fans retaliated by writing angry letters to the tabloids . One went as follows : ' The Enigma Files is well named . It is indeed an enigma . ' . Eight episodes into the run , Sharon Maughan left ( her character handed in her notice in the first episode ) , and in her place came Carole Nimmons ( ' Coronation Street's ' Sarah Ridley ' ) as ' Sue Maxwell ' . This was the era before T . V . cops had nervous breakdowns , attacks of conscience , or suffered from angst , hence Lewis was fairly one dimensional , a man of action rather than thought . Adams gave a solid performance , but was not allowed to explore the character in any depth . I have never found Duggie Brown amusing , so I was surprised to find myself warming to him here . Though popular , ' The Enigma Files ' was closed for good after only one season . However , it was later repeated on B . B . C . - 1 ( where it should have been in the first place ) in a prime-time Friday night slot . It would be wrong to describe it as a ' classic ' , but I suspect that if it were repeated on satellite or issued on D . V . D . it would hold up rather well . |
401,549 | 7,743,887 | 66,436 | 8 | Take A Movie Like This | I read someplace that the Boulting Brothers ' 1957 film of ' Lucky Jim ' was originally to have starred Jonathan Miller ( it eventually was made with Ian Carmichael ) . How true that is I do not know . It seems highly unlikely as Miller was virtually unknown until ' Beyond The Fringe ' in 1960 . In 1970 the good doctor directed this - his only movie - an adaptation of another Kingsley Amis novel - ' Take A Girl Like You ' . It stars Hayley Mills as the charmingly named ' Jenny Bunn ' , who moves to London to work as a teacher . She takes up lodgings with the Thompsons ( John Bird and Sheila Hancock ) , an argumentative middle-aged couple . Alchoholic Mr . Thompson is the local Labour candidate , and expects Jenny to canvass for him . No sooner has she moved in than Jenny meets Patrick ( Oliver Reed ) , the boyfriend of her roommate . It is lust at first sight . He does not get very far though - she is a virgin , and intends staying that way until her wedding night . Another man would have given up on the spot , but Patrick embarks on a quest to get her into bed without actually marrying her . . . As the book was written in the ' 50's , the story had to be updated , making Jenny's decision to remain chaste seem all the more bizarre , given the different moral climate of the era . The late George Melly wrote the screenplay . Curiously enough , three years earlier , he wrote a movie called ' Smashing Time ' which also began with a comely Northern lass ( two of them , in fact ) heading down South and finding it a sinful place . ' Take ' is a different kettle of fish , free of the surreal comedy of that earlier picture . Miller's direction is functional rather than flash . Reed gives a solid performance , virtually identical in fact to the one he gave in Michael Winner's ' The System ' . Like ' Tinker ' , Patrick regards women as existing mainly for his amusement , arguing with Jenny that her attitudes to sex are outdated . Hayley Mills is suitably sexy as ' Jenny ' , though her decision to succumb at the end to the lures of Patrick's upper-class friend ' Julian ' is a little hard to understand , especially as he seems an even bigger chauvinist . Noel Harrison ( son of Rex ) is excellent as ' Julian ' , whose life consists of drunken parties . He backs Thompson only because he wants him to cancel a project to build a new airport - one that would see his country home demolished . Unluckily for him , Thompson reneges on the promise ( politicians , eh ? ) . Lovely Aimi MacDonald is hilarious as dippy game-show hostess ' Wendy ' . For me though the stand-out performance came from John Bird as the seedy ' Dick Thompson ' , a Labourite with more than a passing resemblance to Harold Wilson . Future ' Liver Bird ' Nerys Hughes appears briefly as a teacher . Patrick's pursuit of Jenny takes place against a background of country pubs , posh restaurants , and trendy flats . Surprisingly , they do not go anywhere near Carnaby Street . The film is nice to look at and there are some wonderfully funny moments , but the ending unfortunately spoils it . In 2000 , the B . B . C . remade the story , putting in all the things the film lacked , such as nudity and bad language . Not a great movie then , but worth a look . For a true classic based on a Kingsley Amis book , check out ' Only Two Can Play ' ( 1962 ) starring the great Peter Sellers . |
401,079 | 7,743,887 | 665,430 | 8 | I am not eating that ! It is stolen ! | Eagle-eyed Blakey notices that the new canteen girl , Suzy , is giving him significantly smaller portions of food ( for the same money ) than Jack and Stan . Furthermore , Stan is taking home left-overs such as sausages and cheese . Suzy has a thing going with Jack and seems to fancy Stan too . Blakey sacks Suzy and replaces her with the ex-prison guard ( and noticeably less attractive ) Gladys . Desperate to feed his family ( apart from Arthur , who refuses to touch what he regards as stolen food ) , Stan uses his charm on her , but he has not reckoned on Gladys being so sex starved . . . Good old Andria Lawrence . Here she is again , blonde and brassy , cast as your everyday nymphomaniac . The same year this episode was made , she was also be found in the ' On The Buses ' movie , playing ' turnaround ' Betty . A charming woman , and attractive to boot . Also to be found here is Fanny Carby , the archetypal ' nosey neighbour ' of numerous ' 70's sitcoms such as Harry Worth's ' How's Your Father ' . Odd to see her also playing a woman having difficulty keeping her knickers on , but there you go . Luan Peters , who crops at the end as ' Joan ' , is remembered by comedy fans as that Aussie woman whom John Cleese accidentally groped in a classic instalment ( aren't they all ? ) of ' Fawlty Towers ' . Good episode , particularly when Stan tries to conceal his guilt by eating hot sausages as quickly as possible . Funniest moment - the smile on Blakey's face vanishing when Stan and Jack stumble on a way to fool the new vending machines into giving them free food ! |
401,337 | 7,743,887 | 665,428 | 8 | Like mushrooms ? There's plenty growing on the ceiling ! | Olive and Arthur are constantly complaining about the state of their room , so Stan bribes Nobby at the depot into letting him have a couple of tins of paint . The room is duly decorated , and nice it looks too . But there's a snag - Arthur has forgotten to mix hardener in with the paint , hence it is still wet when he and Olive go to bed . Stumbling about in the dark , the short-sighted Olive leaves green hand prints everywhere . . . This plot later provided a story element in the film ' Holiday On The Buses ' , only then it was a holiday camp chalet that got painted . Lynn Dalby went on to play ' Hazel ' in the hit series ' Budgie ' starring Adam Faith . Funniest moment - Olive asking an incredulous Stan if its not too late to put the hardener in the paint . His reply : " Hang on love , I'll scrape it off the walls and put it back in the tins ! " . |
400,714 | 7,743,887 | 665,441 | 8 | Stan Goes Diamond Hunting ! | Finding a couple of portions of fish and chips on their bus , Stan and Jack gratefully tuck in . However , the woman who bought them turns up at the depot to see if they have been handed in . Blakey lets the woman look over the bus . Noticing a strong smell of fish , she comments on it . Jack tells her that Blakey has been having incontinence problems . A furious Blakey demands that in future all lost property be handed to him personally . Sensing a chance for a bit of fun , Stan and Jack hand over various embarrassing items such as a chamber pot and a pair of woman's knickers . Finding an envelope , Stan takes it home , not realising it contains a diamond worth £100 . . . You would be surprised at the strange things people leave behind on buses . An old neighbour of mine once went to town to buy a chicken for his Sunday dinner , only to arrive home a few hours later without it . It was never found . Presumably either another passenger or one of the staff got their hands on it . Knowing Stan and Jack as we do , its unsurprising they would take a ' finders keepers ' approach to lost property . Amelia Bayntun is the old lady looking for her fish and chips . She was ' Mrs . Fussey ' in ' Carry On Camping ' in 1969 . ' Joe ' , the maintenance man , is none other than Bartlett Mullins . With his bald head , glasses and bird-like manner , Mullins was a familiar figure in countless films and series of the ' 60's and ' 70's , from ' The Likely Lads ' ( in which he played ' Cloughy ' ) to ' The Prisoner ' . Definitely one of Britain's unsung character actors . Funniest moment - Stan locates the missing envelope in Olive and Arthur's room , but the diamond is not inside . Carefully , he begins searching the bed - while they are still in it ! |
400,939 | 7,743,887 | 665,444 | 8 | Stan & Jack Have A Hot Time | Jack bets Stan a fiver he cannot last a day without a cigarette . Later that day , Arthur bets Stan a ten-pound note he cannot last a day without a cigarette . Stan tries to stem his craving by over-eating , but the addiction is too strong and he heads to the toilet to have a drag . Arthur appears on the landing , so Stan puts the burning cigarette in his mouth , eventually spitting it out . Arthur declares himself the winner of the bet . But what is he up to ? A recurring old sitcom plot device involved a major character attempting to win a bet by demonstrating ' willpower ' . In the ' Rising Damp ' episode ' Food Glorious Food ' , Rigsby tries to go a whole day without a meal , here its Stan yearning for a smoke . Years later , ' Father Ted ' did a variation on the theme , in ' Cigarettes & Alcohol & Rollerblading ' . The penultimate series of ' On The Buses ' begins in spectacular fashion , as Stan accidentally sets fire to a bus , which is completely gutted by the end . You'd think Stan and Jack would certainly get the sack for this , but no , the bus company can only claim insurance by attributing the fire to faulty wiring . So their jobs are safe . Funniest moment - Stan and Jack using part of a broken fence to rescue Blakey from the upper deck of the blazing bus ! |
400,828 | 7,743,887 | 295,103 | 8 | An American Wolf In London | Fast-talking U . S . comic Kelly Monteith made such an impact on ' Des O'Connor Tonight ' he was given his own B . B . C . - 2 show . Unlike the dreary Joan Rivers , however , Monteith was a brilliant stand-up in the Robin Williams mold , when telling jokes he could play different characters and switch voices with exhilarating speed . One of his best routines was called ' The Symptoms Of Eddie's Disease ' in which he delivered a speech outlining the symptoms ( hicupping , twitching etc . ) of said malady whilst displaying them himself . The series starred Monteith as a fictionalised version of himself , an American comic based in London , living in a flat with wife Suzanne , played by the sexy Gabrielle Drake . Monteith would chat to the audience , and his monologues alternated with domestic sketches , written by Monteith and Spike Milligan's ' Q ' collaborator Neil Shand . In one amusing item , Monteith impressed an elderly couple he met at a party so much they invited him round for dinner the following Tuesday . On arrival , however , he found the couple had gone cold on him , and laughed at none of his jokes . Drake left the show eventually , and the format was changed . The last season was about the making of the Kelly Monteith series , and didn't prove as popular with viewers . After the show ended , Monteith returned to the States , where he now concentrates on nightclub work . |
400,700 | 7,743,887 | 665,450 | 8 | Stan Butler - Time Traveller ? | Stan is showing Mum and Olive around a local transport museum . He falls asleep at the wheel of a vintage omnibus , and dreams that he is living 100 years in the past , and still a bus driver . Olive is a would-be suffragette , Mum is a washerwoman , Jack is a Luddite opposed to the fitting of engines in the omnibuses , while Blakey is . . . as appalling as ever . Did you think ' Life On Mars ' was original ? Well , here , its Stan Butler who goes the Sam Tyler route of waking up in the past . The change of setting makes this an unusual and enjoyable episode from the pens of Bob Grant and Stephen Lewis . Nice period flavour too . Funniest moment - Stan driving under a low bridge and leaving Blakey suspended by his fingertips ! |
401,534 | 7,743,887 | 64,519 | 8 | 1969 : A Space Odyssey | ' Doppleganger ' , ( or ' Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun ' as it is more commonly known ) was written ( with input by the late Donald James ) and produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson , best known for their ' Supermarionation ' television shows such as ' Thunderbirds ' . The international space agency Eurosec discovers the existence of a mysterious planet on the other side of the sun , and proposes a manned flight be sent there . The committee balk at the exhorbitant cost , and shelve the project . But when a security leak at the agency is discovered , fearing that the Russians might get there first , the project gets the green light . American astronaut Glenn Ross ( Roy Thinnes ) is teamed with British scientist John Kane ( Ian Hendry ) . After weeks of gruelling training , the Phoenix blasts off , heading for the unknown . Three weeks later , their ship crashes in what appears to be a bleak , mountainous landscape . Ross survives , but Kane is badly injured . A light is seen moving towards them . . . I will leave the synopsis here . Until this point , the film has been gripping , with excellent special effects ( by Derek Meddings ) and music by Anderson's resident composer Barry Gray ( why it has not been issued on C . D . is a mystery ) . But when Ross and Kane crash land , and we discover the secret of the alien world - it is a duplicate of our own , everyone on it is the same , the only major difference is that things are reversed - it becomes less interesting , and ends with a shattering anti-climax . I think the cinema was the wrong place to do this idea , in fact Gerry & Sylvia later did something similar on their ' Space : 1999 ' show . Ross risks ( and ultimately loses ) his life in an effort to return to Earth - his Earth . But why ? The new Earth is so similar he might as well not have bothered . Roy Thinnes had recently done ' The Invaders ' television series , and gives a competent performance ( pity there weren't more scenes like the one where he rows with his wife ) . Ian Hendry is good as ' Kane ' , but vanishes from the story too soon . Several actors went on to appear in the Andersons ' ' U . F . O . ' such as Ed Bishop and George Sewell . Blink and you will miss Nicholas Courtney ( ' The Brigadier ' from ' Dr . Who ' in a tiny role ) . But the acting honours go to the late Patrick Wymark as ' Jason Webb ' , head of Eurosec . The character is not far removed from ' Sir John Wilder ' , the one he played in A . T . V . ' s ' The Power Game ' . Webb is such a devious character he is marvellous to watch . Herbert Lom's contribution ( as a spy with a camera hidden in a false eye ) amounts to little more than a cameo . Like I said , the special effects are marvellous , as are the sets . So the film is worth watching , but do not expect very much to happen once the action moves to the mirror planet . With a stronger script , this could have been another ' Planet Of The Apes ' or - dare I say it - ' 2001 : A Space Odyssey ' . In Anderson's productions , he made the future seem like a great place , an adventure playground where science was cool , everyone had swank cars whose doors opened vertically , sexy women , and absolutely no suggestion that anything is seriously wrong with the world . We are in the future now and people are still watching ' Coronation Street ' every other night . How disappointing . If a mirror Earth really exists somewhere , one hopes that is a better place than this one . If all the women there look like Lynn Loring or Loni von Friedl , I will be on the next flight ! |
401,180 | 7,743,887 | 116,118 | 8 | Its Time To Return . . . | Since the triumphant return of ' Dr . Who ' to our screens in 2005 , fans have downgraded the 1996 T . V . movie from a ' disappointment ' to a ' disaster ' . Certainly it didn't lead to the expected follow-up series , but that was down to bad scheduling in the U . S . A . rather than the quality of the film itself . Over here it got nine million viewers ( an excellent rating for B . B . C . - 1 ) . The film's biggest mistake was to start with Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor . On landing in San Francisco in 1999 , he is shot by a drug gang and taken to a hospital where he dies - or seems to . In the mortuary , the ' corpse ' assumes a completely new form . Elsewhere , the Doctor's old enemy ' The Master ' has taken over the body of an ambulance driver , and plans to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations . Viewers who hadn't seen ' Dr . Who ' before were totally mystified . As McGann asserts his personality , the film becomes fun to watch . He's a terrific Doctor , and had the potential to be the best since Tom Baker , but it wasn't to be . Eric Roberts is a very different ' Master ' from the ones we're used to , but its a good thing . Daphne Ashbrook makes a delightful ' Dr . Grace Holloway ' , a character in the ' Liz Shaw ' mold . Yee Jee Tso's ' Chang Lee ' is great too . The interior of the TARDIS is a stunning piece of design , the S . F . X . are the best the show's ever seen ( faint praise though that is ) , and by and large the positives outweigh the negatives . But ' Dr . Who ' didn't impress the Americans , and back he went into limbo - until 2005 anyway . |
401,677 | 7,743,887 | 526,928 | 8 | You are the gentleman with the two prawn balls ! | Sid is thrilled to discover that his layabout son Mike has gotten engaged to a rich man's daughter - Pamela Huntley-Johnson . He is less than thrilled , however , when Sally announces her engagement to Pamela's father , who is some thirty years older than herself . . . This episode was the last by the show's creators , Vince Powell and Harry Driver , before the latter's death in 1973 . Once again Sid's old fashioned look on life blinds him to common sense ; any man with a scrap of intelligence would be delighted at the thought of his daughter marrying into money , no matter what the age of the husband . Interesting cast . ' It Ain't Half Hot Mum ' had been running for three months when Windsor Davies showed up here as Sid's colleague from work . Cheryl Hall was several years away from becoming Wolfie Smith's girlfriend ' Shirley ' in ' Citizen Smith ' , while Sue Holderness , who plays the frightfully posh ' Pamela ' , is better known these days as tarty ' Marlene ' in ' Only Fools & Horses ' and ' The Green Green Grass ' . Funniest moment - warned by his wife not to set foot on the new lounge carpet , Sid uses a tea trolley to sail across to the kitchen ! |
400,925 | 7,743,887 | 78,650 | 8 | ' Wild , Wild West ' Set To A Disco Beat | ' A Man Called Sloane ' was a short-lived Quinn Martin show which starred Robert Conrad as trendy antiques dealer Thomas Remington Sloane The Third , also a Priority One secret agent for the counter-espionage organisation U . N . I . T . On entering a secret base behind the facade of a toy boutique in California , he would be briefed by The Director ( Dan O'Herlihy ) . U . N . I . T . ' s opponents were KARTEL , a mysterious syndicate of arms dealers bent on world domination . Each week , the organisation would attempt to seize power with the aid of some improbable new super-weapon , such as a tuning fork that gave off sonic waves , killer locusts , or a laser satellite designed to destroy specific targets . Conrad replaced Robert Logan , who'd played ' Sloane ' ( rather badly ) in the pilot . The veteran actor brought to it the laconic style he'd used in the hit ' 60's series ' Wild , Wild West ' . Ji-Tu Cumbuka returned as the ' Jaws'-like henchman ' Torque ' ( steel hand instead of teeth ) , even though the pilot ended with him falling to his death . As if this was not confusing enough , Torque was now a good guy , working alongside Sloane the same way Illya Kuryakin did with Napoleon Solo ! The lovely Karen Purcill played ' Kelly ' , the show's ' Q ' equivalent . The impressive list of guest-stars included Robert Culp , Morgan Fairchild , Roddy McDowall , and Monte Markham . Michelle Carey was the sexy voice of E . F . F . I . E . the computer . This fun show was modelled on the Roger Moore Bond films of the time , which meant that there were laughs amongst the girls and gadgets . It was screened in America at around the same time as the first season of the Gil Gerard ' Buck Rogers ' and mirrored it inasmuch as it did for espionage what Buck did for science fiction . Conrad has been rather uncomplimentary about ' Sloane ' in interviews since , describing it as ' terrible ' . Why then did he direct one episode ? I have the series on D . V . D . , and find it rather more enjoyable than the lame ' Wild Wild West ' reunion T . V . movies he did the early 80's . ' Sloane ' was a pretty decent show . It was just not given a chance to find an audience . |
400,982 | 7,743,887 | 204,112 | 8 | We've passed a resolution . . . | Television , that master illusionist , can conjure universes out of a hat , inhabited by the wild creations of tortured souls , watched by millions in the belief that what they are seeing is reality . Thanks to television , I thought Johnny Morris was a zoo keeper , Jack Hargreaves lived and breathed the countryside , Kelly Monteith and Gabrielle Drake were husband and wife , and that ' The Wheeltappers & Shunters Social Club ' was a real Northern working men's club . Was I gullible - or were these illusions really that convincing ? Every Saturday night , the doors would open , and we'd see Bernard Manning , elbow on the bar , eyeing the busty barmaid , and announcing the ' turns ' , with fellow ' Comedians ' star Colin Crompton ringing a bell every now and then and uttering spoof resolutions , all prefaced with ' On behalf of the Committeeeeeeeeee . . . . ' . The attention to detail was indeed impressive ; recognisable brands of beer such as ' Double Diamond ' were on sale , along with ' Golden Wonder Jungle Fresh ' salted peanuts , the ashtrays looked full , you'd spot people carrying trays of beer and crisps to their tables and wandering off to the toilet between ( and sometimes during ) the ' turns ' , with pictures of Harold Wilson ( the then-Prime Minister ) prominently displayed . The set was a masterpiece of design . To add further authenticity , the customers smoked , resulting in a thick fog hanging over the Brycreem and Harmony hairspray covered heads . What about the ' turns ' ? These included acts one hadn't seen in years , such as Bill Haley & The Comets , Freddie Garrity , Buddy Greco , Tessie O'Shea , Yana and Kathy Kirby , while others were up and coming stars such as Cannon & Ball and the late impressionist Dustin Gee . Viewers never wondered how a humble workingmen's club could afford such famous people . I was not alone in being taken in by Johhny Hamp's illusion ; apparently Granada received hundreds of letters each week from people wanting tickets . As a young boy unable to drink in pubs or clubs , this show was compulsive viewing , giving me a foretaste of the joys of adulthood . As soon as as I was eighteen , I planned to put my name down for membership . When Granada Plus repeated ' Shunters ' in the mid-90's , I tuned in and found that the illusion was as strong as ever . We may not have been watching a real club , but what we got was immeasurably better . No brawling in the street , no mad scrabble to find a taxi after eleven o'clock , and best of all , no hangover the next morning . Now that's what I call magic ! |
401,451 | 7,743,887 | 287,836 | 8 | When Bobby Was On The Box | In the ' 80's , Bobby Davro was hotly tipped to replace Mike Yarwood as Britain's leading impressionist . The blonde , handsome Davro counted among his repertoire the likes of George Michael , Alex Higgins , Roy Castle , Jonathan King , Johnny Briggs , Duncan Norvelle and Jim Davidson . This series - whilst hardly original - was a perfect showcase for his talents , also featuring the equally brilliant Jessica Martin , best known as the voice of ' Madonna ' on ' Spitting Image ' . The unusually well-written sketches consisted mainly of take-offs of well-known shows such as ' Crimewatch U . K . ' , ' Adrian Mole ' and ' Blind Date ' . Unfortunately , a few years later , a purge of the more traditional British comedy styles saw Davro swept off the air , returning only occasionally as a contestant on shows such as ' Never Mind The Buzzcocks ' . Martin went on to a successful stage career , television seemingly not knowing what to do with such an amazingly talented woman . |
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