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Nathan Barley DVD - Well Fucking People Like Us Series 2?

Started by TJ, June 27, 2005, 02:22:02 PM

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Jon_Norton

Quote from: "The Mumbler"Yes, but in which case, how the hell have they managed to clear Three of a Kind for release?  A series which was written by people as diverse as Kim Fuller, Ben Elton, Hale & Pace, Ian Hislop, and at least 40 other people.

Because it just happens those people are contactable?

Hislop mentioned in his Sunday Telegraph column a year or so back that he was still getting royalty cheques for Australian repeats of 3OAK. So... there you go.

Maybe that's the key - because 3OAK stayed on the air somewhere, someone kept an up-to-date list of who to pay. Whereas Smith&Jones (I presume) wasn't sellable abroad, and so hasn't been played since its last UK repeat. So now no one can be bothered to do the paperwork when it's easier to chop it all down to a "best of".

Jon_Norton

Quote from: "Jon_Norton"Maybe for (one of ) the same reasons the NTNOCN doesn't get a full release: they can't trace all the 486 writers who contributed.

That would also be a reason for 11OCS never getting a full DVD release, sadly. I was quite looking forward to getting the boxset, The Eleven O'Clock Show: A Warning From History.

The Mumbler

Quote from: "Jon_Norton"
Quote from: "The Mumbler"Yes, but in which case, how the hell have they managed to clear Three of a Kind for release?  A series which was written by people as diverse as Kim Fuller, Ben Elton, Hale & Pace, Ian Hislop, and at least 40 other people.

Because it just happens those people are contactable?

Hislop mentioned in his Sunday Telegraph column a year or so back that he was still getting royalty cheques for Australian repeats of 3OAK. So... there you go.

Maybe that's the key - because 3OAK stayed on the air somewhere, someone kept an up-to-date list of who to pay. Whereas Smith&Jones (I presume) wasn't sellable abroad, and so hasn't been played since its last UK repeat. So now no one can be bothered to do the paperwork when it's easier to chop it all down to a "best of".

Smith & Jones got shown in America and Australia a lot, I believe.  

The Three of a Kind writing team was, if anything, even more disparate than the Smith & Jones lot.  Most of the latter crowd were Oxbridge or the cabaret circuit.  TOAK was Oxbridge and cabaret circuit *and* a fair few variety show-type writers too (people like Mike Radford, Graham Deykin, David McKellar).  

I dunno - maybe the odd sketch has been cut from the TOAK DVDs.  Anyone on here ever keep episode guides?  Did they all get shown on UK Gold?

I wouldn't be surprised if the Smith & Jones difficulties at least partly concern former funnyman Jimmy Mulville (who was script editor on the first series, and wrote several sketches with Rory McGrath).  Famously, Mulville and McGrath fell out in a big way in the early 90s.  I'd like to think Clive Anderson or Mel & Griff have tried to wave olive branches in Mulville's direction in recent years.  But I doubt it.

What's The Problem With Anne Robinson? "A Hat Trick Production for BBC TV."  Fucking hell, what went wrong?

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Adam Tandy (producer of the upcoming S&J DVD) said on the Mausoleum Club it was nothing to do with clearing writers, though - it was just becuase there were ten series (62 shows) and that he wants to do a representative compilation.

To which I say:

(a) The 'Alas' years (Series 1-4) are worth releasing in full; the BBC1 incarnation wasn't so good.

(b) A casual S&J fan is going to buy a bog-standard one-disc comp whatever the weather. So why not release this first, provoke some memories, and then release serious box sets of the complete series at a later date? After all, the serious fans wouldn't really buy either the bog-standard comp *or* a three-disc, slightly-better-than you'd expect comp, so they might as well do them complete.

And yes, I have bought a pointer...

The Mumbler

Mind you, if TalkBack-Thames is helping to fund its release, they're probably demanding that at least half of it comes from "The TalkBack Years" (Alas Sage & Onion at Christmas 88, then the six BBC1 series -1989, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1998).  

If they split it into two - four Alas series plus the Home Video special, then a six-disc boxset for the TalkBack stuff, then I'd still intend to buy both.  But I'd watch the 84-87 ones more often, let's be honest.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Quote from: "The Mumbler"Mind you, if TalkBack-Thames is helping to fund its release, they're probably demanding that at least half of it comes from "The TalkBack Years" (Alas Sage & Onion at Christmas 88, then the six BBC1 series -1989, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1998).  


Yeah, I wondered that. But, to be honest, none of the cunts who currently work at Talkback are going to know what was from what.

Jon_Norton

Is it just me, or does anyone else remember the first series being incredibly patchy?

The Mumbler

If it had had the same producer for several series at a time, then it might have stood a chance.  But it didn't.  

Series 1 [1984]: Martin Shardlow [went to Thames, no idea where he is now]
Series 2 [1985]: John Kilby & Jimmy Mulville [um...well, I'm sure *Kilby* would talk!]
Series 3 [1986]: John Kilby [with Jamie Rix as Associate Producer]
Series 4/Home Made Xmas Video [1987]: John Kilby, Jamie Rix
Alas Sage & Onion [1988]: John Kilby, Jamie Rix
Series 5 [1989]: Jamie Rix
Series 6 [1990]: Jon Plowman
Series 7 [1992]: Jon Plowman
Series 8 [1995]: Jon Magnusson
Series 9 [1997]: Jon Magnusson

And I don't even know who produced Series 10.  Magnusson was doing So Graham Norton by then, I think.

John Kilby must be retired by now, but someone at the Beeb must know his whereabouts.

But yes, TalkBack'll be hopeless now.  I mean, if I've only just considered the In Small Doses series [TalkBack/BBC2, Oct/Nov 89] as extras, what's the likelihood Peter Fincham and Daisy Goodwin taped episodes of Property Ladder over them?

The Mumbler

Quote from: "Jon_Norton"Is it just me, or does anyone else remember the first series being incredibly patchy?

I have it all on tape from the 93 repeats on BBC2, and it isn't all first-rate (a lot is, though), but compare with the mid-to-late-90s model where the opening titles and theme would gladden the heart...and then 28 minutes of tepid sketches would chug by.

Jon_Norton

My recollection is that the 1st series had a few great sketches in (the German surrender, the French resistance chef, the "unfriendly southerners") but a lot of stuff that didn't work/ was embarrassing, of which the "flies on the bottle" sketch was the only example I can now remember. But I also had a vague impression that it was NTNOCN but failing to work without the magic ingredient of Rowan Atkinson.

It was a few years till the 2nd series, due to Morons From Outer Space and other stuff, and when they got that out of their system things were more focussed and better.

I may be wrong, but I think the head-to-head stuff wasn't in the 1st series. It started as a special thing they did to pad out football coverage one year, and then it made it into the TV show after that. There was a phase when the BBC had all sort of showbiz people in to do celebrity commentary during football matches - Boy George&Marilyn at one time as well.

Jon_Norton

Do we know who wrote that "Fish Week" parody of the Radio Times sketch, from about 1990? Weirdly proto-TDT "Attitudes Night" episode, totally out of character for S&J.

Darrell

Quote from: "Jon_Norton"I may be wrong, but I think the head-to-head stuff wasn't in the 1st series.

It was, it's in 1.1 for a start. One of the head to heads is filmed slightly differently and is against a light background, so presumably that's a clip from an untransmitted pilot.

Jon_Norton

Did they have the characters/voices worked out from the start, or did that develop over the different series?

The Mumbler

The sperm bank one was in the very first show.  I know this because I watched it with my parents (who had loved Not The Nine, eventually, having forbidden me to watch it in its very earliest days - the only time they ever exercised censorship over something on TV) and there was a quite excruciating silence in the room.  

Anyone got a copy of the Smith & Jones World A(t)las book, issued in time for Christmas 1983, and so before the first series?  A slightly odd feel to it - most of it is true facts about the nations of the world (one page per country) but it's more interesting than funny.

Darrell

Quote from: "Jon_Norton"Did they have the characters/voices worked out from the start, or did that develop over the different series?

From the start, really.

Jon_Norton

Oh well. At least I did cover myself by saying "I may be wrong..." ... and I was.

Jon_Norton

Quote from: "The Mumbler"Anyone got a copy of the Smith & Jones World A(t)las book, issued in time for Christmas 1983, and so before the first series?  A slightly odd feel to it - most of it is true facts about the nations of the world (one page per country) but it's more interesting than funny.

Haven't got a copy, but I remember this one gag: "South Korea is a land of smiling workaholics".

Jimmy

South Park Season 5 is out in the US, does anyone know if it's actually getting a release here? It's so frustrating, for me, season 4 has signs of the brilliance that is to come, but it's five onwards that have been great - and they aren't out on DVD here!

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Lewisohn cites the sketch they did on The Funny Side of Christmas (1982) as the first (mini) episode of AS&J. Stuff from TFSoC *never* turns up on DVDs, though, suggesting it's awkward to clear. Anyone recall what the sketch was, though? Was it a head to head?

Series 1 was 31/1/84 - 6/3/84 and Series 2 was 31/10/85 - 5/12/85. So not that huge a gap.

I remember being slightly disappointed when I saw the '93 repeats of Series 1 (it just seemed to lack the economy/punchiness of NTNOCN, I suppose), but I still wouldn't want a compilation. It was full of bits I'd kill to see again, eg the Pop Quiz parody and their piss-take of improvised C4 dramas (including an animated 4 which rearranged itself into a question mark).

The Mumbler

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"the Pop Quiz parody.

Yes!  With Mel as Tim Rice in a cricketing jumper...

Darrell

Mel Smith's Clive James impression linking 1.1 is a treat. Marshall and Renwick have a credit for that episode and I have a vague suspicion that was their contribution...

Same episode as 'Pop Quiz' and 'An Audience With The Pope'!

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Quote from: "Darrell"Mel Smith's Clive James impression linking 1.1 is a treat. Marshall and Renwick have a credit for that episode and I have a vague suspicion that was their contribution...

Same episode as 'Pop Quiz' and 'An Audience With The Pope'!

I recall Pop quiz being later in Series 1, but my mind's possibly jumbled.

1.1 starts with an American cop movie about chiropodists or something, plus there's the sperm bank head-to-head (as mentioned before) and a long sketch about Samurai accountants.

1.2 has the head-to-head about diets ('Sprinkle a bit of bran over the top...').

Apart from that, it's a haze.

Darrell

Ach, bollocks, it might be 1.3 that I've seen.

Whichever one's at the Bradford museum anyway.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten


Bernard

Quote from: "Jon_Norton"Oh well. At least I did cover myself by saying "I may be wrong..." ... and I was.

Which means you are, in fact, right. Rejoice!

I think.

oceanthroats

There's a lot of Australian stuff that will never see the light and is long long long buried or wiped or something. Still holding out for a 'best of the panel' collection though. That will surely get a release in the next couple of years.

Jon_Norton

Going back  a bit, there must be loads of little odds&ends appearances of Fry&Laurie from the mid 80s, because there definitely was a long phase, starting about 1984, when they had that "oh, it's them again" factor of being people who turned up a lot, but you didn't know their names.

If there is ever an audio release of the original Saturday Night Fry radio series, then it should include the "Dr. Trefusis" bits he did for Loose Ends in the 80s.

Stephen Fry was on Eurotube at one time. He was translating everything Jools Holland said into German, I think.

They should also include Fry&Laurie's bit from Edinburgh Nights, 1988. And also get Keith Allen's bit from that series, for inclusion in the Lee&Herring boxset (he slags off Waving At The Pigeons).

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

A challenge for a hot summer's afternoon. Let's all try to name comedy shows which, we can confidently say, will *never* get a DVD release. Ether as compilations or as box sets.

It's more difficult than I thought.  You pick something obviously obscure like Morris Minor's Marvellous Motors, but then a voice at the back of your head says 'Weeeeeell, then again...Tony Hawks does have his fans...I can *almost* see it...'

First wag to say 'Nathan Barley' gets a tweak.

Jemble Fred

I originally thought Lazarus & Dingwall, but that wouldn't surprise me. Certainly deserves it.

Dare To Believe.

TJ

World In Ferment, if there's any of it still around. And all those TW3/Up Sunday/BBC3/Twice A Fornight type shows. Too obscure, and too many contributors (including notorious clearance-fuckers like Idle).