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“What Is the Function of This Illusion?”

Published 10th January 2024

TV Comedy

1. Model Shot
Starfield. We pan to reveal enormous sun. After a pause, Starbug beetles across the disc of the sun.

2. Int. Obs. Deck
Dark. Various consoles click into life as we pan round the room, and come to rest on two deep sleep units. Suddenly, one of them flares with blue light from inside, and its hood hisses back, revealing a slowly-waking LISTER, wearing soiled long johns. He sits up. His mouth tastes vile. He notices his fingernails and toenails are six inches long. LISTER pads across the room, and starts to cut his nails in a desk-mounted pencil sharpener. He catches his reflection in a blank TV screen.

LISTER: (To his reflection) Who the hell are you?

Red Dwarf, “Psirens”, Primordial Soup

The Red Dwarf episode “Psirens” was first broadcast on BBC2 on the 7th October 1993. But that’s not how a lot of Red Dwarf fans first experienced the episode. Or specifically, how they first read it.

Because in March 1993, the first Red Dwarf script book, Primordial Soup was published. This contained the scripts for the episodes “Polymorph”, “Marooned”, “Dimension Jump”, “Justice”, “Back to Reality”, and… erm, “Psirens”. Seven months before it was broadcast. Not exactly how you’d choose to reveal the first episode of a brand new series, especially one with an intriguing format change: the crew left adrift on Starbug.

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The Dirty Feed Christmas Message 2023

Published 25th December 2023

TV Comedy

“This is ‘And The Grass Won’t Pay No Mind’ by Elvis Presley. I didn’t really love Elvis. Elvis wasn’t my person. But a friend of mine said ‘Wait, you gotta listen to it’, and I remember this song was like, when it clicked for me what people were hearing in it…

I don’t know if anything beats a friend, or someone you respect, saying like: try it again. You’ve missed it. Try it again.”

– Greta Gerwig, Desert Island Discs

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Balls.

Published 23rd December 2023

TV Comedy

Every so often, there’s a comment on this site which deserves a wider audience. Today, it’s Rob Blackmon, asking this question on The Young Ones, “Interesting”:

“Finally, if anyone has access to shooting scripts or otherwise, what was it that Mike was clearly about to say after “Cinderella” entered the flat? Such an obvious, jarring cut and he just gave us that look, like.”

It certainly is one of the most obvious and clunky edits in the whole of The Young Ones. Here’s a reminder:

It is indeed very clear that Mike is about to say something, and we rudely cut away. But what, exactly?

I do, in fact, have access to the script. And the bon mot we were so cruelly deprived of is the following:

CINDERS: I’m looking for my prince.
MIKE: (POINTING UPSTAIRS) Maybe they’re upstairs with my etchings baby. (TO CAMERA) At least I didn’t make a joke about balls or fairy queens.

Certainly not a joke worth keeping. Although what’s vaguely annoying is that if they’d cut away from Mike a second earlier, before he’d had a chance to start looking at the camera, the moment would be far less jarring.

Yes, next year on Dirty Feed, expect more lectures about editing in sitcoms from 1982.

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Freeze-Frame Gonna Drive You Insane, Part Five

Published 20th December 2023

TV Comedy

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four • Part Five

When I started this set of articles about flash frames, right back at the beginning of the year, I never thought it would end up taking five parts to tell this story properly. In particular, I never really wanted to get into the nitty gritty of endless Young Ones repeats.

Unfortunately, as Demosthenes would say: tough shit. It is actually relevant; or, at least, one particular repeat run is. In August 1995, something happened which we can’t entirely avoid. Because not only did The Young Ones begin a fresh, almost-complete run from the start on BBC2… but half the episodes were broadcast in a version never seen before.

“Oil”, “Boring”, and “Bomb” aired in their original, 35 minute versions. “Time” aired in its usual 1985 edit, with the flash frame cut out. But the rest of the episodes aired in brand new 30-minute edits, designed at least partially to make the series easier to repeat by fitting into a standard half hour slot.

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The Mystery of Zectron 2000

Published 26th November 2023

Children's TV / TV Comedy

Sometimes my knowledge of a popular science fiction sitcom can reach mildly irritating proportions. When this happens, I do feel the urge to share it with you, and spread the irritation around equally,

Take the following episode of Press Gang Series 4, “Love and War”, broadcast on the 28th January 1992. We are particularly interested in the voice of Colin’s ludicrous electronic briefcase.

Now, the actor for the briefcase isn’t listed in the end credits. Which is peculiar – sure, it’s only a voice, and an electronically altered one at that, but it’s very clearly a comedy performance. But not to worry. Because I recognised that voice.

Here’s a clip from Red Dwarf, “Emohawk: Polymorph II”, broadcast nearly two years later, on the 28th October 1993. The gang are being tracked by a Space Corps External Enforcement Vehicle, whose voice should sound rather familiar:

Luckily, the voice is actually credited in Red Dwarf. It’s Hugh Quarshie, probably best known as Ric Griffin for nearly two decades of Holby City, as well as appearing in The Phantom Menace, and a million and one other things.

And one of those million and one other things? Erm, Press Gang. Specifically, the two parter “The Last Word” in Series 3, broadcast on the 28th May/4th June 1991. With that, the final piece of the puzzle clicks into place: Series 3 and 4 of Press Gang were produced and shot simultaneously.

So who did Quarshie play in “The Last Word”? Answer: Inspector Hibbert, an important character with a crucial moral choice at the end of the show. I won’t spoil that moral choice if you haven’t seen it, but here he is from earlier in the story:

Those two episodes are some of the most serious material the show ever did. Who knew that Quarshie’s turn as an Inspector in a two-parter mediating on gun crime, suicide, and the nature of guilt would be followed up with… a silly talking briefcase? Come to think of it, that seems to be Press Gang in a nutshell.

Still, it really is a shame he wasn’t credited in “Love and War”, but at least Hugh Quarshie got a proper credit in “The Last Word”.

The Last Word Part One credit sequence, featuring Hugh Quarshie as Inspector Hibbert

The Last Word Part Two credit sequence, featuring Hugh Quarshie as Inspector Hibbert

Huge Quarshie?

Oh well.

With thanks to Christopher Wickham. A version of this post was first published in the November issue of my monthly newsletter.

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Freeze-Frame Gonna Drive You Insane, Part Four

Published 12th November 2023

TV Comedy

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four • Part Five

It feels like ages since we last checked in with The Young Ones. A brief recap, then. Back in 1984, the BBC had just transmitted the show’s second and final series… but not without some problems. In particular, the final flash frame intended for inclusion in “Summer Holiday” was cut entirely, much to the displeasure of the team. But surely the show was now home and dry?

Well, what do you think?

A hint of what was to come can be found in the following from Hansard. It isn’t normal for questions to be asked of Ministers about a sitcom.1 And yet on the 27th June 1984, just eight days after Series 2 of The Young Ones had finished airing, that is exactly what happened. Conservative MP for Cardiff West, Stefan Terlezki, was our ersatz Norris McWhirter.

“Mr. Terlezki asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what safeguards there are against subliminal messages appearing on the British Broadcasting Corporation; and if he is satisfied that these are adequate.”

Douglas Hurd, then a Minister of State for the Home Office, gave the following reply:

“I am satisfied that clause 13(6) of the BBC’s Licence and Agreement of 2 April 1981, which requires the corporation not to include subliminal messages in its programmes, provides an adequate safeguard. It is for the BBC’s board of governors to ensure that the provision is observed. I understand that the corporation considers that some brief, unrelated inserts included in a recent BBC comedy series might have been regarded as in breach of the spirit of the provision, and steps were taken to prevent a recurrence.”

Which brings up an interesting question: were subliminal images really banned on the BBC at the time? The above suggests that they were. And yet Paul Jackson, on the 2007 DVD documentary The Making of The Young Ones, seemed to disagree:

“And although it wasn’t illegal at the BBC because the commercial issue didn’t arise, it was raised, and it went up to Bill Cotton… and the edict came down you’ve gotta take it out.

Meanwhile, the Nottingham Evening Post, on the 16th June 1984, reported the following:

“A BBC spokeswoman said the BBC’s Charter does cover subliminal techniques, from the political and advertising point of view, but that these pictures could not be deemed harmful.

“This is a joke flash-frame technique which is harmless”, she said.”

There’s only one way to find out the truth. We need to get hold of a copy of the BBC’s Licence and Agreement. Not this damn thing, dated December 2016, but the document quoted by Hurd from April 1981.

I have a copy. Clause 13(6) states the following:

“The Corporation shall at all times refrain from sending any broadcast matter which includes any technical device which, by using images of very brief duration or by any other means, exploits the possibility of conveying a message to, or otherwise influencing the minds of, members of an audience without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has been done.”

Which sounds suspiciously familiar. Let’s compare this to Section 4(3) of the Broadcasting Act 1981, which IBA-licensed stations were supposed to abide by:

“It shall be the duty of the Authority to satisfy themselves that the programmes broadcast by the Authority do not include, whether in an advertisement or otherwise, any technical device which, by using images of very brief duration or by any other means, exploits the possibility of conveying a message to, or otherwise influencing the minds of, members of an audience without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has been done.”

The similarity in language is obvious. At the very least, the intent for the BBC was exactly the same as for the IBA: to strongly discourage the use of flash frames. Whether it would have stood up in a court of law is a different question, and one which was never answered in practice.

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  1. Or indeed a variety show, but let’s not start all that again. ↩

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Alan Partridge’s Sporting Season

Published 3rd November 2023

TV Comedy

STEVE COOGAN: I remember these clips that I comment to… Armando just came in with a load of sports clips and just put them on and said “Just say some stuff to these”. There was no script, just see what’s happening, just say stuff. So it was all made up as we went along.

Steve Coogan on… his most iconic TV moments, British GQ

Earlier this year, I asked the question: when did Alan Partridge first appear on television? The answer was a VERY CLEVER ONE because I AM BRILLIANT.

It was also an answer which is a little beside the point. The first real TV Partridge sketch was in the first episode of The Day Today, on the 19th January 1994. Yes, it’s highlights of Alan’s Sporting Season.

But have you ever wondered exactly where each piece of sports footage from the above sketch came from? The answer, of course, is: “No John, only you and you alone have ever done that”. But for those of you who are interested, please enjoy the following.

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I Hate Doing Research, Part Six

Published 30th October 2023

Meta / TV Comedy

One of the most frustrating things about writing my series on flash-frames in The Young Ones and Spitting Image has been how absurdly difficult the research has been. There really is a ludicrous amount of misinformation out there. I already wrote a little about this at the start of the year, but I have more examples. Oh, so many more examples.

Take Peter Seddon’s Law’s Strangest Cases (Portico, 2016), which is one of the very few books to discuss the Norris McWhirter Spitting Image flash. To the point where it has been used as a main source in reporting elsewhere online. Quite understandably – this is a proper, published book, it really shouldn’t be getting major things wrong.

Sadly, we immediately run into problems:

“It all started with the television broadcast of a 1984 episode of Spitting Image, the series whose lampoonery through the medium of cruelly parodic puppetry has caused many a celebrity to fume.

The good news for Norris was that he wasn’t on it. Or was he? For thereby hangs the tale.”

I mean, he certainly wasn’t in a 1984 episode of Spitting Image. That was the famed “scriptwriters are incredibly good in bed” flash, not the Norris McWhirter head-on-topless-body flash, which happened in 1985.

But let’s not get grumpy about an incorrect date. That’s arsehole territory. The bulk of the reporting must surely be correct.

“The Times subsequently reported that Mr McWhirter, aged 59, had taken out an action for libel against the Independent Broadcasting Authority at Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court. McWhirter was adamant that he had seen ‘a grotesque and ridiculing image of my face superimposed on the top of a body of a naked woman’. It really doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Norris McWhirter didn’t take any action for libel whatsoever. His case was solely concerned with subliminal messaging; libel was never part of his accusations.

Now true, the book does then go on to say the following:

“He asserted that the broadcasting of the image was a criminal offence under the Broadcasting Act 1981, but not because of ‘what’ it was – it was how long it lasted that was the real bone of contention.

‘And how long did it last?’ asked the judge with due concern. Norris McWhirter’s reply was brief but not nearly as brief as the offending image: ‘A quarter of a second,’ was his stunning reply.

McWhirter’s contention was that the image had been broadcast subliminally, using the sort of technique that unscrupulous advertisers or political regimes are said to employ to implant subconscious images and messages into the addled brains of the world’s couch potatoes.”

So the book does understand at least part of the case. But if you’re going to entirely misreport it as a libel action, you’ve pretty much fallen at the first hurdle.

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Freeze-Frame Gonna Drive You Insane, Part Three

Published 29th October 2023

TV Comedy

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four • Part Five

Content warning: very mild nudity.

When we last left Spitting Image, the team had just got themselves into a spot of bother. On the 10th June 1984, the show broadcast the following message, for one single frame:

White text on black background, this is the actual text of the flash frame which was quoted earlier in the article

Our old friend Tooth and Claw reveals the immediate fallout:

“It was not many hours before a viewer with a freeze-frame facility brought it to the attention of the IBA. Stephen Murphy, the IBA programme officer who had been so indulgent with Spitting Image in the early days, called up John Lloyd with a new tone of voice: ‘My dear boy, you’ve broken the law. Haven’t you read the Broadcasting Act?’ Lloyd confessed that he hadn’t but said he had read the offending text over to Central’s duty lawyer who had cleared it and had, in any case, thought the prohibition related specifically to advertising. Murphy, apparently unimpressed, hung up with: ‘You’ll be hearing from me at some future date.'”

When we discussed Labour’s Party Political Broadcast from 1970 and Ross McWhirter, we spent a lot of time with the ITA and the Television Act 1964. By the time we get to Spitting Image, the ITA has become the IBA, and the Television Act 1964 has been replaced with the Broadcasting Act 1981.1

The relevant section of the new Broadcasting Act is 4(3):

“It shall be the duty of the Authority to satisfy themselves that the programmes broadcast by the Authority do not include, whether in an advertisement or otherwise, any technical device which, by using images of very brief duration or by any other means, exploits the possibility of conveying a message to, or otherwise influencing the minds of, members of an audience without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has been done.”

You will note that this is word-for-word identical to section 3(3) of the Television Act 1964. You will also note that Lloyd’s impression that “the prohibition related specifically to advertising” is most definitely wrong; subliminal material is clearly stated to be banned “whether in an advertisement or otherwise”.

Tooth and Claw continues:

“On this wording, it looked as if anyone who cared to bring a prosecution would have the IBA bang to rights. On the day after the incident, the IBA sternly reprimanded Central as the responsible company and Central told Lloyd never to do such a thing again, making it an area to which he would irresistibly return.

It was the quality of naughtiness, rather than politically-motivated satire, that was now becoming Spitting Image‘s defining characteristic.”

In fact, nobody did care to bring a prosecution for the above incident. But Tooth and Claw does state that somebody had “complained to the IBA’s director-general, John Whitney, in the strongest terms”.

Who was that somebody? None other than a certain Norris McWhirter. This fact is not only mentioned in Tooth and Claw, but also evidenced by letters in the IBA archive. Ross McWhirter was murdered by the IRA in 1975; his brother Norris had clearly taken up Ross’s crusade against subliminal messages, whether in good faith or otherwise.

But for now, there is where things ended. There were no mentions of the incident in the last episode of the series on the 17th June, though the temptation must surely have been strong.2 And after that, not even Spitting Image could cause trouble while they were off-air. Central and the IBA would get six months respite from all this nonsense, at least.

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  1. All of this was due to the launch of Independent Local Radio in 1973, which broadened the scope of the old ITA. ↩

  2. It didn’t stop the Cambridge Evening News warning its readers to “Beware of Flash-Frames” in their listings. ↩

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