Assorted Q (Spike Milligan) on BBC Four tonight

[Jake Thingray]

Since when have I crashed into Doctor Who threads saying it's terrible?

[Bad Ambassador]

Come off it, you've done that several times. Don't try and excuse your own bullying behaviour by playing the victim.

[Jake Thingray]

Look at my posting history -- I haven't done that, or moaned about "the show", or sci-fi stuff and its fans, for years. Also unlike Turnock, I haven't plunged into threads about subjects I've no knowledge of or interest in and got angry that they exist. Nor do I have an odd obsession with this forum (there have been long periods where I don't post at all), constantly trying to rejoin then complaining about it on social media, as he's currently doing on Twitter. Most importantly, I am not a right wing troll (Turnock used my having written for the Guardian as a pejorative term, tellingly) who never properly apologised for his racism or nastiness over another poster's tragic demise, and whose posts were largely recycled from his umpteen abandoned blogs, and others' unaccredited writings and research. To put it in terms you might understand, and as has been said on here by others before, in defending Turnock you're defending the comedy fan equivalent of Ian Levine.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

So what.

I like Spike!

[Jake Thingray]

If you do, okay, but that Turnock post encapsulated his attention-seeking.

[Catalogue Trousers]

...as has been said on here by others before, in defending Turnock you're defending the comedy fan equivalent of Ian Levine.

Really?  Who said that?

[Bad Ambassador]

No one, but try not to question his victim complex too much or he'll shit himself again.

[Jake Thingray]

The tag "[banned troll] is an Ian Levine for the 'noughties" appeared on the 2007 thread any old school comedians you like?, and a similar one, "CaB's very own Ian Levine" on [banned troll]... in 2014. As I've said, the last time I attacked Whovians and geeks on here was four years ago, I don't behave on here in the way I did years ago or seek attention, TC can do nothing else. In any case, finding Spike Milligan over-rated and embarrassing is hardly an inflammatory point of view.

[thenoise]

The tag "[banned troll] is an Ian Levine for the 'noughties" appeared on the 2007 thread any old school comedians you like?, and a similar one, "CaB's very own Ian Levine" on [banned troll]... in 2014. As I've said, the last time I attacked Whovians and geeks on here was four years ago, I don't behave on here in the way I did years ago or seek attention, TC can do nothing else. In any case, finding Spike Milligan over-rated and embarrassing is hardly an inflammatory point of view.

So we shouldn't be bringing up things you did years ago and giving you grief about them, now that you don't appear to be doing them any more?  Rrrrrrrrrrrright.

[Jake Thingray]

Not just now, but for the past four years.

[thenoise]

And trawling his twitter and youtube accounts looking for evidence of his hypocrisy is a bit obsessive tbh.

[Jake Thingray]

Was alerted anyway regarding Twitter by his using my name, so not much choice in the matter.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

#SickMinds

[Catalogue Trousers]

Anyway. The big question...

Was Spike ever fucking Julia Breck?

Quick answer - I reckon NO. Because if Spike had ever splooged up her, or even got as much as tops or a five-knuckle shuffle off her, then I reckon that he wouldn't have been such a desperate old lech towards her in every sketch that she did for him. Everything about her 'characters' reeks of frustrated lust from Milligan. Drag her up as a nurse, a game-show hostess, a 'sexy daughter' - ugh - and then engineer situations where you can try to grope her or have her groped by proxy.

I love Spike dearly, and Julia as well - but Spike's thwarted (I'm pretty damn sure) intentions towards her meant that, instead of being just a big-busted comedy dumb blonde, she became a big-busted comedy dumb brunette.

[derek stitt]

I always preferred, John Bluthal and Bob Todd in this sort of stuff  but then, I am a cunt.

[Revelator]

I'm currently halfway through Q8, having polished off the first DVD set, and still enjoying the show, though the episodes and series do tend to blend in with each other. I'm also having trouble finding an episode suitable to show friends who've never seen the show, because every time I think I've found one there appears a long, self-indulgently bad sketch (not too often, I grant) or dodgy racial/ethnic humor (way too often). Back when I was only familiar with the sanitized Q compilations, I tended to be dismissive of complaints about that, but watching the full episodes makes me reconsider. All those wog/coon jokes weren't very funny to begin with, and the Jew/Arab/Irish stereotypes pop up with repellent regularity--why was a surrealist as brilliant as Milligan so devoted to endless jokes about how thick the Irish were? Putting aside questions of racism, the reliance on stereotypes is lazy comedy, and though Milligan works some inspired variations on them (the Irish moon rocket, etc.) the jokes ultimately return to the same dumb point. And yes, I know Milligan was Irish, so why did he end up internalizing those English-made stereotypes? I like Q best when it rampages through conventional TV in a stream-of-consciousness, anti-realist fit of bipolarity, with dummies falling from the sky, people busting through paper-mache walls, heads popping out of desks, and intricate non-sequiturs in the dialogue. I like Q least when it's most conventional, with groaner puns, ethnic jokes, and run-of-the-mill wordplay. What I've found in watching the complete episodes is that the show is both more and less conventional than I thought.

[derek stitt]

I'm currently halfway through Q8, having polished off the first DVD set, and still enjoying the show, though the episodes and series do tend to blend in with each other. I'm also having trouble finding an episode suitable to show friends who've never seen the show, because every time I think I've found one there appears a long, self-indulgently bad sketch (not too often, I grant) or dodgy racial/ethnic humor (way too often). Back when I was only familiar with the sanitized Q compilations, I tended to be dismissive of complaints about that, but watching the full episodes makes me reconsider. All those wog/coon jokes weren't very funny to begin with, and the Jew/Arab/Irish stereotypes pop up with repellent regularity--why was a surrealist as brilliant as Milligan so devoted to endless jokes about how thick the Irish were? Putting aside questions of racism, the reliance on stereotypes is lazy comedy, and though Milligan works some inspired variations on them (the Irish moon rocket, etc.) the jokes ultimately return to the same dumb point. And yes, I know Milligan was Irish, so why did he end up internalizing those English-made stereotypes? I like Q best when it rampages through conventional TV in a stream-of-consciousness, anti-realist fit of bipolarity, with dummies falling from the sky, people busting through paper-mache walls, heads popping out of desks, and intricate non-sequiturs in the dialogue. I like Q least when it's most conventional, with groaner puns, ethnic jokes, and run-of-the-mill wordplay. What I've found in watching the complete episodes is that the show is both more and less conventional than I thought.

Much of this is bang on. In my tiny mind, there is no escaping from Milligan had a touch of the , Arthur Atkinson about him. After all, he started off in the, 'give the people what they want' variety halls. Milligan is a confusing case. The man can come up with a say an inventive film or play like 'the bedsitting room' ( I like Arthur Lowe screeching like a parrot the best and the mad way he use the axe on that vending machine) oh, and ' the running, jumping and standing still film. But, all those jokes about, 'playing the Jewish piano' as he opens a till can wear on the patience somewhat. The man was an iconoclast Thats for sure but, a very hit and miss one.

[Skip Bittman]

Anyway. The big question...

Was Spike ever fucking Julia Breck?

For many years according to that Carpenter bio.

[Jake Thingray]

And Norma Farnes', hardly matters that she misspelled the surname. If karma still existed on here, both Revelator and derek would get plus points from me for their above posts. Someone seeking to defend Milligan's reputation as innovative may wish to concentrate on researching his stage work, meaning The Bed Sitting Room, Son of Oblomov and possibly his turns as Ben Gunn in the Mermaid's annual Treasure Island, rather than his later one-man things, of which the one taped in Perth, rightfully criticised by Carpenter in his biog, is a dispiriting, sub-Bernard Manning example. Regarding what derek said about his background in Variety, his later moaning about alternative comedy was pursuant to that, and once had this rather amusing rejoinder.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Blimus. That makes his constant leching after her in his shows downright gratuitous. I wouldn't mind so much if it didn't screw up some of the better sketches. Yes, Bionic Mouse, I'm looking at you.

[Glebe]

I remember a Spike interview with Wogan in which Tel brought up the subject of alternative comedy, and asked him what he thought of The Young Ones... he was quiet dismissive of it, I think he gave two fingers and said "It's just all that" or something. Oh, the disappointment!

[Alternative Carpark]

I remember a Spike interview with Wogan in which Tel brought up the subject of alternative comedy, and asked him what he thought of The Young Ones... he was quiet dismissive of it, I think he gave two fingers and said "It's just all that" or something. Oh, the disappointment!

As I understand it, he was asked "What do you think of alternative comedy?" and replied, "I never think of alternative comedy.  Next question."

Still, he did have Mark Steel on one of his shows...

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I wonder if Spike ever met Russ Meyer. I imagine they'd have got along swimmingly, both being intensely preoccupied with big breasts, Nazis and ropey one-liners.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Have some imaginary positive karma, Monsieur Verdoux. Good one.

[derek stitt]

Imaginary karma from me too. The thought of Rita Webb dancing around the desert with her tits out gave me the horn.

[FredNurke]

Just watched episodes 1-3 of Q7. The staging of the Raspberry Song definitely the highlight so far.