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In Place of Helen

Published 14th February 2025

TV Comedy

Here’s a question for you. Exactly how many opening title sequences did Drop the Dead Donkey have? I suspect the answer is: more than you think.

After all, to answer the question properly, we can’t just go by the broadcast material. In 2005, the DVD release of the first series contained the unbroadcast pilot, shot a couple of weeks before the series made it to air. These titles had the same visuals as Series 1 of the show as broadcast, but an entirely different theme tune, by Philip Pope:

I remember the utter shock of seeing – well, hearing – those titles for the first time. Truth be told, after that initial shock wore off, I don’t mind them that much. But teletype noises not withstanding, it really feels more like a chat show theme than a news theme. Drop the Dead Donkey is probably unique as a comedy which ended up working better without a theme from Pope.

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What a Mistake-a to Make-a

Published 3rd February 2025

Internet / TV Comedy

The other day, I received an email with the subject line “YouTube removed your content”. Oh dear, what have I done now?

“It looks like [your video] didn’t follow our Community Guidelines. We removed it from YouTube.

We think your content violated our hate speech policy.”

What the fuck?

“Content that promotes hateful supremacism by alleging the superiority of a group over those with protected group status to justify violence, discrimination, segregation, or exclusion isn’t allowed on YouTube. We review educational, documentary, artistic, and scientific content on a case-by-case basis. Limited exceptions are made for content with sufficient and appropriate context.”

Right, OK. I instantly appealed, and ten minutes later, got back the following reply:

We reviewed [your video] again and confirmed it’s not allowed under our hate speech policy.

Your video won’t be put back on YouTube.

We understand this may be frustrating, but we’re committed to keeping YouTube a safe place for everyone.

Our goal is to help you succeed on YouTube. We encourage you to take a look at our Community Guidelines and keep them in mind when posting content in the future.

So what was this totally outrageous video on my account?

A clip from ‘Allo ‘Allo, “The Confusion of the Generals”, transmitted on 12th November 1988.

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Everyone on One Side of the Table in the Restaurant

Published 29th January 2025

TV Comedy

Here’s one of my very favourite sketches from End of Part One, Renwick and Marshall’s magnificent sketch show which eviscerated contemporary television in much the same way Python did a decade earlier.1 It’s from Series 2 Episode 3, broadcast by LWT on the 26th October 1980.

Warning: contains a slang term for gay men near the top which I think is entirely satirically justifiable, but some of you may not enjoy.

It’s difficult to pick my favourite thing in that sketch. Obviously, there are a million and one sketches in the world which would benefit from being cut in half and adding ETC in big letters to the end. But I think the most devastating line in it has to be:

Second Floor: randy men who try and talk like Hancock.

Because I hadn’t realised, but bloody hell, yes, of course. Mr. Lucas, you’re an oaf.

That’s not the line we’re discussing today, however. You might have guessed which one we are discussing from the headline of this piece.

Everyone on one side of the table in the restaurant. Going up…

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  1. I remember once excitedly showing some friends the series… mainly to embarrassed silence. Similar also happened to me with Rutland Weekend Television. I don’t force people to watch half hours of comedy they’ve never seen before in my presence any more, it’s just too excruciating if they hate it. ↩

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Everyone We Know Loves The Dandy

Published 22nd January 2025

TV Comedy

Recently, I’ve been burying myself in Radio Times letters pages of the 1970s. It can be a grim place to be, with its long, outraged analysis of various current affairs programmes. It’s almost as bad as Bluesky.

So thank heavens for the following shaft of light, published in Issue 2575, cover date 17th-23rd March 1973:

What comic does Eric read?
In the Morecambe and Wise Show (BBC1) of 23 February, Eric was reading a comic which stated that it was the Dandy, but the phrasing on the cover was: The Comic with Minnie the Minx.’ Minnie is one of the most popular characters in the Beano.

Other Beano characters are Biffo the Bear, Grandpa, Lord Snooty, and Dennis the Menace (not forgetting his dog Gnasher).

Also, in a comic which was so clearly the Beano, what on earth was Desperate Dan of the Dandy doing?

The ultimate in stupidity was reached when Eric mentioned Pansy Potter, who is a regular feature of the Sparky!

Brian Spursell (aged 10)
Manchester

Sure enough, if we check Series 7 Episode 8 of The Morecambe and Wise Show, broadcast on the 23rd February 1973:

Eric and Ernie in bed, Eric reading the Dandy, and Ernie reading the Financial Times

The same, from a different angle

That most definitely is an issue of The Beano with a horrible fake Dandy masthead clumsily pasted over the top. This one, in fact: Issue 1578, dated 14th October 1972.

Full cover of The Beano, Issue 1578

Moreover, it really is supposed to be The Dandy – as Brian Spursell (aged 10) says, Eric specifically mentions Desperate Dan, a Dandy character:

ERNIE: It’s got my beat, I just can’t make it out. I just can’t understand it at all. The market’s down four points.
ERIC: It’s got me beat as well. Desperate Dan’s just eaten four cow pies and he’s still hungry.

Although Eric does then start talking about Lord Snooty later in the sketch, a Beano character. I want my licence fee refunded.

As for why they badly mocked-up a Dandy, rather than simply using a real issue: who knows. I very much doubt it’s product placement worries; we can clearly see Ernie reading the Financial Times, and a Beano is featured in the following sketch anyway. It smacks of an emergency fix by the prop department, but you’d think it’d still be easier just to pop down the shops than to start mocking up mastheads.

Never mind. Maybe we should just ask Eric Morecambe, as the Radio Times did back in 1973:

ERIC MORECAMBE replies:
I have received several letters making the same complaint, and I am delighted, because I was just testing you.

And there’s an Eric Morecambe joke few people have read for over 50 years. You’re welcome.

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That Nice Mrs Merton

Published 18th January 2025

TV Comedy

For many viewers, The Mrs Merton Show sprang fully-formed onto BBC2 on the 10th February 1995. But things are never quite as simple as that. And with Caroline Aherne and Mrs Dorothy Merton, the story is even more complicated than most.

Regional television can get short shrift in the history of comedy; regional radio even more so. Very little in-depth has been written about the origins of Mrs Merton in Frank Sidebottom’s Piccadilly Radio shows, or her appearances on 90s Granada talk show Upfront. Even tracking down some of this material is hard, and perhaps impossible if you’re a completist.

For instance, it’s very much worth listening to the following extremely early Mrs Merton, on Key 103:

But when was it actually broadcast? There’s no TX date attached to it at all. It’s probably 1988 or 1989, but that’s all I can really figure out.

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Genital Activity

Published 12th January 2025

TV Comedy

Just occasionally, my silly research for this site turns up something wonderful.

So, there I was, perusing the archives of that august organ Huddersfield Daily Examiner, when I spotted the following Channel 4 programme scheduled on the 30th November 1992:

11:00 CATHOLICS AND SEX Examining the Catholic Church’s attitudes towards birth-control and pre-marital sex. Catholic women talk about the ban on contraception, and teenagers give their views on virginity. A bishop gives an unusual justification of the Church’s teachings…

So far, so normal.

…and comedienne Caroline Aherne provides an alternative interpretation.

Oh, hello there.

This would be Caroline Aherne just pre-stardom. The Fast Show was a couple of years away, but by now she was appearing as Mrs Merton on programmes like Channel 4’s own Remote Control:

But I’d never heard of her appearance in Catholics and Sex. And frankly, it felt like I would be unlikely to ever see it. After all, who is going to bother uploading a copy online?

Answer: Reuters Screenocean has. And, predictably, it features Aherne as Sister Mary Immaculate, talking about contraception.1 I’m not going to be cheeky, rip that video and upload it here, but the two short sections with Caroline are at 10:13:41 and 10:32:54.

A VT clock for Catholics and Sex

Caroline Aherne as Sister Mary Immaculate

The whole thing is very worth watching, actually. I’m very at home with early-90s Channel 4 documentary-making. Anything with inserts shot on film in black and white I find extremely comforting.

  1. This is the second of four episodes; the other three have contributions from John Hegley, Bruce Morton, and Sean Hughes. ↩

While We Have Still Got Some Insanity Left

Published 3rd January 2025

Meta / TV Comedy

Website stats are funny old things. For a start, it’s become deeply unfashionable to actually care about them. “Write for yourself, not for others”, people cry, myself included. This is, on the face of it, an entirely reasonable attitude… but I have to admit that these days, I really want people to read my stuff. So much of my writing relies on other people helping me with my research, and the more people who read my work, the better and more widespread that research gets.

The other odd thing about stats is that what is an extremely successful article by my standards, is a mere rounding error when it comes to some sites. As detailed in my 15 year retrospective, the most popular article I’ve ever written on Dirty Feed has had about 45k hits over the years. The second most popular article I’ve ever written has had nearly 18k hits. A lot of pieces I’m very proud of have 2-3k hits. This piece on the pilot of Fawlty Towers, featuring material which has never been published before, has had less than 1k hits. I don’t lie awake thinking about it too much, but I know damn well plenty of worse sites than this one get exponentially more views. It can get mildly frustrating.

But perhaps not as frustrating as the following.

Back in 2013, I uploaded the following YouTube video. It’s a clip from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, “Showing the Flag”, broadcast on the 2nd January 1975. It’s one of my very favourite moments of the series, featuring Don Estelle corpsing spectacularly. It also contains a masterclass from Windsor Davies on how to ride the the laughter from a studio audience.

That video has had over one million views. It is by far he most popular thing I have ever published online. Never mind in-depth articles about flash frames in The Young Ones which are the result of years of research and thought – just rip a random sitcom clip, shove it on YouTube, and watch the views mount up.

Anyway, I am very mature and sensible and have entirely come to peace with all of this and think it is all brilliant.

Coventry City 0, Mr. Johnson’s Una 3

Published 27th December 2024

TV Comedy

Recently, I embarked on yet another rewatch of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. I always find the TV incarnation a slightly odd experience. There are enough episodes, and the shows themselves are so packed with stuff, that no matter how many times I see them, huge swathes of sketches are somehow always a surprise.

So as usual, I’d completely forgotten about International Wife-Swapping. Which among many other highlights, also contains Michael Palin doing his Frank Bough:

“Just a reminder that on Match of the Day tonight, you can see highlights of two of this afternoon’s big games: Mrs. Robinson v. Manchester United, and Southampton v. Mr. Rogers. Unusual game, that. And here’s a late result: Coventry City 0, Mr. Johnson’s Una, 3. Coventry going down at home, there.”

And I laughed at that final line… before stopping to think slightly. Was I just, as I have done many times before when watching comedy, making up my own jokes?

Luckily, we can know for sure. On the extras of the incredible Network Blu-ray release – or bootlegged if you’re one of those people – are the raw pre-recorded inserts for Series 3 Episode 13, commonly known as “Grandstand”.1 And one of these inserts is Michael Palin as Frank Bough, recording the above line.

A chalkboard VT clock for a Monty Python insert

Michael Palin as Frank Bough looking very amused at Eric Idle's dirty joke

And after one particular take, we get Palin grinning widely, followed by…

PALIN: Eric Idle joke. Man of the world, Eric…

So firstly, I now now for sure that it was a deliberate gag. But more importantly: if there’s anything more pleasurable in the world than watching Michael Palin laugh at Eric Idle’s dirty joke, I have yet to discover it.

A version of this post was first published in the December issue of my newsletter.

  1. RX: 18th May 1972. TX: 18th January 1973. ↩