Oh how true !
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The problem was when the immigration officer asked his name.
No Vac Io Kovid.
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Nelson was 5’4” tall.
His statue in London is 16 feet tall.
That’s Horatio of 3:1
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An armless joke IMHO!!
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Eye, that it is.
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Werner Heisenberg was driving down the highway and was stopped by a police officer.
“Do you know how fast you were going ?” demands the officer .
When Heisenberg shakes his head , the officer tells him :
“You were doing 90.”
"Great ,"Heisenberg complains ,“Now I don’t know where I am.”
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And if you extrapolate, with due comic licence, adding in Pamela Stephenson doing a wonderful Janet Street-Porter impersonation, you get this (classic IMV) parody from 1982 (acknowledging the sketch titling could do with a re-work and reflects ‘use of language at that time’). Unlike much supposed comedy today, there was no gratuitous swearing (or need for it) back then:
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Well, yes and no. There’s a fairly well-known anecdote about Kenny Everett’s sketch show from the same period as Not The 9 o’clock News where he had a female character (played by Kenny, in drag) named Cupid Stunt. All was well in the BBC with this, until someone pointed out to a senior manager how spoonerisms work. Said manager then furiously hauled Kenny over the coals and insisted the character be withdrawn immediately. Next week, a similar character appeared, with the name Mary Hinge. The manager approved, allegedly saying, ‘There, Ken, you see - you don’t need to be smutty to be funny’.
Mark
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There seems to be little comedy of the calibre of earlier days. Is it just that we are getting old, and remembering things with rose-tinted specs? Possibly, but such things as Not The 9 O’Clock News, Monty Python, Smith and Jones, The Young Ones, Yes Minister (and Yes, Prime Minister), Fawlty Towers and so many other comedy programmes, I struggle to find (m)any equivalents today.
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Agreed.
Ooh, not so sure. Love the older ones you have cited but over the last few years I can easily recall Catastrophe, Fleabag, This Way Up, Back to Life as fantastic comedies. I do think though that we are comparing apples and pears a bit as most of the comedies that you mention are sketch shows and I think it is true to say that the sketch show has largely died a death. Emphasis much more on comedy dramas these days
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I agree - noting this was the golden age of fresh BBC-comedy (per the shows you list), with ITV luring talent from the BBC wherever possible and still mainlining things like The Benny Hill Show - albeit Spitting Image back then was brutal and very funny! And, importantly (IMV), the comedic elements of these shows were often from the constructs and use of (non-profanity strewn) language…not that I watched much of The Young Ones.
Of course, UK society and TV also changed markedly in the 1980s, with the liberalised times overriding the looming shadow and conservative entreaties of Mary Whitehouse/National VALA.
There are a few nuggets around nowadays but I fear a lot of potential material is probably rejected for being too risk-laden given the sensitivities which abound - which would rule out quite a bit of the NTNOCN output e.g. the highly satirical Constable Savage sketch (idea from a policeman AIU).
One thing I could never fathom, respecting all comedy shows ‘have their time’, was when John Lloyd the producer of NTNOCN said he knew their time was up when he saw The Young Ones being filmed in an accompanying studio - for these are very chalk & cheese to me. Thankfully, we then got Smith & Jones and the writers like Elton & Curtis moved on to Blackadder and others.
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The subheader (which is quite hard to read ) says:
“Say Parsley, Sage and Rosemary one more Thyme. I dare you!”
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Booo
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Fangs for that …
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