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'The Goodies Rule - OK!'
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THE LADS AND LASSES OF THE C&G
EDITOR
- Brett Allender <bretta@netcon.net.au>
ACE REPORTERS:
- Lisa Manekofsky <ljm@cs.brown.edu>
- Alison Bean <bean_is_a_carrot@yahoo.com>
COOL COR COMIC REVIEWER:
- Linda Kay <Goodiesfan@aol.com>
C&G CONTRIBUTORS:
- Duncan Lilly. Ben Tumney
CONTENTS
1. QUIZ & QUOTE - Goodies brainteasers for you and you and you
2. SPOTTED!!! - The latest Goodies sightings.
3. 2001 AND A BIT - Tim, Graeme and Bill sightings post-Goodies.
4. AT LAST THE 1948 SHOW DVD reviews
5. FEATURE ARTICLE - Hello Cheeky
6. GOODIES COR!! COMICS SYNOPSIS #41
7. QUIZ & QUOTE ANSWERS and WORD FINDER SOLUTION
1. QUIZ & QUOTE
(by "Magnus Magnesium")
QUOTE: "It is Mrs Carthorse, isn't it" (Yes) "What does your husband do?"
(a) Which Goodie says this quote?
(b) What is Mrs Carthorse's memorable reply?
(c) Which episode is this quote from?
QUIZ: This month's questions are from the episode: "For Those In Peril On The Sea"
(d) Which people first discovered the island of Munga?
(e) What did the French do to cause the island to become lost?
(f) Why does Lou, Bill's vulture, look rather unwell?
(g) Which arch-villain do the Goodies reacquaint themselves with on Munga?
(h) Where did this villain obtain his Master Of Disguises qualification from?
The answers are listed at the end of this newsletter.
2. SPOTTED!!!
More exciting than getting your wig-spotters badge! If you've seen the Goodies recently, e-mail <clarion@goodiesruleok.com>with the details. Here's where we've Spotted!!! The Goodies this month:
THOU SHALT DO THE FUNKY GIBBON
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 25th July)
I thought the following excerpt from an article in "The Age" (available at http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/hero-worship/2005/07/22/1121539155817.html?oneclick=true ) might be of interest/amusement:
"Above all else, popular culture creates an easy access point for students when it intelligently reflects potentially difficult themes within an academic discipline. From the start, Ms Auty [a Melbourne-based VCE English literature teacher], has taught religious education for VCE students exclusively through references to popular culture, drawing from episodes of The Simpsons, Buffy, Angel, Dark Angel, The Goodies and That '70s Show."
GOODIES DVD SET
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 29th July)
Thanks to John Hatfield for spotting this.
EZY DVD's website reports that a boxed set of Vols 1 and 2 of The Goodies will be released on 1 September. (http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/781815 )
Distributor Roadshow Entertainment's website provides further (and very welcome) news about the set (at http://www.roadshow.com.au/village_product.asp?txtCatalog=DVD&txtCategory=&txtProductID=B01031-9 ) - it appears that at least some of the bonus features that were missing from "The Goodies - A Tasty Second Helping" (Goodies Vol.2 that was released in March) will be on this set. While the colour version of "Come Dancing" isn't explicitly mentioned I'd be very surprised if that isn't included.
Here's the current blurb from Roadshow's site: "Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie are The Goodies and never has there been such a dynamic trio. No task is too difficult nor too ridiculous or even too easy! Now you can enjoy all their crazy antics with the definitive 4 DVD Box Set featuring 16 classic digitally remastered episodes plus special features galore. Including previously unreleased in Australia bonus content - The Goodies In Conversation featurette; Out-Takes; Original Scripts; Commentaries by Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden; a Commemorative Booklet; surviving footage from the Goodies pre-cursor "Broaden Your Mind"; laughter free tracks plus an amazing digital restoration feature detailing the process that brought The Goodies into the 21st century!"
Please note that the DVD box set that was recently released in the UK contains the two DVD sets that were released separately ("The Goodies - At Last!" and "At Last A Second Helping") in a cardboard slipcase. Other than the addition of the case there is no difference between the separate releases and the box set.
3. 2001 AND A BIT
If you've sighted Tim, Bill or Graeme in a post-Goodies role, e-mail <clarion@goodiesruleok.com> so that we can tell everyone where to spot a Goodie nowadays. Those of you seeking radio & tv alerts between issues of the C&G should consider signing up for the Goodies-L mailing list (more details available on the club website),as our crack (cracked?!) team of reporters attempt to post alerts as the information becomes available.
BILL SPOTTINGS
* BBC1 has announced some shows that will appear on the channel this autumn. Among the line-up is a show presented by Bill Oddie called "The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs" which will ask how much we see and read about dinosaurs is accurate.
There's no information about the broadcast date yet.
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 14th July)
* Bill is currently doing the voiceover for the TV ads for Kashi breakfast cereal.
(Alison Bean - Goodies-l - 20th July)
* Thought I'd pass along this item which appears online at http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/article300351.ece for any "Springwatch" fans out there.
The surprise success of Bill Oddie's recent TV show, Springwatch, comes with a sting in its tail. For all the viewers he pulled in, Oddie's decision to train cameras on a family of peregrine falcons in central London has left BBC bosses with a serious headache.
The famous nest was actually built on top of an aerial used by BBC radio cars. This aerial is now broken. But, since falcons are a protected species, the Beeb has been banned from carrying out repairs on it.
Oddie's co-presenter, Mike Dilger, reckons the RSPB will prosecute if the birds are disturbed. "All three chicks filmed for Springwatch are now flying, but may still return to the nest while they are getting their skills up to speed," he tells me. "We hope the family will soon move to the Tate Modern, as it did in 2004, so the antenna can be fixed."
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 20th July)
* Bill is going to appear in a show called "Top 50 Greatest Celebrity Animals" this coming Wednesday, 3rd August on Sky One from 20:00 to 22:00. The listing says, "From heroic mutts to dastardly sharks, animals have always a played an important part in pop culture. Bill Oddie is among the experts counting down our best-loved beasts." Do we think Twinkle (aka Kitten Kong) will get a mention?
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 23rd July)
GRAEME SPOTTINGS
* For those of you who can download bit torrent files, the website www.uknova.com has episodes of "Just a Minute" featuring Graeme and Tim. And yes, Tim makes fun of Nicholas Parsons in front of the man himself in one episode (and Nicholas knows he is constantly made fun of in The Goodies). Tim is in series 15 and Graeme is in series 11,15 and 17.
(Ben Tumney - Goodies-l - 20th July)
* On Wednesday, 3rd August, BBC Radio 4 begins a repeat of the series "About a Dog" which was written by Graeme Garden. The show, which airs from 18:30 to 19:00, stars Alan Davies, Kate Ashfield, and Darren Boyd. It can be heard online at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 23rd July)
* A while back it was reported that Graeme Garden would be doing a voice in an animated show called "Streatham Hill", whose title was later changed to "Bromwell High".
"Bromwell High" is scheduled to be released on DVD in the UK on 19 September and in Australia on 6 October.
Has anyone seen the show yet? I did a brief Google search and found that it aired in Canada but couldn't find any info about broadcasts in other countries.
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 23rd July)
TIM SPOTTINGS
* The publicity company for Tango Entertainment has sent a publicity photo for "At Last the 1948 Show" (as well as one for "Do Not Adjust Your Set") for the club. I've put them online at http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7yes3/photos/id1.html
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 12th July)
* Last night's BBC Proms concert was a performance of HMS Pinafore, at the Royal Albert Hall - with a linking narration provided by Tim!
He sat on the stage in a large leather armchair and popped up between songs to explain the (minimal!) plot and chuck in some contemporary topical jokes. There was one particular one involving W.H. Smith (yes, *that* W H Smith) that produced the biggest groan the Albert Hall has ever heard (though not scientifically proven). There was also a special guest appearance by Lady Counterblast! (Actually Queen Victoria but Tim's female royals all sound the same! ;-)
It is repeated on Radio 3 on Tuesday 19th July at 2pm, and will be on BBC 1 TV at some currently undetermined point.
(Also spotted him leaving the stage door but resisted the temptation to accost him and ask him how to get from South Ken to Mornington Crescent in three moves...)
(Duncan Lilly - Goodies-l - 17th July)
* Five are showing "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" this Sunday at 6:10pm. Tim Brooke-Taylor has an amusing cameo in the film as a man who thinks he can locate the next golden ticket with a computer.
(Alison Bean - Goodies-l - 20th July)
* Tim's appearance as narrator of the BBC Proms presentation of "HMS Pinafore" may be broadcast on BBC television on August 18th.
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 23rd July)
* Tim will be appearing in two episodes of a show called "Heartbeat". I don't know the air dates but apparently the first episode (in which Tim has a fairly small role) has already been filmed.
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 23rd July)
* Tim will also be appearing in the current series of "Absolute Power" with John Bird and Stephen Fry. Again, I don't have a date for this episode but the show airs Thursdays at 22:00 on BBC 2.
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 23rd July)
* I've just noticed that a DVD of Barney the dog (NOT the dinosaur) was released in the UK last August. Tim Brooke-Taylor and Harry Enfield provide the voices in "Barney Gets Into Mischief".
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 25th July)
* I've updated the photos at http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7yes3/photos/ to show the front and back covers of the newly released "At Last The 1948 Show" and "Do Not Adjust Your Set" DVD sets.
The backs of the DVD cases list of the sketches that appear in each of the included shows. You can also see that Tim Brooke-Taylor appears in one of the episodes of "Do Not Adjust Your Set".
FYI, the scans are of the US releases.
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 29th July)
4. AT LAST THE 1948 SHOW
DVD REVIEWS
* (1) The Seattle Times ran an article about several new DVDs with links to Monty Python, including "At Last the 1948 Show". The full article can be found
online at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2002369531_python10.html . I'll include the portion about the "1948 Show" DVD below.
Except from
"Life of Python: The slap-happy Brit humor has aged like fine Spam"
By Mark Rahner
Seattle Times DVD writer
"At Last the 1948 Show" (Tango Entertainment, 1967, unrated). From the box: "The classic series that preceded and inspired Monty Python." It features future Pythons John Cleese and Graham Chapman, with Marty Feldman (whose hilarious bug eyes could whip the eyes of the Runaway Bride in a cage match), Tim Brooke-Taylor (who performs a hilarious Chartered Accountant Dance) and ditzy hostess Aimi MacDonald.
Much funnier than "DNAYS," "The 1948 Show" contains more of the surreal, random, yet erudite silliness that would make "Flying Circus" a classic.
In the famous "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch, well-heeled braggarts take turns one-upping each other with stories of their deprived childhoods. "Cardboard box? Ah, you were lucky," Feldman says. "We lived for three months in a rolled-up newspaper in a septic tank. ... " "Luxury," Chapman snorts.
Cleese hones his officious persona as an uptight news reader flustered when Feldman grabs the pages from his hand and runs around the studio with them, and as a zoo official who accuses an employee swallowed by a boa constrictor of loafing.
As an Arab who wanders into a live English TV soap, Feldman proves he didn't even have to open his mouth to get laughs, and it makes you wish he'd stuck with the group.
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 12th July)
* (2) Here's a review of the new "At Last the 1948 Show" DVD from Variety:
At Last the 1948 Show; Do Not Adjust Your Set
At Last the 1948 Show:
Release: July 26
$29.98
Do Not Adjust Your Set:
Release: July 26
Two-disc set: $29.98
A Tango Entertainment release of the 1967 skein.
At Last the 1948 Show:
With: John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman, Tim Brooke-Taylor.
Do Not Adjust Your Set
With: Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, David Jason, Denise Coffey.
By ALEX ROMANELLI
<http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=bio&peopleID=2467>
They may not be well known Stateside, but these two 1967 skeins played a key role in the development of British sketch comedy. Monty Python, Terry Jones explains in one of the bonus interviews, "was really 'Do Not Adjust Your Set' meets 'At Last the 1948 Show.'" "Monty Python's Flying Circus" would essentially combine the styles honed by Eric Idle, Jones and Michael Palin in "Do Not" (fast-paced sketches, singing, music, plenty of slapstick, pun wordplay) with the preoccupations and attitudes of "1948's" John Cleese and Graham Chapman (ridiculing authority, surreal juxtaposition, silly names).
"1948" is essential viewing for any Python fanatic; it's the more obvious Python precursor given the forcefulness of Cleese and Chapman's writing, and Tim Brooke-Taylor and Marty Feldman share comic sensibilities closer to Python than "Do Not's" David Jason and Denise Coffey.
Familiar comic targets like chartered accountants and the police are already staples here. The penchant for dressing up in women's clothing also is evident in sketches like "Plain Clothes Police Women," where performers in intentionally awful drag take turns cracking each other up.
"Do Not" is noticeably less cerebral and more juvenile than the superior "1948 Show," which is fitting as it was designed as a kids' show. It relies far more on slapstick and puns rather than more intellectual wordplay and sketches are much shorter.
The tone of the show noticeably changed as it progressed, however, and "Do Not" actually gathered a significant adult following. It had to be repeated late in the evening in order to prevent adults coming home early from work just to catch it on TV!
These shows document comedians feeling out the limits of the sketch show formula they would later smash through in "Monty Python." Jones reveals he was inspired by Spike Milligan's method of moving between sketches by folding them into each other.
In "1948," comedienne Aimi MacDonald provides interstitial bits, shouldering several skits simply with the phrase "And now."
"Something completely different" was just around the corner, but these DVDs show that Britain's comedians were already almost there.
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 25th July)
* (3) The following review appears at
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=57897
At Last the 1948 Show | 25-07-2005 06:00
You've all heard this one: four Yorkshiremen sit round a table and try to outdo each other with tales of how they had it tough when they were lads. It's one of the most famous sketches to come from the Monty Python team, and has been restaged several times, including the album Monty Python Live at Drury Lane and the Amnesty International charity show (and film) The Secret Policeman's Ball. But in fact it's not a Python sketch at all, originating on TV on At Last the 1948 Show.
The title was John Cleese's, a joke at the length of time TV production took. Cleese had worked as a writer and performer on David Frost's BBC show The Frost Report, where amongst others he performed the classic "Class" sketch with Ronnies Barker and Corbett. Frost suggested to Cleese that he join forces with Tim Brooke-Taylor, another Frost Report writer. Cleese agreed, bringing along his usual writing partner Graham Chapman. He also suggested that Marty Feldman (another Frost Report writer, who had co-created the radio hit Round the Horne with Barry Took) come on board. Frost sold the idea to Rediffusion - formerly Associated-Rediffusion, the company which held the weekday London franchise for UK's commercial channel ITV at the time, and the result was At Last the 1948 Show. This was a series of unrelated sketches, often surreal and quite hard-edged for TV comedy at the time. They were linked by "the lovely Aimi Macdonald", dressed in a variety of glamorous outfits and playing the dumb blonde to the hilt, the conceit being that she is under the impression that this is her show.
At Last the 1948 Show debuted on 15 February 1967 and ran for two series, thirteen shows in total. Although it made the top ten for the London area, it was less successful elsewhere. ITV didn't network the show across the whole country, and some regions only saw one or other series and some none. However, in retrospect, !948 Show is of considerable interest, along with the contemporary Rediffusion children's show Do Not Adjust Your Set as a forerunner of not only Monty Python's Flying Circus but due to Brooke-Taylor's presence (not to mention brief appearances by a clean-shaven Bill Oddie) The Goodies as well. Certainly the Python style was almost in place: all that was missing was the inspiration that sketches didn't have to have punchlines and a more freeform style could work just as well.
Cleese and Chapman's Python contributions add an abrasiveness to the mix, their sketches based on verbal conflict and often involving exasperated and ridiculous authority figures. (It's said that Cleese and Chapman tended to be cast in these roles as they were the two tallest of the six Pythons.) Take the Psychiatrist sketch in the first episode on this DVD. It wouldn't be out of place in Python, being a classic Chapman/Cleese confrontation sketch in which a Mr Gibbon-Posture thinks he's a rabbit, and Cleese as the psychiatrist working himself into a fine pre-Basil Fawlty frenzy of exasperation.except the patient is played by Tim Brooke-Taylor instead of Chapman. One thing that dates Python nowadays is the portrayal of women, something I'll go into in more detail in my review of the simultaneously-released DVD of Do Not Adjust Your Set. Aimi Macdonald's links are intentionally separate from the male-only sketches. It's fair to say that she has does what she has to do well enough, her performance of Hamlet's soliloquy while doing a tapdance being a highlight.
At Last the 1948 Show was shot on 405-line black and white videotape. (BBC2 had started colour broadcasts in 1967, but BBC1 and ITV didn't follow suit until November 1969.) It suffered from archiving policies that saw most TV as ephemeral and of little value, especially monochrome material in the new age of colour. Of the thirteen episodes, all but two were wiped. However, in 1989, it came to light that Swedish television had five episodes in their archive, which included the long-feared-lost Four Yorkshiremen sketch. It turned out, though, that these five shows were not the original ones as broadcast in the UK but were compilations made up from several episodes, presumably using the sketches that were considered to have most appeal overseas. However, help was at hand. In 1967, Ray Frensham was a teenage fan of the radio show I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, which had featured Cleese and Brooke-Taylor and was in fact where the Four Yorkshiremen sketch originated. Given a reel-to-reel tape recorder as a Christmas present, he taped and kept every episode of I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and also TV programmes involving its participants - including all thirteen episodes of At Last the 1948 Show. With the help of these recordings, it was possible to reconstruct three more shows - and since then further episodes have been found. Visual material now survives from all of the episodes except the very first, though only six episodes are complete as I write this in July 2005.
The DVD
You feel that this DVD should perhaps have been released five years or so ago, when we would be grateful that this material - much of it still funny and clearly of interest to fans of the Pythons and TV comedy in general - is available at all. However, the bar has been raised quite considerably in the last few years, even for archive black-and-white TV shows, and this set's shortcomings can't really be ignored.
One major strike is that none of the original broadcast episodes are present on these DVDs. What we have here are the five compilations which were recovered from Sweden. BBC4 broadcast an episode (Series 2 Programme 2, for the record) in 2003 as part of a "Missing Presumed Wiped" evening. Comparing my taped copy to this DVD reveals the following: much of the material in that programme is present as Episode 4 of this DVD. However, the BBC4 broadcast had "End of Part One" and "Part Two" captions, to allow for the original ITV broadcast's commercial break, which are not present on the DVD. More significantly, the original's "Take Your Clothes Off" sketch is replaced in the compilation by the "Uncooperative Burglars" sketch, which originated in Series 2 Programme 4. The upshot of this is that there is a considerable amount of material which exists in the UK archive which isn't on this DVD - and considering that the DVD spreads just two hours of material and half an hour of extras over two single-layer discs, there would certainly be room for it!
The discs appear to be a direct port of the US release. One giveaway is the FBI warning at the beginning. The second is that, despite what it says on the back cover, these DVDs are NTSC and not PAL. They are correctly labelled as Region 0, though. The shows are transferred 16mm telerecordings of material originally recorded on videotape. That need not be a bad thing, as recent restorations of 16mm film recordings have produced wonderful results, in particular DVD releases of 1960s Doctor Who and 1950s Quatermass serials. These film recordings look like they haven't been restored at all: they're dark and lacking in contrast, very grainy, with scratches and splices galore. The soundtrack is mono, as it should be: it's a little quietly recorded so may need turning up, but otherwise it's acceptable.
It doesn't seem that much effort has been put into this release. The lack of any subtitles is another sign. And so is the fact that the extras are duplicated on this DVD and on the one of Do Not Adjust Your Set. These are both on Disc Two of each DVD set and comprise new interviews with Tim Brooke-Taylor (16:57) and Terry Jones (15:16). The latter didn't appear on At Last the 1948 Show and the former guests in only one episode of Do Not Adjust Your Set. There's nothing much wrong with these interviews in themselves, but as most people who would buy one DVD are likely to buy the other, then such duplication seems like short-changing. The same goes for the trailers which cover both DVDs, separate ones prepared for the USA (1:51) and the UK (2:19), and for the comedy family tree included as a booklet.
In a sense we should be grateful that much of this material survives at all, when so much else remains tantalisingly lost. If Python is to your taste, you'll certainly enjoy much of it and for that reason I recommend this DVD, with considerable reservations detailed above.
(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 25th July)
5. FEATURE ARTICLE
HELLO CHEEKY
(contributed by Lisa Manekofsky)
Since BBC 7 (the UK digital radio station available online at www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7 ) recently aired a series of "Hello Cheeky" this seems like a good time to present this article which originally appeared in the "TV Times" issue dated January 17-23, 1976.
"Hello Cheeky - Goodbye Sanity"
By Valerie Clarke
Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer, John Junkin and Denis King are "Hello Cheeky". The programme, they say, is their baby. They write it, perform it and, after 39 radio shows, one summer and two Christmas specials also for radio, and with an ITV series starting on Monday, their baby is certainly blooming. Working, they make a comfortable, larky ménage a quatre at Junkin's top-floor bachelor flat in north west London. Brooke-Taylor and Cryer do the typing, Junkin does the cooking and King, when he's not alone at his piano, composing in the flat below (the theme music for "The Adventures of Black Beauty", "Within These Walls" and "Two's Company" are his), makes the tea. They drink a lot of tea.
Writing days start at 10.30a.m. By 11a.m. and after their first two cuppas, Junkin has nagged them upstairs into his Spartan, linoleumed attic office. The single divan in the corner is Junkin territory. Cryer and Brooke-Taylor alternate between lying on the sun lounger and sitting at the desk. On one wall there's a suggestive collage. On another, a poster of a fat female nude.
Sometimes, out of sheer desperation to get the writing ball rolling, they just let a dictionary fall open at a work, pick up "Roget's Thesaurus", or throw in a name like Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, and one of them will respond. Junkin, for instance, will say: "Isn't that the operation Michael Parkinson had?" Some days they fall about laughing at their own jokes so much that neighbours come knocking and want to know what they do for a living, if indeed anything.
At 2p.m. they sit round the TV, with lunch on their laps. The commercial breaks will usually inspire a couple of after-lunch pages, while serious evening conversations with friends are punctuated with remarks like: "Oh! We could use that one." The Junkin motto is: "One line in your diary tonight could be three pages tomorrow morning." In an insane burst they once wrote four and a half shows in 10 days. Another time it took them a day to get out the last half page of a script.
Before "Hello Cheeky" started as a radio programme in autumn, 1972, they had not worked together - that is, not all four together at the same time - except for one episode of the BBC series "The Rough (Junkin) with the Smooth (Brooke-Taylor)". But they'd all been around in the comedy business a long time.
And they'd all known each other a long time. Junkin and King teamed up in the Sixties as song writers and they didn't do so badly - "a couple of Matt Monros and Doris Days," says King, once one of the King Brothers and the quiet one in this quartet. Junkin and Brooke-Taylor met in inauspicious in-fighting circumstances on "The Marty Feldman Show". Brooke-Taylor was once a member of the Cambridge Footlights clan and Junkin, 6ft. 2in., is the son of an East End policeman.
Brooke-Taylor and Cryer met while contributing to "The Frost Report" - Cryer, the fully fledged pro, somewhat resenting the new-wave golden-boy intake of people such as Brooke-Taylor and John Cleese, whose name he couldn't even spell. Cryer met Junkin at Winston's, the London club for the après-theatre crowd. At that time Junkin was with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and Cryer was writing for such people as Danny La Rue and Ronnie Corbett. King met Cryer when he was in the show "Expresso Bongo" back in 1958 - Cryer was at that time the leader of a skiffle group. For three weeks running he had the No. 1 record, "The Purple People-Eater", in the Finnish hit parade.
To music hall cries of "Shame!" from Lucozade-addict Junkin (he has crates of the stuff in his hallway) Cryer modestly declines to sing the Finnish version of "The Purple People-Eater". "I'm a father of four," says Cryer. "Chicken!" says Brooke-Taylor, father of two, already recognizing blind panic when it looks him in the eye. "Life's been hard for him," Junkin apologises with mock confidentiality. "The Cambridge education and the hyphen, you know."
"True, true," mumbles Cryer..."I keep seeing pink and blue spots," he continues. "Have you seen a doctor?" asks Junkin. "Yes," says Cryer successfully aborting the joke. "Is that it?" asks King. "Pathetic!"
King claims his "Hello Cheeky" role is a peripheral one, that he's just there to write and provide the music. His workmates say he's the theme of the show: "Denis comes on as Denis," says Brooke-Taylor. "A sort of deadly serious, would-be big international star. He complains about things, gets kicked off and hit about the head."
Cryer claims that King "is convinced it's his show, you see, and that he's the major attraction."
Technical hitches, improvisations, blunders and muffed lines are not edited out, because the "Hello Cheeky" brand of humour is meant to be seedy. Brooke-Taylor describes it this way: "Seedy people who are desperately trying to convince themselves and other people that they are doing a rather suave, informative show and it's dreadful because it's not quite working." Junkin says: "The show should have a cast of thousands and be in rehearsal for six months." "Tatty," says Cryer. "A 'Laugh-In' without the gloss, only desperation and rot."
On screen, "Hello Cheeky" is a high-speed show, pre-recorded but live, not an editing-room paste-and-scissors job like "Laugh-In" was or "Who Do You Do?" is. Off screen it's three men running round a long refectory table piled high with wigs, moustaches, ruffs, hats, gloves: falling over each other, trying desperately to remember their lines, one moment panic-stricken and the next trying to swallow their own laughter. One moment a member of the team is likely to find himself as someone's meat pie, Miss Harpenden or two charladies; the next instant he's a policeman, Lady Hamilton, Sir Francis Drake, a doctor, or a patient with an unintentionally slipping moustache. "Can you perform an operation on a false moustache, doctor?" asks Junkin.
The high point of their week, once the script-writing and rehearsing are over, is the train trip up to Yorkshire Television's Leeds recording studios on the Thursday Pullman train. They play Mastermind with all the manic, hairy-kneed ("Airey Neave? I thought he was a Conservative M.P.," says Cryer) enthusiasm of schoolboys. "If anybody says comedy is a serious business I'll go out and be sick in a bucket," says Junkin - but our masterminds, each with his zealously guarded quiz books, are something else - as are those transistor radios which look like lager cans.
Picture the situation. Cryer wants to listen to "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue". Two old ladies look askance from the other side of the train compartment as Cryer fiddles with the lager-can transistor and holds it up to his ear. Brooke-Taylor fiddles with a salt cellar and holds that up to his ear. Junkin does the same with a sauce bottle. Cryer pulls out the ear-plug and sound booms out of the lager can. It is a coupe de grace.
* The cast of "Hello Cheeky" say that the second best-kept secret in the world is that they have a record out this month of 26 "Hello Cheeky" songs called "The Seedy Sounds" - the first best-kept secret in the world being their record "The Least Worst of Hello Cheeky", which came in June.
6. COR!! COMICS SYNOPSIS #41
(by Linda Kay)
Issue 176
13th October, 1973 No. 64
Man's desire to fly has been the subject of many classic comedy bits throughout the years (ever see Terry Gilliam's hilarious short film "The Miracle of Flight?"). This comic strip take on manned flight brings to mind that old stock footage of odd aircraft shown during silent movie spoofs or The Monkees' musical romps ... but does this Goodies Cor!! Comic entry manage to get off the ground?
Header: THE FUN'S FLYING HIGH WHEN THE GOODIES BECOME AVIATORS!
The Goodies are looking through a copy of Practical Aviator magazine as Graeme points out something within.
GRAEME: Hey! Some bloke here is offering a *thousand pounds* in prize money for flying the Channel on a *man-powered aeroplane!*
We see an intense close-up of Graeme's face.
GRAEME: I'll invent one *immediately!*
We're immediately transported to a field where Graeme is sitting in the pilot's seat of his invention, an odd-looking bi-plane with G-I written on the tail. Graeme clenches the steering stick with great enthusiasm as Bill jumps up and down on a large bellows set upon a soap box on wheels which makes up the front part of the contraption. Tim stands off to one side, pulling away a box of assorted chocolates.
BILL: *Puff! Cor!!* There must be an *easier* way to fly! *Gasp!*
TIM: Chocs away!
Graeme pulls out a whip and snaps it at Bill's posterior.
GRAEME: Harder, Bill! Pump *HARDER*! We're nearly off the ground!
Angrily, Bill slams down on the bellows with all his weight and the plane smashes into pieces.
BILL: How's that?
GRAEME: That's too haaaard!
Graeme leaps from the plane and lands hard on the ground with his face.
GRAEME: GNN!
A useless parachute deploys and covers Graeme completely as he sits up in exasperation.
GRAEME: Ah, well ... *back to the drawing board!*
LATER ...
Graeme has invented another plane, this one with a large running wheel similar to the kind found in a hamster's cage at the front. The tail of this plane is marked G-II. Tim is inside the wheel running furiously as Graeme stands proudly in front. Bill stands to one side, watching the proceedings.
TIM: PUFF! GASP! WHEEZE!
GRAEME: That's it, Tim! Work up some steam!
Tim runs faster and faster inside the wheel, building up tremendous speed. Graeme jumps about in an animated fashion, cheering him on.
GRAEME: *FASTER,* Tim! Run *FASTER!*
The wheel suddenly dislodges from the plane with a CRUNCH! and a TEAR! and races forward, running right over Graeme and driving him into the ground. Bill remains standing to one side watching with interest.
TIM: MMFF!
A dazed Graeme pokes his head out of the ground, holding up two fingers.
GRAEME: End of phase two!
NEXT DAY ...
All three of the Goodies are aboard the G-III, which is simply the trandem with a helicopter blade above, wings on the side and a rudder in the back. The Goodies are wearing pilots helmets, goggles and jackets (Bill is wearing a crash helmet in the back).
GRAEME: Beginning of phase three ... the *GOODY COPTER!*
They pedal the trandem-copter up a ramp and take off into the sky, the helicopter blades spinning and the wings flapping.
GRAEME: We're on the move!
BILL: We have *lift off!*
As the Goodies fly off toward the English Channel, several birds eye them in confusion.
GRAEME: Which way is *France?*
BILL: Straight ahead for Dover then sharp right!
As they continue to fly, two jet planes fly by. The pilot of one of the jets looks startled.
PILOT: Good gracious! Another UFO, George! That's about the *nine hundredth* we've seen this week!
THE GOODIES FOUND FRANCE ... BUT WHEN THEY CAME IN TO LAND ...
The Goodies approach a large field in France (the Eiffel Tower can be seen in the background) which is literally *filled* with flying machines exactly like theirs . . . trandems with propellers and wings.
TIM: *Aargh!* I don't believe it!
The Goodies stand at the judge's booth where a man offers them a pound note, much to their frustration.
JUDGE: There were nine hundred and ninety-nine winning contestants ... here's your *one pound* prize money for being the *thousandth!*
TIM: It's not even enough for the *fare back! Sob!*
Sign-Off Line: Our TV Chuckle Champs Return in Next Monday's Issue!
RATING (using the BLACK PUDDING RATING SYSTEM):
III - Goody goody yum yum.
Okay, there's no doubt this comic is sorely lacking in jokes. In fact dialogue itself is kept to a minimum. The most notable line is the "chocs away" joke which refers to an old aviation phrase in which the "chocs" (which were placed next to the wheels to keep the plane in place while on the ground) were pulled away before take-off. The phrase was eventually used in a general "Let's go!" "Tally ho!" "Up and at 'em!" kind of way. A similar joke (using Toblerone instead of a box of chocolates) was also used in the Nick Park film "Chicken Run."
There's very little going on in the background as well. So why rate this comic a Goody Goody Yum Yum? It's mostly because the artwork is so impressive ... whoever worked on this comic had a LOT of fun inventing the planes and did them all in loving detail. Also the final joke is a real payoff ... the idea the Goodies would be the thousandth team to come up with a retrofit trandem is just too hilarious not to acknowledge. So while this comic could have been richer it is definitely not poor and deserves a fair rating.
To view these strips online, you can visit this page:
http://members.aol.com/corcomics
We'll post the currently reviewed issue plus the two previous issues for latecomers.
7. QUIZ & QUOTE ANSWERS
(a) Bill Oddie
(b) "He keeps his distance!"
(c) Gender Education (aka Sex And Violence)
(d) The Vikings
(e) Detonated a H-bomb on it, blowing it way out into the South Pacific
(f) Because Tim and Graeme have already eaten him, leaving only bones and feathers!
(g) The Music Master, now known as Nasty Person!
(h) Sussex University
YOUR SCORE:
8 Goodies fan supreme
7 Mastermind of the year
5-6 Clever clogs
3-4 Reasonably Goodie
1-2 Thick as old boots
0 Rolf Harris!
WORD FINDER SOLUTION FROM C&G 116:
Clue: two words (5,8 letters) "lethal weapons"
Solution: "black puddings"
COMING UP NEXT MONTH:
A Goodies Music Review of "Winter Sportsman" by Emperor Caligula and Peaches Stilletto, providing that we can locate the keys to the straightjacket ... and the ball and chain!
NEXT C&G EDITION:
- #118: 12th September 2005.
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