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Not The Nine O'Clock News

Started by Stevie81, May 01, 2014, 10:40:11 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

sovietrussia

I had the "Hedgehog Sandwich" album on tape and listened to it constantly in my teens, before catching up when NTNON was repeated in the late 80s.  For some reason (Mel's performance and the lovely use of language I think) the Gift Shop sketch was always a favourite of mine.  Finally on Youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4mPkhohDds

"Me and him, we're ornithologists!  Horny, porny, ornithologists..." 

Then I can't quite recall how it goes next, but there's a joke about a 'pair of tits' and a '(camera) tripod', the latter obviously being phallic in symbolism. 

I remember at the end they had a montage of Pamela Stephenson's doing baton-twirling in the background, instead of the usual big-band accompaniment the genuine article had.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Stevie81 on May 01, 2014, 10:40:11 AM
I'm sure there's probably a thread for this, but I can't use the search.

Nobody can.  Go to google, bung in site:www.cookdandbombd.co.uk followed by what it is you're looking for.  Then, when you get to the page you want, lop the ;wap2 off the end of the URL to get the normal version of the page.


Quote from: Stevie81 on May 01, 2014, 10:40:11 AMI've been watching the original airings - as opposed to the 'best of' compilations...

Oooooh!  How're you managing that then?  I've been after them for years.  I'm aware that SOTCAA (late of this parish) had them, and UKN had a small handful some years back (of which I managed to grab some), but I kinda gave up the hunt proper ages ago.  PM me if you prefer.

As many people here know, it's probably my favourite comedy show; airing from when I was about 15 to 18, I was the perfect age for it.


Quote from: Stevie81 on May 01, 2014, 11:21:23 AMStephenson is used pretty flagrantly as the sex object in a lot of sketches, but her impressions of Rantzen, Rippon and especially Street-Porter are second to none.

Yeah, it's a shame that a team that so successfully challenged racism (Constable Savage) and homophobia (Are You A Gay Christian?) failed so spectacularly on the sexism front.  Much as the 16-year-old me enjoyed "Put your head between them and go blubble-blubble-blubble", even then I kinda realised it was a bit iffy, even if it was trying to make a satirical point, so not much surprise that it was cut from the compilation version.  And I gather there's far worse than that in the originals (which is not why I want them, honest ossifer!).

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on May 01, 2014, 10:45:39 AMIt is one of my very favourite shows- no The Day Today without NTNOCN, for certain. Genuinely anti-establishment and running through it was a schoolboyish mischievousness that felt like belonging to a secret club outside Normal TV.

I quite agree with the last bit, but don't get the first bit at all... I love TDT almost as much as NTNOCN, but I can't see how they're related in the slightest, nor how one paved the way for the other.  I'm genuinely interested to know why you think that; what have I missed?

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: jutl on May 01, 2014, 03:39:20 PMI thought that Langham was replaced not because he was a bad performer but because he was such a good heroin addict.

I thought it was mostly booze and partly coke, no smack involved, but I could be wrong.

I, too, feel that the criticism of, and the received wisdom concerning, Chris Langham is misplaced.  At the time, the 16-year-old me was upset to see him leave, and it took me a while to warm to GRJ.  It's one reason I want to see more of the first series, so I can form a proper judgement on that.

Interestingly, I saw Chris Langham perform a short comedy routine live, when he was the compere for ZTT's "The Value of Entertainment" show at the Ambassador's Theatre, and most of it was quite a long spiel about the evils of cocaine.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on May 01, 2014, 09:30:52 PM
Were Howard Goodall and Simon Brint responsible for any NTNON parodies?  I'd rather hear from CABbers than Google.

Howard Goodall definitely.  He and Brewis did most of them I think.  Brint I'm not sure.


Quote from: Brundle-Fly on May 01, 2014, 09:30:52 PMConfrontation Song...
...What was this supposed to be parodying anyway?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZigGOPezYE

I used to wonder that.  I don't think it was really, was just another bit of politics, only in song...

Stevie81

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on May 04, 2014, 06:30:33 PM
Nobody can.  Go to google, bung in site:www.cookdandbombd.co.uk followed by what it is you're looking for.  Then, when you get to the page you want, lop the ;wap2 off the end of the URL to get the normal version of the page.


Oooooh!  How're you managing that then?  I've been after them for years.  I'm aware that SOTCAA (late of this parish) had them, and UKN had a small handful some years back (of which I managed to grab some), but I kinda gave up the hunt proper ages ago.  PM me if you prefer.

As many people here know, it's probably my favourite comedy show; airing from when I was about 15 to 18, I was the perfect age for it.


Yeah, it's a shame that a team that so successfully challenged racism (Constable Savage) and homophobia (Are You A Gay Christian?) failed so spectacularly on the sexism front.  Much as the 16-year-old me enjoyed "Put your head between them and go blubble-blubble-blubble", even then I kinda realised it was a bit iffy, even if it was trying to make a satirical point, so not much surprise that it was cut from the compilation version.  And I gather there's far worse than that in the originals (which is not why I want them, honest ossifer!).

Have PM'd you

Stephenson actually gets in a bath and you see her tits in one sketch. Brilliant! ...I mean, awfully sexist

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Stevie81 on May 04, 2014, 06:58:30 PM
Have PM'd you

Thanks.


Quote from: Stevie81 on May 04, 2014, 06:58:30 PMStephenson actually gets in a bath and you see her tits in one sketch. Brilliant! ...I mean, awfully sexist

Yes, have seen that on Youtube (it was a sidebar suggestion after I was watching another one of theirs).  I was quite frankly gobsmacked: (a) that it had happened in the first place, (b) that I didn't remember it.  Maybe it was one of the ones my Dad turned over before it got that far -- my most vivid memory of him doing that was the one where Rowan Atkinson's doing an impersonation of an obsequious interviewer, the line "and now I'm really working my tongue up your arse now" (approx.) prompted a stab with the remote...

And yeah, it is rather lovely.  Arguably sexist, but lovely.  (The reason I cry "sexism" at those sketches, despite Pamela Stephenson being an intelligent self-aware woman who must have been fully aware of what was going on, is that I'm sure I read somewhere a mea culpa by one of the writing/performing team who said something like "we basically used any excuse to get her kit off".  Left a bad taste in the mouth.  Er, so to speak.)

I remember on NTNON, Pamela Stephenson did that take-off of Kate Bush, in which she sang, 'You buy my latest hits, because you like my great big tits!'

Ambient Sheep

I always thought it was "latex tits", referring to the material her leotard was made out of, but no, that would be spandex or something like that, wouldn't it?  Maybe you're right, I was always good at mondegreening.  Not gonna dig it out now to check.

I wouldn't call that sexist though, more a critique of the way Bush was marketed...

Catalogue Trousers

No, the lyric is "people buy my latest hits, because they like my latest tits". It's really that easy.

Ronnie the Raincoat

This is one of my favourite sketches, and I find it hard to articulate why. It's the way Mel Smith turns to the camera that gets me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UtMDcHHoxQ

Oops! Wrong Planet

Quote from: Catalogue Trousers on May 05, 2014, 12:50:38 AM
No, the lyric is "people buy my latest hits, because they like my latest tits". It's really that easy.

I'm fairly sure AS is right with 'latex', even if that isn't what her leotard was made of.  [cont p.94]

Quote from: Ronnie the Raincoat on May 05, 2014, 12:59:09 AM
This is one of my favourite sketches, and I find it hard to articulate why. It's the way Mel Smith turns to the camera that gets me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UtMDcHHoxQ

Rowan's over-the-top triple take at Pamela is brilliant.

Uncle TechTip

For me it's proto Mr Bean in the toilet sketch - you don't even see Atkinson or Smith but it's still tremendous - and Atkinson's Barry Manilow spoof - can't recall exactly but the line that goes, " and what I love most on the world... is you.... and money"

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

pretty sure it was latex tits, too.

No detractors for this show, then? For the sheer smugness and smarminess of a lot of the sketches (such brilliant, coruscating satire as calling Cyril Fletcher a 'cross-eyed twat', the deliberate pause during that "University Challenge/Police Informer" sketch, to milk all of the appreciative laughter for the comic genius of the policeman-with-notebook appearing from under Bamber Gascoigne's desk, the aforementioned sexist writing which involved a completely naked Pamela Stephenson lying on her stomach showing off her botty rather than her norks in one of the very first sketches in the very first episode)? I remember thinking what a lot of puerile schoolboy humour went on in the first series (I was a schoolboy at the time). Worst of all, it paved the way for the even smugger, unfunnier "Who Dares Wins",the scripts of which, fortunately , didn't have Julia Hills getting her bristols out, but *did* involve a naked Tony Robinson. Swings and roundabouts.

Just me, then? Really?   

Oops! Wrong Planet

It was no A Kick Up The Eighties.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

...or "Revolting Women", for that matter.

Natnar

Quote from: Catalogue Trousers on May 05, 2014, 12:50:38 AM
No, the lyric is "people buy my latest hits, because they like my latest tits". It's really that easy.

Pretty sure the lyric is "People bought my latest hits cause they liked my latex tits"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMXIro1P_7g

Phil_A

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on May 05, 2014, 12:33:37 PM
pretty sure it was latex tits, too.

No detractors for this show, then? For the sheer smugness and smarminess of a lot of the sketches (such brilliant, coruscating satire as calling Cyril Fletcher a 'cross-eyed twat', the deliberate pause during that "University Challenge/Police Informer" sketch, to milk all of the appreciative laughter for the comic genius of the policeman-with-notebook appearing from under Bamber Gascoigne's desk, the aforementioned sexist writing which involved a completely naked Pamela Stephenson lying on her stomach showing off her botty rather than her norks in one of the very first sketches in the very first episode)? I remember thinking what a lot of puerile schoolboy humour went on in the first series (I was a schoolboy at the time). Worst of all, it paved the way for the even smugger, unfunnier "Who Dares Wins",the scripts of which, fortunately , didn't have Julia Hills getting her bristols out, but *did* involve a naked Tony Robinson. Swings and roundabouts.

Just me, then? Really?

In retrospect, it does make Mel Smith look a bit of a hypocrite for always making a point of criticising the sexism in Python. He either had a very selective memory or was sure he'd get away with it because the only way it was possible to watch NTNOCN was in those carefully edited compilations, which skipped over most of the "embarrassing" bits.

Squidy

Peter Brewis himself confirmed the lyric is "latex tits" in correspondence with a Kate Bush mailing list: http://gaffa.org/dreaming/e2_parod.html

With Rowan Atkinson being kicked in the goolies by the Old Grey Whistle Test opening titles a close second, this is my favourite Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDKXZFwi9s

Ronnie the Raincoat

Quote from: Uncle TechTip on May 05, 2014, 08:28:20 AM
For me it's proto Mr Bean in the toilet sketch - you don't even see Atkinson or Smith but it's still tremendous - and Atkinson's Barry Manilow spoof - can't recall exactly but the line that goes, " and what I love most on the world... is you.... and money"

"Despair...despair of hands is all I've got to live..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTBrY_Uterk

The first series was pretty poor with a few highlights. Series 4 was the best for me, but possibly because it's the one I'm most familiar with.


Stevie81

Quote from: Uncle TechTip on May 05, 2014, 08:28:20 AM
For me it's proto Mr Bean in the toilet sketch - you don't even see Atkinson or Smith but it's still tremendous - and Atkinson's Barry Manilow spoof - can't recall exactly but the line that goes, " and what I love most on the world... is you.... and money"

You do see them at the start of the sketch in the complete version. Definitely getting a Mr Bean vibe from that sketch

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on May 04, 2014, 06:31:10 PM
I quite agree with the last bit, but don't get the first bit at all... I love TDT almost as much as NTNOCN, but I can't see how they're related in the slightest, nor how one paved the way for the other.  I'm genuinely interested to know why you think that; what have I missed?

Their satire/social commentary with an anti-establishment, surrealist tone. They both sensorily explode onto the screen, full of mischief and invention. I think the mischievousness of both series is really where I see the link, both are like watching the students take over the classroom, mimicking authority figures, doodling on the blackboard, pulling stupid faces. Of course I include On The Hour with this as well. Both series produce the same feeling for me to watch.




Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuotePamela Stephenson - not very funny but has nice tits

I hope this isn't serious.

Utter Shit

I think they're pretty nice.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

What, even nowadays? She's 64!

Tiny Poster

Quote from: Pepotamo1985 on May 01, 2014, 09:50:36 PM
I remember watching that retrospective and coming out of it really disliking Mel Smith, who at one point (if memory serves) even gloated a bit that Langham wouldn't be appearing and thus had no right to reply. Ick.

I don't remember getting that sense at all. Would be surprised if it was the case on rewatching, given that Smith was one of the few supporters of Langham during his trial. In fact, Langham's father made a point of thanking Iannucci, Cleese and Smith after his son's sentencing.

Other things: it was "latex tits", and also Stephenson was Sarah Silverman's therapist for a while.


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