Last time in our look at Keeping Up Appearances, we saw Harold Snoad making a load of fake films for Onslow’s telly. But Onslow doesn’t just enjoy watching the offcuts of Snoad’s location shoots. He also likes a bit of sport. Real, actual clips of motor racing and horse racing, not fake stuff.
But we get a little more specific than than that, surely?
DAISY: There was a time when you used to chase me all over the house.
ONSLOW: That was before we got colour, wasn’t it.— Keeping Up Appearances, “The Art Exhibition”, TX: 11/10/92
Here on Dirty Feed, we like to answer people’s burning questions about television occasionally. So let’s look at two related queries1 from friend of the site Rob Keeley, who wants to know the following about Keeping Up Appearances:
I can answer these questions… but it gets complicated. Strap yourself in. Here is each and every film which Onslow watches from the comfort of his armchair. The lazy bastard.
Yes, from two years ago. I never said we like to answer people’s burning questions about television quickly. ↩
What’s the most oft-told tale of a Fawlty Towers recording session going a little wrong?
The answer is surely the famous anecdote concerning “The Builders”.1 John Cleese has told the tale many times, with varying levels of insults directed at Icelanders. Let’s go for the version in the interview on the original 2001 DVD release:
“The second show that we did, which was about the builders, was performed almost entirely to complete silence, and it was not a very comfortable experience. Afterwards, I was a bit disturbed, and people said “No no, it was a funny show.” Actually, I think it’s the least good of the twelve shows, but they said “No, it was fine, it was funny”. I said “What about the audience?”, and they said “We don’t know…”
We found out later that a large number of people from the Icelandic Broadcasting Corporation had visited the BBC that day, and the BBC were always helpful to shows like mine. And they thought wouldn’t it be nice if they put all 70 of them in the front row. And they sat there being very pleasant and charming and Icelandic, and not laughing at all. Just this faint whiff of cod coming from the front row… which had we recognised, might have given us the explanation. And I’ve got to say it was a pretty tough recording, and it needed quite a lot of editing to tighten it up.”
The audience reaction to “The Builders” isn’t quite as bad as Cleese paints above, but it is fairly muted. As this was the first episode recorded after the pilot a few months previously, it’s understandable that Cleese would be particularly worried by the audience reaction here. He must have been wondering whether the show as a whole actually worked or not.
Regardless of all that, the above is a nice, safe tale to tell. The only people who come across badly are the BBC tickets unit, a safe target who can’t really answer back. And who cares if you’re mildly racist about the Icelandic? None of it is as dangerous as, say, slagging off one of your fellow actors.
John Cleese knows this. Because when he did such a thing, many years ago, he deliberately omitted the name of the person he was slagging off. Take a look at this interview in the Sunday Sun, on the 13th May 1979, about a month and a half after Series 2 of Fawlty Towers had come to a premature halt.2 While discussing the process of making the show:
The tension can affect everybody: one actor, says John, suddenly changed his performance at the filming stage. “I was tired and started fluffing… and, oh, the whole show was less good than it should have been.”
Sadly, Cleese gives no more details. I’m also not aware of him ever mentioning this again; not even on his absurdly detailed DVD commentaries from 2009. Who was it who screwed Cleese over by changing their performance during a recording?
I have no idea. Anyone?
I have to be honest, I didn’t exactly have a rule against embedding GB News material on here. I didn’t think I really needed one. What was the likelihood that I’d ever have cause to do it?
Unfortunately, back on the 18th March 2024, something happened which forces me to briefly acknowledge the channel’s existence. Piers Pottinger, public-affairs consultant and former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, makes a bit of a twat of himself:
A Spitting Image scene from the 1980's has just been quoted as an anecdote about Margaret Thatcher. 🤣🤦🏻♂️ #GBNews pic.twitter.com/XrH0omh3Sm
— Karl (@Karl_Downey) March 18, 2024
As was widely reported at the time, Pottinger seems to be confusing reality with a famous Spitting Image sketch. But rather than judge the entire thing from a 19 second Twitter video, you can see the whole contribution from him below. It starts from 37:38 in, with the anecdote itself at 44:36:
Just for the record – and in case either of the above videos disappear at any point – here is a transcript of the relevant section:
PIERS POTTINGER: I mean, there was a famous time when she was having dinner with her cabinet in the Ritz, and they were taking the order for the main course, and they all ordered beef or lamb or fish, and the waiter said to Margaret “And the vegetables?” She said “They’ll have the same as me.”
ANDREW PIERCE: I don’t know if that story’s true, but it’s a lovely story.
PIERS POTTINGER: Well I like to think it’s true.
ANDREW PIERCE: Certainly apocryphal. Certainly apocryphal.
“Apocryphal” is one way of putting it, yes. Maybe it’s just too much to expect Andrew Pierce to be able to quote chapter and verse when it comes to famous Spitting Image sketches. To be fair, when it comes to the reporting of all this, vanishingly few people could identify the actual episode of Spitting Image in question. Most contented themselves with linking to a blurry YouTube video of the sketch with no date attached, in the wrong aspect ratio.
So our first point of order is to correct that. The sketch which Pottinger mistakenly presents as a true story appeared right at the very end of Series 2, Episode 3, broadcast on the 20th January 1985; the traditional place for putting a great sketch to leave the audience wanting more. So after a rousing rendition of “Robson’s Glory Boys”1, we get the following:
Very droll, Minister. But here’s the thing: the above joke is most certainly not original to Spitting Image.
Yes we’ll go go go
All the way to Mexico
And we’ll stay stay stay
‘Til the second game we play
Then we’ll fly fly fly
Back to London by July
We don’t expect you’ll thank us
‘Cos we’re all Bobby’s bankers
A load of petrol tankers
We’re Robson’s Glory Boys! ↩
One of the great things about library music is the unexpected links it can create across some of my favourite comedy.
For instance, take the Carlin release Light-Hearted & Fun from 1989.1 Every single track on that album was written by Andrew J. Hall. So, there’s the vaguely terrifying “Clowns”:
Which was, of course, used in Alexei Sayle’s Stuff and Monsieur Aubergine, first broadcast on the 3rd October 1991:
The Warners site gives the release date as 1990, but every other source I’ve seen says 1989. ↩
I don’t usually spend my time whinging about current television on Dirty Feed. I don’t find it much fun to write, and this is supposed to be a pleasant hobby. I’ll write about the stuff that depresses me if somebody wants to pay for it.
But today, I randomly found myself researching material broadcast on the 16th February 1996. Not a special date, particularly. And I realised on that night on BBC2, you got:
And it strikes me that you don’t need to be the most miserable person in the world, or hate all of pop culture in 2024, or even to love all three shows listed above, to suggest that we’ve lost something. The reasons for that are long and complex, and could fill thousands of words.
But stuff the reasons. Sometimes, all I can feel is the loss.
OK, so my planned Summer hiatus really didn’t work. To be fair, would you rather have a nice walk outdoors enjoying the sunshine, or spend your free time working out what is showing on Onslow’s television in every single episode of Keeping Up Appearances?
As ever, this project has become a complete nightmare, and I quickly realised why nobody else has ever bothered doing it before. Let’s take an example. Watch this scene from Series 3 Episode 4, commonly known as “How to Go on Holiday Without Really Trying”, broadcast on the 27th September 1992:
I am amused that Mary Millar gets a bit of an American sitcom-style reaction when she enters in that get-up.
But onto important matters: what music is playing there on Onslow’s telly? The production paperwork should reveal all. They list it as “Street Action”, Track 1 of the Chappell library album American Drama. Well for a start, “Street Action” is on the album American Drama 2, but the catalogue number matches up: Chap 142. Let’s give it a listen.
Where were you when Napalm Death appeared on Children’s BBC?
For me, the answer was… not watching Napalm Death on Children’s BBC. Music show What’s That Noise? was not a favourite of mine. Perhaps I detected the vague whiff of education, and I’d already had enough of that by that point in the afternoon. At 4:35pm on the 10th October 1989 I was probably watching Sooty and Count Duckula on the other side. Or on my computer. Or eating tea. Anything, in fact, than watching BBC1.
Oh well, my loss. See how great Craig Charles is here. “This is music for young lovers, step aside Kylie Minogue!”
The question is: what has the above moment got to do with Red Dwarf, beyond the involvement of Craig?
Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four • Part Five • Part Six • Part Seven
Welcome to the final part of my series of articles looking at stock footage in Smashie and Nicey: the End of an Era. Something which was meant to only be a single piece, then two, and eventually ballooned to seven. Yet again, why nobody ever wrote about this before became clear as soon as I started the damn thing.
So let’s stagger gasping and sweaty across the finish line. This is a grab bag of all the remaining bits of stock footage in the show, mostly from the second half. And surely the climax of this series of articles is the best time to highlight a few of my CRITICAL RESEARCH FAILURES.
Such as: