Just interested to know if anyone recalls ever seeing a Christmas episode of ‘Just Good Friends’. Although the series has been repeated several times over the years, to my knowledge this one never has been. Can’t say hand on heart if this was a classic, but what I do remember was that it had no laughter track and it filled in all the missing links like Penny’s marriage to Graham. As I say, just interested or maybe I only imagined it.
According to the BBC Comedy Guide, there were two Christmas specials, one each in 1984 (90 min) and 1986 (35 min). Hope that helps!
Thank God for that, I thought I was having a Bobby Ewing moment and yet I don't even like taking showers! Spooky or what. Many thanks.
The 90 minute Christmas special from 1985 is to my mind the best Christmas special ever made of any British sitcom, with the possible exception of The League Of Gentlemen.
I saw it on its original transmission, and for some unknown reason had a feeling it would never be repeated. It just seemed special in some way, almost as if what we were watching was not a specially commissioned episode of a 1980s sitcom but rare footage of something the actors had been in before. The 1970s hadn't been over that long, yet they seemed to capture a mood that these days would have been seen as authentically retro. (Insert joke here ala The Folksmen from Christopher Guest's A Mighty Wind about "then now being very nowtro".)
I heard a rumour (unconfirmed) that the reason it was shot on film with no laughtrack was because Sullivan and the Beeb originally had plans (which proved abortive) to release it into cinemas as a feature film ala The Likely Lads, Father, Dear Father, Porridge, Are You Being Served?, Up Pompeii! etc. It would have probably been the only such film released in the UK that decade had they done so, but with viewing figures of about 12 million per episode (it's easy to forget just HOW popular this show was at the time) you can see where they were coming from. Whether or not any of this is true I don't know, but if so, one would imagine budgetary restrictions led to it being shown on TV. It was the 80s. How little has changed...
Recently, after years of fruitless searching that even, in pre-internet days, involved me going personally to Broadcasting House and the British Library, I managed to find a chap on IMDB who said he would send me a copy, so fingers crossed, it should be here within the week. That said, immediately after my last correspondance with him, I found it on YouTube in about twenty instalments!
I've only looked at the first one (briefly) but I was reminded of how it starts with the end of Series 2 episode 7 and then takes place in flashback prior to Series 1 Episode 1, thus completing a loop and rejoining the start of the series where Vince is dating Sonia (Linda Hayden) and happens to run into Penny in the pub. My only complaint would be that the premise of the flashback is somewhat tenuous, as it's instigated by both characters listening separately in their cars to the same DJ who says "Who remembers 1976?" before playing The Stones' "As Tears Go By", which everyone knows came out in 1965!! Perhaps he was dyslexic?
Needless to say, I can't wait to receive the 'full megillah', along with series 3 and the final Christmas Special, next week, which, being 'unofficial' copies will have not been edited for musical content. By the way, who's noticed the amount of Leo Sayer-David Courtney compositions that turn up on the soundtrack of John Sullivan sitcoms, and even make it to the VHS or DVD release? He must have been mates with them and struck some kind of deal.
From the synopsis you give of that start of the special it sounds pretty unlikely that it was ever intended for cinema release - or that if it was, therein lies the answer as to why it didn't get it. Too reliant on the series proper, rather than a standalone entity.
Regarding the music, perhaps the artists who do appear are just really shit and in need of whatever exposure and/or royalties they can get, so raise no objections? 
Oh, and Whoops Apocalypse had a film release, so not the only one. I think that there were others but it's now 3:00am and I forget. 
With regard to your earlier question, Aaron- maybe, but not in the case of the early 70s Roger Daltrey songs composed by Sayer and Courtney, (one of which appears in Just Good Friends Series 2) or indeed Sayer's first three albums.
Then again, it's not the artists who object or don't object to anything, it's the industry bigwigs who own the publishing rights to their music.
I found the Just Good Friends special to be very boring, serious and tedious.
The Rising Damp film came out in 1980.
I remember that Christmas special, Penny had long hair in the flashback scenes.
I didn't realise it was such a rariety, but they don't seem to repeat JGF much nowadays anyway, which is a shame.
Both families had very funny characters & it was an excellent show.
