Comedic References to Jimmy Savile

[Dusty Substance]

No "nudge-nudge" as such, but I still own this Beano Comic Library from 1986 that featured an unpleasant mash up of Minnie The Minx and Savile: http://groaninjock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/jimmy-savile-inquiry-new-victims-emerge.html

I don't have the issue to hand, but I will dig out to find out exactly what is Minnie had to do in order to win a badge.

Never seen that Mitchell & Webb sketch until now. Wow. That's really quite telling.

[Jockice]

I suspect this was after Lynn Barber's interview with the cigar-chomping cunt in the Independent on Sunday, shortly after his knighthood, where she told him face to face that there were rumours he "was into little girls". In my view, she is never given enough credit for having done that (not that it matters, but I'd never actually heard said rumours before reading it).

Can't remember if it was before or after that, but I'm sure Tom Hibbert asked Savile if he was into dead bodies in Q's Who The Hell Does (celebrity's name) thiink he is? feature.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Lynn Barber's interview with the cigar-chomping cunt in the Independent on Sunday, shortly after his knighthood, where she told him face to face that there were rumours he "was into little girls". In my view, she is never given enough credit for having done that (not that it matters, but I'd never actually heard said rumours before reading it).

That was the first I'd heard of that rumour, too.

[Glebe]

There's also that seance scene from Sickness and Wealth

Elsie Patridge: Yes, yes, yes. They're still here. Close the circle. Someone else has stepped out. It's a woman. Tall and slender, long golden-brown hair. The fingers covered in ruby and gold. Bracelets adorn the wrists.

Del: You know who that is, don't ya?

Trigger: Sounds like Jimmy Savile.

Ooh, this is interesting;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickness_and_Wealth

A repeat that aired on 5 March 2013 on BBC One removed around two seconds of dialog referring to the disgraced TV and Radio personality Jimmy Savile. This was done as a response to sexual abuse allegations against the late DJ. However, subsequent repeats of the episode have aired intact on the digital Channel G.O.L.D.

I was actually intending to do that episode for MATTER OF FACT OFAH. In fact, like a big saddo I'm off to waste my spare time doing that right now

[Ignatius_S]

Ooh, this is interesting;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickness_and_Wealth

I was actually intending to do that episode for MATTER OF FACT OFAH. In fact, like a big saddo I'm off to waste my spare time doing that right now

That's certainly been discussed previously. Going from memory, but I'm pretty sure that quite a lot of BBC One repeats have been edited for content due to the time of broadcast (i.e. daytime) so that kind of thing isn't unsually.

However, I do remember there was a repeat of a children's show that had a spoof of Savile that had been shown years years, which there was a fair bit of hostile press about, so wondered if that might be related that way; i.e. because of the flak, the Beeb wanted to take no chance. Had a quick check and that incident was in January that year - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21108337 - hard not to think that there wasn't a connection.

[studpuppet]

Not able to view at present, but I'll be annoyed if this isn't on there:

[Absorb the anus burn]

The fake HIGNFY transcript is worth referencing in this thread (a splice into Savile's real HIGNFY appearance referencing 'Sarah Cornwell')

An interview with Anthony Clare in 1991 http://www.channel4.com/news/how-jimmy-savile-revealed-all-in-the-psychiatrists-chair undoubtedly lead to a few jokes: "'I haven't got an interest in charity, not really'.

I hazily remember some jokes in the music weeklies (NME / MM / RM / Sounds) about Savile.

'Is This Your Life?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mJ4a0ODPBM with Andrew Neil is reasonably provocative.

'Open To Question from 1988 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBZ8M0G0FRQ is funny because it features a thin DEF II-era Kristian Guru Murthy.

[ajsmith]

Alistair McGowan's 'Stan' parody been posted yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMyl3ikNFi4

Not joking when say I had the idea for a 'Jim'll Fix It' based 'Stan' parody before this was broadcast, which I planned to perform onstage in a tracksuit etc with the comedic group I was part of at the time. Was bitterly disappointed when I saw McGowan pipping me to the post with a much better realised parody than I would've done; I've managed to get over this in recent years though.

[Glebe]

However, I do remember there was a repeat of a children's show that had a spoof of Savile that had been shown years years, which there was a fair bit of hostile press about, so wondered if that might be related that way; i.e. because of the flak, the Beeb wanted to take no chance. Had a quick check and that incident was in January that year - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21108337 - hard not to think that there wasn't a connection.

Bloody heck, that Tweenie dressed as S*****.... *shiver*

Mon dieu, how did I forgot this:

The Two Ronnies - Crop of the Flops.

[Ignatius_S]

Bloody heck, that Tweenie dressed as S*****.... *shiver*

Mon dieu, how did I forgot this:

The Two Ronnies - Crop of the Flops.

Ah, just seen that the Tweenie clip was already posted.

re: The Two Ronnies clip - I think that's the sort of thing Phil_A was talking about, Savile was seen as easy to lampoon, but a harmless figure.

[Serge]

All very interesting cheers, although the OFAH references seem pretty toothless.

Having watched them again quite recently, I think the Savile references in OFAH are less nudge-nudge ones than just generic references to him as a celebrity of the time, which there are likely to be plenty of. I do get slightly annoyed when things like this are edited out, in a Stalinesque attempt to pretend that he never existed - and I think that they are usually uncomplimentary, as even without the knowledge of what he'd done, he was mainly seen as a naff and fairly laughable figure and reasonable fodder for comic writers.

[Bhazor]

Alistair McGowan's 'Stan' parody been posted yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMyl3ikNFi4

Coincedently Alistar McGowan just did a play about the noncecapades of Jimmy.

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jun/12/an-audience-with-jimmy-savile-review-alistair-mcgowan-is-repellently-convincing

[Ignatius_S]

...How come so many people knew but were happy just to snigger without actually causing a stink?...

I think Bhazor (and Jakey Chesteronand Kelvin) were spot on – it wasn't because people were 'in the know' but were making or laughing at bad taste jokes. Growing up, I heard numerous jokes about a wide variety of children's entertainers – something that's been a running currency but because of Savile's incredibly long career, more people would have heard such jokes than about someone who was familiar to one generation at best

Personally, I think a fair few people thought it was safe to laugh or make such remarks/jokes because they didn't believe anything remotely could be true. A 'great British eccentric' and an oddity, but someone who really did those sort of things was something else – how would it have been possible? . At different times, there were jokes/comments that Savile liked little girls, little boys, little girls and boys, young girls, young boys, dead bodies (including his mother's) and I think at certain times, it mainly about a particular group that was only being mentioned. Because of so many varying claims, I suspect many didn't take them that seriously.

I also think a heck of lot of being said with the benefit of hindsight and the comparison made to Robert Maxwell by Richard Ingrams, is a good one I feel:

Last year seven national newspapers turned down the chance to expose allegations that the BBC had failed to report child abuse claims made against Jimmy Savile.

Because the story didn't gain widespread coverage until an ITV documentary in October it's easy to forget that the first title to air the allegations was The Oldie.

Savile was dead so there was no libel risk – but what gave a generally light-hearted, monthly magazine the courage to publish such a bold story, which the nationals wouldn't touch?

"I just thought it was a good story," says editor Richard Ingrams.

"It's hard to remember now but Savile was not exactly venerated prior to this exposure. I remember being rather amazed by the way the obituaries of Savile didn't mention these rumours that we were all aware of – it was totally airbrushed out of his story."

"I don't think anyone's really explained how he got away with it," he says, noting that people have suggested that surely Private Eye, which Ingrams co-founded and edited until 1986, knew something – "we didn't".

Ingrams says he never suppressed any Savile stories at Private Eye and believes the story may never have been told before because victims were too "scared" to expose him.

Following his death, though, the victims came forward and still the story wasn't explored on a wide scale by the press until after Mark Williams-Thomas's documentary – nearly a year after Savile's death.

Trying to explain why papers didn't take up the story before, Ingrams suggests that in some cases the press doesn't touch something because it might be seen as "unfair".

"If you ask people before all this came out they would say, 'well, Jimmy Savile has done a lot of work for charities, raised millions of pounds for hospitals, et cetera'. It's difficult now to think that people might have thought like that – but it was the case."

He compares the situation to the case of Robert Maxwell, pointing out that mass tributes were paid to him before allegations of fraud emerged after his death – "it was only then... that people said: 'Oh, we knew all along.'"
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/why-oldie-exposed-savile-child-abuse-i-just-thought-it-was-good-story

Another one from Buzzcocks back in 2000 which I put in another thread. But it could be interpreted as Savile just being a creepy-looking fucker:

Added into that, someone whose professional life has been associated with yoof, but is actually unpopular with younger people.

...And from the Radio Goodies episode 1970....

I suspect that was influenced by various popular DJs, rather than one in particular and possibly making a comment that men too ugly, too untalented, too old to be pop stars could be treated like one by playing the music.

...Not comedy references but the writer Anthony Burgess called Savile the most evil man in Britain way back in time. And both Irvine Welsh and Val McDermid wrote works with thinly disguised characters who could be easily identified with Savile and the position he held in the public eye.

Did Burgess actually say that? I know it's been claimed that he did and although what he wrote about him was unflattering, stopped rather short of that.

Welsh, I rather thought was just indulging in mischief and very black comedy – fairly recently, he did say that the rumours about Savile were indeed the inspiration but he didn't take them seriously (or at least, they were hugely exaggerated).

McDermid was going by her time as a journalist, I think? Personally, I'm inclined to take that at face value.

Maybe the joke just didn't cut the mustard on that panel game.

Also, as recently discussed, it might be that there was a personality clash that had been going on.

...Gobshite was also withdrawn over his 'libellous' remarks about Savile.  Surprising that he would actually have the balls to go to court over remarks like this, knowing what investigations into him could potentially uncover.  I guess he thought he was untouchable, and I guess he was right.

Libel is when something is written; slander is verbal - end of pedantry!

Defamation litigation is incredibly expensive – and if you lose, you'll usually have to pay the other party's cost as well. Many people have threatened to sue over an alleged libel to get a retraction and there have been a one or two cases where someone won a libel case but it later transpired that the allegation had been true.

Usually, the plaintiff would have to demonstrate that they've been harmed financially in order to win – but that doesn't apply when criminal behaviour was claimed (as it was on that album). What's more damaging? Letting statements like that be made publicly or threaten legal action where it's incredibly unlikely that the defendant could win (or afford to go to trial)?

I feel like a lot comedy writers played very much to the image that Savile propagated of himself, that of the harmless shell-suited loony with the cigars going ooheeooheeoooh a lot.

Just look at this Spitting Image sketch - all the usual tropes of the Savile parody are present and correct, but there's not even the vaguest suggestion of Savile being a wrong 'un. He's still very much portrayed as "non-threatening nuisance" rather than "potentially dangerous sexual deviant". Would even Spitting Image have considered it too much of a risk to portray the "real" Sir Jimmel? You could call it a huge cop-out, but then I'm sure was typical for comedy skits about Savile at the time. All going for the surface and no-one quite going far enough to suggest there might genuinely might be something a bit twisted and wrong about him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XMNi8En7ZZs#t=233

Good points.

In the early 90's, when Angus Deayton still hosted HIGNFY, reference was made to complaints about a Jim'll Fix It ep in which a young boy participated in a routine with the Chippendales; Savile's having said "I would remind you that only adults have dirty minds, not children" was quoted by Deayton, who then added "Jimmy Savile is 65." There was also a reference on TV Hell a year or so later, with Deayton naming Savile as one of those present in televisual hell, and Merton saying "oh, he's very good with children." ....

I don't think there's definitely a double meaning with that Merton line. In TV Hell, his character spewed an endless stream of inane positive comments about everything that was meant to be awful, which eventually makes Deayton's Devil send him back to the living. There might be a secondary meaning but his character came out so many cheerful comments extolling the virtues of the irredeemable crap, I found them easier to take a face value particularly as the person saying them is meant to be such an annoying idiot.

All very interesting cheers, although the OFAH references seem pretty toothless...

Pretty toothless? The references were the type of joke that Serge said – there wasn't meant to be any bite.

[Ignatius_S]

Having watched them again quite recently, I think the Savile references in OFAH are less nudge-nudge ones than just generic references to him as a celebrity of the time, which there are likely to be plenty of. I do get slightly annoyed when things like this are edited out, in a Stalinesque attempt to pretend that he never existed - and I think that they are usually uncomplimentary, as even without the knowledge of what he'd done, he was mainly seen as a naff and fairly laughable figure and reasonable fodder for comic writers.

Certainly agree with all that - and for the purposes of pop cultural history, context should be known.

[neveragain]

I agree, entirely toothless. Del's always referencing anyone and everything, usually with no meaning behind it whatsoever.

[Brundle-Fly]

I posted this two years ago on the New Paedo announced thread. This was the introduction to the NMTB tie-in book from 1999. There was a picture of a gurning Saville next to his imaginary foreword.

[Brundle-Fly]

Oh and this Grumbleweeds gem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylsK56-P3Hg

[neveragain]

Ha for the Buzzcocks. Kept right 'til the end.

[Brundle-Fly]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yv4Nmrwtg4

[Glebe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yv4Nmrwtg4

Well he got something right anyway. Bladdy Savile.

[monkfromhavana]

'Is This Your Life?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mJ4a0ODPBM with Andrew Neil is reasonably provocative.

His colleague at the hospital

"He likes the young ones as well.....I say young, y'know the proper age, 16 upwards"

[Dr Rock]

Has anyone asked John Lydon what he knew? Like, do it before he dies maybe?

[ajsmith]

[neveragain]

Image not showing up.

[TJ]

Lenny Henry took a potshot at him once. It MAY have been more pointed than I was allowed to say publically... http://spam.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/fun-at-one-lenny-vs-savile.html

[Enzo]

Was watching Shooting Stars last night and this little bit about Leon Brittan came up

https://youtu.be/bBibm3GX6M8?t=10m13s

[Famous Mortimer]

Another Buzzcocks reference, this time from the first episode of series 6 (starts at 9:00).

https://youtu.be/d-f0vVeGIWE?t=9m

"On seeing their video for 'It Must Be Love', a concerned Jimmy Savile once urged children not to go near water with electric guitars. By way of retaliation, the concerned Madness then urged children not to go near Jimmy Savile".

[up_the_hampipe]

Hmm, at first I just thought the Buzzcocks jokes about Jimmy Savile scaring children were just general mocking of his ghoulish appearance, but it's starting to seem like one of the writers knew something. Sean Lock wrote for Buzzcocks around that time. Did he have an unpleasant encounter with Savile as a boy?

[Famous Mortimer]

Ah, sorry, this was already done on page 1, but I guess there's video to go along with it now. I think you might be right, up_the_hampipe.

[Steven]

Hmm, at first I just thought the Buzzcocks jokes about Jimmy Savile scaring children were just general mocking of his ghoulish appearance, but it's starting to seem like one of the writers knew something. Sean Lock wrote for Buzzcocks around that time. Did he have an unpleasant encounter with Savile as a boy?

I think it was an open secret at the BBC, I mean for fuck's sake Top Of The Pops was basically a corralled teen indoctrination programme for whoever worked there. The fact David Icke was there at the time and didn't touch on that preferring to call Ted Heath a lizard speaks volumes about his utter twattery, and he was mates with Larry Grayson!