Last of the Summer Wine

[Alternative Carpark]

It's interesting the way people sometimes talk about stuff being shown on Sunday afternoons or evenings having depressing associations because of the weekend having almost gone - while I understand the argument, I don't think that I've ever felt that way in retrospect about something shown in that slot. If I liked something shown at that time, then it'd be all for the better as it'd help put the forthcoming Monday out of my mind. So it tends to be a positive association if anything. The Sunday night connection has never put me off any old programme that might have been shown in that slot.

Also, as someone said earlier, it was quite a few years before LOTSW was put into a Sunday slot too, indeed well into the 80s. For the first ten years of its run, it was usually on weekdays.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Was there a big drop-off in quality around series 12? I watched a couple of Series 12 and 15 episodes and they really didn't seem as good. It felt like they had to tick off certain scenes: Howard and Marina, Wesley in his garage, Edie's front room coffee gathering etc. The trio just didn't seem as funny either, I'm not sure why.

[Huxleys Babkins]

It's interesting the way people sometimes talk about stuff being shown on Sunday afternoons or evenings having depressing associations because of the weekend having almost gone - while I understand the argument, I don't think that I've ever felt that way in retrospect about something shown in that slot. If I liked something shown at that time, then it'd be all for the better as it'd help put the forthcoming Monday out of my mind. So it tends to be a positive association if anything. The Sunday night connection has never put me off any old programme that might have been shown in that slot.

Also, as someone said earlier, it was quite a few years before LOTSW was put into a Sunday slot too, indeed well into the 80s. For the first ten years of its run, it was usually on weekdays.

Yeah, I never really had that existential dread, mainly because, in the 90s, Sunday nights would be BBC2 showing classic comedy like Python, Q and The Young Ones just before bedtime. School on Monday would be buzzing with comedy chat, like a proto-CAB except everyone still had their hair.

[Glebe]

It's definitely up there with Antiques Roadshow and Songs of Praise in terms of end-of-the-weekend dread, the theme tune still fills me with that feeling.

That's Life! really did it for me. I mean, I'd actually watch it with my parents as a nipper, and it occasionally amused, but by fuck, there was a odd grimness about it for some reason. That blowsy old theme tune.

Ah, that's interesting - and given the show's popularity at that time, it would be surprising if they didn't make a big thing of it. Aldridge's first episode was a special, which introduced new characters and having Thora Hird as a guest star (and she was always credited as thus) was a big thing... certainly, the news that she was playing Edie contributed to the pressure that Gordon Wharmby felt and who was hospitalised after suffering a nervous breakdown.

Yes and a running theme was the involvement of inventions that Seymour came up - however, as his time went on in the series, feel that they reduced that element. By all accounts, Aldridge was a complete delight to work with and his influence made the show a lot more fun to work on.

With the scene hanging down, I know the one you meant - saw it a little while ago and thought it was pretty well done and can't recall a blue screen look. On the whole, they did the stunts and use of doubles pretty convincingly. I saw the bath episode, posted earlier in the thread, very recently and when at one point, when they were pushing the bath, noticed how the faces of the actors were concealed by how they positioned in relation to the camera (e.g. characters bent over, or looking away) and that it was obviously doubles being used, but at that point, the actors moved so you could see it was the stars, which I thought was a clever bit of editing - in the shot that had the actual stars, they started in the kind of positions that the doubles were moving in to help create the illusion it was them earlier.

RE: the BBC trail for it, it's one of those things that's like a faded memory in the back of my mind, but I'm certain I saw it. Haven't seen any of the ones with Aldridge in a very long time, maybe those effects were better than I remember!

The beauty of rural Yorkshire is also nice to look at.

Yeah, it's just that they always return to the grim shitty oppressive town to drink tea out of saucers at Ivy's!

[Fambo Number Mive]

Ivy's is definitely grim. Tiny, miserable little cafe which seems to rely on the three men for most of their trade. The tea tastes awful (in several episodes) and the food doesn't look very nice. I think it might be the only cafe, according to one episode. They'd be better off going round to Clegg's house each time, but I think they like annoying Ivy and Sid, and anyone else in the cafe.

[frajer]

I've got a huge nostalgic stonk-on fondness for the show because my granddad used to chuckle at it. He especially liked when all the ladies raised their teacups in unison. So it gets a thumbs up from me, even if I can't quite imagine actually sitting down and watching it again

[Glebe]

It's funny how most of the female characters were so belligerent and miserable. Maybe that was Roy Clarke's experience of women. Or maybe he was just a sexist pig.

[Fambo Number Mive]

True, although I suppose they are probably mainly miserable at living amongst such daft men. I imagine Nora Batty would be a lot happier if she didn't have Compo pestering her, for example. I think living in the Summer Wine version of Holmfirth would be really crap. Aside from Clegg and Truly, is there a single character you'd want to spend more then five minutes with? Even Clegg's a bit wearing after an hour or so.

[petril]

after three day's you'd just be "for fuck's sake, for fu-ucks sake, for fuck's sake..." over and over

[frajer]

"Can I just dry my nylons in peace, you daft perverts?"

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Compo.

Is he a homeless?
Was he ever gainfully employed?
Why's he called Compo?

[Alternative Carpark]

Compo.

Is he a homeless?

No, he lives next door to Nora Batty. Seem to remember that it was a basement flat, but could be mistaken about that.

Was he ever gainfully employed?

Probably. He's employed in First of the Summer Wine, isn't he? If that one counts, that is.

Why's he called Compo?

Short for compensation. He's supposed to be on some kind of sickness benefit, If I remember it right, which the name is a reference to.

[purlieu]

Although I think people's memories are playing tricks on them a little bit. The series only permanently moved to Sundays during the 1990s; in the 1980s, there was a move to Sundays for some series, but others continued to be shown on weekday evenings - albeit at a more family-friendly time slot than in the 1970s.

I can only speak for myself, but as I started school in late 1989, that all lines up with my experiences.

Was he ever gainfully employed?
Why's he called Compo?

It's a nickname derived from 'compensation', meaning he was either living on compensation from something, or - more likely - the dole, which was sometimes called unemployment compensation.

edit: beaten to it by 14 seconds.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Maybe he's a ww2 veteran, and the compo is for his chronic PTSD, which makes him do irrational stuff like fuck about in old bathtubs. His friends know it's better to indulge him rather than confront his insanity directly, so into the bath they go with him.

[frajer]

Genuinely thought it was cos he was a walking compost. Soz Compo.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

You never see him without a hat. Maybe he keeps compost under there?

[PeterCornelius]

I'm also one of those who associates LOTSW with the grim reality of Sunday evenings. It's not just the theme tune (Ronnie Hazlehurst once again using the title of a show to inspire the main melody), the whole premise of the show is depressing. I'm feeling depressed just thinking about it.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I think I'd actually find wandering around lovely idyllic countryside all day with a couple of slightly annoying but generally good natured friends and occasionally getting into "hilarious" scrapes quite nice. Certainly compared to the lives of a lot of people their age I know in real life.

[pigamus]

My mom's boyfriend in the late 80s, I remember him practically coughing up a lung laughing at one episode - I think, instead of rolling down a hill in the tin bath, it ends up sailing over the roof of a police car or something?

[Fambo Number Mive]

I think I'd actually find wandering around lovely idyllic countryside all day with a couple of slightly annoying but generally good natured friends and occasionally getting into "hilarious" scrapes quite nice. Certainly compared to the lives of a lot of people their age I know in real life.

Which would be the best other two to have along?
I think I'd go for Truly and Clegg. Although Foggy is my favourite character I wouldn't want to spend time with him in real life.

[Gulftastic]

That's Life! really did it for me. I mean, I'd actually watch it with my parents as a nipper, and it occasionally amused, but by fuck, there was a odd grimness about it for some reason. That blowsy old theme tune.

Same for me. Seeing the end of credits cartoon filled me with dread. Took a good few months after leaving education to work for a living to stop, too.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I think I'd do Foggy and Clegg. Feels like he's the one of the five that I'd find the most amusing to be around, even if he is probably the most pompous/uptight. I reckon Truelove could slip back into his bad cop ways and give someone a right good thumping.

Watching the pilot now, Clegg does seem like a very different character, as has been mentioned. Too similar to the "third man" characters. Also interesting that it opens with a shot of two young women, it's a show which I remember being just entirely made up of old people (although I'd probably be shocked if I looked now and realised some of them are the same age as I am now).

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I remember there being a few scenes inside Compo's basement flat. I think he had a room mate or visiting relative at one point. And polecats or ferrets in a cage.

I think I'd do Foggy and Clegg.

Oh aye.

[Leej88]

I remember watching it in the 2000s obvs it had been on too long at that point I think the show kept the older cast active cause Burt, Frank,Peter, and Stephen all died soon after.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Remember the ET parody?

The BBC really hyped it up. I saw the clip a hundred times over that Christmas. It was like they were trying to manufacture a don't tell him pike/del through the bar moment. A classic comedy moment, etc. before it even aired!

[monkfromhavana]

Rather sadly, my father was a huge fan of the show and Compo in particular. You know how sometimes, when you're a kid, you want to be someone off a TV show/cartoon, so you take on their character and mannerisms? That is/was my father with Compo. I'm pretty sure that he imagined his friends, Ron and George were Clegg and Foggy (even though Ron and George were on solely nodding terms when their paths rarely crossed.

Obviously in dress he never went as far as Compo, but he did affect a certain scruffy look. Worst of all though, he adopted Compo's sense of humour. To this very day he's ringing up semi-acquaintances of my deceased mother and trying to tell them jokes. Add to this sending "cheeky" Xmas cards with the name on the envelope changed to something unsuitable. Word has got back that in one occasion the postman apologised for having to deliver it, the person in question said "don't worry, I know who this is from" and promptly binned it unopened and unresponded to.

Fucking Compo.

[Andy147]

I remember watching it in the 2000s obvs it had been on too long at that point I think the show kept the older cast active cause Burt, Frank,Peter, and Stephen all died soon after.

Stephen Lewis had left the show due to ill health a few years before it ended, and Peter Sallis lived for another 7 years (which isn't bad considering he was 96 when he died).
OTOH, Trevor Bannister died within a year of it ending.

Worst of all though, he adopted Compo's sense of humour. To this very day he's ringing up semi-acquaintances of my deceased mother and trying to tell them jokes. Add to this sending "cheeky" Xmas cards with the name on the envelope changed to something unsuitable.

I wouldn't associate Compo particularly with telling jokes or cheeky cards... one thing he did do quite often was make women scream by showing them something in a matchbox, so things could be a lot worse.

[Leej88]

Only Howard left now of the old guard.

[monkfromhavana]

I wouldn't associate Compo particularly with telling jokes or cheeky cards... one thing he did do quite often was make women scream by showing them something in a matchbox, so things could be a lot worse.

I wouldn't put it past him tbh. Perhaps cheeky wasn't correct and he didn't take that from Compo (might be misremembering his interactions with Nora). He did 100% model his life on Compo though. Maybe it was just the done thing in the 70s/80s. Maybe my dad's mate Ron harboured a secret desire to be Jack Regan from The Sweeney for all I know (he did drink a lot of whiskey).

[Glebe]

Did compo always live in the basement? I recall him leaning out the window in the morning and chatting up Nora in one episode.