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Tommy Boyd

Started by Lost Oliver, August 07, 2014, 03:24:17 PM

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SteveDave

I used to have A Level Art on a Friday afternoon & would sneak a earphone in to listen to The Wonderful Hour.

I remember having to excuse myself & go to the bathroom when someone told that story about the old woman dropping her purse full of change & having people help to grab it all & she ended up with a purse full of notes.

I came so hard thinking about that.

georgetaylor

I remember listening to him on Talk Radio, and being amazed that people would phone in to argue or express wrong opinions when they knew other people could hear how ignorant they were. A similar thing happens today in much watered down form on the Jeremy Vine show.
Tommy would make a controversial statement and then back it up with as many made up facts and opinions as possible, then invite people to phone in and argue the opposite point of view, it was remarkable how he seemed to best them every time even from the wrong end of the argument, but looking back, the sort of people that have loud opinions and express them on radio phone ins are all morons and failures desperate for their voice to be heard. See.

I think I must have got the same thing from reading letters pages on Ceefax, and also online forums on the internet like this one, how people find the energy to argue about fuck all is un-incomprehensible-ness itself.

The only thing I never got was the last part of the show was always dedicated to american wrestling and how wonderful he thought it was. He kept this up for a long time, at least as long as I listened. I could not believe that any adult would like this sort of entertainment, but there he was week after week broadcasting an hour of 'wrestling is great' and never breaking character. I used to switch off after 5 minutes because it just wasn't interesting.
I am still convinced this was an extreme long running wind-up, surely he doesn't like wrestling and think it to be wonderful?

mr. logic

I always thought that was because of his sons.

HappyTree

I think his love of wrestling was his undoing. He had some business interests in wrestling that conflicted with Kelvin MacKenzie's, his boss. I seem to remember he suspected this might have had something to do with Kelvin seizing the opportunity to fire him over the "royal incident". Hopefully someone else who actually remembers the fact scan come on and clarify.

thugler

I believe he promoted a wrestling event too

Don_Preston

He kept interrupting Slick's promo telling him he was angry and ill-informed.


Lost Oliver

He was the promoter of a wrestling event called 'Revival' I think. I remember it being at Crystal Palace and they showed it on Bravo. At the time I was into my wrestling so I loved it, especially as Eddie Guerrero got involved. He's since said, as someone mentioned, that McKenzie wanted to be a part of it and that's when relations turned sour and was the reason he got the sack the second time.

Off topic slightly but I always loved listening to his thoughts on parenting.

Anyway, another classic Tommy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWCNW7eZEk0


olliebean

Quote from: Lost Oliver on August 13, 2014, 11:14:25 AMAnyway, another classic Tommy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWCNW7eZEk0

The first of those confirms my suspicion that many of the people who phone in don't actually have a point to make, but just want to have a Monty Python argument clinic style argument. I'm sure loads of them just automatically take the contrary position to whatever point of view Tommy is espousing, regardless of what their real opinion might be.

Spiral King

Listening to a load of the Human Zoo right now as a walk down memory lane. I have fond memories of taking the radio into the bathroom, and sitting in the bath for two hours, listening to Mr. Boyd berate an elderly racist lady about her views. Good stuff.

There's no laugh out loud moments, honestly, and it IS very much a circle jerk. However, it's nice background noise while I'm doing the washing up or playing a video game. There's some decent comedy routines peppered inbetween the onslaught of unfunny catchphrases and awkward early 2000's "remixes", done by people in Microsoft Sound Recorder. Also of note is the Chris Morris material occasionally piped into these mid-2001 episodes. Lots of VHS-recorded The Day Today and jam clips played down the phone and the like. Boyd has no idea who they're from and all the Alan Partridge stuff is attributed to the later sitcoms rather than TDT. Ah well.

Here's a YouTube video with a lot of MediaFire links of the Zoo eps that I'm listening to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZpgDUhd2Lc

Amusingly, Boyd states in one episode that he hates The Goodies, and while searching this board for Human Zoo stuff, I found [banned troll] as the second poster in a 2007 thread, raging against him.

Alberon

My sister met Tommy Boyd once. Back in the early eighties he was presenting a childrens ITV news quiz called "What's Happening" and my sister was on one of the teams (each team represented a local radio station for some reason). Her team won that heat, but never got the top prize for the series - a ZX Spectrum.

Lost Oliver

Sorry to bump this thread
Spoiler alert
(I'm not)
[close]
but I have been given quite a few discs and would be more than willing to bump a lot of Tommy on them and post them to whoever is interested. PM if you fancy it.

And I'm also attempting to set up a 'Tommy Boyd Convention' which I'm hoping will turn out to be a lot of people in a pub swapping stories and audio. So far an impressive SIX people have joined in the past twelve months. If you're interested in joining I can post the link.

For old times' sake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duyUZYbEjxY

Artemis

Post the murr-fuckin' link, yo. I'd be interested in that :)

Milverton

Wasn't Ash quite lucky to survive the James Whale sacking? He was the producer and should really have put his foot down rather than the usual "Hey maaaannn..." stuff.

The old Talk Radio had some great stuff, not just the brilliant Boyd. I used to look forward to the Wonderful Hour all week. It could get pretty mawkish, but it was often magical stuff.

I vaguely remember David Starkey on Talk Radio the morning of Princess Diana's death starting the show at 10am along the lines of "Will she be seen as an historical figure in years to come, or as a whore getting out of limousines in increasingly short skirts?" The phones were quite busy after that.

Lost Oliver

Haha! Amazing.

What did Ash do wrong? Did he just not dump it? I've read Whale's biography (I, Jame Whale) and can't even remember how he lost his job, only that it was at the end of the book and that he talked about going travelling in a caravan.

Here's the convention. I'm hoping it's a grower and as soon as ten people are interested I'll start organising a date etc https://www.facebook.com/groups/288160894703936/

great_badir

Quote from: Milverton on November 11, 2014, 11:26:25 PM
The old Talk Radio had some great stuff, not just the brilliant Boyd.

Who was the crazy guy that used to do the graveyard shift?  All he seemed to do was shout and take phone calls from depressed truckers and taxi drivers?

I'd also like to say that Jeremy Beadle was fucking brilliant (as far as I can remember) in his short-lived time on there.  Genuinely funny without his usual TV bollocks.

Artemis

Quote from: great_badir on November 13, 2014, 12:40:09 PM
Who was the crazy guy that used to do the graveyard shift?  All he seemed to do was shout and take phone calls from depressed truckers and taxi drivers?

Was it Caesar The Geezer? He was an odd chap. I could never quite work out if he was genuinely angry or just trying to wind people up. I do remember a couple of pretty good pranks he played on his audience, but then he was sacked. When he was, I remember he gave out his home phone number and people could call him and listen to updates on what he's up to via his answering machine. Occasionally he'd answer, and then he started doing shows that nobody could hear from his garage or something, just so he could say 'I'm still here! I'm still doing it!'. All very bizarre.

QuoteI'd also like to say that Jeremy Beadle was fucking brilliant (as far as I can remember) in his short-lived time on there.  Genuinely funny without his usual TV bollocks.

Yeah, Sunday nights, wasn't it? I have fond memories of his show.

Then you had Anna Raeburn with her lovely advice, Mike Dicken with his derision for almost all his callers, and Nick Abbott doing a few shows. It was the cream of the crop, looking back. So many enjoyable shows, including Boyd at his very best in the 2-4pm slot.

great_badir

Quote from: Artemis on November 13, 2014, 03:31:24 PM
Was it Caesar The Geezer?

Nah, it was the guy who was on after the guy who was on after Caesar.  The 2-4am slot (he might've even gone until 6am).

Much to my surprise and dismay, I enjoyed listening to Caesar, even though it was all massively contrived.  I think the one he claimed he was so-say sacked for was about the end of the world, which, if I recall correctly, resulted in a listener killing themself - big thing in the press about it at the time - but really it was just cos of poor ratings.  Someone I used to work with, who was an audio engineer at various radio stations around the South West in the 70s, 80s and early 90s (mentioned in another thread - he was one of the engineers on Chris Morris' Radio Bristol show), worked for/with Caesar prior to Talk Radio.  Massive nuclear-grade cunt, apparently.

Yep - Beadle-bum was on Sunday nights.  Noel Edmonds replaced him, again for quite a short time, and I seem to remember him being pretty entertaining as well.

But, of all of them, Tommy was probably the all-round king.  He could be as serious and intelligent as David Starkey(thinks he is), and equally as silly as Beadle.  I'm surprised he's not really had much of a major national career to speak of since.

Artemis

Quote from: great_badir on November 13, 2014, 03:53:41 PM
I'm surprised he's not really had much of a major national career to speak of since.

But where would he go? Talk was the only national station of its kind, and although he was the daddy of the format in the UK, if there's only one place you can do that, you're a bit stuffed if they want rid of you. Some of his stuff on Southern Counties did come very close to his best stuff on Talk, in my opinion. He really hit a stride with a lot of that, although he was plagued by a small number of obsessive fanatics who became very tedious and made his shows significantly worse as a result of their involvement and his pandering to them, I remember. 

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: Artemis on November 11, 2014, 10:55:22 PM
Post the murr-fuckin' link, yo. I'd be interested in that :)

I remember you attended the first Tommy Boyd convention, in a pub somewhere... with Roger(the guy who ran the chatroom and had a Boyd site) and Austin68(not 100% I got the number right but it was something like that).
Unfortunately I can't remember any of the lurid details, but I want to say that the 3 of you stood around Tommy and rubbed your legs Vic Reeves style and freaked him out.

Which was the show where he took calls on skype?  I remember him trying to take calls on skype and it not working too well, with one person not being able to hear the other, or bad echoing, and it was annoying to listen to because he kept persisting with something that clearly didn't work.

Rolf Lundgren

I was listening to this the other day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgFKLur-4S0

It's Iain Lee interviewing Tommy Boyd but turns pretty sour when Iain takes offence at Tommy suggesting that he stole his idea for the Human Zoo. Does anyone have any insight on this? I read in a couple of places it was a set-up.

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on November 13, 2014, 06:31:16 PM
I was listening to this the other day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgFKLur-4S0

It's Iain Lee interviewing Tommy Boyd but turns pretty sour when Iain takes offence at Tommy suggesting that he stole his idea for the Human Zoo. Does anyone have any insight on this? I read in a couple of places it was a set-up.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was a joke and the jibes at each other played up for dramatic effect.  Used to listen regularly to Iain Lee's show on Absolute Radio (which that clip was taken from) and he's always openly admitted that he's stolen wholesale from Tommy Boyd and Danny Baker when he was getting started in talk radio.  Think Lee was (maybe still is) quite friendly with Boyd as he did a couple of shows on the short-lived PlayRadio as a favour to him, which I'm sure was around the time of the interview in that clip.

For what it's worth I think Iain Lee's really good on the radio.  By his own admission he was a bit of a nob when he was on the telly regularly, but I think radio's perfect for him.  Never listened to his LBC shows when they went out originally, but I started listening to him when he was on Absolute and grew to really like him on there.

He does the weekday breakfast show on BBC Three Counties at the moment which I like a lot.  For a breakfast show on a BBC local radio station, he seems to have been given a lot of freedom to do the show in his own style and not have to make it as dull as your average BBC local radio show. 


HappyTree

I'd recommend Iain Lee's podcast of the BBC show he does. And now he's winning awards and stuff.

great_badir

Quote from: ozziechef on November 13, 2014, 11:27:04 PM
Think you mean Wild Al Kelly?

YES!  That's the fella.

Was he as crazy as I'm remembering?

biggytitbo

I used to think the Summer Nights song in Grease was about him.

Quote from: great_badir on November 14, 2014, 07:19:53 AM
YES!  That's the fella.

Was he as crazy as I'm remembering?

He only lasted 3 weeks. I read an interview with him where he said something along the lines of "they hired me and told me to go too far, and then sacked me when I went too far. Telling a listener to "get brain cancer" was apparently the final straw. 

great_badir

Quote from: wokeonawhalescock on November 14, 2014, 08:50:33 AM
He only lasted 3 weeks. I read an interview with him where he said something along the lines of "they hired me and told me to go too far, and then sacked me when I went too far. Telling a listener to "get brain cancer" was apparently the final straw.

I remember him being very sweary, which was unusual and seemed very weird on non-pirate radio back then.

ozziechef

I think I have a whole Wild Al Kelly show somewhere. I remember it being not as good as you thought it should have been.

Any love for James H Reeve here?

Artemis

Christ no. I couldn't stand Reeve. Literally couldn't stand the sound of his fucking voice. He was accused of some rather dubious behaviour, was he not?

SteveDave

Was Wild Al Kelly the one who used to play the Laurel & Hardy "Fresh Fish!" clip & follow it with him saying "and swinging lesbians"? Or was that a dream.

After he got the boot 2 producers (1 of whom was a Canadian called Chad) took over & I would tape their shows & stay up til 4am. Those were LOL NO daze.