Obscure sitcom facts Page 11

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 28th July 2019, 1:15 PM

......................and Michael Bentine of The Goon Show ..................

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Bentine and The Goon Show shouldn't really be spoken of in the same breath as he barely brought anything to the show, and in fact clashed with Milligan and tried to get him removed, cheeky beggar! And the show went from strength to strength after Bentine left it. Maybe coincidence, but I think it gave Spike the opportunity to make it what it became, and this is one of the reasons I have asked Aaron if he could find another photo for The Goon Show thread header - without Bentine.

Apart from that I have nothing against him - I remember quite enjoying his "It's a Square World" and his "turn" with the broken back of a chair; but as a Goon? No.

In a 2003 episode of The Simpsons, Homer gives his email address as ChunkyLover53@aol.com.

The writer (Matt Selman) had registered that email address beforehand and, within a couple of minutes of the email address being mentioned on the show, his inbox was packed to its 999-message limit.

In the episode Party (series 1) of Dinnerladies, Petula's guest to the christmas party, and Tony's official date, Babs ("I come from Urmston") is played by Kate Robbins, the younger sister of Ted Robbins, star of amongst other things Phoenix Nights and Benidorm.

The fact that Fawlty Towers didn't meet with the approval of everybody at the BBC when it was initially offered to them is hardly obscure among comedy aficionados but the actual details are not known to many.

In 1974, John Cleese and Connie Booth were commissioned by James Gilbert, then Head of BBC Comedy and Light Entertainment, to write a pilot episode of Fawlty Towers. The resulting script was initially read by script editor Ian Main whose job was to provide an initial verdict on the many scripts received at the BBC.

He wasn't impressed and here's a pic of his now-infamous memo to James Gilbert:

I was lucky enough to see The Young Ones from the start and it wasn't really popular. It was in the middle of the second series that it suddenly went ballistic.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 28th July 2019, 1:15 PM

Just scanned through some of these and there are some fascinating ones here, this is a good thread. Can only think of a couple, not sure how obscure they are but anyway:
Jimmy Edwards of Whack O and Michael Bentine of The Goon Show were fellow Cambridge professors. Bentine was an expert swordsman among other things and Edwards was a decorated RAF pilot who was shot down during Operation Market Garden, which incidentally has its 75th anniversary in a few weeks.

The writer of Some Mothers Do Ave Em was also in the RAF and Frank Spencer was based on himself. He was so nervous a character that he took up an early form of self help using positive thinking mantras to get him through the day. He gave Frank the same mantra to say.

Erm...less obscure but the male Wedding Guest who upset Fawlty in The Wedding Party in FT played one of Reggie's colleagues in The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin. I think it was the 'super' one but I could be wrong. It's time I watched it again really.

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Didn't know much of that. Thanks! :-)

I really want a Whack-O! DVD.

The Emperor in Star Wars has the same voice and accent as Mr Grainger in Are you being served.
(Different actors)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9G9rwWihg&t=120s

The main characters in The Simpsons are bright yellow in order to attract the attention of people flicking between TV channels.

John Sullivan's first sitcom was Citizen Smith. He wrote the first script while working as a scene shifter for the BBC. The BBC's Head of Comedy John Howard Davies said it was the first script he'd ever read that was ready to start filming straight away.

Interestingly, Series 3 Episode 2 is entitled "Only Fools and Horses".

Still with Citizen Smith, the political values of "Wolfie" were not vastly different from those of Robert Lindsay - a working-class lad and son of a staunch trade unionist, he was brought up in a council house in Ilkeston Derbyshire, an area ravaged by the miners' strike of 1984/5.

Moving forward to 1996, Robert was playing Henry II on stage and his performance so impressed Margaret Thatcher, who was in the audience, that she sent a message backstage inviting him to dine with her that very night.

He immediately sent a message back to Mrs T, politely declining her offer.

No less immediately, there was a knock on his dressing room door and, when he opened it, there was Mrs Thatcher asking him why he had declined her invitation.

He explained it was because of her politics, to which she replied "Well, that doesn't affect your appetite, does it?

He said that it did.

A "mine"" of information.

Still with Citizen Smith, Wolfie's full name was Walter Henry Smith.

W H Smith!

Cor blimey

In the Fawlty Towers episode "The Kipper and the Corpse" Basil, Manuel and Polly accidentally interrupt a guest who is in the process of blowing up a sex doll.

The name of the guest is "Mr Ingram" and the incident is a swipe at Richard Ingrams, editor of Private Eye magazine, who when writing in the magazine had frequently criticised Monty Python.

Quote: Aaron @ 29th July 2019, 4:18 PM

I really want a Whack-O! DVD.

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There is a DVD available of the 1960 feature film, Bottoms Up. Currently available Buy-it-Now on ebay from £5.85 upwards. And it occasionally pops up on TPTV.

The radio series is being re-run on Sunday mornings on Radio 4 Extra.