i hate doing research

I Hate Doing Research, Part Six

Published 30th October 2023

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.

[Read more →]

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freeze-frame gonna drive you insane, i hate doing research, spitting image

I Hate Doing Research, Part Five

Published 4th October 2023

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i hate doing research

I Hate Doing Research, Part Four

Published 25th September 2023

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i hate doing research

I Hate Doing Research, Part Three

Published 22nd February 2023

Meta / TV Comedy

Thank you all for your kind words about my first piece on the flash frames in The Young Ones. Part Two is in the works, but is still a little way off publication. Perhaps the following will explain why.

Let’s take that missing flash frame for “Summer Holiday”, which I comprehensively examined in Part One. It’s something which definitely, never, ever, ever transmitted, or made it into any commercial release of the show, and I have the large pile of recordings here to prove it.

And yet take a look at the paperwork for the episode, back in 1984:

FILM:
1 frame from Shalako (+ BBC cap) property of EMI. Transferred to H25992.

And then read the relevant section of Roger Wilmut’s Didn’t You Kill My Mother-in-Law?, the seminal book on alternative comedy, published in 1989:

“The general style of anarchy, with cutaway sequences and a good deal of stunt work, was maintained: one new running joke was presumably for the benefit of the owners of expensive video recorders, since it consisted of cutting in four-frame flashes which cannot possibly be grasped in real time – they include a leaping frog, a dripping tap, a skier, a potter’s wheel and, finally, a notice signed by the video tape editor saying, ‘I never wanted to put all these flash frames in in the first place.'”

And finally, let’s listen to Young Ones producer Paul Jackson, interviewed on the DVD extra The Making of The Young Ones in 2007:

“It’s on the DVD, it’s on the video versions, but it never was broadcast.”

In other words: in order to find out the truth about whether that “Summer Holiday” flash frame was actually broadcast or commercially released, I’ve had to ignore a) the actual paperwork for the episode, b) a leading comedy historian, and c) the producer of the show. Brilliant.

I say all this not to point out how great I am, but simply to show how easy it is for these things to get warped and twisted down the years. Sometimes, the only way to get to the truth of what was broadcast is by watching the actual material, and seeing what’s there, and what isn’t.

And that’s only possible by getting people to dig out off-airs from 1984. Everything else is guesswork.

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

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freeze-frame gonna drive you insane, i hate doing research, the young ones

I Hate Doing Research, Part Two

Published 31st July 2021

Meta / TV Comedy

Gather round, hardcore comedy scholars. This isn’t one of those nice articles I write where everything is tied up with a neat bow at the end. Instead, it’s a cry for help into the void.

Let’s take a look at a few pictures from A Bit of Fry & Laurie on Getty Images. Firstly, Series 4:

This is from Episode 2 – the episode featuring Fiona Gillies and Kevin McNally. Getty suggests that this picture was taken on 22nd March 1994. A quick check I have of the paperwork for the show does indeed have this listed as the recording date. So far, so good.

Oddly, Getty doesn’t seem to have any pictures at all from Series 3. But if we look for Series 2, we have this:

Ah, The Rhodes Boysons. This one is a little more tricksy; the sketch was broadcast as part of Episode 5, but the paperwork I have here indicates it was actually shot during the first audience session for Series 2. That was on the 14th January 1990… and Getty agrees. We’re doing well, yes?

Too well, unfortunately. Things had to go wrong eventually. Finally, take a look at this brilliant photo from Series 1:

Comic actors Stephen Fry (left) and Hugh Laurie (on a television screen) on the set of a television show, December 17th 1988. (Photo by Don Smith/Radio Times/Getty Images)

This looks like it was taken from the sketch “Censored”, shown as part of Episode 1. Let’s take a look at a couple of screengrabs of the sketch in question.

At first glance, you’ll notice a few oddities. Both Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie’s hair looks different, the framing of Laurie on the TV screen is also different, and even the border round the TV set seems to have changed. Perhaps all this can be explained by the fact that the picture was almost certainly taken during rehearsal, rather than the shooting of the sketch itself. This was standard practice; take a look at this publicity photo from The Young Ones, for instance, and note Ryan’s attire.

There is still a problem with this picture, however. The paperwork I have here indicates that the sketch “Censored” was not only broadcast as part of the first episode of the show, but was actually shot as part of the first audience session, on the 10th December 1988. Why then, does Getty claim the picture was taken on the 17th December 1988, the date of the second audience session of the series?

You may choose from the following possibilities:

Getty has the wrong information, the production paperwork is correct, and this was shot on the 10th December 1988. After all, Getty has been known to be wrong before.
The production paperwork has the wrong information, Getty is correct, and this was shot on the 17th December 1988. After all, the production paperwork has been known to be wrong before.
Both Getty and the production paperwork are correct, and the “Censored” sketch was shot on the 10th, reshot on the 17th, and then they decided to use the original version shot on the 10th in the final show.
Both Getty and the production paperwork are correct, and this is a different sketch entirely, shot using the same setup of Fry on the stage and Laurie on the monitor, which they then decided to cut before broadcast.
Some random mix of the above.
Something else entirely.

Sometimes, things are just impossible to nail down, at least with the information we have available at the moment. Bung me a camera script for the 10th and 17th recordings of the show, and I’ll know for sure.

As things stand, my best guess is based on the following description of the picture on the Getty Images site:

“Comic actors Stephen Fry (left) and Hugh Laurie (on a television screen) on the set of a television show, December 17th 1988. (Photo by Don Smith/Radio Times/Getty Images)”

If you don’t even know what the TV show is called when writing the metadata, I’m willing to bet you might get the date wrong too. I’ll stick with the production paperwork date of the 10th for now.

But I’ll definitely lie awake worrying about it.

UPDATE (1/9/21): Well, now. I’m not sure we have an exact answer to this conundrum yet. But while browsing through the script book for Series 1 of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, I found the following unused sketch titled “Naked”, with an alarmingly familiar setup:

Stephen and Hugh are in a black limbo area. Hugh is on a monitor, Stephen is really there.

STEPHEN: I’m afraid that we’ve now got to ask you to do some work, and help us a bit, ladies and gentlemen. Use your imagination, as it were.
HUGH: That’s right. For the purposes of this next sketch, ladies and gentlemen, we want you all to imagine that we’re both naked.
STEPHEN: Yes. I’m sorry to have to ask this of you. Speaking for ourselves, Hugh and I really wanted to go the whole way, and actually be naked for this one but, unfortunately, we ran out of money.
HUGH: That’s right. The budget simply wouldn’t stretch that far, I’m afraid. Never mind.
STEPHEN: Now to help you build up the picture in your minds, I should tell you that the sketch is set in a church.
HUGH: That’s right. Stephen will be playing a Bishop.
STEPHEN: And Hugh will be playing the organ.
HUGH: The organist.
STEPHEN: What?
HUGH: I’ll be playing the organist.
STEPHEN: The organist. Yes. But you’ll be playing the organ as well?
HUGH: No. No. That’s the whole point. I play an organist who can’t play the organ.
STEPHEN: Oh God I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Of course. Have I ruined it?
HUGH: Yes, frankly.
STEPHEN: I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen.
HUGH: You’d better all stop imagining that we’re naked.
STEPHEN: Yes stop. Hold it. It’s all my fault. I’m sorry. Damn.

I would now remind you that one of the possibilities I mentioned in my original article was that the publicity photo on Getty is of a different sketch to “Censored” entirely. This suddenly seems an awful lot more likely.

So I propose the following. “Censored” was shot on the 10th and was broadcast, and “Naked” was shot on the 17th, is the sketch seen in the Getty picture, and eventually went unbroadcast. I have no proof, but this seems the most likely option at this point.

Someone send me every single camera script for A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and I’ll nail this bugger down for sure.

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I Hate Doing Research.

Published 28th December 2020

Meta / TV Comedy / TV Drama

It’s January 1999, and Ronald D. Moore – writer/producer on Star Trek: Deep Space 9 – is chatting on AOL, answering fan questions about the show.

One particular question catches my eye. You don’t need to know the actual storyline, or have watched any of the episodes – that isn’t the important bit here.

Ron, I read on the boards that there was a scene in “To the Death” in which Weyoun somehow slipped Odo some virus that eventually resulted in his having to return to the Link in “Broken Link.” I read that this ended up on the cutting room floor. Is this true or just a wild rumor?

It’s just a rumor.

Now, one delightful thing about DS9 is that – unlike most TV shows – every single script is available for us to read. Not a boring transcript. The actual script, as used in production, including cut material, and the scene descriptions. Which means we can check and see if Moore is correct in this instance.

So, in the script for “To The Death”, we can read the following¹:

Weyoun looks at Odo for a beat, then gives him a good-natured clap on the shoulder. (In case anyone’s interested, when he touches Odo, Weyoun is purposely infecting Odo with the disease that almost kills him in “BROKEN LINK.”)

WEYOUN: Then it’s over. After all, you’re a Founder. I live to serve you.

And with that, Weyoun steps back into his quarters.

True, this scene didn’t end up on the “cutting room floor” – it’s in the episode as broadcast, just without the physical act of Weyoun clapping Odo on the shoulder. But the main thrust of how most people would interpret Moore’s response – that the episode never intended to contain Weyoun infecting Odo – is incorrect.

I very much doubt it was a deliberate lie. There’s certainly no obvious reason to try and hide anything. Moore almost certainly just forgot. That’s what happens when making TV shows; you can’t remember everything, there’s far too much important stuff jostling for position in your head. It’s completely understandable.

Still, the moral is clear. Don’t trust people’s recollections. Always trust the paperwork.

* * *

It’s 2020, and I have decided to trace every single piece of music used in The Young Ones, for some godforsaken reason. But not to worry. I have some production paperwork to help me out, which should list every track cleared for use in the show.

So let’s take a look at part of the sheet for the episode “Summer Holiday”:

Ah, “Tension Background”. Wonder what that was used for? Let’s take a listen, I’m sure all will become obvious.

Oh. That literally doesn’t appear anywhere in the episode at all. Brilliant.

To cut a long, tedious story short: the paperwork is wrong. Not entirely wrong; a track from the Conroy library album Drama – Tension is actually used in the episode. But the cut used is Track 3, “Chase Sequence”, not Track 15, “Tension Background”.

And that piece of detective work means that we can enjoy the full version of the music used when Neil goes all Incredible Hulk:

So, the moral is clear. Never trust the paperwork.

* * *

Have I mentioned that I hate doing research?

Reformatted here for readability. ↩

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i hate doing research, star trek, the young ones