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I Love Doing Research, Part Two

Published 10th April 2024

TV Comedy

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?

  1. No it isn’t. ↩

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I Love Doing Research

Published 3rd May 2023

TV Comedy

Every so often, I post one of those “Send me anonymous messages!” things to Twitter, and let people do their worst. I usually receive a mix of responses, including plenty of questions I wish I could answer but can’t. Yes, here is my exact opinion about certain bits of television I don’t like, and here is my inevitable sacking a day later. And no, I ain’t telling you all the juicy details about obits.

But I do also get some great questions which I can actually answer. My favourite this time round was the following:

“What’s the best bit of TV trivia you know, but haven’t been able to include in an article (yet)?”

To which my answer was: two days before Red Dwarf‘s “Waiting for God” was recorded, Studio A at New Broadcasting House in Manchester was used for a Board of Governors lunch. “Waiting for God” was recorded on the 10th/11th October 1987; the Board of Governors lunch was the 8th October. Which is, I’m sure you’ll agree, the most exciting paragraph I have ever written.

Still, had I waited a few days, I might have given a different answer.

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