Inferring the wrong punchline from the joke

[gilbertharding]

(New page edit - replying to the Dad's Army Desolation post up there)

There's an episode - which I've only seen once, and thanks to the Law of Repeats* I will never see again - where they are bumbling around, and end up on a rowing boat in the fog convinced they have landed in France. The way I remember it is almost horrifically emotional, as they suddenly become real soldiers, living for what they imagine to be their last hours before they're inevitably captured. It's especially moving for how they decide to help Godfrey. Pathos is quickly replaced by Bathos, as it becomes clear to us - but not them - that they're actually in Kent.

*The Law of Repeated Television which means that no matter how many times you idly notice that Star Trek is on, it will NEVER be the one where Spock has a beard which you've seen half of once.

[Thosworth]

It's especially moving for how they decide to help Godfrey.

I'm picturing them searching their pockets for a bullet, while he sits with a pistol in his mouth.

[Bad Ambassador]

(New page edit - replying to the Dad's Army Desolation post up there)

There's an episode - which I've only seen once, and thanks to the Law of Repeats* I will never see again - where they are bumbling around, and end up on a rowing boat in the fog convinced they have landed in France. The way I remember it is almost horrifically emotional, as they suddenly become real soldiers, living for what they imagine to be their last hours before they're inevitably captured. It's especially moving for how they decide to help Godfrey. Pathos is quickly replaced by Bathos, as it becomes clear to us - but not them - that they're actually in Kent.

*The Law of Repeated Television which means that no matter how many times you idly notice that Star Trek is on, it will NEVER be the one where Spock has a beard which you've seen half of once.

Sons of the Sea, last repeated in July last year. It's due again in about six months.

[thenoise]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x536i1f

Perhaps my parents spared me this particular episode. It was always heartbreaking when they got themselves in real danger though, trapped on the end of a pier or left holding an unexploded bomb with an itchy nose.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Not a joke as such, but I always used to mishear the ending theme of Fools and Horses  as "where it all comes from is Mr. Reeve", assuming Mr. Reeve was some unseen controller of the Peckham underworld who Del gets his gear from.

I remember that!  You were the guy who also wondered what "cheeving" was!
("He comes only cheeving and he's ready with his gun.")

[Jumblegraws]

I've not watched a lot of Chubby but it seems a lot of his material is just utterly utterly crap aside from any moral problems or whatever.  His HIV / Versace 'joke' I can barely remember is something about "I didn't realise HIV stood for homing in on Versace".

Awful. I've seen him tell one at the end of a bit about Obama that, in addition to being old school racist and utterly shit, was also barely literate: "...and by the way, what's "Obama" spelled backwards? That's right, SAMBO!"

Where do you start with that one?

[Andy147]

I remember that!  You were the guy who also wondered what "cheeving" was!
("He comes only cheeving and he's ready with his gun.")

I thought for years that Mr Brown went off to town on the A21... checking this online this seems to be pretty common (and some people still insist that it is that).

[Serge]

It didn't help when I asked my parents why I hadn't seen Private Walker for a few episodes and was told that he was the 'first of them to die'.  Thankfully I was spared the episode featuring his demise too!

Well, the character doesn't actually die in the show - as I remember it, there's a scene inserted where it's revealed he's gone off to the Smoke to do a bit of 'business' (which would be entirely in keeping with the character), and then he's never referred to again. If I remember rightly, his final filmed sequences were in the studio, and inserted into the previous episode, along with a stunt double (whose face is never seen) writing his name in the condensation in a window on a bus in a location scene.

[kalowski]

Well, the character doesn't actually die in the show - as I remember it, there's a scene inserted where it's revealed he's gone off to the Smoke to do a bit of 'business' (which would be entirely in keeping with the character), and then he's never referred to again. If I remember rightly, his final filmed sequences were in the studio, and inserted into the previous episode, along with a stunt double (whose face is never seen) writing his name in the condensation in a window on a bus in a location scene.

Thankfully better than what happened to actor James Beck is real life.

Perry has said heavy drinking was common in showbusiness at the time, and that he paid little attention to Beck's habit until "I saw Jimmy's legs and they were purple. It was the last episode he appeared in before he died."

[Jockice]

The Half Man Half Biscuit line: "If you ever wondered how you get triangles from a cow, you need butter, milk and cheese and an equilateral chainsaw." A bloke I knew repeated it back to me one night while laughing loudly. But he'd replaced the last word with 'cheeseboard.' Which makes no sense at all.

[Isnt Anything]

I thought for years that Mr Brown went off to town on the A21... checking this online this seems to be pretty common (and some people still insist that it is that).

I always heard '8' but it took me ages to realise it was the 8:21 train not an 821 bus.

edit - just remembered that as a wee kid i thought it was 'V eight twenty-one', presumably either a car with an eight-cylinder 2.1 litre engine, or a Hitler superweapon of the far future ....

It also took me ages to realise where 'the voice of Bud Flanagan' could be heard every week. Dull child.

[Andy147]

Well, the character doesn't actually die in the show - as I remember it, there's a scene inserted where it's revealed he's gone off to the Smoke to do a bit of 'business' (which would be entirely in keeping with the character), and then he's never referred to again. If I remember rightly, his final filmed sequences were in the studio, and inserted into the previous episode, along with a stunt double (whose face is never seen) writing his name in the condensation in a window on a bus in a location scene.

Other way round: S6E6 ("Things That Go Bump in the Night") has Walker in the location scenes, but not the studio scenes.
As you say, the next episode ("The Recruit") - the last of series 6 - has the inserted scene explaining that Walker's gone off to the smoke, and James Beck died before they began making series 7.

Incidentally, they couldn't kill off the character without contradicting the scene at the start of S1E1 set in 1968, since Walker is present in that.

[Serge]

Thankfully better than what happened to actor James Beck is real life.

Also worth remembering that as well as filming 'Dad's Army', he also filmed two series of 'Romany Jones' in the last two years of his life, which would be a punishing schedule even for someone who wasn't a heavy drinker.

It also took me ages to realise where 'the voice of Bud Flanagan' could be heard every week. Dull child.

I've mentioned on here before that that puzzled me for far longer than it ought to have as well....