Dirty Feed: Best of 2023

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“Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Flash frames will give us all a sleepless night…”

Hey everyone. Hope you had a lovely Christmas. Welcome to this year’s round-up of all my favourite things on Dirty Feed in 2023. A year that not only saw far too many articles about flash frames, but also saw the site finally solve a sitcom mystery I’ve been investigating for years. Who needs Newsnight, anyway?

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Foreign News Sketch
SPECIALE REPORT. To kick off the year, a thoroughly unnecessary analysis of the opening titles of The Fast Show‘s Chanel 9 Neus, along with a look at the technical details behind creating the picture effect. See also: an early edit of one of the sketches, a particular evening at Television Centre, and Unlucky Alf’s skeleton.

Freeze-Frame Gonna Drive You Insane (Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five)
By far the most complicated thing I have ever written, and something which I first started researching years ago: the tale of flash frames in The Young Ones and Spitting Image. There are still some irritating gaps in the story, some of which I’ll try and fill next year, but I hope at least that I’ve got a lot closer to the truth than anybody ever has before.

Dwarf on Film
“What is the only footage of actual actors shot on film in Red Dwarf?” A piece which starts off asking an amusing trivia question about the show, but which ends up obsessively tracing Robert Llewellyn’s movements in late-1989. Oh, speaking of which…

Obsessively Tracing Chris Barrie’s Movements in Late-1987
Less an analysis of the production of Spitting Image, and more of a logic puzzle, this is one of my favourite things I’ve ever written, if only for the phrase “Schrödinger’s Barrie”. See also: Spitting Image and topical comedy, one of the most delightful sounds in the world, a behind-the-scenes documentary on the show, and the link between Spitting Image and Bananarama.

The Unexamined Sitcom Is Not Worth Watching
Yes folks. This is a big one. The true story behind Fawlty Towers, and the original incarnation of Polly Sherman… philosophy student. I’ve been trying to find out the details on this one for years, and it was absolutely delightful to finally get there. See also: a look at deleted material from “Gourmet Night”, a delightful stage direction from the pilot, and dissecting the pilot’s camera script.¹

Hello, Newman
What’s the link between In Sickness and in Health and a random episode of Horizon from 1974? I never thought I’d be writing about Professor Oscar Newman and his theories on social housing on Dirty Feed, but sitcoms can lead you down some strange and unexpected paths.

Loss.
Comedy, and your dad dying when you’re 13. By far the most personal piece I wrote all year, about how television can mark waypoints in your life. See also: Red Dwarf, and recreating 1988 in 2023.

Fanny, I Want Fanny
Fanny Cradock, wiped ITV shows from 1958, and proving The Guardian wrong. A winning combination. And an object lesson in not assuming certain things are true, just because they fit your prejudices. See also: me getting something wrong, just because it fit my prejudices.

The Pictures Are Much Much Better on Television
When did Alan Partridge first appear on television? Clue: it wasn’t The Day Today. One of the most popular things I wrote all year, partly because Hacker News got hold of it, bizarrely. See also: where all the clips came from in Alan Partridge’s Sporting Season.²

The Henderson Report
I seemed to go a bit mad in October, and write absolutely shitloads about Yes Minister, for some reason. Out of all of those pieces, I think this one is the best: solving the mystery behind a peculiar 1982 Radio Times capsule, which definitely wasn’t just an excuse to publish a load of studio recording dates. See also: doing your satire from the inside, proving a well-respected comedy writer wrong, proving a well-respected comedy writer wrong again, and fun with props.

Creatures of Flesh and Blood
“The boy and girl are like two wraiths, bidding farewell to creatures of flesh and blood.” Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and hauntology. I absolutely loved writing this piece, which really does go to places I don’t often manage to get to, and would really like to do more like it next year. See also: my other piece of film writing this year, on a deleted scene in Used Cars.

S.P.C.A.
And to round out the year, poking at a famous quote about I, Claudius, and finding out whether it’s real or not. Spoiler: it’s not.

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Phew. And I haven’t even mentioned my BBC100 pieces. Well, except just there. Where I mentioned them, and then linked to them.

Anyway, a few boring stats for 2023. 90 posts, more than I’ve ever written before in a year. 100k words, more than I’ve ever published before in a year. And 170k hits, more than the site has ever had before in a year. Consider me happy with all that. OK, so I didn’t quite write 100k words – at least 10k of those would have been quotes from various places – but it still feels a meaningful thing to have managed to publish that amount of material here in the last 12 months. I may never manage it again, in fact, but it was lovely to do it once.

Perhaps most delightfully, 2023 has seen more comments on Dirty Feed than any previous year too – well over 300 of the damn things, four times more than last year.³ Comments have such a terrible reputation, and with good reason on large sites, but on smaller ones they can be one of the nicest, most pleasant things about writing. Thanks to all of you for telling me things I never would have known about, and occasionally correcting me to ensure this site is as accurate as possible. And I’m genuinely not being sarcastic on that last point. It might be mildly irritating to have an article corrected after only five minutes online, but better that than five years.

Indeed, thank you to everyone who has helped me with the site over the past 12 months – there are more of you than ever, and I literally couldn’t write this shit without you. If people didn’t put themselves out to send me off-airs of The Young Ones from 1984, this place would be nothing. Ditto to all of you who have linked to, retweeted, reposted, or in any way helped get this site in front of people this year.

As for 2024: I have plans. But rather than give a load of big promises, we’ll see what happens. Let’s just say that if you’ve ever wondered what was on Onslow’s telly in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of Keeping Up Appearances, then you might be fully satisfied early in the year, and what other website can promise you that?

1. Incidentally, it’s the 50th anniversary of Fawlty Towers in 2025. It’d be nice if something fun happened for it, either officially or unofficially. ↩

2. In keeping with these footnotes being bizarrely obsessed with anniversaries, it’s The Day Today‘s 30th birthday in January. I hope someone else remembers that as well, I’m BUSY. ↩

3. And, erm, over over 150 times more than in 2019, where despite publishing some fun stuff, I only had two comments. There’s a whole article in how a combination of the pandemic and Twitter falling apart has brought blog comments back to life. ↩

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end of year review