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“The Most Disgusting Thing I’ve Ever Seen”

Published 23rd November 2023

“The finished movie we see on the screen is often far different from the director’s original conception. The Cutting Room Floor is the intriguing study of the wounds, bruises, Band-Aids, and sometimes miracle remedies that can often improve a film… or destroy it.”

— Back page blurb for The Cutting Room Floor

“Trust me!”

— Rudy Russo, Used Cars

Determining cause and effect when it comes to teenage reading is a tricky thing. Did Laurent Bouzereau’s The Cutting Room Floor (Citadel Press, 1994) inspire my interest in deleted and alternate scenes in film and television? Or was I obsessed with them before picking up the book, which is why I grabbed it from the shelf in the first place?

I think there is a healthy dose of the former in this case, which makes it a very special book for me. Regardless, it’s a wonderful piece of work, and one which I find myself returning to again and again every few years. These days, with a combination of DVD extras and the right websites, much of this information is easier to access than it used to be. But back in 1994, especially for poor sods like me who hadn’t got a hope of getting a LaserDisc player, books like this were how you found out about this stuff.

There are so many tales of cut material which I first read about in that book, and stuck in my head immediately. The different edits of Basic Instinct for one; the attempted rescue of Exorcist II: The Heretic for another. But for sheer childish fun, you can’t beat the following tale about Used Cars, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s satirical black comedy.¹

Bob Gale: “The only thing that got cut out of Used Cars never got to preview. It was something that the studio insisted that we change in the scene when the car salesmen do a commercial at a football game wearing Groucho Marx glasses. The propman on the film had found these glasses that instead of having a fake nose had a penis for it. We thought that was one of the funniest things we’d ever seen, and we thought to ourselves, you know, these car salesmen, that’s exactly the kind of things they would do. So we shot the scene with these glasses. When we sent the dailies to Columbia Pictures, I got this call from the head of production just ripping me apart for putting these pornographic images in the movie. How could we possibly do this? Had we lost our minds? This has gone beyond the grounds of taste. I got my head handed to me on a platter about this.

Columbia was outraged about this scene. I kept telling them to wait until they saw the scene cut together. I got on an airplane [the movie was shot in Phoenix] and screened the scene for Columbia. Frank Price [the head of the studio at the time], who by the way I have absolute admiration and respect for, turned around and said, ‘It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. You have to redo this.’ And so we reshot the scene with normal Groucho glasses. However, if you have access to the videotape or the laserdisc and you single-frame through the sequence, you’ll see there is still one shot in that sequence where one of the guys is wearing a set of dick-nose glasses. In fact, an actual image of that was in one of the TV spots. It was one of the laughs that we had on the TV censors! It was only a few frames, but it was on national television.”

This tale stuck in my head, long before I ever watched Used Cars. And when did I finally get round to watching Used Cars? Erm, last month. Hey, it only took nearly two decades. There are other films listed in that book that I still haven’t got round to yet.

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Although with character names like “Roy L. Fuchs”, it’s as much Carry On as anything else. ↩

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best of, edits, robert zemeckis

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

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best of, freeze-frame gonna drive you insane, the young ones

Creatures of Flesh and Blood

Published 31st October 2023

Film

I’d like to quote to you one of my favourite pieces of criticism about animation. Scrub that, it’s one of my favourite pieces of criticism full stop. It’s from Michael Barrier’s Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age (Oxford University Press, 1999), and is about Disney’s first feature length animation, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

The important thing you need to know about the following is what Barrier means by rotoscoping in this context. For a fair chunk of Snow White, live action versions of each scene were filmed; these were then used as reference for the animation, either as loose inspiration, or in the later stages of production, rather more directly. Rotoscoping is this latter technique: literally tracing over the live action footage of the actors, in order to create the animation.

As Barrier describes, this caused noticeable problems in the final film. But he describes it using an absolutely beautiful piece of writing. The kind of writing that inspires any critic to try and become better at their craft.

“Snow White‘s failings do not count for much when weighed against its great central successes, and the film’s most obvious failing – the weak, rotoscope-derived animation of Snow White and the Prince in the opening and closing scenes – actually gives it a dimension that Disney himself surely did not intend. It is in those scenes that the film is most wholly “fairy tale,” artificial and removed from reality; the all-but-weightless animation in the opening scenes is of a piece with the operetta-like musical treatment. Snow White seems more substantial when the animals lead her through the woods and into the dwarfs’ cottage, and then as she cleans the cottage—the music here is a work song. By the time she meets the dwarfs, she is at last a solid figure. She is most real in the evening musicale, as she dances with the dwarfs; her graceful movements, although they originated with Marjorie Belcher, are wholly the character’s.

Disney decided as early as the fall of 1934 to fence off the final sequence from the rest of the film by using a highly artificial device, three title cards that represent the changing seasons. It is in that sequence that Snow White melts again into a reverie. When the Prince appears at her glass coffin, operetta returns with him—he is singing “One Song,” his serenade at the beginning of the film. The dwarfs are mere spectators as the Prince kisses Snow White and lifts her to carry her away. He pauses long enough for her to kiss the dwarfs; she addresses only Grumpy and Dopey by name. The boy and girl are like two wraiths, bidding farewell to creatures of flesh and blood. Only what comes in between the fairy-tale sequences seems altogether real: the homely particulars of housekeeping and cooking and amusing one another, and the girl’s death most of all. It is as if the dwarfs dreamed this lovely girl’s life before she joined them, ever so briefly, and now that she is dead, they dream of her resurrection.

That the film should admit of such an interpretation is owing not just to the weakness of the rotoscoping, but to the tremendous vitality of the best dwarf animation. Because that animation is so emotionally revealing, it is the dwarfs, and not the characters who look more nearly human, who are the most like us. And like us, they long for a world where kindness can vanquish cruelty, and love conquer death.”

Barrier isn’t exaggerating about the odd nature of the rotoscoped scenes which bookend Snow White; even a cursory watch reveals they have a markedly different nature to the central part of the film. But it’s his interpretation about why those scenes still work anyway which I find the most fascinating.

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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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All of this was due to the launch of Independent Local Radio in 1973, which broadened the scope of the old ITA. ↩
It didn’t stop the Cambridge Evening News warning its readers to “Beware of Flash-Frames” in their listings. ↩

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best of, freeze-frame gonna drive you insane, spitting image

The Henderson Report

Published 8th October 2023

TV Comedy

On the 23rd December 1982, BBC2 broadcast the final episode of Series 3 of Yes Minister. Titled “The Middle Class Rip-off”, it’s an amusing satire on arts funding, and the nature of “high” culture and “low” culture.¹

SIR HUMPHREY: The point is, suppose other football clubs got into difficulties. And what about greyhound racing? Should dog tracks be subsidised as well as football clubs, for instance?
BERNARD: Well, why not, if that’s what the people want?
SIR HUMPHREY: Bernard, subsidy is for art. For culture. It is not to be given to what the people want. It is for what the people don’t want but ought to have! If they want something, they’ll pay for it themselves. No, we subsidise education, enlightenment, spiritual uplift. Not the vulgar pastimes of ordinary people.

You can probably guess which side Hacker is on.

HACKER: Why should the rest of the country subsidise the pleasures of the middle class few? Theatre, opera, ballet? Subsidising art in this country is nothing more than a middle class rip-off.
SIR HUMPHREY: Oh, minister! How can you say such a thing? Subsidy is about education. Preserving the pinnacles of our civilisation! Or hadn’t you noticed?
HACKER: Don’t patronise me Humphrey, I believe in education too. I’m a graduate of the London School of Economics, may I remind you.
SIR HUMPHREY: Well, I’m glad to learn that even the LSE is not totally opposed to education.

Very droll, Humphrey. Still, the rights and wrongs of funding for the arts isn’t our big interest today. Instead, I want to look at the Radio Times capsule for the episode. Which features something rather unusual.

Take a look at those names. Eddington, Hawthorne, Fowlds: check. And John Nettleton, John Barron, Patrick O’Connell, and Derek Benfield: check. But what about Joanna Henderson, playing the Curator? She’s not in the episode at all. Nor is she in the end credits. What gives?

To answer that, I have to take you on a little expedition. And to tell the tale properly, we have to go right back to 1979.

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For an alternative – and rather more negative – view of the episode, read Graham McCann’s A Very Courageous Decision: The Inside Story of Yes Minister, a book which comes highly recommended. ↩

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best of, yes minister

Don’t Tell Me About the Press

Published 1st October 2023

TV Comedy

Jonathan Lynn’s Comedy Rules: From the Cambridge Footlights to Yes, Prime Minister is a slightly odd tome. Part autobiography, part an attempt to nail down the rules of comedy – while admitting that any such attempt is doomed to failure – it does feel like it would occasionally benefit from a little more focus. On the other hand, I found myself nodding along vigorously to pretty much every single page.

For instance, when talking about Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister:

“The series eventually ran from 1980 to 1988 but was not about the eighties. It was devised in the seventies and reflected the media-obsessed politics of the Wilson/Heath/Callaghan years, not the conviction politics of Margaret Thatcher. It was actually much closer to the politics of the years that followed, the years of Major, Blair and Brown. In any case, there is a timelessness about good comedy: the pleasure and excitement of recognition are not rooted in a particular time or place. Humanity remains constant.”

This dual nature of what comedy can be is key: it can be ostensibly linked to a particular time, and yet still leap easily across the years. I always shake my head in dismay when people tell me how easily comedy dates. Comedy is usually about people, and people don’t change either as much or as quickly as many would like to think.

SIR ARNOLD: What about the DHSS? John?
SIR JOHN: Well, I’m happy to say that women are well-represented near the top of the DHSS. After all, we have two of the four Deputy Secretaries currently at Whitehall. Not eligible for Permanent Secretary of course, because they’re Deputy Chief Medical Officers and I am not sure they’re really suitable… no, that’s unfair! Of course, women are 80% of our clerical staff and 99% of the typing grade, so we’re not doing too badly by them, are we?

— Yes Minister, “Equal Opportunities” (1982)

BARBIE: Are any women in charge?
MATTEL CEO: Listen. I know exactly where you’re going with this and I have to say I really resent it. We are a company literally made of women. We had a woman CEO in the 90s. And there was another one at… some other time. So that’s two right there. Women are the freaking foundation of this very long phallic building. We have gender neutral bathrooms up the wazoo. Every single one of these men love women. I’m the son of a mother. I’m the mother of a son. I’m the nephew of a woman aunt. Some of my best friends are Jewish.

— Barbie (2023)

Humanity remains constant indeed. Especially the terrible bits. Which is what an awful lot of comedy is about.

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Freeze-Frame Gonna Drive You Insane, Part Two

Published 6th August 2023

TV Comedy

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

It’s the 8th April 1970 at 9pm, and BBC1, BBC2 and ITV are all transmitting the same thing. It is, of course, a Party Political Broadcast: this one by the Labour Party, titled “What’s at Stake?”. It seemed pretty normal, on the face of it. I mean, the promise of MP trio George Brown, Anthony Crosland, and Robert Mellish might sound a bit too exciting, but I’m sure the country could keep itself under control.

The very next day, the papers were in uproar.

The Daily Mail is typical, in its piece “Complaints on Labour broadcast”:

“Both the BBC and ITV had callers last night complaining that the first one or two minutes of the Labour Party’s political broadcasting contained subliminal advertising.

The programme had been recorded and the BBC explained: ‘We are not responsible for the content of party political broadcasts, it is entirely up to the parties concerned. We provide the facilities.'”

Uh-oh. So what did Labour have to say about this?

“‘Subliminal advertising?’ said a Labour Party spokesman. ‘No, not really.

What happened was that we opened the programme with an anti-switch off factor to grab people’s interest. It went on for not more than 30 seconds with film shots and some raucous voice saying: ‘We don’t expect you to vote.’

I understand that the complaint is that the words “Labour Tomorrow” appeared twice very quickly, so quickly that they registered on the eye and not the brain.'”

Hmmmmm. Regardless of anything else, I would suggest statements like “registered on the eye and not the brain” are liable to make people more suspicious about what was broadcast, not less.¹

Regardless of that, for a while it looked like nothing else would happen. The Daily Telegraph published the following on the 10th April, under “Subliminal advertising by Labour denied”:

“Neither the BBC nor the Independent Television Authority is to take any action over allegations that the Labour party political broadcast on Wednesday contained subliminal advertising.

Both organisations maintained yesterday that no such advertising was included in the programme. They said no action would be taken about complaints from viewers.”

But a week later on the 16th April, the front page of The Times reported the following, under “Investigation on Labour TV film”:

“The Labour Party political broadcast on television which used a quick flash technique and brought claims that subliminal methods were being used is to be investigated by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The men behind the inquiry are Mr. Norris McWhirter and Mr. Ross McWhirter, the publishing twins.”

Oh, hello there. Well, we’ve been avoiding this topic for about as long as is practical. We need to talk about the McWhirters.

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Some newspapers, like the Lincolnshire Echo, report this quote as “the brain and not the eye”, which actually makes more sense. But either way round, the quote seems ill-judged. ↩

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best of, freeze-frame gonna drive you insane, spitting image, the young ones

The Pictures Are Much Much Better on Television

Published 6th July 2023

TV Comedy

Here’s a question for you. When did Alan Partridge first appear on television?

Caveats: a) I specifically mean television. Radio is brilliant, and also outside the scope of this article. b) For now, ignore any unbroadcast pilots. I’m talking about actual, broadcast telly. c) I do mean material exclusive to television, not just part of a radio programme aired on TV.

If you immediately went for the first episode of The Day Today, on the 19th January 1994, then join the club. That’s exactly where my mind went at first. So that would be this trademark awkward exchange between Chris and Alan:

But wait! The day before each episode of The Day Today aired, BBC2 broadcast The Day Today MiniNews, three minutes of extra material which served essentially as an extended trail for the next day’s episode. Or in other words: the closest you’d get to deleted scenes this side of a LaserDisc, at least in the first half of the 90s.

Partridge makes an appearance in the first one, which was broadcast on the 18th January 1994:

So is that the answer? Not quite. Because, of course, there were trails¹ running for the series the week before air. Here’s one from the 14th January 1994, which features a brief bit of Partridge:

Incidentally, isn’t that a great trail? For all that Chris Morris has the reputation for scowling at publicity, you couldn’t ask for a better introduction to the show.

The above would usually cause me to make a variety of shrill and unpleasant noises, as I vainly tried to find the first transmission of a trail for the series. Luckily, we can sidestep that problem entirely. Because Partridge had an even earlier appearance on TV.

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The BBC term is trails, not trailers, despite someone trying to correct me on this earlier in the year. ↩

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alan partridge, best of

Fanny, I Want Fanny

Published 2nd July 2023

Other TV

Writing Dirty Feed can lead you down some strange avenues, and making some strange comparisons. Right now, I’m reading about Chris Morris and Fanny Cradock. What the hell do that pair have in common, beyond being “broadcasters” in the most general possible sense?

Answer: both were perfectly happy for the legend to be printed, rather than the truth. Which means disentangling lies told about them, either disseminated by themselves or by others, can initially seem like an exercise in futility. After all, if they didn’t care, surely nobody else should be bothered either.

But such defeatist talk gets us nowhere. So let’s take a look at this Guardian piece from 2006, “Secret drugs menu of TV chef Fanny”. There are a number of rather dubious claims in that article, but I want to focus on one which we can easily investigate:

“Her last public appearance before she died at 85 in 1995 was on the Parkinson Show alongside Danny La Rue who was dressed in drag as Shirley Bassey. Fanny had no idea at first that ‘the woman’ was actually a man, and when she found out she stormed out of the studio.”

This sounds like it should be a huge, classic TV moment, which is well-known about. Sure enough, it was picked up by The Times in November 2007:

“Fanny Cradock, the original TV chef, never presented a show again after she upset viewers by criticising the cooking of a housewife. She stormed off a Parkinson show when she found that Danny Da Rue, her fellow guest, was a man dressed as a woman.”

And in case you wondered why I’m talking about this now, this anecdote is still being told rather more recently. In March 2018, The Mirror gave us “The red-hot private life of temperamental TV chef Fanny Cradock”:

“Consigned to chat shows, her last was on Parkinson when she stormed out after realising Danny La Rue was a man in drag.”

From this, it starts making its way into various blog posts. There’s UCBloggers in November 2020, “Fanny Cradock: Britain’s First Celebrity Chef”:

“She made her last TV appearance on the Parkinson show, but she stormed off set in horror as she realised that the woman on the show alongside her was in fact Danny La Rue in drag.”

And there’s Retro Vixen in March 2023, “A Look Back at Fanny Cradock”:

“In one of her final TV appearances, she appeared as a guest on Parkinson alongside Danny La Rue. When she realised that Danny was a man dressed up as a woman, she stormed off set.”

Of course, it’s inevitably made it onto Wikipedia, directly citing The Guardian as a source:

“Fanny appeared alone on Wogan, Parkinson and TV-am. When she appeared on the television chat show Parkinson with Danny La Rue and it was revealed to her that La Rue was actually a female impersonator, she stormed off the set.”

And bringing us right up to date, the tale even makes it into the book Camp!: The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World, published in May 2023:

“Fanny and Johnnie retired to the south coast and became chat show regulars, with Fanny making her final television appearance in 1995 aged eighty-five on the Parkinson show, alongside the fabulous drag queen Danny La Rue, who happened to be dressed as Shirley Bassey. When Fanny realised that La Rue was a female impersonator she stormed out – a shame, I’m sure if she’d hung around she would have benefited enormously from his makeup tips.”

Yes, yes, very amusing. Just one problem. This anecdote is bollocks.

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Project No: 1144/3361

Published 19th May 2023

TV Comedy

Fawlty Towers VT clock for the pilot

If there’s one thing you should know about me by now, it’s that I will accept any excuse to write about Fawlty Towers. Already this year, we’ve taken a look at cut material from “Gourmet Night”, a superb stage direction from the pilot, and the real truth behind Polly becoming a philosophy student.

Those latter two pieces were written with the aid of a camera script of that pilot: the actual script they took into the studio on the 23rd December 1974. And of course, there are numerous other revelations in that script, which I just have to share with you. Including one moment which I desperately wish had made it to the screen.

Let’s take a step through the episode as broadcast, and see what fun stuff we can dig out. I haven’t mentioned every single tiny change in dialogue, because you would want to kill me, but that still leaves plenty to take a look at. Material present in the script but cut or changed for transmission is rendered like this.