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Jokes you heard in audio first, and didn't get until you saw the video

Started by Gurke and Hare, May 14, 2017, 11:33:54 PM

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Gurke and Hare

Those things that you first heard on the record, that lost something in the absence of pictures. Two of these for me, both from NTNOCN.

1) The Two Ninnies

The bit where they sing "Over China over China over China Town" but it sounds like "Oh vagina Town". On the record, it just seems plain rude and not clever, but when you see them doing the racist slanty eyes bit, the play on words becomes apparent. If still a bit racist.

2) Kinda Lingers

Again, on the record it just sounded like they were saying "Cunnilingus" for no apparent reason, but on the screen with the "Kinda lingers" subtitle it makes sense.


Any others?

Sydward Lartle

Another one from Not the Nine O'Clock News - the last thing you hear at the end of one side of the Hedgehog Sandwich album is a prolonged scream, followed by Griff Rhys Jones saying "Well, I'll be buggered if I go out there tonight". Cue audience hilarity.

It wasn't until the 1995 repeats that I found out that this was a reference to the controversial stage play the Romans in Britain, which contains an explicit male rape scene. Oh, and you can see Griff's knob for a couple of frames.

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Sydward Lartle on May 14, 2017, 11:44:41 PM
Another one from Not the Nine O'Clock News - the last thing you hear at the end of one side of the Hedgehog Sandwich album is a prolonged scream, followed by Griff Rhys Jones saying "Well, I'll be buggered if I go out there tonight". Cue audience hilarity.

It wasn't until the 1995 repeats that I found out that this was a reference to the controversial stage play the Romans in Britain, which contains an explicit male rape scene. Oh, and you can see Griff's knob for a couple of frames.

Yes! What the hell made them think that would be a good thing to put on the album?

Billy

Slightly OT but my inherited copy of Hedgehog Sandwich was scratched by the time I first heard it in the mid-late 90s, and it's odd hearing the That's Lies sketch without an endlessly repeating "Mrs Robinson was aMrs Robinson was aMrs Robinson was a" in the middle.

To be honest I didn't get much of it until years later when I actually knew the references, the songs in particular left me completely baffled as I had no idea who the likes of Kate Bush or Oswald Mosley were until my noughties teens. The only sketches I truly got as a kid were Hi-Fi Shop and Constable Savage, and even then the racism angle went over my head as I thought the joke was that he was just a useless policeman.

Sydward Lartle

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on May 15, 2017, 01:26:15 PM
Yes! What the hell made them think that would be a good thing to put on the album?

Probably the boffo laugh it got from the studio audience, or maybe John Lloyd was banking on listeners simply remembering the visual aspect from the original screening.

There are a few episodes of I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again where the audience inexplicably start cackling in the middle of joke-free sections of dialogue. Probably because John Cleese was pulling a face or Bill Oddie fell over in a rush to get to the percussion instruments or something.

Similarly, I remember listening to a couple of the BBC albums of Fawlty Towers, and the audio-only version of Gourmet Night really suffers from having to get Andrew Sachs, in character as Manuel, to explain the two main visual jokes - Basil thrashing his car, and the final reveal of the massive chocolate trifle instead of the expected duck.

madhair60

Black guys drive a car like this!

????

White guys drive a car like this!

Mate! Like what???


Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Sydward Lartle on May 15, 2017, 03:05:34 PM
and the final reveal of the massive chocolate trifle instead of the expected duck.

"And Mrs Fawlty - she laugh!"

Steven

The closing bit from Tommy Cooper's set live from Her Majesty's Theatre. Major laughs from just a bit of gurgling? Eh?

mjwilson

Quote from: Sydward Lartle on May 15, 2017, 03:05:34 PM
Similarly, I remember listening to a couple of the BBC albums of Fawlty Towers, and the audio-only version of Gourmet Night really suffers from having to get Andrew Sachs, in character as Manuel, to explain the two main visual jokes - Basil thrashing his car, and the final reveal of the massive chocolate trifle instead of the expected duck.

The "Twitchen" stuff doesn't play at all well, either.

Replies From View

I first encountered a lot of Monty Python sketches via the Live at Drury Lane album.  Loads of examples there (though I can't think of any now off the top of my head) of the audience guffawing away at physical sketches rendered meaningless in sound; so much so that I used it as a source for some "canned laughter" that I needed for a project about 15 years ago.

I remember buying Billy Connolly's World Tour of Australia on CD in the mid 90s; that was odd as well.  It was long after LPs were being sold as the only existing opportunity to relive a comedy series, but before DVDs took over the portable home viewing video format.  In some ways CDs were preferable to VHS tapes with their chunky boxes and need for fast-forward/rewind.

Do audio-only versions of comedy get releases nowadays?  Would kids of today understand what we're on about?

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Replies From View on May 16, 2017, 09:10:13 PMDo audio-only versions of comedy get releases nowadays?  Would kids of today understand what we're on about?

Quite a lot of Go Faster Stripe stuff gets audio releases, and they have some pretty good deals, especially on the older stuff - five pounds or less for an mp3 download. I usually go for the audio versions, as I'm more likely to listen to them when I'm at work than I am to sit and watch a standup show on the telly.

Catalogue Trousers

QuoteI first encountered a lot of Monty Python sketches via the Live at Drury Lane album.  Loads of examples there (though I can't think of any now off the top of my head) of the audience guffawing away at physical sketches rendered meaningless in sound

God, yes. Cocktail Bar comes across as a mix of audience guffaws and, at one point, groans of disgust which are pretty much incomprehensible without the visuals of obnoxious proto-yuppies staggering about covered in puke.

Autopsy Turvey

I was going to mention Cocktail Bar, but I hadn't seen the video, because to my knowledge no video has ever existed of it anywhere. Also, what makes Cleese corpse on "The very brave Kevin Phillips-Bong there"?

thenoise

Quote from: Replies From View on May 16, 2017, 09:10:13 PM
I first encountered a lot of Monty Python sketches via the Live at Drury Lane album.  Loads of examples there (though I can't think of any now off the top of my head) of the audience guffawing away at physical sketches rendered meaningless in sound; so much so that I used it as a source for some "canned laughter" that I needed for a project about 15 years ago.

I remember buying Billy Connolly's World Tour of Australia on CD in the mid 90s; that was odd as well.  It was long after LPs were being sold as the only existing opportunity to relive a comedy series, but before DVDs took over the portable home viewing video format.  In some ways CDs were preferable to VHS tapes with their chunky boxes and need for fast-forward/rewind.

Do audio-only versions of comedy get releases nowadays?  Would kids of today understand what we're on about?

There is usually a well-stocked comedy CD section in motorway service stations.  It's mostly either Radio 4 stuff or recordings of stand up shows.  I bought a cheap Frank Skinner set to get me through a long journey a few years ago (one of them I already own on DVD).

Mark X

Quote from: thenoise on May 17, 2017, 12:18:20 PM
There is usually a well-stocked comedy CD section in motorway service stations.

Also occasionally in The Works. I picked up a CD copy of Sean Lock's Purple Van Man from there for £3 only a month or two after the DVD release. And if memory serves, contained the huge audience reaction to the visual Backwards Centaur gag.

Side point - whatever happened to having the audio recordings made at a different gig to the DVD/video recording? That used to be a good reason to hunt down audio copies of Izzard sets, to get to hear the different ad-libs and tangents (and I think R4 Extra broadcast audio Stewart Lee sets that differed from their DVD counterparts). The last few comedy CDs I've bought were just straight audio rips from the DVD releases.