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Room 101 Cancelled

Started by Bazooka, July 24, 2018, 11:47:15 AM

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imitationleather

Quote from: Chriddof on July 30, 2018, 02:58:17 PM
He tried to put in Motown, didn't he? And as an example of the music he liked, they played a clip of Emerson Lake & Palmer.

He put in Motown, "Lefties" (when I watched this as a kid I thought he meant left-handed people and I reckoned that was well out of order) and "The Dark". You couldn't make it up!

I believe this was during Merton's first series as presenter as well. Indeed, I think it was broadcast the week after the excellent Spike Milligan one. So long before the low-points of non-entities like Ronan Keating thinking "hangovers" was a suitably interesting item to include. Davidson must have only got on because he was the BBC's big star at the time. Christ, Jim Davidson as The Face of the BBC. What a time to be alive that was. It's enough to make me wish I'd had cot-death so I could have missed out on it all.

Imagine turning up to a Room 101 recording and finding out that cunt is the guest and you're going to have to sit through him trying to banish things that are tangentially related to black people. IMAGINE IT.

paruses

Do you remember what he didn't like about Motown?

There must have been loads of Paul Merton eps that I didn't know about (although I do very faintly remember the Jim Davidson one). No clue about Ronan Keating and some others that have been mentioned though.

The Ian Hislop one was good. I remember enjoying that they were having a conversation with each other - especially over silent films.

#122
Quote from: Replies From View on July 30, 2018, 03:07:06 PM
I would like more people to talk about the lever, please.

I always found the inconsistency in Skinner's lever deployment a BIG issue.

In the first round, someone (probably Carol Vorderman) would get their 'thing' (the fact that McDonalds only do chicken nuggets in portions of 6 and 20 with no 'middle' portion inbetween for instance) into room 101. With a chortle he'd pull the lever nearest the audience - presumably, because that's where she was sat, nearest the audience on the left-hand side of the panel. But *then*, Michael Ball or whoever (sat in the middle) would get *his* choice (drivers who open their front windows without consulting the rear-seat passengers first) and he'd pull the SAME lever! like WHAT IS GOING ON GUYS?!

By now I'll be staring in bog-eyed fury at the TV.  Al Murray (as himself, right) would somehow have his extended rant about a 6-year-old argument he had on the internet admitted by a still-jovial Skinner, who would then pull... the *middle* lever! Even though Murray was sat the furthest from the audience!!

This cavalier attitude to lever selection would carry on for the rest of the show, distracting me from the really rather wonderful observations on modern life.

Utter Shit

Ronan Keating is taking a lot of digs here as the sort of shit celebrity they eventually had to get on to make up the numbers, but didn't his episode have that great story about him losing a bet to one of the other Boyzone lads and having to slap a sleeping Mike Tyson in the business lounge of an airport?

Replies From View

Quote from: Utter Shit on July 31, 2018, 02:24:17 PM
having to slap a sleeping Mike Tyson in the business lounge of an airport?

I've never heard it called that before!!

Quote from: therubiconhasbeencrossed on July 24, 2018, 03:48:54 PM
They are very good, despite a general antipathy i have towards Hancock in general. There are whole shows on youtube and they're good value, I wonder if there are more out there? The one with Danny Baker is typically blusterous

At some point in the distant past I downloaded a torrent of Room 101 radio shows. I seem to have all of series 1 and 2, the Christmas special with Danny Baker and the first episode of series 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101_(radio_series)

I'm not sure all of these are on Youtube?

Two questions. Are these of any interest? I'm happy to share them (although this would involve me learning how) and does anyone else have the rest of series 3 and 4?

jobotic

Quote from: Dr Rock on July 30, 2018, 05:29:30 PM
Room 101 is a room. You go in it through a door. There should never have been conveyor belts and levers to start with.

A room which contains your greatest fear. one so great that you would happily subject those you love the most as long as you could escape it.

So Ronan Keating should have said a cheesegrater to the bell-end rather than a yogurt that sprays up you when you take the lid off.

Dr Rock

It never made sense to me, no matter if Paul Merton or Nick Hancock explained it. You don't get to put things you don't like into Room 101, as you say it has your greatest fears in it and you wouldn't want to go in it, how is that like sending something you don't like down a chute.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: paruses on July 31, 2018, 02:16:39 PM
Do you remember what he didn't like about Motown?
I'm going to guess he found the work of James Jamerson "a bit busy" and the general arrangements a bit on the slick side. More of a Stax guy, I imagine.

There might be another reason. I couldn't imagine.

Hecate

I remember Frank saying on his radio show that the levers were really low quality and kept falling to bits, that's why he always had his little finger up, pushing them like they were made of granny bones.

Utter Shit

Quote from: Registering to lurk on July 31, 2018, 09:22:52 PM
At some point in the distant past I downloaded a torrent of Room 101 radio shows. I seem to have all of series 1 and 2, the Christmas special with Danny Baker and the first episode of series 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101_(radio_series)

I'm not sure all of these are on Youtube?

Two questions. Are these of any interest? I'm happy to share them (although this would involve me learning how) and does anyone else have the rest of series 3 and 4?

I'd definitely be interested - I have a few (Arthur Smith, Danny Baker, David Baddiel, Frank Skinner, Ian Hislop, Jenny Eclair and Nick Hancock) but I assume that's an incomplete collection.

Phil_A

Quote from: paruses on July 31, 2018, 02:16:39 PM
Do you remember what he didn't like about Motown?


Said it reminded him of his ex-wife I think. Not sure if that was one of the ones he slapped around or not.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Registering to lurk on July 31, 2018, 09:22:52 PM
At some point in the distant past I downloaded a torrent of Room 101 radio shows. I seem to have all of series 1 and 2, the Christmas special with Danny Baker and the first episode of series 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101_(radio_series)

I'm not sure all of these are on Youtube?

Two questions. Are these of any interest? I'm happy to share them (although this would involve me learning how) and does anyone else have the rest of series 3 and 4?

I'm missing the Simon Delaney one from series 4 so if anyone has that one that would be great.

Brundle-Fly

The Paul Daniels episode with Merton had one of my favourite TV moments of all time. Right at the end, they show a late 1970s clip of a Medieval mop top Daniels singing a saccharine ballad while performing a trick with silk scarves. A red faced Paul Daniels in the Room 101 studio can barely watch it through his fingers.

It was on YouTube or Vimeo not so long ago but sadly seems to have disappeared. "Now that's tragic"...etc

gilbertharding

Quote from: Dr Rock on July 31, 2018, 09:51:57 PM
It never made sense to me, no matter if Paul Merton or Nick Hancock explained it. You don't get to put things you don't like into Room 101, as you say it has your greatest fears in it and you wouldn't want to go in it, how is that like sending something you don't like down a chute.

And Big Brother is the leader of Oceania who uses oppressive surveillance and media control to keep order among the population, to the point where his name has become synonymous with actual abuse of power by real governments and how is that like a bunch of imbeciles and non-entities in a pretend house for several months.

notjosh

Have they ever done a best of compilation? I would like to see a world-weary janitor sweeping up inside Room 101 and picking through the pile of old yoghurt pots and statues of people chewing with their mouth open and going "'oo the 'ell left this lyin' about?" WIBBLE WOBBLE WIBBLE WOBBLE CUE UP CLIP.

This would mean you could only show clips of things which actually got put in, but I think it's a great concept nonetheless©™®

petril

just for completeness:

Room 101 was room at Broadcasting House, which tended to contain things that seemed tedious and/or irritating. At least to George Orwell, who used it as the name for the room containing one's greatest fear.

I quite like the circularity of that. A telly programme where the title literary reference that's a bit off when you think for a second, but the reference is rooted in part of the actual broadcaster's building for reasons that match the programme much better.

Gradual Decline

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on August 01, 2018, 10:30:18 AM
I'm missing the Simon Delaney one from series 4 so if anyone has that one that would be great.

Delivered

Utter Shit

Did anyone ever upload a link to the full radio series'? I only have six or so episodes and would love to hear the rest, as much for that gloriously muffled Radio 5 sound they had in the 90s as for the shows themselves.

Uncle TechTip


xmxmxmxmxmx

#140
My memory might be shonky but some of the guests who appeared on both the radio and tv version suggested quite a few of the same things didn't they? I remember one particular episode where someone told the exact same amusing anecdote word for word and Hancock acted like he'd never heard it before, mugging along going "no!! surely not...and then? crikey!"

Lazy bastards.

I wish I could help with an upload I definitely used to have them all, just had a look and all I could find is DTL, OTH and Adam and Joe podcasts. So much lost. I binned a hard drive ages ago thinking UKNova would last forever.

DULL CUNT EDIT: Caroline Quentin suggested Les Misérables and Teasmades on the radio show, Hancock denied entry, so then she suggested both again on the telly. Thank fuck it's logical. If something went into room 101 on the radio and then turned up on TV the whole thing would be exposed as a farce.


Utter Shit

Yesssss thanks, really appreciate it.

the

Looks like the same set I've got, with the last few minutes of Arthur Smith missing. We may never know what his final choice was.

In a couple of places there are also blips where something else cuts in on the tape. I think there's an interruption from Porridge during the Maria McErlane one.

There are so many good episodes, but I think the absolute cream of the crop for me would be:

Trevor & Simon
Rory McGrath
Tony Slattery
Stephen Frost
Donna McPhail
Andy Hamilton
Mark Lamarr
Tony Hawks
Maria McErlane
Kevin Day
Chris England

I think the weakest episodes are Caroline Quentin and David Baddiel, but there's something to love in all of them I think.

The best facet of radio Room 101 was something it lost upon transition to TV, which was the intense study of insipid or dubious song lyrics, and deflating the unconvincing musical pretensions of the 70s and 80s.

There was a theory that there were unbroadcast episodes from the final series, due to there only being 4 episodes in s4, the last of which went out 2 days before the close of Radio 5. Would be amazing if true, sadly I think it's more likely that it was a deliberately short run. The TV series began 3 months later, so it's plausible that they had shifted the production effort over to that.

Utter Shit

I love that Frank Skinner's first pick was a song so unknown that it proved impossible to track down on Google (While You Wait by Jigsaw), I liked the tune so wanted to hear it in full, luckily Shazam managed to find it from the clip played on the show. Seems weird for a song no one has ever heard of to get picked, but then I guess that was the beauty of the radio version, it allowed for very niche discussions.


PaulTMA

I always be grateful for Trevor And Simon for introducing 12 year old me to the lunacy that is Rick Wakeman's 'I'm So Straight I'm A Weirdo'.  Impossible to imagine it getting an such a spotlight in the latter televisual years.

Utter Shit

Thanks again Uncle Techtip, I've just downloaded all of those and I can't wait to get stuck into them.

Side note: that site you used for uploading them was so simple it actually confused me. I clicked a button that said download, it started downloading, then they were on my desktop...where's the catch? Why wasn't I offered five possible download speeds at varying prices along with fifteen competing "Download Your File Here" options, only one of which reveals the prize?

Clownbaby

Quote from: Utter Shit on September 24, 2018, 10:26:03 PM
Thanks again Uncle Techtip, I've just downloaded all of those and I can't wait to get stuck into them.

Side note: that site you used for uploading them was so simple it actually confused me. I clicked a button that said download, it started downloading, then they were on my desktop...where's the catch? Why wasn't I offered five possible download speeds at varying prices along with fifteen competing "Download Your File Here" options, only one of which reveals the prize?

I love the satisfaction of clicking a possibly dodgy looking link that then reveals itself to be a Mega file. Then I know I am home. And I am safe.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Utter Shit on September 24, 2018, 08:55:23 PM
I love that Frank Skinner's first pick was a song so unknown that it proved impossible to track down on Google (While You Wait by Jigsaw), I liked the tune so wanted to hear it in full, luckily Shazam managed to find it from the clip played on the show. Seems weird for a song no one has ever heard of to get picked, but then I guess that was the beauty of the radio version, it allowed for very niche discussions.

On the recent TV series, I doubt a guest would be encouraged to do that. They'd probably get an email back from production saying, "Hi, we can't find music source for 'Fat Matress' track and I don't think many of our audience will have heard of him/her. Do you want to put Gangnam Style in instead? We can get everybody to do the dance then. Also having trouble getting clearance for S3 ep 5 of 'The Many Wives Of Patrick' sit-com clip! Network DVD are being a bit funny about it"

Pranet

The closing of the original Radio 5 was criminal. Turning it into a news channel was the start of the end of everything.