Hello there. Join me once more, for another of my TV memories… and another insight into my warped and generally unpleasant mind.
* * *
As usual, I can’t remember exactly how old I am. Around 10, maybe? I’m upstairs in bed, and I should be asleep; it’s past midnight. But for some reason, I am awake, and I hear my Dad laughing away downstairs. I rarely hear this. Not because Dad doesn’t laugh much, but because in general, I’m a very good sleeper.
I don’t know what made me get up. I rarely did that, either. But I distinctly remember creeping downstairs, and finding Dad chortling away in his chair. He’s watching a film. Unlike some of these memories, I need no help identifying what he’s watching. It’s etched clearly onto my memory: Carry On Again Doctor. Probably the first bit of Carry On I ever saw. It won’t exactly be the last.
For some reason, Dad doesn’t send me immediately back to bed. We end up talking. He tells me that the Carry On films were known for their low budget. Why haven’t I been sent upstairs back to bed at this point? He really must have been in a good mood. Maybe Kenneth Williams pulled a face.
And this is probably the point where I share a touching moment with my Dad, about a shared experience of comedy. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Because what appears on the screen disturbs me.
There’s something wrong with the electrics in the hospital. There’s a fusebox, with sparks pouring out of it. A lady is listening to earphones, which blow up in a shower of yet more sparks. I distinctly remember thinking: “How can this film be low budget? Surely it costs loads of money to do that and not hurt someone!”
And worst of all, there’s some kind of scary pump attached to a person. And that pump starts moving faster and faster. I really, really, really don’t like this. Something highly unpleasant is about to happen to that person in the bed. Will they explode in a shower of guts? I have no exact memory of what happens next, and I can’t say for sure that I ran screaming from the room. But no doubt I’m back upstairs safely in bed before too long.
Carry On films were clearly just too disturbing for me to deal with.
* * *
All of this should ring some bells with people who have been reading this site over the past year. An old Paul Daniels show showed my concern about electrics going wrong, and an old Norman Wisdom film showed my worry about air being pumped into somebody. My own particular set of neuroses was building up nicely.
Delightfully, unlike the previous two examples, I believe we can definitively trace the night all this happened. Carry On Again Doctor doesn’t seem to have been shown on the BBC until December 1997, long after my Dad had died. Which means we must be looking at a showing on Central, my local ITV station.1 This is far harder to research, so many thanks to Gareth Randall, who pinpointed the following date: 29th April 1992, at 10.40pm. This seems to have been the only time Central showed the film late night, rather than in the afternoon, so this is almost certainly the showing in question.
Which makes everything slot into place a little more. I was actually 10 – nearly 11 – which matches up with my memories. But it wasn’t past midnight – the scene in question would have been broadcast around 11pm. Which makes sense – if it had been past midnight, I may well have been scooted back to bed immediately. 11pm is a far more reasonable time for me to have a little chat before going back to bed.
Still, you may be wondering what the story is here. Unlike many of my memories, I know exactly what it was that I watched – there’s no quest to find some obscure film. I’m well up on my Carry On knowledge, and have been for years.
Just threw up my dinner after eating some grapes. Which is still a better plot than Carry On Again, Doctor.
— mumoss (@mumoss) September 25, 2016
The story is much like my ongoing adult dread of Knightmare; the fear of that sequence in Carry on Again Doctor never truly left me. I watched the whole film a few years back when it was on TV, and the sequence still gave me the shivers.
And it strikes me that even though I watched the whole film, I am missing one crucial piece of information: what does happen to the poor fucker who is connected to the scary, malfunctioning bellows? Even though I’ve seen it, I’ve clearly blocked that out… or closed my eyes and stuck my fingers in my ears.
So, for the purposes of this post, I decided to throw caution to the winds. I thought I owned the DVD, but apparently not. It was quickly placed on order, and I sat back and waited.
* * *
This, then, is the scene which caused me so much dismay over the years. Dr. Nookey is an absolute twat.
And I have to confess: I still find the entire sequence a little unnerving. Not absolutely terrifying, and certainly not as horrendous as what built up in my head over the years. But it doesn’t actually surprise me that I didn’t like it as a kid. There can be a thin line between anarchic chaos being funny and horrific at that age, and no wonder it fell on the wrong side of that line when I was 10. I’ve read about Tiswas and The Goodies scaring some kids; I think I can be forgiven for not enjoying this.
There is one especially good reason why I found it troublesome, I think. Electrics going wrong are one thing, but this sequence seems determined to make the consequences as personal as possible. The X-ray machine doesn’t just explode; it explodes while Babs is inside it. The fusebox doesn’t just shower out sparks; it showers out sparks while Jim Dale is frantically poking around inside its innards. The earphones don’t just explode; they explode while someone is wearing them. Comedy happens to people, of course, so it’s all eminently understandable. But the capacity for danger in these moments I really do think is palpable, if you think about it on a different level than the film intends. In real life, people really could have been seriously hurt, or even killed.
Then there’s that “scary pump” which I’d built into some kind of horrendous contraption over the years: yes, it’s just an oxygen pump. And the patient just gets a hugely distended belly, rather than exploding in a shower of guts. But looked at in just the wrong way, especially from a kids point of view, and there is a certain amount of body horror there. In a cartoon, the patient might just go flying around the room, and cartoon logic is clearly intended here. But in a live action film, the potential consequences perhaps become just a tiny bit too real.
As for the exploding headphones; my childhood reasoning that an effect like that must mean the film is really expensive is, of course, dumb to my adult brain. But there is a kernel of truth there; surely setting off sparks next to some poor old dear’s ear is a mildly terrifying thing to do? How did they manage to do that without the risk of some kind of injury, however mild? The same goes for Jim Dale poking around in an exploding fusebox. And when you learn that Dale really did hurt himself during the film – albeit during the trolley sequence – then I perhaps don’t feel as stupid as I might.
But I save the worst bit for last. I may never even have seen this part when I was 10 – I’d probably already turned away. But the awkward reaction shots near the end of the sequence – of Jacques, of Williams, of Hawtrey – are the stuff of nightmares, if you are of a mind. The jarring quickness is freaky enough; but the shot of Williams seems to be lifted from another part of the film entirely. I believe the phrase the kids use is “well haunto”. Where awkwardness crosses into something just a little more unnerving.
Now, is there any way I can get the Peter Rogers estate to pay for my therapy sessions?
And best, obviously. ↩