Ernie Wise

The night that Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise made their US debut on the massively influential Ed Sullivan Show with a routine more suited to Blackpool Pier, they went down like the proverbial cup of cold sick. The second time they were on, they were hitting and wrestling one another to the floor. They had learned their lesson. Jonathan Ross presents this fascinating three-part look at how the comedians fared with Stateside audiences between 1963 and 1968.

Morecambe & Wise in America review

It's a true Christmas treat, witnessing magical footage of the comedy nonpareils, seen for the first time in the UK. May our hearts bubble over with helpless laughter.

Morecambe & Wise Show: The Lost Tapes, review

Lost reels of The Morecambe & Wise Show from 1968 have been freshly restored. But the material is not a patch on the pair's later Christmas specials, finds Gerard Gilbert.

Morecambe and Wise: The Lost Tapes, review

A reminder of comedy genius.

BFI screens Morecambe & Wise gem and more rarities

A previously unknown 1963 Morecambe and Wise public information film, one of the earliest drink drive campaign films, is one of the rare finds being screened at the latest BFI Missing Believed Wiped Festival.

Uncorked: Eric and Ernie's drink-drive ad

Drink-driving is no laughing matter, but Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise used their irreverent, infectious humour to warn against it.

A public information drink-drive Christmas advert made by the legendary comedy duo more than half a century ago has been discovered, and is being described by the British Film Institute (BFI) as "90 seconds of pure comedy genius".

Morecambe and Wise: Rescuing a 'lost' film

An old BBC broadcast of Morecambe and Wise from 1968 has been restored using a groundbreaking new technique. Once thought unsalvageable by experts, the badly damaged old film was scanned using X-rays, then an algorithmic reconstruction method was used to digitally reconstruct the images. Now they have 30 seconds of restored film which can be seen for the first time in decades.

Bringing a Morecambe and Wise film back to life

BBC archivists have described the painstaking process of restoring a previously lost 50-year-old episode of Morecambe and Wise.

Eric, Ernie and Me, written by the estimably witty Dundonian Neil Forsyth, was the tale of market trader Eddie Braben's breakdowns as he rose and rose from scribbling gags on paper bags to giving us what many rightly think of as the television of the 1970s, the M&W Christmas specials.

Stephen Tompkinson was pitch-perfect as Braben, but the standout find was Mark Bonnar as Eric Morecambe. Flawlessly, he began to inhabit the soul of Eric, but slowly, moving from hesitant to comfortable, as indeed the clever script had Eric and Ernie move, under clever Eddie's tutelage, from vaudeville gagsters to two pals taking the gentle rip out of each other on primetime TV: the 1977 special was watched by 28 million.

Interestingly, Eric, as played by Bonnar written by Forsyth, came across as the reactionary scaredy-cat; Ernie Wise as the ebullient, exuberant, travel-loving hoofer. What a lovely programme, rewatchable often, if only for Braben's finest gags.