Meta – Page 4 – Dirty Feed

Dirty Feed IV

Published 6th February 2022

Yo, babes. After nearly five years, it’s time for a bit of a change around here. Welcome to the fourth incarnation of Dirty Feed.¹ So what’s new?

In many ways: not much. Tags have been rethought somewhat; I was getting rather bored of writing “television, sitcom, comedy” for every single bloody post, so that nonsense has gone. In its place are a far more streamlined set of tags, along with a proper category system labelling articles as TV Comedy and the like. Far more pleasant and useful, I hope.

You’ll also note that the Twitter link in the header has permanently gone. I’m still around on Twitter, but the idea is to try and move away from it as the sole way of telling you all what I’m up to on here. The new Subscribe page is fairly basic at the moment, but over the next few months it should hopefully grow into something a little more interesting. I’ll keep things as vague as that for now.

But the main idea behind this redesign is to try and give this place a little more life. A splash more colour, quirkier but hopefully still readable fonts… and a brand new logo. Yes, that is a T. I think this spruce-up is more garish than the last design, and that is entirely deliberate. I’ll write a little more about this side of things in the days to come.

The usual health warnings apply; I’m still going through old posts to convert them to the new format, so don’t worry about any dodgy stuff there for now. In fact, while I say this every time, this design really is meant to be a work-in-progress rather something which sits there going mouldy. Let’s see if I manage to actually commit to that this time round, but I have plenty of ideas. Having said all of that, if you spot anything obnoxiously wrong, please let me know.

And for those of you who don’t give a tinker’s fuck about redesigns… hey, how about some brand new stuff on Smashie and Nicey: The End of an Era? OK, I’ll see what I can do.

Previous incarnations: 2010, 2011, and 2017. ↩

Tedious Site Update

Published 29th January 2022

Meta

As anybody who has followed either me or this site knows by now, I have a rather nasty habit of deciding one thing on here, only to do the exact opposite. This reached its ultimate expression last year, where the site went on hiatus in January… only to give up two weeks later and then have the busiest and most prolific year in the site’s history.

Therefore, despite having plans, I was wary of promising exactly where the site was going at the start of this year, lest I completely change my mind as per fucking usual. But a month in, it’s become rather clearer what’s actually happening. So, in the spirit of actually wanting to communicate with you all properly, here’s the deal.¹

1) The big news is that after years of promises, I’m finally in the middle of a proper redesign of this place. In fact, the main part of it is actually finished, and I’m currently picking away at fixing all the annoying little corners. I’m not going to give a launch date – I’ve learnt my lesson on that one at least – but it’ll probably be in the next few weeks.

New Dirty Feed logo

2) While this redesign takes place, Dirty Feed is on Reduced Power. There might be the odd post here and there, but nothing in-depth. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of fun stuff planned as soon as the redesign is complete. I’m itching to get started on them already.

3) Some of you will have noticed that I’m not currently on Twitter. I always planned to take a bit of a break at the start of the year, but I’m usually desperate to get back on there after a month away. I’m really, really not feeling like that at the moment. In fact, I’m happier than I’ve been for some considerable time as a direct result of not being there, and I’m getting more things done into the bargain.²

When Dirty Feed relaunches, I’ll end up reactivating my account, in order to catch up with various people, and let everyone know about updates on here. I’ll probably end up tweeting various silly things as well. But after years of trying, I’ve finally managed to break the habit of checking Twitter as soon as I wake up and getting into a spiral of feeling terrible for the whole day, and I don’t intend to go back to that.

TL;DR: Redesign coming, no in-depth posts until that happens, and Twitter is a fucking nightmare. See you soon.

At this point, I like to think of a certain site who welcomed aboard a new writer, had them post for a couple of years, until they went on hiatus… and never returned. And never told their audience where they had gone, or what they were doing. And to top it off, silently deleted their last few posts. That is called treating your readers with contempt. ↩
Fifty hours and counting on a replay of Final Fantasy XII qualifies as “getting things done”, right? ↩

Dirty Feed: Best of 2021

Published 30th December 2021

Meta

2015 • 2016 • 2017 • 2018 • 2019 • 2020 • 2021 • 2022 • 2023

“Hi there, John. Well, 2021 was pretty damn awful.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“What? Come on, a global pandemi-“
“Yes, yes, yes, but I’ve posted loads of great stuff on Dirty Feed this year.”
“Dirty F… really? You’re going with this?”
“Let’s have a look at all the brilliant things I’ve written over the last 12 months.”
“Let’s not.”
“Tough shit.”

* * *

I’m afraid you will have to forgive a rather more indulgent format than usual for my roundup this year. I’ve done so much writing on the site – almost as much as 2019 and 2020 combined – that there’s plenty I really want to relink to. (If you just want the short version, the images link to various interesting things.)

January was meant to be a quiet month for the site, as I intended to take a bit of a break. Instead, I published one of the most popular things I’ve ever written: a look at what exactly is on the telly in an episode of The Young Ones. This pretty much set the tone for the kind of thing I ended up doing all year: investigating obscure mysteries about sitcoms. For instance: we also found out what Vyvyan really wanted to say about Thatcher.

February saw me looking into the history of an obscure piece of Grant Naylor material, in a post which pretty much defines the phrase “satisfying ending”. This was followed up by an investigation into Grant Naylor radio sitcom Wally Who?, and how obvious facts can easily become lost.¹ Finally, I took a proper look at the pilot of Yes Minister, and how an assumption I’d had for years turned out to be complete bollocks.

March was the beginning of a series of articles looking at stock footage in Hi-de-Hi!. This turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it’d be, and these pieces are somewhat annoyingly incomplete. I’ll hopefully get a chance to improve on them next year. There was also this speculation about Drop the Dead Donkey which I have precisely no proof of whatsoever, but I firmly believe to be 100% true.

April saw the big one. My investigation into the authorship of one of Yes, Prime Minister‘s most well-known routines blew up in a quite ridiculous fashion, and got the site noticed well beyond its usual readership. Thank you, Popbitch. Thus it’s all the more irritating that it has to be one of the articles here which I’m least happy with. In its originally published form, it entirely missed the actual authorship of the joke, despite the fact that the real information was actually public knowledge, if you hung around on the right corner of the internet. The true story only came with the updates after publication. Oh well, what would life be, if it wasn’t utterly infuriating?

On a smaller note, but for me personally more satisfying than either the Hi-de-Hi! or Yes, Prime Minister stuff, was this piece identifying a mysterious piece of Red Dwarf footage. Some people find a mystery exciting; I think finding the actual truth is even more so.

May was my 40th birthday, so I couldn’t resist writing something rather more personal than usual. We also spent another day with The Young Ones in the studio, which is an object lesson in the dangers of hiding the most interesting thing in an article near the end. But my favourite thing this month was proving everybody wrong about when Series 1 of The Brittas Empire was shown. I love writing about The Brittas Empire. I love proving everybody wrong more.

Alf Stokes as a cowboy in You Rang M'Lord

June had two of my very favourite pieces I published all year. Firstly, there was this look at reshoots and pick-up weeks in early Red Dwarf, which puts a brand new spin on one of the most famous sequences in the whole show. Then, I investigated this extended version of the You Rang, M’Lord? pilot, which – to my knowledge – hasn’t been transmitted since 1988. Both these pieces are pretty much a mission statement for what I want the site to be.

July saw Dirty Feed’s first dive into A Bit of Fry & Laurie, with another exciting TX date discrepancy. There was also a look at a particularly noteworthy topical reference in The Young Ones. But my favourite piece – possibly my favourite thing I wrote all year, in fact – was a look into how the studios at BBC Manchester can be seen in early Red Dwarf. That piece is everything I’d like my writing to be, and don’t always manage to get there.

Staircase at BBC Manchester used in Red Dwarf

August had a look at deleted scenes in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, before we came to the main event: an examination of the recording dates for every single sketch in Series 1. That’s one of those articles which takes an absolute bloody age to write, and is so niche even by the standards of this site that not many people end up reading it. Oh well. It’s worth it just for the incredibly interesting revelation about which sketch in Series 1 was actually shot for the 1987 pilot.

September saw an article I’d been planning to write for literally years finally see the light of day: about a literally unbelievable claim about the viewing figures of Danger Mouse. No, I have nothing better to do than prove people’s childhood heroes INCORRECT. There was also the start of an obsession with One Foot in the Grave production minutiae, which ended up being some of the most popular things I wrote all year.

October turned out to be a ludicrously busy month. Firstly, we had Men Behaving Badly and the cut Diana joke. Then, there was possibly the most ridiculous thing about Red Dwarf ever written… well, at least, until next month. There was also the start of an analysis between the broadcast and DVD versions of The Thin Blue Line, which is mainly notable for me finally figuring out how how to edit video. (Which might come in useful next year.)

But my favourite thing all month was this poke at a oft-repeated anecdote about The Young Ones. This was something else I’d been meaning to write for ages, and finally got round to. This is one of those rare pieces where I think I might have actually scraped together some kind of real truth about a show that nobody has quite articulated before. Or maybe it’s just an excuse for a clip of a singing tomato.

November was a particularly stupid month, where I got confused and thought this site was Ganymede & Titan. Out of the four Red Dwarf pieces published this month, I finally managed to write two that I’d been banging on about on Twitter for ages: how more of the sets from Series 1 managed to last rather longer than you might think.

Victor Meldrew in You've Been Framed trail

December saw me determined to stop the site becoming a Red Dwarf fansite… by, erm, becoming a One Foot in the Grave fansite instead. First of all we looked at how the show faked a section of ITV output, and then I investigated all of David Renwick’s cameos in the show. Finally, the site reached a violent, bloody climax at the end of the year. Lovely.

* * *

Phew. So for a year where I intended to take a bit of a break and do other things, I ended up not only publishing more on the site than ever before, but also having a significantly bigger audience than any previous year too. In fact, the site had double the number of visitors than 2020, a fact I still find faintly extraordinary.

Double the visitors requires the double the gratitude. So thank you all so much for your likes, retweets, comments, or just quietly reading the site this year. I really do appreciate it so much. The comments section on the site has been particularly active and insightful, and has corrected and improved much of what I’ve written throughout the last 12 months.

As for this site in 2022… I’m in something of a bind. Every single time I say I’m going to do something specific on this site, I do nothing. And every time I say I’m going to do nothing and take a break, I end up writing shitloads. It is beginning to get faintly ridiculous.² My brain absolutely refuses to follow any kind of plan for this site whatsoever. In fact, it actively rebels against it.

So in 2022, I can only give you one promise: that something might or might not happen on this site at some point during the year. So you can look forward or not look forward to that at your leisure.

And you can’t say fairer than that, can you?

And still not found, incidentally. If anybody has any ideas… ↩
Still waiting for the Buffy fansites article I promised at the start of 2016? Me too. ↩

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end of year review

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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fry & laurie, i hate doing research

How to Write Your Very Own Dirty Feed Article

Published 1st March 2021

Meta

Just follow this easy template:

You thought <something interesting but well-worn> about <an old sitcom>, didn’t you
But had you considered <something boring but at least obscure>
By the way, that’s exactly like this bit in Red Dwarf

Sprinkle liberally with “however”, and serve for between 300 – 2500 hits.

SYCOPHANT!

Published 27th January 2021

Meta

I have to admit, it’s been a slightly odd last few days. Having just written an article about The Young Ones which people really responded to on Twitter, I managed to follow it up with… erm, another article about The Young Ones which people really responded to on Twitter. Thank you, everyone. Although I have a nasty feeling that I’ve just published the most interesting stuff I’ll do all year in sodding January.

Still, for those of you who are vaguely interested in updates about this place, I realised recently that I never actually explained the current situation with my Twitter accounts. So if you wish to follow me on Twitter – and I do realise there is no guarantee this is the case – here are your two options:

@mumoss – This is my personal account. Follow this if you want every single stupid thought that comes into my stupid head, along with links to my articles on here.
@dirtyfeed – The official site account. In general, this won’t post anything original, but simply retweets links to articles from the @mumoss account. In other words, if you only want to know about site updates, rather than my general bullshit, follow this one instead.

You can also subscribe to the RSS feed if you’re of a mind, although I suspect if you care about that, you’ve already found it.

One thing you will note is that I don’t have is any kind of Facebook presence whatsoever. Partly because I want to claim the moral high ground, and partly because I only really have time for one social media platform at a time, and – for good or for ill – that’s Twitter right now. Though I wouldn’t object if anybody wants to help me out and post the odd link to my stuff on Facebook every now and again. My moral high ground isn’t that high. Or moral.

Anyway, thanks again for all your comments, likes, retweets, and so on. I really do appreciate it. Hopefully there’s some other fun stuff to come this year, both Young Ones-related and otherwise. Maybe I’ll even follow through with my threat, and find the VHS recording I made in the late 90s, tricking 10 minutes of free porn out of my analogue cable box.

What else would you rather watch, come on now?

Hello.

Published 14th January 2021

Meta

There is a fantasy I have, when everything is getting on top of me. When news events get too much, when Twitter is just irritating, when work is perhaps a little more stressful than it needs to be. Why not just disappear for six months, work on something amazing, and then return with a flourish? “Look at this brilliant thing I’ve made, while you’ve all been wasting your time.”

To be fair, it can be done. I’ve seen people go AWOL, and return having written a fucking book. It’s a very appealing thing to do. Get away from the noise of daily internet life, and do something more useful instead. It sounds immensely soothing for the soul.

I just can’t do it.

The reason is twofold. For a start, I need to talk to people in order to make things; so much of the really good stuff on this site comes from conversations with likeminded people online. But the other problem is all in my own head: I just can’t work on one thing for six months. I need distractions along the way. I wish my brain behaved otherwise, but it just doesn’t.

So once I got to 10 distractions I really wanted to work on, and managed precisely no work on my Big Project, I had to make a decision.

* * *

In short:

a) Dirty Feed is back from hiatus.
b) Yes, I am a fucking moron.
c) To make up for it, I’ll publish something before the end of the month which really is a tremendous amount of fun.
d) Yes, I am a fucking moron.

Dirty Feed: Best of 2020

Published 30th December 2020

Meta

2015 • 2016 • 2017 • 2018 • 2019 • 2020 • 2021 • 2022 • 2023

Me, Dirty Feed: Best of 2017:

“Look, I can’t pretend the last year has been much fun. It doesn’t even seem to have been much fun for all the various fuckweasels around the world considering their general mood, let alone if you’re the kind of good and decent person who appreciates in-depth articles about sitcom edits.

But that’s no reason why you can’t grab a cup of tea, stick your head in the sand for an hour, and read some of the best stuff I’ve published here over the last 12 months.”

Me, right now: can it be 2017 again, please?

Oh well. This year has been a nightmare, but over here, we’re more concerned about Knightmare. While the world has been howling outside, I managed to find the time to do some fun stuff. In fact, for the first year ever on here, I can pick out something I wrote each month which I actually like.

Let’s get to it. And if you care about the future of this site – and if you’re reading this, I presume that you do – then don’t miss the end for an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT which is IMPORTANT, and not BORING like you think it is.

* * *

“Two dead, twenty-five to go…”
To start the year off, a little look at how a moment from Fawlty Towers first showed up in another sitcom a full decade earlier. I love tracing the origin of jokes like this, and I don’t think anybody has ever linked this example together before.

A Weekly Look at the World of Science and Technology
A mystery about Series 2 of Look Around You, finally solved after 15 years. This is what happens when my mind just doesn’t let go of something.

An Exceptionally Important Piece of Analysis About Blackadder Goes Forth
1,856 words about set reuse in Blackadder Goes Forth. Loads of people really liked this piece, which I would suggest is what happens when a country enters lockdown and goes a bit loopy.

Diane Chambers, with a cut character in the background

Here’s to You, Mrs. Littlefield
By far the most popular thing I wrote all year, looking at a cut character from the pilot of Cheers. It even got picked up by The Independent, which is as much a testament to the ongoing popularity of Cheers as anything.

“Feeling Poorly Again, Are You?”
This year, I’ve written a lot about my memories of TV as a kid. This can stand in for all of them; a touching moment between me and my father, about a scene featuring sexual frustration and extreme violence.

The Young Ones Music Guide: Series 1
For years, I’ve wanted to make a soundtrack for The Young Ones, in a similar vein to this one for I’m Alan Partridge. I didn’t manage that this year, but the research for it resulted in this piece: a list of (nearly) every single piece of music used in Series 1 of the show. See also: Series 2.

Condition: Red
Probably the most personal piece I wrote all year, about a terrifying image from my childhood. This article has floated around my head for decades, so I’m pleased to finally get it down. It’s probably my favourite thing I wrote all year. Which is good, because if I’d thought about it for that long and then it sucked, that’d be really annoying.

The Dull Religious Music Programme
Ever wondered how difficult it can be to research obscure parts of TV comedy history? Wonder no more. This is why I don’t write enough; because of rabbit-holes like this.

Rescuing Bladedancer, or: The Fall and Rise of a BBC Micro Enthusiast
A very atypical piece for this site, about how I helped with the preservation of a long lost BBC Micro game from 1992. This is the thing I’ve been involved with this year that I’m proudest of.

Lister in the bunkroom watching Rimmer's death video

Arnold J. Rimmer, BSc, SSc
OK, so I said at the beginning of the year I wasn’t going to do any proper writing about Red Dwarf for a while. I lasted ten months. Could have been worse. This is a good one, though, tracing an important part of the show’s mythology back to its origin.

“Faulty? What’s Wrong with Him?”
A strange tale about a Fawlty Towers misquote, and how it spread across the internet. I love that I managed to figure out 95% of the story… but sadly, not the last 5%. There’s still time to answer my email, Mr. Metro Man. There’s still time.

A Day in the Life of The Young Ones: 6th February 1984
And to round the year off, yet more bollocks about The Young Ones, taking a look at the recording of the episode “Nasty”. This was another of those pieces that I thought might get just four readers, so it was a surprise to me that it ended up one of the most popular pieces I wrote all year. You are all absurd. Thanks.

* * *

And if you’re aching for more, here’s a few other things I wrote this year that I think turned out well: memories of a terrifying film, an unfortunate echo of Paul Daniels, tracing the library music in a classic Trev & Simon sketch, a brand new fact about Father Ted, how Doctor on the Go broke the fourth wall, and failed futures in Red Dwarf.

It seems frankly tasteless to say it, but this year has been a good one for Dirty Feed. Leaving Ganymede & Titan at the start of year gave me more time to work on the site than ever before, and lockdown meant a fair few people have been starved of entertainment. The result: I’ve written more stuff on here than in any other year of the site’s existence, and it’s also been by far the most popular year the site has ever had too.¹ As ever, thanks to everyone who has read, liked, and shared my stuff over the past year. I really do appreciate it. Hopefully, I at least managed to take your mind off things for a while.

But with all of that, comes a problem. I love writing things here, but I think it’s obvious that the research for some of these pieces is an absolute bastard. Most of the best stuff on Dirty Feed isn’t tossed off in an afternoon. The danger is that this place becomes a treadmill; that I spend so long researching and writing my usual kind of articles, that I never try anything new again. And much as I enjoy writing ridiculous things about sitcoms, I really am itching to try something new.

Which leads us to the big² announcement.

From the beginning of 2021, Dirty Feed is going on hiatus, for the first time in the 11 years I’ve been publishing it. How long for, I don’t actually know yet; it depends what happens over the next few months. But for a while, I need to try something different. I’ll be working on a few projects behind-the-scenes, and hopefully some of them will be published here eventually, but don’t expect anything new on the site for quite a while. Those of you waiting for my THRILLING EXPOSÉ about how material from an unbroadcast Grant Naylor radio pilot ended up in an episode of Alas Smith and Jones are going to have to wait for a bit.

Thanks again to everyone who has been nice about the site in the past year, and let’s hope 2021 is better for all of us. For now though…

Harold Steptoe kissing a BIRD in his CAR, from the last episode of Steptoe and Son

Nearly twice the number of hits as the previous best year, 2015. ↩
Small. ↩

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end of year review

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

A Short Note About Old G&T Articles

Published 18th November 2020

Meta

Least promising headline on Dirty Feed ever, amongst some stiff competition, I know. Dirty Feed editorial policy is an even more niche subject than Hale & Pace fan fiction. But I do know there will be a few people wondering about it. Consider this a boring publishing note that most people can skip, and read something more interesting instead.

So: recently, I’ve started publishing a few posts on here which I originally wrote for Red Dwarf fansite Ganymede & Titan, which I departed from back in January. I thought I’d give a little explanation as to my choices, because republishing my old shit has never been this site’s modus operandi before. (It’s always been about publishing my new shit.) But as I said at the start of the year, I do like the idea of some of my work from G&T having a home here too, especially given that it’s the perfect chance to revise and improve a few things.

Still, some of the stuff I’ve chosen to republish over here so far isn’t exactly the obvious stuff you’d think I might pick. So here’s my thinking behind it all, for those who care.

Obviously, plenty of stuff I wrote over on G&T just isn’t Dirty Feed material. For a start, I published literally hundreds of news articles over the years, which actually consisted of the bulk of my writing – precisely none of which are worth reviving here. Pieces on the imminent transmission of The Crouches aren’t something which need to pop up on Dirty Feed in 2020.¹

Then there’s the longer, but still time-sensitive articles, such as my review of The Bodysnatcher Collection DVD back in 2007. I love that they are still available online, and hope they always will be, but I don’t see any point in throwing them across to here. They capture a particular point in time, that a 2020 date attached would entirely destroy.

Finally in terms of stuff that won’t come over here, there’s the old jointly-written articles, like this piece on the climax to Red Dwarf VI. I honestly can’t remember who wrote what in those pieces – in the early days, it was often a Lennon/McCartney situation² – but that’s all the more reason not to publish them on Dirty Feed.

So, what of stuff that is likely to find its way over here? Currently, it’s the shorter material being revised and republished, especially stuff written over the past couple of years that I still actually like. Pieces about the early satellite repeats of Red Dwarf fit neatly into the kind of thing I already publish over here, for instance.³

Then there’s the bigger pieces. Stuff like my old Hancock’s Half Hour article are thoroughly Dirty Feed material, and you’d think they would be the first things to make their way across over to here. The reason they haven’t so far is simple: I want to do a proper job at revising them to make a little more sense outside a fandom context, and that takes time. Then there’s my analysis of the sets in Series 1 and 2 of Red Dwarf, which I abandoned after three posts. That needs finishing off, but it’s a big project that really needs proper time setting aside for. It’ll happen eventually.

And finally, there are the old articles which are revised so much that I haven’t even bothered acknowledging their roots in old G&T pieces. For instance, the piece I wrote on here last month about a character-defining joke in Red Dwarf was initially inspired by a G&T piece from 2017, on an old Grant Naylor radio sitcom. But there are so many additions and changes in the Dirty Feed article – the first two-thirds are brand new, for instance – that it’s not really a rewrite of an old piece any more, and so doesn’t get labelled as such.

So there you go. Boring, but if you were confused as to the slightly-strange-from-the-outside republishing policy, then there’s your explanation. I’m not interested in porting over every single piece of writing I’ve ever done about Red Dwarf to here – anything I publish I want to reflect what I think about things today. After all, there are plenty of old articles which aren’t time-sensitive, and you’d think would make a decent post on here… but after ten years, I have decided are actually complete and utter bollocks. No point dragging out my ill-thought-through pieces about how whatever the faults of a piece of comedy, “it doesn’t matter as long as its funny”.⁴

Now, let’s forget about Red Dwarf for a bit. Who fancies something about Doctor on the Go instead?

I do like the headline, though. ↩
Yes, I’m afraid I actually did just make that comparison. ↩
The revising takes two forms, incidentally. The first is to mainly strip the pieces of fandom in-jokes which wouldn’t really work over here. The second is proper improvements to the material. This piece on an old Night Network show adds some research involving TV listings which really should have been part of the original G&T version, but I was lazy. ↩
This is one trap I fell into time and time again in old pieces of writing about comedy: segregating off “comedy” and “everything else”. Which is nonsense. Everything feeds into whether something is funny or not. A lot of my early writing about comedy is me splashing around, desperately trying to come up with something worth putting on the page… and failing. ↩

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originally on G&T, red dwarf

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