It may not have escaped your attention that this year, Dirty Feed is taking a slightly different tack to normal. Yes, I’m currently on a Mary Tyler Moore kick. And if you think writing about programmes which were never that successful in the UK is a bad idea, just wait until I get onto Mary’s variety shows, which as far as I can tell were never even broadcast in the UK.
I’m doing this for a few reasons. Firstly, yes, I’ve completely fallen in love with Mary’s work. (Seriously, get a Region 1 player, the complete boxset of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and knock yourself out.) Secondly, I’ve been getting a bit itchy about writing about the same things over and over again. Fawlty Towers and The Young Ones are amazing, but there is a limit to how much I can write about those shows without them becoming tedious. I’ve already ruined Red Dwarf for myself. I don’t want to ruin any of my other favourite things.
Oh, and thirdly, I need to make sure this site isn’t purely writing about BBC shows. I got a new job in December last year which makes this a really good idea. You can join the dots there for yourself.
Anyway, while I fool around with things like this, there’s something else I’ve started recently which I’ve found thoroughly enjoyable. I’ve finally got myself a Letterboxd account, and have been logging – and mostly reviewing – every film I’ve watched so far this year. That’s a total of eighteen films in January, and represents a side of my viewing habits which I don’t really talk about very much on here.
I have to say – years late – I really have fallen in love with Letterboxd. As someone who has mainly grown to despise social media, I’m having a ludicrous amount of fun with it. Most social media is filled with people who will punish you for not covering every single possible thing in any given post. And while I love writing Dirty Feed, my pieces on here these days have grown so complex, that it really can feel like work.
Letterboxd allows me to write random thoughts on what I’ve just watched, without feeling like any given review of a film has to be “complete”. The result is something where I can just take five minutes to write up some vague ideas, without it being in any way stressful. It’s the kind of thing which makes you fall in love with writing all over again.
Perhaps my favourite little piece I’ve written over there so far this year has been on Frank Tashlin’s brilliant The Girl Can’t Help It:
“Of COURSE the thing everyone talks about with Tashlin is how is animation background is obvious in his live action films. This is true. But it goes well beyond sight gags like melting ice, cracked glasses, and overflowing milk bottles. Note how the actors here not only strike very obvious, fixed poses, reminiscent of Warners animation, but how *quickly* those actors move from one pose to another. Jayne Mansfield putting her head in her hands is this film at its most animated.
The lesson everyone should learn from films like this is that to make great comedy doesn’t mean dialling everything down to nothing. You can do your big gestures, your stupid jokes, your heightened acting. You just need to make sure all of those things are hanging off real people in situations which mean something. It’s a lesson which is obvious with every frame of The Girl Can’t Help It, and yet so many simply don’t get it. It’s just a shame that too many of those people keep making comedies.”
And yes, I’m currently on a Jayne Mansfield binge. Which is a difficult thing to do these days, with most of her films being slightly less available than you’d think, especially in the UK. It’s things like this which make me fantasise about setting up a boutique Blu-ray label. And losing hundreds of thousands of pounds doing so.
So there we have it. Less nonsense about The Young Ones, more nonsense on The Mary Tyler Moore Hour and The Las Vegas Hillbillys. That may not feel like a win to many of you. But it will probably stop me going slightly mad, at least.
18 comments
Stephen on 1 February 2026 @ 4am
It was you who made me watch 2Point4 Children in its entirety so maybe I should take notice.
I do have a Lou Grant DVD somewhere – a show I remember even though I was too young for MTM.
I”ve finally got round to starting my box set of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, a sitcom considered beyond the pale by many. I’m surprised at how much dialogue is in Hindi (albeit for comic effect) and at how elaborate one of the studio sets (an Indian railway station) is.
Smylers on 1 February 2026 @ 9am
Remember you don’t owe us anything, John — watch what you want, write what you want!
The main thing that was putting me off both The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show is their names, which sound a bit like: “Here’s a famous person you’re already a fan of, so we’ve cobbled together a show around them. Don’t worry too much what the show’s about — we didn’t! — just concentrate on the star we’ve signed for it.” Your writing has obviously changed that. (So now my main barrier to watching them is my backlog of other things to watch.)
This week I spotted that full episodes of Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson’s … are on YouTube, so we watched ‘Impasse’ as a family. A 1996 remake of a 1963 script that still works 30 years after broadcast and 63 years after being written. It was, to my relief, as good as I remembered. Only one of the characters rolling themselves a cigarette seemed out of place today. I can’t remember what slot ITV originally broadcast it in, but it was just the right level for watching with our children (11 and 13): not a children’s or ‘family’ show as such, but no overly adult themes and the humour coming from silliness and personalities all ages can relate to. Recommended (before it gets deleted!).
Leigh Graham on 1 February 2026 @ 11am
John, I think you meant “… fantasise about setting up a boutique Blu-ray label.”
Sorry, but I’m a pedant, just like you!
Krisopolis on 1 February 2026 @ 11am
As well as having largely aligned with things I’ve been into, your enthusiasm for the shows you watch & the littler details in them is wonderful; always happy to see you write what you enjoy!
On the point of Letterboxd, I also took too long to join having already been aware of it for a few years, back in mid-2024. I always endeavour to write a little about any films I’ve seen; low pressure, enjoyable & satisfying to do, as well as giving me a personal reference point. It’s encouraged me to both watch more films and write meaningful words about things, which is a big plus. Great little website.
John J. Hoare on 1 February 2026 @ 1pm
Stephen: Weirdly enough, I wrote about that set in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum years ago: https://www.dirtyfeed.org/2011/12/the-road-to-bannu/
Smylers: I think you’re right about the names, and the reason it’s especially a problem is because both shows really are true ensemble pieces. Neither show gives any indication of what each series is really about. I get the impression this is more of an interpretation problem with British audiences than with US ones.
Leigh: corrected, ta!
Krisopolis: thank you! And yeah, it really is the lack of pressure on Letterboxd that I really enjoy. And if you really don’t have anything to say, you can log and move on, without being forced to write something. Everything about the site seems geared to being pleasant in that way, in sharp contrast to how a film nerds website could have turned out.
Michael Auld on 1 February 2026 @ 1pm
There’s a real confusion with UK audiences when a programme billed as “The Joe Bloggs Show” is primarily perceived as an entertainment, sketch or variety show hosted by the eponymous star.
Radio Times would always list “The Phil Silvers Show” as Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko, so this show titling was more widespread,accepted and understood in the US.
The practice seemed to die out in the 80s, as high-concept and ensemble sitcoms required meaningful or punful show titles rather than falling back on the star quality to sell it, and requiring a bit more thought.
These days Joe Bloggs would be a late talk show (UK or US), and also UK audiences more media-savvy.
Michael Auld on 1 February 2026 @ 1pm
Haha – my original comment had fake HTML tagging as a writing trick – which has been interpreted as if it was real tags!
Wanted to draw attention to the “Phil Silvers” being in smaller supertitle typeface – and as a non-standard billing style – to the rest of the magazine house-style.
thekelvingreen on 1 February 2026 @ 6pm
In the US, a show with the main character’s name as the title tends to indicate a sitcom, but in Britain they tend to be damp, grey detective programmes on Sunday nights, and probably on ITV. There’s probably an essay to be written about the two countries’ respective psychologies there.
(I’m not writing it.)
Nick H on 1 February 2026 @ 10pm
It’s a pity there won’t be more Young Ones stuff for a while because I’ve always wanted to know the reasons for the moving of Bambi to start series 2, ahead of the originally planned opener Sick.
John J. Hoare on 2 February 2026 @ 12am
Nick: I have spent a great deal of time trying to research that… with no luck. There’s a story there, and I just can’t figure it out.
The best guess I’ve seen is that the riot scenes were considered a little too close-to-the-bone due to the Libyan Embassy siege, but it’s just a guess.
GAVIN BRADBURY on 3 February 2026 @ 12pm
Nick and John, why did you not just ask AI?
The move of The Young Ones episode “Bambi” to the opening slot of Series 2 (airing on 8 May 1984), replacing “Sick” as the intended premiere, was largely driven by the episode’s high-profile, satirical content and its role in highlighting the new “Alternative Comedy” movement.
Sorted!
Rada on 6 February 2026 @ 7pm
Please get into the Andy Griffith Show
James on 13 February 2026 @ 3pm
Andy Griffith being another show I don’t think has ever been shown in the UK despite being huge in the US. The Gomer Pyle USMC spin-off did appear on Forces TV a few years back though.
MTM in the UK always seems baffling in that the original show flopped despite BBC1, various ITV regions AND Channel 4 all giving it a go, but the Rhoda and Lou Grant spin-offs were popular here, I think we even got the last few episodes of Rhoda that CBS didn’t show after it got cancelled. It looks like Phyllis even popped up in some ITV regions in 76/77.
John J. Hoare on 13 February 2026 @ 8pm
I am similarly baffled by Mary Tyler Moore’s lack of success in the UK, although they probably should have put it on BBC2 like Rhoda, rather than leaving it exposed on BBC1.
I will also say one other thing: on my watch last year, I felt that Mary Tyler Moore improves between Seasons 1 and 2, and then makes a real quality leap for Season 3. I don’t know how much to trust my feelings there, though – I was mourning the “loss” of The Dick Van Dyke Show, and my brain was sulking a bit.
John J. Hoare on 13 February 2026 @ 8pm
As for Andy Griffith: I will put it on the (extremely) long list.
Currently watching All in the Family, which I’m having a great time with. Most definitely something to be written about those pilots, when I get the chance.
Garrett Gilchrist on 14 February 2026 @ 1am
There seems to be a recurring theme here, where a beloved US sitcom didn’t catch on in the UK at all, and its name was “The [Star’s Name] Show.” Now there’s a cultural difference for you.
Some of Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke’s later series, like “Mary” and “Van Dyke,” were trying to coast off the name recognition and not clicking to the same extent.
I restored a British Jayne Mansfield film called Too Hot to Handle, since it wasn’t available in color, in English, and relatively uncut.
John J. Hoare on 14 February 2026 @ 6am
The Dick Van Dyke Show is particularly egregious, it really does give a UK audience absolutely no idea about the show at all. You wonder whether the BBC should have renamed it for their broadcasts.
Of course, the name of the pilot made without Dick – ‘Head of the Family’ – is just dull.
James on 15 February 2026 @ 6pm
Another show I think about when it comes to sitcoms that didn’t take off in the UK is Family Matters, just due to the bizarre direction the show took. I don’t think it was shown terrestrially but I think it did turn up on Sky One at one point (though BBC1 did show Perfect Strangers, the show it spun off from).
It began as a pretty straightforward family sitcoms, but within a few years was having stories about time travel, shrink rays, cloning, robots etc. While there have been plenty of sitcoms with fantasy and sci-fi elements, they always have them there from the start, it’s incredibly bizarre for a realistic down to earth sitcom to start incorporating them and revolving around them.