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Only as a Myth, a Dark Fable, a Horror Tale…

Published 18th June 2019

TV Comedy

This year, I’ve been trying to do a bit more writing than usual over on Ganymede & Titan, the Red Dwarf fansite run by “over-entitled pricks who are upset that it isn’t actually 1992 anymore”. And one thing I’ve been doing this year is taking some Standard Red Dwarf Facts™, and digging a little deeper than usual with them.

Here’s three of those pieces in particular that I think turned out OK.

G&TV: Covington Cross
This is one of the most endlessly parroted facts among Dwarf fans: the outside village from Emohawk: Polymorph II was an abandoned set from US series Covington Cross. Which, indeed, is absolutely correct. But nobody has ever actually gone through both shows and pinpointed shots where exactly the same parts of the set are used. I have, and for some reason I am proud of this.

Take the Fifth
This is a bit of an odd one, in that this is a “fact” that we had pretty much convinced ourselves of over on G&T: that the penultimate episode of each series of Red Dwarf is where they usually hid the worst episode of the run. But does this end up being true? (I would do well to examine my own assumptions more often.)

You Stupid Ugly Goit
Probably the best thing I’ve written so far this year, on a very early piece of Red Dwarf lore. It’s generally known that at the start of the production of Series 1, Norman Lovett was originally out-of-vision, and the decision was made to make Holly a visual character after shooting had already started. But the details of exactly what was reshot to make this happen are very complicated. I think I drag up a few new things to consider here.

*   *   *

Meanwhile, back to Dirty Feed. And although I published some fun stuff last month, overall things have been a little quiet over here recently. I do have some silly ideas in the works, though, building up to the site’s 10th anniversary next year.

Stay tuned, as the kids definitely don’t say any more.

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Discussion For ‘Em

Published 31st March 2019

Jingles / Radio / TV Comedy / TV Presentation

A fairly large percentage of my time online is still spent hanging around forums. Admittedly, not as much as I did in 2002, where my time on a Knightmare forum directly contributed to me failing to get a degree. But still enough to notice a rather unfortunate pattern from some posters, across many different topics of conversation.

Let’s take an example, from a TV presentation forum I frequent, perhaps despite my better judgement.1

“Anyone else often wonder what planet certain posters are living on? Very few people care about TV presentation outside this forum.”

And I get it, I really do. Some posters are utterly tiresome with their statements that the entire general public cares deeply about the current set of BBC One idents. Sometimes, you just want to let everyone know that at least you’re aware that there’s a wider world out there. One where people don’t tut or cheer depending on what’s bunged in front of EastEnders.

But.

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There I was, sitting in the TX suite of a popular television channel a few years back. Let’s take a look at the programmes on in the afternoon. Ooh, hang on, that show was made in back in the 80s, was it? I’m sure we have an era-appropriate ident we can stick in front of that.

So I make the change in the schedule – checking with all the right people before doing so, in case anybody relevant is reading this – and then did the junction, live announcer and all. Everything went fine, and I sat back, pleased I’d added something fun to the nation’s viewing that afternoon.

A few weeks later, the announcer collared me, and said her mum had been watching, and she loved the ident. It brought back so many memories for her from decades ago, and got all excited when it appeared. And not just because her daughter was talking over it.

*   *   *

If TV presentation fans are near the bottom of the fandom pile2, then there’s one kind of fan even they are allowed to look down on: jingle anoraks.3 It seems that in real life, most people just aren’t interested in discussing the intricacies of WPLJ jingle packages.4 Which is frankly outrageous.

Still, when Radio 1 Vintage aired in 2017, celebrating 50 years of Radio 1, a curious thing happened in my Twitter feed. “Oh yeah, I remember that jingle…” People who I’d never managed to get into a conversation about jingles were suddenly enthusing about all those silly six second songs.

It was great.

*   *   *

Red Dwarf fandom was in quite a miserable state in 2008. It’s no secret that morale was on the floor. We’d lost all trace of Red Dwarf, tempers were strained, and supplies were… wait, sorry, this isn’t Ganymede & Titan, I’ve really got to stop throwing in these stupid quotes.

Anyway, the site was quieter than it had been in years. Certainly, we had less reader engagement than ever before. Then, suddenly, new episodes were announced.

And achieved record ratings.

*   *   *

My point, of course: this stuff isn’t binary. People aren’t either interested enough in TV presentation to post on forums, or not interested whatsoever. Same goes for jingles, same goes for Red Dwarf, same goes for anything.

Sure, a general audience doesn’t tend to spend every evening pondering unused BBC Two idents, listening to some of the worst radio jingles ever made, or comparing episodes of Red Dwarf and Hancock’s Half Hour. But to presume that somebody doesn’t have an interest in a subject just because they don’t hang around on a forum risks being hugely patronising. Where did all those people interested in Red Dwarf magically appear from and give Dave those record ratings?

Answer: they were always there. They just didn’t spend much time reading a website about it, that’s all. But it doesn’t mean they didn’t care.

*   *   *

And yes, I used the “For ‘Em” joke back on Ganymede & Titan in 2004, on Noise to Signal in 2006, and here on Dirty Feed in 2010.

I am a complete twat.

  1. Rule: don’t read about comedy on a TV presentation forum. And don’t read about TV presentation on a comedy forum. ↩

  2. I’m allowed to say that, I’m one myself. ↩

  3. I’m allowed to say that, I’m one myself. ↩

  4. If you are interested in this, I highly recommend Jon Wolfert’s Sunday Jingle Show. ↩

Something Good About Come Back Mrs. Noah

Published 25th January 2019

TV Comedy

It has to be admitted that nice comments about Come Back Mrs. Noah – Lloyd and Croft’s 70s sitcom about a spacebound housewife – are rather thin on the ground. Having just watched the pilot episode on YouTube, I honestly don’t think it’s quite as bad as its reputation, although doing a racist joke about Notting Hill six minutes into the episode does push your goodwill rather. And the less said about the tea maker gag the better.

But enough about that. I want to highlight something interesting about that pilot, which is an effects technique I’ve never seen before. It takes place in Mission Control, where the ground crew are trying to sort out the fault with the spacecraft. And we get these two consecutive shots of the monitoring equipment they’re using to troubleshoot the fault:

First effects shot
Second effects shot

Clearly, there was only one source available for the yellow overlay oscilloscope effect, but they wanted to show it from two separate angles. The solution? They designed things so the same overlay effect would work for each shot, despite the two shots being entirely different!

You can see it in action here:

It may look a little odd to modern eyes, but it’s a really clever, thinking-outside-the-box solution. You can’t do two different effects? Then make sure your single effect works from two angles.

Brilliant.

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It Ain’t Half A Missing Pilot Title Sequence Mum

Published 21st January 2019

TV Comedy

Today, I want to talk about It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. Not the sad death of Windsor Davies, or whether the programme is racist1. This is Dirty Feed, and I have higher things in mind.

The show premiered in January 1974 on BBC1 with a first series of eight episodes.2 The first episode, however, was a true pilot, recorded a full year before air, and separately from the other seven episodes. David Croft’s autobiography, You Have Been Watching…, p. 196:

“The first pilot programme in January 1973 went very well with the studio audience and featured probably the smallest riot ever experienced by the British in India. There was no room in the studio for a proper full-scale riot mob, and we couldn’t afford one anyway. I made do with about ten shadowy figures in the foreground, but the result didn’t bear examination.3 I was present at the odd riot in India and they are extremely frightening affairs. Police and troops are usually heavily outnumbered and very scared, so ghastly mistakes can easily happen. The remainder of the show was a good pilot and served to introduce the characters and the general thrust of the plots, as any pilot should.”

Despite being shot at a different time to the rest of the series, there really are very few differences between that pilot episode Meet the Gang, and the rest of Series 1. But there is one major change: the closing titles. In the pilot, the gang song is all shot on VT in the studio. For the rest of Series 1, it was completely remounted on film.

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  1. That’s a 50,000 word article, which I am frankly disinclined to write. ↩

  2. Attention boring people: no, not six episodes, despite your claims that every UK sitcom series contains six shows. ↩

  3. Reading this, it is perhaps not surprising that when You Rang, M’Lord? allowed Croft to go to town on the battle sequence at the beginning, he really fucking did so. ↩

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Where Is The Ronnie Barker Comedy Lecture?

Published 25th December 2018

TV Comedy

BBC Media Centre, 4th March 2015:

“At an event co-hosted by BBC Director-General Tony Hall and Shane Allen, Controller of Comedy Commissioning, it was announced that BBC One will host the annual Ronnie Barker Comedy Lecture, to be given by a key comedy figure to share his or her experiences and to help inspire others, as well as addressing the present-day challenges and opportunities facing the industry.

Akin to the Reith and Dimbleby lectures, the Ronnie Barker Comedy Lecture’s aim is to articulate why comedy matters so much, both on a personal level and how it helps to reflect and define our national character. An inaugural speaker announcement will be made shortly.”

Sure enough, broadcast on the 25th August 2017:

“The inaugural Ronnie Barker Comedy Lecture speaker is multi-award-winning comedian, novelist, playwright, film maker and creator of classic sitcoms The Young Ones, Blackadder, The Thin Blue Line and Upstart Crow, Ben Elton. He is introduced by Sir David Jason.

Recorded at the BBC’s Radio Theatre in front of an invited audience from the world of comedy, the lecture is named after the much-loved comedy writer and performer Ronnie Barker, star of The Two Ronnies, Porridge and Open All Hours.”

And what did David Jason say in his introduction in the programme itself?

DAVID JASON: I’m so pleased that the BBC have decided to institute an annual lecture on the art of comedy.

The point: the programme was conceived as an annual lecture, and was described as an annual lecture in the programme itself. With 2018 drawing to an end, then, it seems an appropriate time to ask: where the bloody hell has it gone?

It’s annoying. And it’s annoying because the idea of the lecture was such a fantastic one. I can think of few things better than a funny person talking about comedy for 45 minutes, and then broadcasting it to the nation. “Educational but entertaining… perfect BBC output”, you might say. With the best will in the world, how difficult is it to get someone funny to stand in the Radio Theatre for a while and bang on about comedy?

Indeed, I would argue that naming the lecture after Ronnie Barker and then giving up after a year is a tad disrespectful. If they really weren’t sure they could make it an annual event, it was unwise to sell it as one. They could have just named last year’s The Ben Elton Comedy Lecture, do it potentially as a one-off, and give themselves some leeway.

Still, surely there isn’t a struggle for things to talk about. Last year, Ben Elton made the case for studio sitcom – a topic extremely relevant to Ronnie Barker’s work. I would argue another topic equally as relevant to Barker is the current dearth of sketch comedy on television. The odd show like Tracey Breaks the News aside, there’s virtually nothing – and the lack of sketch shows on TV is incredibly damaging to the health of comedy in 2018. True, if the BBC broadcast that lecture, plenty of people would just yell “commission some, then”. But the BBC has a long and proud history of self-flagellation, and I don’t see why this should be any different.

Although at this point, I’d probably settle for somebody standing on stage and telling us YouTube is the future of comedy. Anything, in fact, than a great idea being thrown away so quickly. I mean, I thought there was a possibility it might peter out after three years or so.

But after one is just ridiculous.

Set to Rights

Published 12th December 2018

TV Comedy

This year, I have been writing for Red Dwarf fansite Ganymede & Titan for a full 15 years. Anybody sensible would think that was more than enough, and go and do something else instead.

Spoiler: I am not sensible.

Recently I published two articles over there which might interest you, taking a look at the set design of the first couple of series. There’s this piece about the reuse of a certain corridor set, and then there’s this piece about the disappearing and reappearing Captain’s Office set. These are the first two parts of an ongoing series which should continue into next year.

Corridor pipes set, from Waiting for God
Corridor pipes set, from Queeg


I’ve got to admit, it’s been fun writing these. I sometimes find Red Dwarf a little hard to write about these days; we’ve all talked about the old shows endlessly, so going over the same old thing can feel a little dull. Meanwhile, the new shows don’t really capture my imagination in a way which makes me want to write about them. But this really is a topic that hasn’t been talked about in quite this way before. I’ve watched those old shows countless times, but when you put everything else aside just to look at how those sets were put together, it’s amazing what new things you can spot.

I sometimes think there are two kinds of people. Those who understand why I find stuff like deleted scenes, unbroadcast pilots, and the reuse of sets to be fascinating… and those who can’t even begin to understand. I don’t think it’s even a geeks v. non-geeks thing per se: there are plenty of geeks who only care about a show in-universe, and possibly its cast members, rather than how the show was put together.

They won’t get a single thing out of this. But if you’re a silly person like me, then hopefully you’ll enjoy them.

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Do You Think That’s Wise, Sir?

Published 1st December 2018

TV Comedy / TV Presentation

Here’s something from the Radio Times, brought to my attention via TV Forum: an odd little piece about the BBC2 Dad’s Army ident that never was.

Odd, because unused TV idents aren’t exactly the kind of thing the Radio Times usually writes about. I mean, I’d love it if it was, but let’s face it: the only reason this article was published is because it’s about Dad’s Army, a sitcom everyone is still obsessed over, despite the fact that It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Hi-de-Hi!, and You Rang, M’Lord? are all much better.

Enough of my irritating opinions on comedy. I’m here to give some irritating opinions on TV presentation instead. Let’s take a look at the rejected ident in question:

I mean, it’s beautiful. Really beautiful. Very nicely animated, and the inclusion of the Isle of Wight on the 2 really sells it as what it’s supposed to be. In and of itself as a standalone thing, it’s one of the best pieces of TV presentation I’ve seen for ages. It’s clearly made with a tremendous amount of love and respect for the show.

It wouldn’t have worked as an ident in front of Dad’s Army. Not even remotely.

You could perhaps query the inclusion of Nazi symbols on a piece of TV presentation, but that’s not my main problem with it. Nor is my problem covered in the reason the BBC gave for rejecting it:

“Ultimately, however, the BBC decided not to use the homage to those original opening credits. “They said some very nice things about it and it was clearly something that was under discussion for some time,” continues Norton. “However, they told us that they wanted to move away from content-specific idents on BBC2 and wanted more general idents that could serve all programmes across the channel.”

Here’s my problem with it: stop thinking of the proposed ident as a nice standalone piece of video, and start thinking of how it actually would have been used, in front of an episode of Dad’s Army. Just imagine the ident running, the announcer talking over it, introducing the episode… and then going into the actual title sequence, which looks identical. It would be such a weird, jarring repetition of what you’d just seen. Something which looks utterly magical in isolation, would look naff when used in context.1

Linear television is more than just individual elements, slammed next to each other. What the viewer has just seen impacts on what they’re just about to see. And as the various parts of television get ever-more siloed off, seeing the big picture of what is transmitted when everything gets put together becomes more and more difficult. It’s vital that this overview is protected, and strengthened, across all of television.

Otherwise, you don’t just end up with the oddity of seeing a pastiche of a title sequence followed by the real title sequence. You end up with idents accidentally mocking the dead.

  1. The original version posted on the animator’s own YouTube account is even worse – it has the Dad’s Army theme dubbed over it. So you’d be going from the Dad’s Army theme… straight into the Dad’s Army theme again. ↩

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Drop the Dead Donkey: The Unbroadcast Pilot

Published 31st October 2018

TV Comedy

Drop The Dead Donkey pilot - Alex, Damien, Dave and George

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with TV pilots.

TV pilots of all kinds. Shows which eventually made it to the screen virtually untouched as part of a series, like The Young Ones episode Demolition. Shows which made it to screen, but which were substantially or entirely reshot for the series proper, such as Citizen Smith. One-offs which aired, but never became a series – remember Mirrorball? And then there’s my favourite: pilots which were never broadcast, either because they were never intended to be in the first place, or because substantial changes happened between the pilot and the series… or because they were a complete fucking disaster in every single respect.

There are so many of these unbroadcast pilots I’d love to see. There’s the 1986 pilot Dungeon Doom… followed by a second, also unbroadcast pilot under the more familiar name Knightmare in 1987. Similarly, 1983 saw an unnamed pre-pilot, followed by a full pilot called UNTV… with a series appearing the year after, a certain Spitting Image. Then there’s Paul O’Grady’s version of The Generation Game, which by rights should have been the BBC’s big entertainment hit of 2003… and wouldn’t you just love to watch the two pilots they made to see exactly why that didn’t happen?

Occasionally, such pilots get to see the light of day on DVD, if they ended up as successful shows. Sherlock saw its unbroadcast 60 minute version of A Study in Pink released. The Day Today is one of the most obvious comedy examples, with the bare bones of the show there… but the visual panache of the series very much not. And then there’s Doctor Who, where the DVD set The Beginning contains the complete unedited pilot recording, and a brand new edit combining the best of all the raw session’s takes. Because, y’know, Doctor Who.

With comedy, it’s easy to wish so much more was released.1 Blackadder is the most obvious example here, with a pilot which had never been officially put out on DVD, presumably due to somebody not wishing it to be out there.2 Slightly further afield, I would do anything3 to see A Big Bunch of Hippies, the pilot for the underrated sitcom Hippies – and even if you didn’t like the show, its unbroadcast pilot was the last TV show scripted jointly by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, which is surely of interest to the discerning comedy fan.4

But occasionally, we get lucky. Hello Drop the Dead Donkey, Channel 4’s truly excellent 90s newsroom sitcom… which actually released its unbroadcast pilot on DVD in 2005. And watching it in the context of that first series from 1990 is rather instructive.

Let’s instruct ourselves, shall we?

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  1. Admittedly, comedy in general has it better than game shows, or entertainment shows in general. Duncan Norvelle’s pilot edition of Blind Date is the stuff of legend, and we’ve never seen so much as a field of it. UPDATE: Thanks to Ben Baker, who points out that parts of this pilot were seen in the documentary Who Killed Saturday Night TV? Now I’ve just got to pluck up the courage to watch it. ↩

  2. To be honest, it shuffles round the net so often like the proverbial video ghost that you’d think whoever it is might as well just throw up their hands, give in, and accept a few pennies out of it. ↩

  3. Not actually anything. ↩

  4. Yes, you there. Hello. ↩

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