wally who? – Dirty Feed

Wally Who, What, When, Where, Why?

Published 15th February 2021

It’s odd, the things which can become obscured so easily.

Take Wally Who?, an early Grant Naylor radio sitcom from 1982, which I’ve written a bit about recently. It is not, to be fair, a series which is currently part of the pop culture zeitgeist. I am not expecting to find huge screeds written about the show in Digital Spy, nor am I expecting BBC Sounds to commission Obsessed With… Wally Who? But there are certain things which you think would be easy enough to nail down.

For instance: the number of episodes of the programme broadcast. That’s fairly basic. In fact, it might be the single most basic fact you could expect to know about a series. And yet every source online seems to have a different answer.

The BBC website lists 5 episodes. My old hangout Ganymede & Titan says 10 episodes. radiohaha also says 10, although erroneously gives the network as Radio 4 rather than Radio 2. The British Comedy Guide gives 5 episodes. Rob Grant himself says 8 were commissioned. Somebody even sent me a copy of what is listed internally at the BBC; they have 5 episodes, although the last one is confusingly labelled Episode 6.

What the bloody hell is going on?

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“Arg.”

Published 3rd February 2021

Radio Comedy / TV Comedy

Today, I have another story for you. And like all the best stories, it starts with the DVD menu for At Last Smith & Jones: Vol. 1.

At Last Smith & Jones: Vol. 1 is a slightly odd but extremely watchable Best Of release for the duo, released in 2009. It comprises of material from all four series of the BBC2 incarnation of the show – two episodes per series, making a total of eight compilation episodes – along with the complete 1987 and 1988 Xmas specials.¹ None of these compilation shows have end credits of their own, just a BBC logo and a copyright date – everyone who originally worked on the show is listed on the separate credits elsewhere on the DVD.

And as I was reading those DVD credits for Series 4, a certain part of my brain sparked into life.

A consequence of hanging around in Red Dwarf fandom for too long is a minor obsession with early Rob Grant and Doug Naylor material. I knew they had written stuff for The Grumbleweeds and Jasper Carrot, but I never knew they had written anything for Smith & Jones. And yet there were their names, large as life.

What the hell did they write?! I had to know. Time for some investigation.²

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Sadly, Vol 2. – intended for material from their six series over on BBC1 – never made it to the shelves. ↩
Investigating this, investigating that. General investi… sorry, force of habit. ↩

Arnold J. Rimmer, BSc, SSc

Published 14th October 2020

TV Comedy

Sometimes a joke in a sitcom isn’t just funny, and doesn’t just reveal character. Sometimes, a joke is so good it literally seems to define your character. When Father Ted protests “that money was just resting in my account”, or Lieutenant Gruber sheepishly admits that “it was very lonely on the Russian front”, it somehow seems to be everything you need to know about them. A whole life, in a few short words.

For instance, take this joke in Series 1 of Red Dwarf (1988). As Lister prepares to watch Rimmer’s auto-obituary in “Me²”, he notices the following caption at the start.

HOLLY: “BSc, SSc?” What’s that?
LISTER: Bronze Swimming certificate and Silver Swimming certificate. He’s a total lunatic.

In that moment, you feel like you know everything there is to know about Arnold J. Rimmer. His abject failure to achieve anything, and his desperation to hide that by any means possible.

The thing is with these kind of jokes: they stick. When a joke means that much in terms of defining a character, the writers often can’t quite let go of it.

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