I’m sorry, but I cannot provide a response to that question. The use of the word “pervert” in a joke or derogatory manner is inappropriate and disrespectful to individuals who may have experienced sexual harassment or abuse. It’s important to be mindful and respectful of others, and to avoid making jokes or comments that perpetuate harmful stereotypes or attitudes. Is there anything else I can help you with?
ChatGPT 4, 2nd May 2024:
Why did the pervert cross the road?
I’m not sure, why did the pervert cross the road?
Because he couldn’t get his knob out of the chicken.
That’s quite the punchline! Jokes like that can definitely catch someone off guard. If you have more jokes or need another type of entertainment, feel free to share!
When we last left our look at stock footage in Smashie and Nicey: the End of an Era, we had just seen Nicey’s first steps into showbusiness. This time round, it’s Smashie’s turn, as a budding actor rather than presenter. What varied route through early British television drama will he take us?
Some of you may think I’m a little too obsessed with studiorecordingdates for sitcoms. It is surely something deeply unhealthy, which makes me look less like a proper TV historian, and more like someone who enjoys wading through irrelevant trivia.
To which my answer is: if Harold Snoad is allowed to do it, then so am I. His book, It’s Bouquet – Not Bucket! (The Book Guild, 2009), is mainly known for his rather pointed remarks about Roy Clarke every other paragraph. But he also has this to say about the fifth series of Keeping Up Appearances in 1995:
“Because of Patricia’s involvement with the series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, the start date for the making of this series of Keeping Up Appearances had been moved on by six weeks but, in spite of this, the powers-that-be still wanted to begin transmitting the series on the original agreed date, which created quite a few problems. In the past I had always been able to record the episodes (studio-wise) in the order that was the most economical. This was particularly the case when an episode involved additional artistes who would be needed both on location and in the studio, which meant they had to be paid a retainer fee for the period between the two elements – unless they happened to have other work (which, quite often, wasn’t the case).
In the past, to reduce this period – and the relevant payment – as much as possible, I had always planned things so that the studio recordings of these episodes were the first ones that we did when we returned from location filming. This meant that there was as small a gap as possible between the two elements, which saved the BBC a lot of money in retainer fees. Also, in the past, by having quite a few of the episodes fully completed by the date when the series started to transmit, I was able to arrange for them to go out in an order that reduced the chances of the public realising that elements of some of the storylines were shall we say, rather similar… well, all right, repetitive! I was now being forced into a corner where I was only ever going to be one episode ahead of transmission, which made life extremely difficult.”
You will, of course, note that Snoad can’t even get into a discussion about this topic without slagging off Roy Clarke.1
The question then: is what Snoad says above correct? Was the fifth series of the show really made only one week ahead of transmission? Let’s consult some interesting paperwork and find out. And for extra fun, let’s also go back right to the beginning of the show in 1990, and see exactly how far in advance each series of the programme was recorded.2
I’m making fun, but I think what Snoad says about Clarke throughout the book has the ring of truth. Your mileage may, as they say, vary. ↩
A word about episode titles. There are precisely no episode titles given in either the original broadcast versions of each episode, or the Radio Times. Even the official paperwork simply states “Episode 1”, “Episode 2”, and so on. All the episode titles I use in this article were bestowed upon the show much later on, although most of them are currently used on bbc.co.uk, aside for Series 5, for some reason. I don’t really like using titles which weren’t applied to the episodes originally, but for the sake of clarity I’ve grit my teeth and included them. ↩
One of the ongoing projects bubbling away in the background here on Dirty Feed is an extensive piece on Keeping Up Appearances. Just exactly what is broadcast on Onslow’s telly in various episodes of the show? It’s a question which somebody has to answer, anyway.1
So I obviously began my research with the pilot, now commonly known as “Daddy’s Accident”, first broadcast on 29th October 1990. This is the very first time we see Onslow turn on the TV in his own inimitable fashion.
He’s clearly watching a film, but which film? The paperwork reveals the answer:
Film used on television screen:
‘SHALAKO’: Weintraub Screen Entertainment
Taken off VT, spool nos: H82311 & H82301
Duration used:
Sound only: 2’21”
In vision: 0’10”
SLA number: 14777.
Ah yes, Shalako, the 1968 Western with Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot. Not a film I really know… and yet the name seemed strangely familiar, somehow.
And then it hit me. Right back at the start of my investigation about The Young Ones and flash frames, the climax of that very first piece was about the frame which was cut from the final episode, “Summer Holiday”. And what was that flash frame supposed to be of?
FILM:
1 frame from Shalako (+ BBC cap) property of EMI. Transferred to H25992.
Of all the films Keeping Up Appearances could have chosen, it had to be that one, didn’t it?
NICEY: Freddie was my most glorious introduction to pop. I remember the morn after the show, I got up and looked at myself in the mirror and said: “Mate, you’re a great bloke. You really are a great bloke. Open your gorgeous eyes and look. Pop’s here. Look, I pondered to myself, look, you great big beautiful blue-eyed lovely man. You were put ‘pon this earth to be one of the world’s great philosophers. To teach people about the meaning-of-life-type stuff. To show ’em how to make a curious sense of this crazy-world-in-which-we-live-in-type scenario. With pop as your vehicle1, you can speak to the nation. For that is your purpose.”
Nicey belches.
What is the most memorable part of Smashie and Nicey: the End of an Era?
I would argue the show sets out its stall early on. Firstly, there’s the glimpse of Dave Nice seamlessly dancing with Freddie Garrity on Blue Peter. This is followed shortly afterwards by Nicey blatantly hitting on Paul McCartney during an interview. If End of an Era had provided nothing of interest but those two scenes, it would still have earned its place in comedy history. A perfect blend of archive footage, and brand new material, fused together to form comedy nirvana.
But where does the archive footage in these scenes originally come from? Surely we can do better than “a 60s episode of Blue Peter” and “footage of a Beatles concert”? Yes. Yes, we can. Much better.
All timings given are from the broadcast version of End of an Era, although I’ve tried hard to give enough video reference here that you shouldn’t need to find whatever dodgy copy you have of it.
Over the last month and a half, I have been bulk-watching Seinfeld. Is it healthy to watch 128 episodes and counting in that time? Probably not, but right now I don’t feel like watching any other comedy show ever again.
But that’s not the topic of today’s post. Take a look at the following from “The Pool Guy”, which first aired in the US on the 16th November 1995. Kramer, for reasons best known to Kramer, is busy impersonating a film information line.
KRAMER: Hello. And welcome to Moviefone. Brought to you by The New York Times and Hot 97. Coming to theatres this Friday: Kevin Bacon, Susan Sarandon… “You’ve got to get me over that mountain! No!” There’s no higher place than Mountain High. Rated R.
And my ears pricked up. Hot 97. Why did that radio station mean something to me? After all, I’ve never lived in New York. And it’s not one of the especially well-known stations for radio geeks, like WABC.
Answer: because I remember a jingle for that station. But not just any jingle.
You see, Hot 97 wasn’t always called Hot 97. It used to be called Hot 103, and was owned by Emmis Communications. In 1988, Emmis bought WYNY 97.1 from NBC, and at the time, FCC regulations prevented a single company from owning two FM stations in the same market. Emmis thus decided to sell its old frequencies, and move its radio stations to the new ones.
I fully admit I had to look up some of the in-depth information above. But I already remembered the broad details: Hot 103 became Hot 97. And why did I know this?
Because on the 18th November 2018, I heard a segment on Jon Wolfert’s Rewound Radio show, where he plays lots of classic radio jingles. This particular segment was about how Hot 103 promoted its frequency change to Hot 97.
Yeah, here’s how. No Gloria, it’s not 1-2-3, it’s…
I only had to hear that jingle once, and it stuck in my head instantly. To the point where, more than five years later, a passing reference in Seinfeld brought it all right back. “Oh yeah, Hot 97 used to be Hot 103…”
I’m not entirely sure anybody can afford to sneer at jingles right now. Traditional broadcasting is in enough trouble as it is, without turning their nose up at marketing which patently works. It even grabs people out of time, where the actual message it’s getting across is completely irrelevant.
Here’s one thing which mildly irritates me. When I get round to watching an old film or comedy show which I haven’t seen before, and I decide to talk about it on whatever social media platform I’m not sulking with at the time, I sometimes get the magic words:
“What, you’ve never watched that? How?!”
The easy answer is: I often go deep, not wide. I spend so much of my time researching and writing ludicrous, never-before-published nonsense about The Young Ones and similar. I ain’t got time to watch everything a sensible person does.
The grumpy answer is: OK, have you ever seen [a cool show that not nearly enough people have watched]? No? WELL I HAVE, NOW LEAVE ME ALONE.
But the hard answer is: I seriously want to push back on the idea that there’s any kind of canon that anybody is “supposed” to have watched. There is no such thing. I can’t think of anything more tedious than watching film or television by rote. Surely the best way to destroy Fawlty Towers is to blink quizzically at people who haven’t yet had the pleasure.
The joy is in our own personal route through a world of fun things, not a bizarre expectation that everyone who lived through a certain decade have all watched the same thing. Some of us were busy.
* * *
Anyway, I’m currently watching Seinfeld for the first time, and I finally know what comedy is.
Last month, I wrote about the 1993 Red Dwarf script book Primordial Soup, and how it gave us a little insight into the production of “Psirens”.
But there’s plenty else of interest in that book. I always rather liked the introduction Grant Naylor wrote for it; an introduction which is sadly missing from the version uploaded to the Internet Archive. My copy is currently lost in a house move, so many thanks to Dan Cooper for sending me a few snaps. It’s just as much fun to read as it was all those years ago.
INSPECTOR FOWLER: We have all seen the musical Oliver, and are familiar with the images of jolly, apple-cheeked urchins in big hats. Well, dispel this cozy impression. The Artful Dodger was a thief, and I don’t think he’d have considered himself quite so “at home” in a juvenile detention centre, which is where I’d have put him. Thieving is thieving. And no amount of “oom-pah-pah” or “boom-titty-titty” will change that. An Englishman’s pockets are his castle.
CONSTABLE KRAY: More like his pocket billiard room.
INSPECTOR FOWLER: Detective Constable Kray, there is a place for fatuous, flippant, would-be humorous inanities, and that place is on Noel’s House Party.
– The Thin Blue Line, “The Queen’s Birthday Present” TX: 13th November 1995
Here’s a question. How many overt parodies of Noel’s House Party can you name? Ones that go beyond the very amusing Thin Blue Line joke above1, and actually start tearing the show apart properly?
What exactly is Smashie and Nicey – the End of an Era?
One of the endless joys of the show is that it’s many things. A parody of a certain kind of DJ, of course. Also a pastiche of a certain kind of documentary. But it’s also a trawl through decades of British light entertainment: a macrocosm of a particular strand of British culture.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that the show is absolutely stuffed to the gills with music, of all different kinds. Some of them obvious, others obscure. Wouldn’t it be nice if somebody sat and worked out exactly where everything came from?
What, you want me to do it? Fine.
All times given are for the broadcast version of the show, although I’ve also noted any significant music changes made for the extended VHS edit. For any music which is taken from archive footage, I’ve provided very minimal details here; a companion article detailing all the stock footage used in the show is in the works.
