T
1/3
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TABITHA to THICK AS THIEVES
THINK OF A NUMBER ETC. to TOM TOM
TOMFOOLERY to THE TYRANT KING
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INEVITABLE YET ill-advised spin-off from BEWITCHED, with a pre-KNOTS LANDING LISA HARTMAN nose-wriggling her way through life as, obviously, a television production assistant. Only 11 years since she'd been born in the original, yet here she was, fully grown-up and everything. Hmm. Viewers weren't convinced, and neither were the real television production assistants, who pulled it after 12 nasal-endowed episodes.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...LURKED OVER HERE IN THE PRE-NATIONWIDE SLOT FOR A FEW DESULTORY WEEKS
"LIFE'S NOT always a fairy-tale, Michael". JIM TAGGART, take a bow. Top-notch, gruesome Glasgow detective marathon started in 1983 as three-part Killer (city blondes murdered, did Taggart do it? asked viewers eating out of creator Glenn Chandler's clever hand). Then it kicked off again in 1985 under its new name. Bodies in burned boats and car boots, three human legs found round town, rat-poisoned choccies. Maze-like plotting, tailor-made Mike Moran soundtrack/timeless "This is no me-ean town" Maggie Bell theme, and sublime MARK McMANUS as Inspector Jim. Key to the Taggart model was its wonderful way of shoving ordinary Glasgow up against against macabre, folkloric devices: poisonous spiders, woodland cottages, pirate maps. Then there was the brute McViolence of episodes like The Killing Philosophy - crossbow-wielding masked maniac ransacking folks' larders and then them. McManus died in 1994 yet, of course, the brand had to continue, and is now far removed from its mid-80s/early 90s Glaswegian granite'n'gore. Remember Jim hauling off and hitting a suspect in the face in the holding cells? Facing a whole crowd of bikers and getting them to turn tail by sheer power of personality ("or you'll wear your balls home as earrings!")? Up to his neck in mud at a health farm? Ah me.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...NOW FEATURES NONE OF ITS ORIGINAL CAST MEMBERS
BIZARRE SPIN-OFF from, of all things, RAINBOW, wherein STANLEY "BUNGLE" BATES is Stanley Wates (bet that took a long time to think up) in charge of an actors' retirement home, getting driven hammily round the bend by the arrival of Dawson Chance (DAWSON CHANCE), his sixteen ventriloquist dummies (voices of ROY SKELTON), and his best friend, who was a tortoise. A mere 13 episodes ensued. Still, that's one more than TABITHA.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."GO ON, TAKE 'IM! PLEASE!"
TAKE A LETTER, MR. JONES
(1981)
SOUTHERN
YIKES! IT'S RULA "MRS WATERMAN" LENSKA and JOHN "NOT GAY, MERELY VERY HAPPY" INMAN together at last! And in a Saturday night sitcom from that illustrious house of laughs, Southern Television! With Rula as a dominatrix boss and John as a simpering secretary! Taking the piss, surely.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...TOOK INDEFINITIVE LEAVE AFTER SIX EPISODES
THERE JUST had to be a sitcom with this title at some point in TV history. Pity it had to be this demented throw-enough-mud exercise with DUGGIE "COMEDIANS" BROWN as fictional stand-up comic Harvey Hall crossing swords with upper class trouble-and-strife ELISABETH "WHO" SLADEN. Dropping by "unannounced" was sleazy club agent VICTOR "BEATLES" SPINETTI. Preponderance of titular non-liners.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SLADEN "STEPPED-UP" TO K-9 AND COMPANY
TAKE THREE GIRLS
(1969-71)
BBC
...PLEASE! OH come on, cheer up. These TAKE... shows have all been shit so far, but wait! Here's a good, earthy, substantial conceptual drama series, linked by virtue of being presented as the reminisences of three women in a flat in London! Namely SUSAN JAMESON, ANGELA DOWN and our very own LIZA GODDARD! That's more like it. Well, we'd take this over DUGGIE BROWN married to Sarah Jane Smith.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...TAKE THREE WOMEN SHOWED UP IN 1982
TAKE YOUR PICK
(1955-68, 1990s)
A-R/THAMES
THIS IS more like it; a TAKE-monikered effort with a bit of class, namely MICHAEL MILES proffering the titular conundrum between "money" and "box", supported by ubiquitous unseen announcer bloke BOB DANVERS-WALKER and ever-present organ-pumping HAROLD SMART. First real appointment-telly quiz, debuting in ITV's first week on air, and first proper "event" gameshow where shrieking audience were as much part of shenanigans as cadaverous contestants. "Yes/No" game, gong-banging, head-turning riches (tickets to local palace of glittering delights) or amusing crappery (used tea leaves) all present and unchanged for aeons.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...ILL-CONCEIVED 90S REVIVAL SAW DES O'CONNOR PAIRED WITH EX-NEIGHBOURS LOOKALIKES GAYLE AND GILLIAN
THE TALE OF TIMOTHY BAGSHOTT
(1975)
BBC
COMEDY PLAY for kids written by FAY WELDON about a standard issue BBC posh well-to-do son and his bent property dealer dad, who has to move into one of his father's crappy flats when the old man gets thrown in jail. The confrontation with the various residents results in 1970s-style humour, i.e. nothing funny at all.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...ROLL ON THE SHE-DEVIL
TALES FROM FAT TULIP'S GARDEN/FAT TULIP TOO
(1985-86)
CENTRAL
WOP! SURREAL, frenetic, semi-improvised short stories for kids told with almost psychopathic conviction by one-time comedian and latterday hectoring soil-botherer TONY ROBINSON. No animation, no illustrations - he just wandered around a deserted house and garden haranguing the camera with tales of short, corpulent Fat Tulip and neighbour Thin Tim. Other characters included two long-suffering frogs called Ernie and Sylve, an heroic tortoise called Lewis Collins and a little white shell called Jim Morrison. Inspired. Unlike everything that came later.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."AND THE PINK CHEEKS AND THE BOWLER HAT!"
TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY
(1982)
ABC/BELLISARIUS
TRASHY HYBRID of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and The Maltese Falcon with STEPHEN COLLINS (as Jake Cutter) and company operating a seaplane service in the South Pacific circa 1938. On hand to fulfil "lovable rogue" duties was RODDY McDOWELL, bar owner and magistrate Bon Chance Louie, in white suit and panama hat.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...THE PLANE WAS A 1937 GRUMMAN GOOSE AMPHIBIAN, CALLED CUTTER'S GOOSE
TALES OF THE RIVERBANK
(1960-1964)
BBC
JOHNNY MORRIS was on hand with his repertoire of two animal voices for this highly suspect real animal story. Film of Hammy the Hamster, a rat, possibly a mouse (we couldn't tell) had various unlikely adventures. For a river-dwelling hamster, Hammy was well sorted - he had a jeep, a speedboat, and even a drumkit (top cruelty guaranteed with drumsticks glued on to its little paws) plus trusty retainers Roderick the Rat and Hammy the Hamster. In supporting parts was Tarantinoesque posse Mrs Duck, Mrs Hen, Mr Weasel, Mr Guinea Pig, and Mr Squirrel. Numerous revivals down the years, all involving small animals nailed to plastic toy vehicles.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."HULLOOO, WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?" SUCH DIVERSITY! YOU WOULDN'T THINK IT WAS JUST ONE PERSON!
TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED
(1979-88)
ANGLIA
THE ONLY thing unexpected about them being, of course, the identity of the uber-celebrity playing the part of the doomed protagonist this week. And then it was usually JOAN COLLINS. ROALD DAHL personally introduced the early series of these self-penned sting-in-tale half hours, but that was after you'd had to sit through the dodgy silhouetted woman dancing in flames, the tarot cards, the spinning revolver, the roulette wheel, some skulls and anything vaguely sinister-looking. Highlights from a decade's worth of expected deception:
- Royal Jelly where TIMOTHY WEST fed the stuff to his son until he started to turn into a bee.
- That one where a bloke's widow keeps his brain and one eye alive in a tank so he can watch her shagging another bloke.
- That one where a practical joker dies suffocating in a room.
- The Sound Machine: A bloke invents an ultrasonic hearing device, and discovers the screams of plants whenever they're pruned, leading the ubiquitous pained outburst: "The plants...they're intelligent and defenceless...every time we uproot one, they scream in agony and we are oblvious to their misery...oh god...in farms across the world, whenever a combine harvester cuts the wheat - thousands of voices - screaming! Screaming for their lives! (buries hands in face) Oh my god!!"
- First one ever: A professional gambler bets with people that he could light his lighter ten times in a row, starting with the old man's Jaguar as prize but moving to the loser's fingers. Blah blah blah and then, come the end scene, the prof. gambler's wife holds her hand out with the car keys in it and half her little finger is missing. Ripped off by Tarantino for his part of the rubbish and now thankfully forgotten Four Rooms film.
- Georgy Porgy: A vicar who wakes up one morning to find he's irresistable to women. The coffee morning takes on an air of erotic menace as hitherto indifferent women rub up against him. He's even seduced on a river bank by, of course, JOAN COLLINS.
- Lamb To The Slaughter: The one where this woman (SUSAN GEORGE) murders her husband by clubbing him with a frozen leg of lamb. When the cops turn up (under the aegis of ex-Z Carser BRIAN BLESSED) she makes them a nice roast dinner with the evidence
- Skin: The one about this tramp with a tattooed back who gets looked after by this bloke (DEREK "I, CLAVDIVS" JACOBI) who then tops him for the artwork.
- The Krait: Some bloke living in India, gets hold of a deadly Krait snake, but loses it. Final shot is him going for the sherry decanter, and getting slow painful death in the wrist courtesy of the Krait...
- The one where this surgeon places a key underneath the mattress of an X-Ray machine when this bloke he obviously doesn't like goes for a scan. Outline of key pops up on scan result, bloke gets cut up to remove key, no key there, goes for scan again, surgeon puts key under mattress again, bloke gets cut up again...etc etc. Comes to a sticky end for surgeon who shits himself when police come around and swallows the key.
- JOAN COLLINS as rich-bitch wife, pissing all and sundry off at a garden party, only to get her head stuck in massive modern art sculpture construction, in front of all the guests. Browbeaten butler takes great delight in being told by his master to fetch an axe to cut his wife out of said expensive bit of art (without damaging the sculpture), and subsequently decapitates Joan with great relish.
- A pair of poncey wine connoisseurs and spouses meet up to drink an ancient bottle of wine that is priceless - the holy grail of wines by all accounts. But what's this? Wine Connoisseur #1 knows that Wine Connoisseur #2 is a) having an affair with his wife and b) affected by a heart condition. Connoisseur #1 bigs up the bottle of wine and how good it is going to taste before promptly changing his mind, as it's "probably gone a bit off" and proceeds to pour it on the carpet in front of horrified wine loving onlookers. Connoisseur 2 drops dead on the spot from a fatal coronary, after a prolonged bout of red faced blustering disbelief.
- JOAN COLLINS (yet again) is the pretty sister, PAULINE "LIVER BIRDS" COLLINS is the dumpy one. Joan is cheating on her husband, JOHN ALDERTON (of course), whom Pauline is also in love with. Joan gets caught. Joan and Pauline then cook up a scheme that has Joan dressing in a white dress, taking pills, Pauline finding her in time and her husband taking her back in sympathy. When Joan takes pills, however, Pauline posts the suicide letter and lets Joan die, marrying the bloke herself.
- Pretty girl and artist get miserable old fat French woman drunk and pretend that they painted her nude. Blackmail her. Get money and take off, but they were having her on all along. Much histrionics from miserable old fat French woman in big car driving around Paris, or some such continental overseas filmed extravaganza.
- Bloke ditches wife JENNIE LINDEN for second wife SUZANNE DANIELLE, but she's a gold digger, shoots her, disposes of evidence, but leaves proof of guilt in easily found suitcase. First wife changes her mind on the remarriage.
- The one where a con artist cum antique dealer turns up at a farm and persuades the yokels there that the Queen Anne desk (or similar item) that they've got in their kitchen, covered with old sacks and chicken shit, is of no value in itself but the legs are quite nice and he'll give them a (pathetically low) "good price" for the desk to take it off their hands. When he comes back with the van, the yokels, glad to be of help, have sawn the legs off the desk and present them to him.
- Young man looks for digs, finds an apparently perfect place, run by a sweet little old lady who has her pets stuffed once they've shuffled off their mortal coils. Turns out that her previous lodgers have never left, and are upstairs in their rooms, sitting up in bed, also in a state of taxidermic perfection.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."BBBBBBZ ZZZZ!" OH, PISS OFF
TANDOORI NIGHTS
(1985-87)
CHANNEL 4
SAEED JAFFREY holds court amidst two Indian restaurants at war in Hackney-ish area. One of them gets their "just desserts". Ho fucking ho.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WORKING TITLES INCLUDED CHAPPATI'S OVER AND PAPERBACK RAITA (TRUE, HONEST!)
ULTRA-VIOLENT SWEENEY-LITE copperama binned by the Beeb when it proved too much for the public to stomach. Strong on aggro, weak on plot and characterisation, it starred PATRICK MOWER as Detective Superintendent Steve Hackett (a carefully-coiffeured clothes-horse in combat jacket and jeans who looked about as hard as the Milky Bar Kid) and PHILIP "MR SINISTER" MADOC as his boss, Chief Superintendent Tate. Never repeated on terrestrial TV, although this probably has less to do with the blood, snot and teeth quotient than the fact that it was undeniably mindless shite.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...PRODUCED BY PHILIP "WHO" HINCHCLIFFE
TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE
(LATE 1970s)
FILMATION
THE EDGAR MICE-BURROWS (according to the Ed "Stewpot" Stewart annual) story subject to the usual Filmation cut 'n' paste treatment. Usual stymied adventures, often on straight after BIG JOHN, LITTLE JOHN. "Aheoeoeeahhh" call and monkey sidekick bloke present but far from correct.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SEE ALSO JANA, WHO WAS QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE, AND SO TECHNICALLY OUTRANKED HIM
HYPNOTIC BRIDGE traversal to Bob James flute/vibraphone theme started this proto-Cheers ensemblecom. DANNY DE VITO was bastardish boss Louie de Palma, JUDD HIRSCH and MARILU HENNER were the "normal" leads. TONY DANZA was thick ex-boxer, CHRISTOPHER "DOC" LLOYD was spaced-out freak Jim Ignatowski and, of course, ANDY KAUFMAN as Latka Gravas. Seminal, before that word stopped being, well, seminal. What happens when it rains? Monetary gains.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."'NIGHT, MISTER WALTERS!" "UUUUUH!"
DEAR GOD. ELISABETH "LIVER BIRDS" ESTENSEN played the witch-with-a-tea-fetish Talula Bag who lived in a strange teapot in an antique shop and wanted to get all powerful and take over world. Reluctant side-kick was a blonde kid (JOHN HASLER) called T-Shirt ("Yes your majes-tea") who always came good in the final episode. Each series a girl would come into the shop and (somehow?!) be transported into the strange world inside said teapot. One there she would be sent on a mission to collects various objects (numbers from clock face, silvers spoons, crystals etc) from different (sometimes historical) locations in order to stop the dreaded T-Bag. The bloody kids always won in the end of course, and Ms Bag was sent away somewhere to face "punishment" at the end of each series. By the end of the fourth series "Talula" Bag was utterly destroyed (albeit to return in a Christmas special a year later) to be replaced by sister "Tabatha" Bag, played by GEORGINA HALE. A noxious brew.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...STEWED
TEACH YOURSELF GIBBERISH
(1982)
GRANADA
SKITS, SKETCHES and scumpoonery for kids, starring ubiquitous (in Manchester, anyway) parody band ALBERTO Y LOS TRIOS PARANOIAS.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WRITTEN BY LATTERDAY SALFORD UNIVERSITY INSTITUTION C P LEE
UBER-RUDIMENTARY INFORMATHON dressed up as the adventures of a medallion-toting bear. Titular grizzly was conjured up from the minds of Patrick and Mollie Matthews in 1962, who turned him into a household name courtesy of these couldn't-happen-now visual presentations comprising, well, a series of still photographs backed by you-must-find-this-interesting narration. A long way from the ideal bedtime story. A long way from bedtime as well.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...COMPANIONS INCLUDED SNOWY TOES (A PANDA), JASMINE THE RABBIT AND A SHEEPLIKE...ER, THING
TEETIME AND CLAUDIA
(1984)
ITV
RISIBLY BAD regional cartoon woefulness starring a "crafty cat" and a "slow but loveable" dog. Pain inducingly derivative, animation just a notch above static.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."I MAY BE SLOW, BUT I GET THERE EVENTUALLY...GRANNY LOVES ME THE BEST"
THE TELEBUGS
(EARLY 1980s)
ITV
CURIOUS SPRIGHTLY cartoon about three floaty robots with TV sets in their stomachs plus Zudo the evil one, and a little floaty dog thing, who "fought crime" and did stuff. The villains were Bully-Byte, Angel Brain (bat-shaped computer) and a pink mohicaned woman of dubious point. There was also a newspaper editor called Mr. McSpreader. "Go Telesonic!" they said. Over and over and over...
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...THEY'D KEEP THE MASTER JOHN SIMM AMUSED AT ANY RATE
TELEVISION SCRABBLE
(1984)
CHANNEL 4
ALAN COREN in a mauve blazer dribbles at the mouth over triple word scores.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...PRIZE WAS A "GOLD-PLATED SCRABBLE SET". ZERO POINTS.
PETER BARKWORTH, in no way typecast as pinstriped corporate banker from the city, packs up (see? Change, like money) and moves to the English countryside (Change! As in change. Clever, eh?) with wifey, the delightful HANNAH GORDON, lives on a houseboat and uses his economic and accounting knowledge to help out the locals. Except Hannah's not so happy, preferring the high life of London town where she is treading the boards. Trouble brews, as is so often the way, when KEITH BARRON shows up. Affable Sunday night "quitting the rat race" gubbins.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BARKWORTH LATER REPRISED SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSMAN SCHTICK IN MID-80S SWEATY IRA KIDNAPFEST "THE PRICE"
ENGLISH LANGUAGE not evident. Shown on Sunday mornings before The Sunday Gang, but only if you lived in, as Sarah Kennedy would have it, the Principality. Central characters Syr Wynff (WYNFORD ELLIS-OWEN in granny specs) and Mici Plwm (real name MICI PLWM) became involved in various shenanigans each week, which usually involved Wynff screaming at Mici, Mici getting a pint of milk poured over his head, and crying. Celtic slapstick at its finest.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH "WELLIFANT", THE FIRE BRIGADE'S 80S SAFETY MASCOT
AH, MONDAY NIGHTS IN THE '80S, and NOEL EDMONDS bringing us the very definition of redoubtable family fare with his relaxed and beige TV-related quiz. Nothing less than a low-powered glory, you don't need us to sketch in the format, do you? Two families battle it out over thirty minutes to prove they know most about TV. Now cue the clips. But, really, it's all in the details with this show: the air raid siren; the "hoofer-doofer"; Noel throwing a question to the studio audience with a cry of "telly addicts?"; blanked out Radio Times billings; Sing the Sig; the USS Enterprise zapping the TARDIS in the titles (and prompting an angry letter to Dreamwatch Bulletin); "The NME - is that still going?"; stars setting questions in pre-recorded cutaways piped in to appear live ("I'm very well Noel, now, team..."); the Aches vs the Pains; "Let's go... on the box!"; "This has never happened before in the modern history of Telly Addicts!" and so on. Total teatime viewing until a minor revamp in 1994, which saw the addition of novelty scorer Charles, and the families axed to make way for darts teams and book groups with names like 'Swords and Daggers' and, of course, 'Warrior's Gate'. Come 1998, though, and things got catastrophic: out went the sofas to make way for wine bar stools, pointless running about...and shrieking. Spawned a couple of board games (one of which included the question "Which series does Sheena McDonald present?" - but no answer) and, more recently, a nifty play-at-home DVD. PLEASE keep it moving through the Spotlight round.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."TEN MORE YEARS! TEN MORE YEARS!"
PROVINCIAL TELEVISION companies! Can't afford to make your own Saturday morning kiddiefest? Simply bolt together bits of other regions' efforts, and presto! Your own show! The 'ten' was made up of assorted cartoons, obscure films and segments of THE SATURDAY BANANA and TISWAS. "HTV are leaving us now," said Chris and Sal when the opt-outs ended, much to the chagrin of kids from Holyhead to Swindon.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...'TWASN'T LONG, THOUGH, BEFORE TISWAS WENT NATIONWIDE
HARD-UP AUNTIE resorts to slapping on another shitty import to eat up expensive airtime on hot August mornings, when no-one will be inside watching telly anyway. Eponymous band of Oz youngsters, mixed-ages, kill time in dirty early-1900s provincial nowhere. Weekly assembly of packing-case make-believe town interrupted by occasional outbursts of excitement, such as when very large tree falls on old woman breaking her back.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...NOTE: MAY NOT HAVE BEEN CALLED TEN TOWN
DIRTY-FACED FEISTY POWS of the fairer sex see out the Second World War in an internment camp in Malaya. The key word there being 'camp'. Banding together under the de facto leadership of ANN BELL were rape victim STEPHANIE BEACHAM, doctor STEPHANIE COLE, nurses CLAIRE OBERMAN and JEANANNE CROWLEY and tottering old academic JEAN ANDERSON. Legendary BURT KWOUK was a camp commandant, the key word there being (you get the idea). Stirring stuff and, once Michael Grade had sniffed out some post-SONGS OF PRAISE potential, a weekend hit. Last series offered up a multitude of baked bean endings by virtue of concentrating that old dramatic stalwart, Life After Wartime, i.e. reunions with lost loves, arguments with other people's lost loves, fights over lost loves, and lost loves staying positively lost through the small matter of, well, death. Lousy "reunion" finale in 1985 was set in 1950 and took the form of - erk - a murder mystery. At least nobody saw it coming. Unlike the end of the war.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...THE SMELL OF A SUNDAY NIGHT HIT
TERRAHAWKS
(1983-86)
LWT/ANDERSON BURR
MORE OR less the only Gerryatrics of note from the 80s and the only outing for, ahem, Supermacromation aka glorified glove puppetry. Everything else was the same as before: a band of bow-legged brothers, each with wacky names, defending the world and making it back in time for a pithy pay-off in the drawing room before the closing credits. Except it was set in 2020, with bug-eyed monsters threatening the planet. On the side of Good: leader Dr. "Tiger" Ninestein (there were nine of him, in case one died, which was handy when you have the nasty habit of getting killed off by your arch enemy); Dr. Mary Falconer, Hudson, (a talking Rolls that could change colour to suite its mood), "Stew Dapples", a DJ bloke, and the bouncy ball-bearing like Zeriods, led by Sergeant O, with voice of WINDSOR DAVIES, who could "increase in mass", plus a Japanese Thunderbird Five-alike stuck in a space station. This demented crew fought the dastardly Martian Zelda, complete with idiot punky son and Sram, a frozen monster thing. Always "reclaimed her own" at the end. Had cube things which played noughts and crosses with the Zeriods over the end credits. Each zeroid had a number and an individual personality and the attitude of Zero towards some of them was a sly glance at, inevitably, IT AIN'T HALF HOT MUM, with the addition of extra flavours such as 18, a French zeroid who insisted he was to be called Dix-Huit. And if you followed all that, you were paying too much attention. It was only a kids show, for fuck's sake.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."STROLL ON!"
STURDY EIGHT o'clock suburbacom, with the rock solid SCOTT-WHITFIELD conglomerate in a sequel of sorts to HAPPY EVER AFTER with the Fletchers becoming the Medfords, upping sticks to Purley and moving in next to uppity neighbours Tarquin, Malcolm and Beattie, with blustery boss Sir Dennis Hodge (REGINALD MARSH, of course) completing the set. Too many memorable moments to mention, but we'll do it anyway: the one where they had a barbecue - Terry's food was awful, and the closing shot was three beefburgers going round on a record player, for some reason; the one where they go to France, and get assailed on the ferry by a kid acting badly, because he'd written in to JIM'LL FIX IT to be in Terry & June; the one where June became a punk (in 1985) - loads of Frankie Goes To Cricklewood "jokes"; the one where Terry has to buy a satellite dish so that a Middle East client he was entertaining could watch his favourite TV show (which turned out to be...Dallas); the one involving giant It's A Knockout costumes - inevitably Terry got trapped in a giant rabbit's outfit. Oh, and the one in which Terry fell in a river/lake/canal/giant pond, which was the one on every week.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...LIMITED FAMILY FUN DERIVED FROM "OOH, WHOSE CHAIR'S GOING TO COLLAPSE THIS WEEK?" EVER-CHANGING PATIOCENTRIC TITLES
THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS
(1962-63)
BBC
"IF THEY took sex out of this programme, there'd be nothing left!" FROST, LEVIN, KINNEAR, PERCIVAL, MARTIN and COPE sit behind a giant desk with camera wires all over the place in the name of satire, in the process scandalising one half of the nation (the posh half) and bemusing the rest. Made legends out of a) Frost's hair (a weird plastered down bowlcut with a mini-quiff at the front); b) Frost's bad impressions; c) Milicent Martin's ability to sing unfunny topical songs very very very fast; d) Bernard Levin verbally jousting with the upper classes; e) Timothy Birdsall drawing cartoons "live"; f) having cameras in shot; g) having cameramen in shot; h) Willie Rushton looking grumpy; i) Roy Kinnear looking frumpish; j) Ned Sherrin, by virtue of having at least ten separate credits on every programme. Went out live at the end of Saturday night BBC television, often for up to two hours at a time. "Questions" were asked in the House of Commons, of the kind nobody actually remembers hearing at the time. "Switchboards" were jammed, in a manner nobody actually remembers seeing at the time. They did a dreadfully mawkish special edition the night after JFK got shot which became a hit record in the States. Axed when the Beeb got the jitters about someone making jokes about a general election. Everyone - more or less - came back, though, for NOT SO MUCH A PROGRAMME, MORE A WAY OF LIFE.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SERIOUSLY, THOUGH...
AS NOT THE NINE O'CLOCK NEWS had it: "Bleeding bloody ESTHER bleeding bloody effing bloody RANTZEN bloody woman." Disambiguously deranged consumer show which lined up cot deaths next to deformed parsnips and DOC COX. Brass band theme. Going out on the street to get OAPs to eat snails/hedgehog crisps etc, and getting arrested in the process. OAPs and assorted freaks playing their false teeth, the top of their heads, the spoons, a garden hose whirled around the head, a garden hose with a kitchen sink attatched to it, etc. The "who can play the Sailor's hornpipe on a trumpet in the shortest time?" non-contest. Dogs saying "sausages", "I love you", "Raymond", and other words suspiciously similar to a dog's growl with a little external manipulation of the jaw added. The Red Barrows (ha ha ha). The Get Britain Singing Campaign. German Shepherds drinking from a soda siphon in that pub. Dogs pissing on the rubber plant in the studio. Talented Pets in general (cue endless non-speaking cockatoos, showjumping rabbits, etc.) Hilarious, innuendo-laden shop names. Hilarious, innuendo-laden number plates. Hilarious, innuendo-laden vegetables. Hilarious confusingly-worded foreign pamphlets which were more often than not set to music to make them EVEN FUNNIER. Tedious clip always dragged out of ADRIAN MILLS being crap at a Spanish accent. Doc "out and about" singing George Formby songs on the street about planning restrictions on double-glazing and women being unable to whistle. The line about CYRIL FLETCHER being "The Odd Ode-r in the corner". The Jobsworth golden peaked cap, and its polar opposite, the Good Neighbour award. Everything-that-happened in-the-show felt-tip-cartoons closing titles. By Rod Jordan. Then on the 'serious' Watchdoggy side you had badly-removed tattoos, bad homes for OAPs, bad patio builders, bad holidays, and of course the heart-op tragedy kid and that awful MARTI WEBB Michael Jackson cover version. The second most powerful woman in Britain at the time was backed up, over the years, by GLYN WORSNIP, KIERAN PRENDIVILLE, CYRIL FLETCHER, ADRIAN MILLS, BILL BUCKLEY, GAVIN CAMPBELL, DOC COX, VICTORIA WOOD, JOANNA MUNRO, HOWARD LEADER and GRANT BAYNHAM (that glasses and bow-tie bloke. Looked like Robin Day meets Michael Wood). Early 90s death throes saw MOLLIE SUGDEN perched on a chaise longue reading out misprints and bon mots alongside hated Brighton comedian SIMON "Stripey blazer, funny face, big glasses - oh dear, not a single laugh" FANSHAWE. Best remembered in small doses. And small dozes.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."SAUSAGES." STOP IT...
THAT'S MY BOY
(1981-86)
YORKSHIRE
AND BY a quirk of fuck-you fate, here's more Mollie. This time she's moonlighting from Grace Brothers as Ida Willis, a busy-body housekeeper working for posh CHRISTOPHER BLAKE and his missus JENNIFER LONSDALE, who treats Chris like he's her son despite him already having his own mother, albeit an adopted one, played by CLARE RICHARDS, and with whom he rarely sees eye to rheumatic eye. Ran for ages, courtesy of a welter of plot pyrotechnics, including - whoops - a wholesale relocation from London to Yorkshire.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BLOWSY
THAT'S MY DOG!
(EARLY 1980s)
TSW
DEREK "NEW Faces" Hobson hosted this dogathon of a programme, boasting Yorkshire terriers heeling, going over little see-saws and so on. Owners were terrifying examples of near-humanity.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...CANINE AND (BAD) COMPANY
THAT'S YOUR FUNERAL
(1971)
BBC
MUCH LIKE the vogue for programmes beginning with a fulsome TAKE (see above), so programmes opening business with a terse THAT'S are equally near-universally rubbish. At least this only made it to one series. Life in a funeral parlour (a contradiction in terms, surely?) run by BILL FRASER and RAYMOND HUNTLEY, starring as the obligatory-1970s-sitcom-named Basil Bulstrode and Emanuel Holroyd. Coffins get mixed up. Corpses go missing. Dithering assistants get diddled over urns. Lots of Northern "wit" i.e. moaning. A film spin-off (another obligatory 1970s sitcom accoutrement) flopped, thanks largely to a car chase involving hearses.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...THAT'S YOUR AUDIENCE. THAT MAN OVER THERE.
THEN CHURCHILL SAID TO ME...
(1982)
BBC
FRANKIE HOWERD vehicle that lay on a shelf for almost 20 years before, for some reason, being shown on BBC2. Premise found Frankie, as himself, "oooh"-ing and "aaah!"-ing as War Office secretary Private Potts, a lacky in the Cabinet War Rooms under Whitehall, who accidentally found himself moved to the front line - whereupon he encountered General Fearless Freddy Hollocks, who bore a remarkable resemblance to...Frankie Howerd. Whole thing originally postponed thanks to the Falklands War. Then everyone forgot about it. Perhaps wisely.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."OOOOOH, I'VE BEEN 'AVING TERRIBLE TROUBLE WITH ME WHIZ BANGS"
THERE COMES A TIME...
(1985)
YORKSHIRE
ANDREW SACHS contracts a previously unknown fatal illness and dies slowly, while JUDY "GOOD COMPANIONS" CORNWELL looks on. Sitcom.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SEE ALSO DEAD ERNEST, WHERE SACHS DIED AT THE START. HMMM...
THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG IN PARADISE
(1984)
GRANADA
ABSOLUTELY DIRE musical comedy vehicle for evergreen band KID CREOLE AND THE COCONUTS, who find themselves washed up on a tropical island with a revolutionary government but still find room to crowbar in "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" and "Stool Pigeon" (ha cha cha chaaaa!).
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...CO-STARRING KAREN BLACK AND THE THREE DEGREES. NARCOLEPSY, SHE WROTE!
THEY CAME FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE
(1984)
TVS
WEIRD SITCOMSKETCH thing about an alien invasion of the made-up town of Middleford, with much liver, giant prawn attacks, cannibal sofas and spontaneous combustion. Bizarre merging of styles from PETE MCCARTHY, ROBIN DRISCOLL and REBECCA STEVENS. Channel 4, naturally.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."THEY'RE COMING!"
SHABBY SITCOM made during the Three Day Week, and it showed. Clement and La Frenais were on script duties, desperately baling "com" into a sit involving BOB HOSKINS as a small time crook who comes out of prison to find his best mate JOHN THAW shacked up with his missus. Except instead of getting the red mist and giving him a kicking HOSKINS moves in with them and tries to "make" the "best" of it. Was to have run for longer, with both stars finding themselves back inside for a dose of, ahem, Porridge. Except Thaw signed to do THE SWEENEY, and a few weeks later RONNIE BARKER donned the overalls.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...CO-STARRING JOHNNY BRIGGS AS 'SPIGGY'
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