British Comedy Guide

Unknown sitcom: unusually placed toilets

For what I am about to write I apologise. On no level whatsoever does the following scenario and characters seem feasible but they've been in my head this way for so long that I now believe them to be true. Can anyone tell me what sitcom it was and whether I got the situation right.

Now, the two characters/actors I remember were Mollie Sugden and Donald Hewlett who is better known as playing Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Reynolds in It Ain't Half Hot Mum.

This is where it gets wierd...

The scene is in my memory as being sci-fi - already a long shot - but it has a group of people talking in a room about a lavatory being on the wall rather than the floor. That's funny in itself but the bit that always sticks in the memory is when Donald Hewlett comes in.

DONALD: "You're lucky - ours is on the ceiling!"

The very idea of using a toilet in this place always makes me smile. Anyone have an idea what it was? I think it was early 1980s and may have been on ITV.

Have you not heard of Google?

Come Back Mrs Noah https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/come_back_mrs_noah/

Haha! Yes, I'd just found it. A bit of cross-referencing did the trick. :)

Amazing how that stuck in my mind - one series of six shown when I was just eight and I remember the actors and the situation pretty well. No idea it was a Lloyd and Croft production.

You can't blame me for not trusting myself based on that premise.

Made it to DVD? Jeez!

Image removed.

Here's pilot!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fzZHyhUKvo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRyAdBM_t3A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mSrT4M4KTs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEFRkkjCUdg

Our guide: https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/come_back_mrs_noah/

The DVD is illegal, unofficial, etc, so the image has been removed.

The funniest thing ever done about toilets was the Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch with Rowan Atkinson (basically doing his Mr Bean voice before Mr Bean was invented) in a showroom ordering a new bathroom. He fills the design model bathroom with toilets... not describing this brilliantly, am I? I'd link a clip to show you how funny this sketch is when you actually see it, but I can't find one... Errr

There was sitcom set in a public convenience called In for a Penny starring Bob Todd which was on in the 1970's and is regarded as one of the worst British sitcoms.

Quote: Jack Massey @ September 8 2009, 8:11 PM BST

There was sitcom set in a public convenience called In for a Penny starring Bob Todd which was on in the 1970's and is regarded as one of the worst British sitcoms.

I think this must run a close second http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWjCkcAmzDc

Heil Honey I'm Home! has a far worse reputation than it deserves. Rather like the Ross/Brand/Sachs thing, very few people actually saw it, but many heard about it. Comedically it wasn't amazing, but it wasn't nearly as bad as many believe.

You're probably right. It certainly wasn't written deliberately to offend. The team behind it were likely just to have been a bit optimistic/misguided about the amount of irony they could expect an audience to accept. I've really never seen much of it (unsurprisingly) and, like most people, have only seen the one or two snippets of it which have been used on clip shows.

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that it was pressure from the popular press (i.e. The Sun) that lead to the rest not being broadcast. As was the case with Hardwicke House.

Time for both of them to be broadcast, I think.

(On a similar theme, Frankie Howerd's 1982 sitcom Then Churchill Said To Me was pulled before broadcast, due to the Falklands war. It was 2000 before the BBC decided to show it!)

Quote: Aaron @ September 8 2009, 11:58 PM BST

(On a similar theme, Frankie Howerd's 1982 sitcom Then Churchill Said To Me was pulled before broadcast, due to the Falklands war. It was 2000 before the BBC decided to show it!)

Really? Laughing out loud :(

UK Gold had their hands on it in 1993, but yep, 18 years for the Beeb proper.

Poor ol' Frankie never got to see it. :(

Quote: Aaron @ September 8 2009, 11:46 PM BST

Heil Honey I'm Home! has a far worse reputation than it deserves. Rather like the Ross/Brand/Sachs thing, very few people actually saw it, but many heard about it. Comedically it wasn't amazing, but it wasn't nearly as bad as many believe.

Isn't this off-topic?

The question that started the thread has been satisfactorily answered, so I guess it's now free time until the bell goes for the end of the lesson.

Yippee!

*happily goes and plays in the sand-pit* :)

Strictly speaking, yes. But as it is a querying thread rather than specifically discussing a programme, it's arguable as to whether there is a topic in that sense, in order to keep to.

Besides, we're still discussing sitcoms, and maturely so.

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