More inessential shit from the backwaters of old TV you somehow still remember

[kalowski]

An Australian show which aired on Channel 4 (I believe) in the late 90s. It was a one off show (or at least I only remember the one episode) about plastic surgery/boob jobs. Played for laughs by a big, loud Aussie woman with a studio audience with filmed inserts. The clip I remember is her bringing a woman to a surgeon's office to discuss a potential boob job. The woman takes her top off and the surgeon is marking where the incision lines will be. The comedian takes the marker and turns it into a game of Xs and Os on her chest which both the surgeon and her play. I seem to remember the potential patient being petite and the comedian carries her into the office in a suitcase.

Any ideas?

This is of no help to you at all but this rings bells with me too.

[Ambient Sheep]

This is of no help to you at all but this rings bells with me too.

Likewise, except that I don't remember the suitcase bit.

[Fabian Thomsett]

An Australian show which aired on Channel 4 (I believe) in the late 90s. It was a one off show (or at least I only remember the one episode) about plastic surgery/boob jobs. Played for laughs by a big, loud Aussie woman with a studio audience with filmed inserts. The clip I remember is her bringing a woman to a surgeon's office to discuss a potential boob job. The woman takes her top off and the surgeon is marking where the incision lines will be. The comedian takes the marker and turns it into a game of Xs and Os on her chest which both the surgeon and her play. I seem to remember the potential patient being petite and the comedian carries her into the office in a suitcase.

Any ideas?

'Twas Elle McFeast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdLkNdmxCBs

[Swift]

Good man, that's exactly it. I guess the woman in the suitcase bit was from somewhere else in the show because that woman obviously isn't petite.

[canadagoose]

I've been reading creepypasta again (what a good idea when I'm home alone and the washing machine is making the pipes rattle), and it's reminded me of two things I can't identify.

The first thing: I think this was on Channel 4 around 1997 or 1998, around Christmas time (probably about a week or so before). It was a series of short reels (like 10 seconds long) which all had the same "turk turk turk turk" voice (or "tuck tuck tuck tuck") repeated in the background. They'd appear in the programme promotion sections, I think. It had a woman, who I think was middle-aged and fairly proper-looking, sitting in a fairly dull house. They involved a woman cooking a turkey, and this progressed as the different 10-second reels went on. The last one showed her basically ripping into it with her hands after it was cooked and stuffing it in her face. I remember feeling weirdly disgusted at this at the time. I figured it would be easy to find, but I can't find it at all.

Second one would have been on Border TV (the ITV company) around 1994 or so? Basically it was just this still that was on TV one day early in the afternoon. It had the Border logo in the top-left, and where the programme slide would be, there were just these clothes laid out, plus sunglasses, so it looked like a person. I remember being a bit scared by it, and my Mum told me it might have been Edward Scissorhands (?!) but I really don't think it was. I can't even think what the purpose of the slide might have been - it was totally silent. God only knows what that was.

[markburgle]

Late 90's on Friday night Channel 4 used to show a couple of hours of short films. I think the block had a name but I can't remember what it was. Anyway once they showed this animated short that was hideous, it took "edgy" 90's humour way beyond anything that was vaguely justifiable artistically. It was about this babysitter who when the mother left instantly shot the baby dead (there was more, but typing it was making me nauseous so I'll spare you the rest of it)

[Bad Ambassador]

Short and Curlies

[Uncle TechTip]

Second one would have been on Border TV (the ITV company) around 1994 or so? Basically it was just this still that was on TV one day early in the afternoon. It had the Border logo in the top-left, and where the programme slide would be, there were just these clothes laid out, plus sunglasses, so it looked like a person.

That sounds like an episode of Art Attack that crashed on-screen.

[canadagoose]

That sounds like an episode of Art Attack that crashed on-screen.

It sounds a bit like it, but I'm pretty sure it was a typical Border slide that the "outfit" was put down on. I remember drawing a picture of it in primary school; I should get my parents to dig it out some day.

[Sonny_Jim]

"Oh you fruity Ya Ya"  just popped into my head, which Google is telling me is from a Tango advert.  So that's nice, isn't it Andy?

[jenna appleseed]

Late 90's on Friday night Channel 4 used to show a couple of hours of short films. I think the block had a name but I can't remember what it was.

They had a 90s short film series called The Shooting Gallery that Portishead did a film for once.

[Famous Mortimer]

Late 90's on Friday night Channel 4 used to show a couple of hours of short films. I think the block had a name but I can't remember what it was. Anyway once they showed this animated short that was hideous, it took "edgy" 90's humour way beyond anything that was vaguely justifiable artistically. It was about this babysitter who when the mother left instantly shot the baby dead (there was more, but typing it was making me nauseous so I'll spare you the rest of it)

Are you thinking of "4Later"? Probably not.

[markburgle]

Shooting Gallery, that was it! Remember 4Later as well, the former may well have run under the banner of the latter.

ETA: Googling 4Later to remind myself more about it and it seems it was killed by the arrival of Big Brother. The more I learn about that show the less I etc.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yeah that sounds about right. I first discovered it when they were running a Troma season. They used to have webcam messages from viewers during the idents almost like a proto-YouTube.

[buzby]

They had a 90s short film series called The Shooting Gallery that Portishead did a film for once.

The Portishead film was the Alain Delon/Ipcress File 60s espionage pastiche To Kill A Dead Man. Directed by Alexander Hemming, it was made just before the release of Dummy to promote the album as an expansion of the shoot for the promo for Sour Times (which used the original colour footage before it was graded to black and white for the film). Stills from the shoot were used on the album sleeve and on the sleeves for Numb, Sour Times and Glory Box.

It wasn't made for The Shooting Gallery though, C4 just picked it up when the strand started a year later. It was included in the second week's lineup:

1x02: Wednesday 01 November 1995 - Killing and Death
11.35 A Hero of Our Time
Dennis Hopper stars in this off-beat thriller as a Hollywood record producer desperate to win back his girlfriend from a gun-toting screenwriter. Director Michael Almereyda B/W.
12.10am Family Remains
Gothic comedy in which a young girl and her eccentric mother have to cope with the arrival of her father's dead body. Director Tamara Jenkins.
Followed by Swinger
Short film about a big band swing fan who decides to kill himself. Director Gregor Jordan.
12.45 The Audition
Canadian film about a method actor for whom the boundary between illusion and reality becomes fatally blurred. Director Charles Johnston.
1.20 To Kill a Dead Man
An enigmatic film noir by Bristol-based indie band Portishead. Director Alex Hemmings.
1.35 Reckoning
A mysterious woman interrupts a young man's suicide attempt. Director Richard Lucas
1.45 In the West Wing
Short film demonstrating the chilling power of puppetry. Director Andrew Hodgson (rpt).
1.50 Game With No Rules
A menage a trois ends in betrayal and premeditated murder. Director Scott Reynolds (rpt).
2.10 London South West
A domestic dispute explodes into marital violence. Director Mike Barnes.
2.25-2.35 The Winding Sheet
A study of guilt and retribution in the relationship between mothers and daughters. Director Karen Kelly.

The listings for all 8 seasons of The Shooting Gallery's run on C4 can be found here, so if you are looking for a short you think might have been shown as part of it that's a good place to start.

[ProvanFan]

A person looking plaintive in a traffic jam at night on a British motorway. Looking through their wet windscreen at a gantry sign as ambient music like Eno's An Ending (Ascent) is playing.

Is this an obvious one? I'm sure there was an advert for the AA or Bupa something that gave it a nod. Or maybe it was only ever an advert and I've invented a film that supposedly inspired it.

Sort me out, please.

I think this is right, but I can't remember what it was either, sorry.  AA is definitely a possibility.  Maybe a bank?

EDIT: or if it was also in a film, I never saw it or made the connection.

Bank or life insurance or something for grown ups, aye.

To clarify, the advert would probably have been later 90s or maybe early even early 00s, and the scene in question part of montage of wistful faces in different 'modern life' scenarios. It's the film that I reckon was early 90s.

In both cases the driver of the car is Jane Horrocks. Weird of her to reprise starring her role in my possibly-false memory for a bit part in an ad, but she does a fine job.

Yes, I can even see it in my head now, and the tone of the voiceover, but damnit, not what it was for!

I hope it turns out to be for Senokot or Fruitang.

Seeing a Prudential ad in the classic ads thread made me realise it was probably one of those...

Seems about right.

But I'm still convinced there's a film version with a blurry overhead sign as viewed through a wet windscreen by a Horrocks type.

[jenna appleseed]

Seeing a Prudential ad in the classic ads thread made me realise it was probably one of those...

Seems about right.

That's the most depressing advert ever.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

I woke up this morning and suddenly remembered The Dan And Dusty Show and thought "fucking hell."

It was of that era of telly when ITV franchises would still bother to commission weird late night filler programmes with a miniscule budget, and this was around the same time as Dare To Believe and Shoot The Writers (I think they were all made by the same production company). The premise is that it's a spoof(?) chat show hosted by the titular Dan and Dusty who are two puppets that are brother and sister and also have an implied pseudo-incestual relationship according to the theme song("We love each other...as much as we can"), but that's the only "joke" I can remember. Dan also looks and sounds like an eighties Ben Elton.

The selection of guests was presumably anyone who was either cheap and available or conned into appearing on it, inc. the likes of Rowland Rivron, Nicholas Parsons, Paul Daniels & Debbie McGee, etc - I also remember Trev & Simon being on it and looking particularly bewildered as to why they were there.

Why? Why did this happen? Why make this? I couldn't fathom it at the time and I still can't now.

The only clips of that seem to exist are a few short bits uploaded by Steve Nallon (who was one of the two puppeteers) on his own youtube channel, which feels massively desolate somehow.

[petril]

Seeing a Prudential ad in the classic ads thread made me realise it was probably one of those...

Seems about right.

But I'm still convinced there's a film version with a blurry overhead sign as viewed through a wet windscreen by a Horrocks type.

that looks amazingly like Steve Coogan second from the end there... it's only 1993 so it might be?

still not a patch on Mark "WE WANNA BE TOGETHER" Williams ofc. the true King of Prudential

[George White]

I woke up this morning and suddenly remembered The Dan And Dusty Show and thought "fucking hell."

It was of that era of telly when ITV franchises would still bother to commission weird late night filler programmes with a miniscule budget, and this was around the same time as Dare To Believe and Shoot The Writers (I think they were all made by the same production company). The premise is that it's a spoof(?) chat show hosted by the titular Dan and Dusty who are two puppets that are brother and sister and also have an implied pseudo-incestual relationship according to the theme song("We love each other...as much as we can"), but that's the only "joke" I can remember. Dan also looks and sounds like an eighties Ben Elton.

The selection of guests was presumably anyone who was either cheap and available or conned into appearing on it, inc. the likes of Rowland Rivron, Nicholas Parsons, Paul Daniels & Debbie McGee, etc - I also remember Trev & Simon being on it and looking particularly bewildered as to why they were there.

Why? Why did this happen? Why make this? I couldn't fathom it at the time and I still can't now.

The only clips of that seem to exist are a few short bits uploaded by Steve Nallon (who was one of the two puppeteers) on his own youtube channel, which feels massively desolate somehow.

Bloody hell, 2004?!?!

Would have thought maybe 2001 at the latest.
Don't think it came on UTV (unless Im issed it socuring the RTE Guide).
I do remember reading about the Jules and Lulu Show (some game show involving adump truck, a camp bloke named Jules and his pet dog).

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Bloody hell, 2004?!?!

Would have thought maybe 2001 at the latest.
Don't think it came on UTV (unless Im issed it socuring the RTE Guide).
I do remember reading about the Jules and Lulu Show (some game show involving adump truck, a camp bloke named Jules and his pet dog).

It was on very, very late, we're talking way into the wee small hours here. The kind of thing you'd only see if you were an insomniac or unemployed (as I was at the time). Terry Christian also had a terrible chat show in a similar slot called Turn On Terry, which lasted only a few months throughout 2003.

[curiousoranges]

An advert for what I think was protective paint/coating for house roofs. It began with a pretty aggressive no-nonsense man, outdoors, looking right into the camera, saying: "Got a flat roof? Face it, its gonna leak!"

Late 90s. Anyone remember it?

[Indomitable Spirit]

An advert for what I think was protective paint/coating for house roofs. It began with a pretty aggressive no-nonsense man, outdoors, looking right into the camera, saying: "Got a flat roof? Face it, its gonna leak!"

Late 90s. Anyone remember it?

Starring Prime Suspect's Richard Hawley (not that one). This advert always freaked me out as a kid. Not just due to Richard's overly aggressive sales pitch, but also the fact he vaguely looks like Fred West and wondering if his aggression stemmed from what may have been lurking in the foundations of that flat-roofed extension.

[Replies From View]

Put a slope on it lad

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Starring Prime Suspect's Richard Hawley (not that one). This advert always freaked me out as a kid. Not just due to Richard's overly aggressive sales pitch, but also the fact he vaguely looks like Fred West and wondering if his aggression stemmed from what may have been lurking in the foundations of that flat-roofed extension.

Ooh, thinks he's well hard doesn't he, up there on his poxy roof.

I hope in a ironic twist, his roof ends up leaking and all his neighbours come round to mock his hubris. "Haha, you leaky-roofed pillock!" they'll say.

[petril]

he sounds like a flat-roofed pub tbf

[Replies From View]

Any particular reason he looks like a Steve Pemberton character?

[Mobbd]

Oof. How's this for inessential?

A recurring sketch on Beadle's Hot Shots (a spin-off of You've Been Framed where members of the public submit short films and sketches) in which a backyard strongman called "Hard as Nails" attempts a feat of strength and injurs himself horribly.

He'd go to, say, karate chop a load of telephone directories and bust his hand up into a gory mass. The character's actual name was "Hard-as-Nails" and he'd be interviewed by a sports presenter-style straight man who'd say things like "so what's all this about, Hard-as-nails?"

In the spirit of this thread, the sketch has stuck in my memory, uselessly, forever. But when Adam Buxton interviewed Edgar Wright on his podcast a few years ago, Edgar told the story of how he'd worked on Beadle's Hot Shots and most of what the public submitted was unbroadcastable so he'd made the sketches himself. I wonder if Hard as Nails was one of his? I bet it was. I bet this is why it stood out a bit and why I remember it. It would also explain how they had enough hard as nails sketches to run the whole single season.

There's only one clip of Beadle's Hot Shots on YouTube and it's not Hard as Nails. It's a parody of Speed and On the Buses. Some people in the comments say that Buxton's podcast led them to it.

There's also this guy's blog which mentions Hard as Nails. Tellingly, in his description of the show, he says "I'm not sure if there was any professional involvement in the making of [the sketches]" and later mentions Adam Buxton. He probably listened to that podcast and thought the same as me.

Anyone else remember this? Could it really be an early Edgar Wright prodcution? Or just another piece of old tot? Probably "a little from Column A and a little from Column B."

[non capisco]

The only thing I remember from Beadle's Hot Shots is a troupe of people all pretending to be Bruce Forsyth running amongst the audience, sticking their chins out and going "ththththththth".

[jenna appleseed]

I think I saw the first episode of that - possible an initial one off pilot/special - definitely Beadle & sketch(es) looked like badly filmed shit filmed at home on a camcorder by random members of the public. Not even sure I watched the whole episode tbh, only bit I remember (inexplicable keep popping back into my head over the decades) had somebody parodying andrex adverts by pretending to wipe their bum on a cuddly toy dog and flush it down the loo - don't think it even looked like a toy andrex puppy which might've been vaguely funny.